Had quite a few inquires about this today. I should have mentioned this in the video, but it slipped my mind. I DID a review of 'Into the Borderlands' a few years ago. Here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/tdv0XcBqvJQ/v-deo.html
When I ran it, the "shrine of evil chaos" was a temple to Hastur, and the cultists' shields bore the Yellow Sign. The big twist was that the high priest of the cult was the Castellan's daughter, whose "capture" was faked to cover her disappearance.
I have probably run this, and Horror on the Hill, for a dozen different groups and con games over forty years. It has such an open framework to be able to put almost any plot behind it. I could probably run them both without needing the actual module in front of me 😁
I used Arik of the Many Eyes from "Palace of the Silver Princess" as the evil deity. He (it?) has been the recurring cultist-patron in my campaigns over the years.
I'm going to sound like a total grognard but these initial modules are just magic. They're not just classics- they are actual bone fide magic. Lightening in a bottle where wonder, adventure, and the multiverse was there for those who sought it. I won't say that has been totally lost, but real life has crept into what should have been kept fantasy. Perhaps it's not too late to regain what was lost and protect and cherish this magical hobby. 🙂
I don't see anything 'lost' at all. Time moves forward, things change, that inevitable. Each generation brings their own take on things, and invariably that's going to alter and make things grow. Things can't remain stagnant or they'll die. Honestly, from my perspective, things have never been better. More people to play.. more fun! Game on!
Truth! Gygax and the other RPG creators from that era really did capture magic in a bottle. To me running "Keep on the Borderlands" was right up there with watching 1981's "Excalibur" or 82's "Conan the Barbarian" for the first time. Barebones, violent and slightly cheesy pulp fantasy adventure that can't seem to be duplicated today.
@@lionelhutz3142 Very well said about early TSR and the movies mentioned! I think what changed in entertainment as a whole is exactly that: ENTERTAINMENT! They weren't interested in preaching or shaming- just entertaining us. That simple concept seems to have been utterly lost. We can still appreciate these golden treasures for the classics they are all the more...
what this hobby did was enable us the kids to try and create our own storys. Gary just showed us what his take was on. But the great aspect of this hobby to me is in the creative uses of our mind. Its funny but with just 3 basic rule books you can have a entire world. To me this was way more vital than the atari games. it was a way to make friends and show your creative side.
My best memory of this great module was this. I had run several groups through this adventure and the play style was different for each. In one of the goblin caves is a barrel of spears. Most groups would grab a spear or two and carry on. Later they would run into a group of goblins armed with, you guessed it, spears. Then I ran my wife through it as one of the players. The party came into that room, grabbed some spears and was going to carry on. My wife stopped, and then proceeded to break all of the spears. No one had ever thought of that before. So, later, when attacked by a group of goblins they were armed with short pointy sticks instead. Not nearly as effective and pretty funny in my mind.
As time goes by my appreciation for KoTB grows. It’s an iconic D&D experience, not just for the reasons you describe Cap’n but also because it reveals through play the nature of the player character experience in those old versions of the game. Let me explain. Back in the day, your character upon reaching let’s say 10th level could gain loyal followers and the right to claim some land in an area not claimed by other lords. And that would typically be on the frontier. Your character would pay for the construction of a small fortification on that land and it would become a part of ongoing play, where the DM could use it to create new play experiences. And KoTB depicts precisely such a situation in a nutshell. What clever design by Mr Gygax! I cant believe I’ve never run this thing for players but I’d sure love to someday
My favorite module is B2, followed by G1, G2 & G3. There's just something magical about the way Gary wrote his modules. I always enjoyed reading them, though I often ended up cutting the treasure in half. Gary seemed to love filling his modules with a large variety of treasure and magic items, and soon our party was very wealthy and all had many magic items, so when I ran it, I cut it down a bit. Other than that though, I always loved his writing style. I revised the module though, on my blog, and then turned it into an ongoing story. I had a blast writing it. Thanks for reviewing this great module again. I will never forget the first time I played this, 1980 freshmen year in college, when I played D&D for the first time, knowing almost nothing about the game. We played until 3am and I couldn't wait to play again. It was the most amazing game I had ever played.
@@Silversmith70 When we fought the Hill Giants, we were maybe 5th level, but we had Giant Slaying Swords, Gauntlets of Ogre Power and Girdles of Giant Strength, so it really wasn't a fair fight... but we had a blast : )
@@Lightmane I was playing Vanar a Ftr/Thief around same level but solo with my DM I snuck in through a window or similar and ended up near a loot room. Man that was so fun and scary!
This was the first official module I played in 1980. It was just my DM and me so he started me with a lone thief outside the caves of chaos. Needless to say I didn’t make it through the first few rooms. We were just 13 at the time
This is the module that got me hooked on D&D about 40 years ago. Been playing ever since. The artwork is iconic. Spent some dollars getting this module in almost mint condition on Amazon. Worth it. Very nostalgic. 😁
Yep---same here. It came with the Moldvay Basic set and 12 year old me was completely hooked. My friends and I ran this one over and over until we could scrape up enough paper route money to buy the Expert set and Isle Of Dread. Happier times!!
This module was my 'gateway drug' into D&D, AD&D and other RPGs. I remember receiving a copy of the Moldvay Basic D&D for Christmas in 1981. I'm now approaching 53, and whilst I haven't played D&D since circa 1984, the feelings of nostalgia as regards 'Keep On The Borderlands' are still strong.
I'm about the same age (turn 52 this year) and got into D&D about the same time. My first real DM was an adult, a USAF sergeant, while I was in junior high, and he ran AD&D for us, started with B2, then did T1-4. Good times!
54 years old here. I met some younger folks years after my original group 'grew-up' or moved away. We've been playing ad&d since about 1995 off an on since then. I'm pretty sure we've played about 85% of most of the published tsr modules. Finally we have switched to Dark Sun from Greyhawk.
@@shockerck4465 good luck shocker! I've tried getting to pry some of those "D&D lite" 5th edition-ers away but few have stayed. I'll admit that I do like 5th edition, but I don't want to DM it.
This module is a true classic. It was very challenging, but a lot of fun. It taught the game the hard way, with parties getting crushed until the players learned to get supplies, learn tactics, and pace themselves to avoid overreach. Made us all better gamers, honest. Less full of "fantasy wonders" than "In Search of the Unknown", less random and more fulfilling than "The Village of Hommlet", "Keep on the Borderlands" puts the player characters on the front lines of the war between Law and Chaos. When run as a straight BECMI starter, it is a hard slog, due to the PCs being more crunchy, and the monsters enjoying a combat "to hit" advantage. A Mystara-based run has more capable BECMI characters and won't be too hard. An AD&D/Castles and Crusades party will have an easier time of it. (As long as they don't go running into the ogre's cave or the owlbear's cave first...)
My wife set up a bookcase and put all my D&D stuff in order, just awesome. The problem is now I keep spending hundreds of dollars trying to find 1st printing modules, its a problem. I need D&D anonymous to kick this habit! Or people to come over and play these with me lol.
I set this module in northern Cormyr of the Forgotten Realms in the wildlands north of the kingdom. It works out pretty well. That area fits the description of the setting perfectly. The cult in the Caves of Chaos are cultists of Orcus god of undeath, including the secret betraying priest in the keep. All the evil demihumams are their mind controlled slaves and I turned a lot of them into zombies or skeletons. The cultists are a tribe of subverted Uthgart barbarians who were turned into worshipers of Orcus by the demons from Hellgate Keep. Good times.
This takes me back to my first encounter with D&D. This was my first adventure i played and i loved it. I was instantly hooked and i still am at almost 60! Thank you very much for your reviews and please keep them comming. Greetings from Sweden
Cool. Amazing to know that 60 year-olds still enjoy the RPG hobby. I'm 51 and still the feel the thrill of starting a new campaign as I did when I was 11 years old. It's a great hobby and past-time. Unfortunately I prob won't live to be 151 so I will never be able to play many of the different titles that I saw on shelves in the hobby shop back in the 80s or hear about online today. So many titles...so little time! 😂
I got a d&d set for xmas when I was 7 and was too young to get how to play it and it had that very adventure. I wish I had somehow saved it. We moved house and it got lost somewhere :-(
Thanks for this awesome review and your own adventure backstory. KoTB has and always will be viewed as a classic due to the power of nostalgia but there are definite problems with the story and menagerie of monsters within this "introductory" module. A lot of it simply doesn't make sense and it's absolutely deadly to low level players. (You can't fault Gygax though as he was creating this game and setting from scratch.) Every DM has modified this adventure to their own vision so everyone has their own expansion & backstory, their own Keep and Caves of Chaos (all with Gygax's blessing). It's a little different yet the same. In other words...an OSR mini sandbox campaign...and OSR goodness! I like to play it as the evil cult and their goblin army have forcibly taken over the caves from the other humanoids...so the lower level are scenes of recent bloody battles and slaughter. The party will face small amounts of humanoid skeletons and experience ghostly visions in those eerie and mostly empty lower levels. I'm always fascinated by other players' KoTB backstories. Better than anything on TV. 😁
I really like that the NPCs are left blank. In my campaign, the Keep is run by a group of former adventurers to protect the area from foul monsters from a terrible swamp to the north and a rival kingdom across the river, past the lizardman mound
KotBL gets a lot of criticism today, but that's because people are viewing it through a modern lens with almost 50 years of design experience improvements. When viewed in the right context, at the time it was created, it was a great adventure. Dungeon crawl + sandbox, all within 30ish pages? It set the standard.
It's honestly amazing that so early on, it covered or fit things that you would expect not to be thought of until after many times playing. Basically things that you wouldn't expect to be learned without the previous experience. Nowadays we have experienced DMs on the internet giving advice based on their experience to "do this, and that" and this module seemed to have already gotten the experienced DM advice for how to make a module, run a campaign before that much experience could be gained. From making a home base near the "dungeons" to adding more to the npcs than just stats, that will allow you to flesh them out more if needed, but also to plant seeds to expand that one adventure into a fullblown campaign.
My first adventure as a DM back in '81. My group ran it many times and even created chaotic characters that raided the keep as well. I never did create content for the caves of the unknown, I will need to do that some day. I had no idea what a west march style campaign was back in the 80s but would love to try it now.
Great video! Modules like this inspired me to run an old school AD&D and D&D Basic inspired 5e campaign for me and my friends based off of Gygaxian design in terms of dungein design, encounters, difficulty, and npcs.
For reviews I would like an example of how the module tries to assist the dm in roleplaying the npcs (including enemies), a puzzle, a trap and an interesting encounter. As a newer dm wanting to expand my skillset a little bit I'd like to know a little more about what is in a module so I know if there's something in there I can use other than getting stuck and frustrated with another module that doesn't do enough to help the dm through these things. Thanks for the video, it does make this module seem interesting.
Currently running this in OSE online using a West Marches approach and its been FIRE. We recently switched from 5e and its been glorious. People drop in from around the county when their schedules permit. It's great!
11:58 that’s Toevan (The Gaint Slayer)before he loses his leg while adventuring with Bjorn Bearclaw, now owns the “The Giant’s Head” Tavern, Ostland Haven , Ostland. “ I was hoping for a bit of gold rather than a body part!” Brenna Thorgood
Played it when my buddies and I discovered Holmes D&D and never looked back. Its one of the very few classic modules I ever played since we always homebrewed Bets part is , this is an excellent adventure too.
Love this module! This is D&D holy ground. Love your reviews! Even converted this for AD&D and used this over 3 separate times. So much fun as a DM to run this. GYGAX FOREVER BROTHER!!!
GM: You are all 1st level PCs: Slaughtered at the first encounter. GM: OK, You are all 2nd level. PCs: Slaughtered at the first encounter. GM: I guess you are now 3rd level.
Yep...i ran this way back in 1995 and I remember that the 1st level mage wanted to melee with kobolds. I had him make a wisdom check to try and warn him but he failed. "You think fighting with your dagger alongside the warriors is a GREAT idea!" I'm telling you....one clueless player.
The Basic Fantasy rpg module “Chaotic Caves” is their (BFrpg) version of KotB. And “Morgan’s Fort” is basically the same as the other module mentioned in this video.
Examining the map of the caves, there is actually a path through the dungeon that descends stairs continuously in one direction in a way that goes down from one entrance and exits at another entrance at the same level.
My gosh! I'm currently playing the video game adaptation of 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' on Windows; the game uses the exact maps & setting from 'Keep on the Borderlands' the difference being that the video games adopts the 3.5 edition ruleset; sort of a combining the old with the new playstyle. 🙂
My favorite playthrough was once we played a party of mainly half orcs who lived in the caves. These wicked vile adventurers would attack us and our friends and families for absolutely no reason. We were just minding our business trying to survive. A Cleric showed up and said he would help us.
Awesome twist on KoTB! And yeah...I bet that "cleric" would help you all right. I shudder to think of the price your party had to pay for such assistance. 😲
@@TheBigGuppy That's what I love about the OSR in general and B/X specifically. It was open-ended enough with possibilities. The DM and serious players created their own world as they went along but it all made sense. Somehow I can see half-orcs being the voice of sanity in the Caves of Chaos...
Im still in a multi-year game with my friends during the pandemic, and i got into OCR stuff around 2017 (exception being, my obsession with dungeon world years before). I cant wait to run this with old school essentials at some point!
I've run this adventure at least a dozen times. Each time I added details, side missions, etc. It's a great adventure and I'm a huge fan. But it does need some work . It can be the basis for a long campaign .
@@guyfrattallone6029 oh it's great. I attached Hommlet and the moat house as a nearby village, along with the lizard man lair of Danger at Dunwater and Cult of the Reptile God. I also added tons of details, side missions, etc. Ive played this for years. It can be great. A classic for sure.
@@TheGeekDaddy929 That sets you up with the core classes and races only.. sort of like Old School Basic D&D AND the other is a DM's supplement with monsters. That's all you need. :)
While I appreciate the sentiment, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge its flaws. I've never given out a three way critical hit. It may exist, so certainly there's reason to have the possibility of it, but it is highly unlikely.
I played the fuck out of this module in elementary school (2nd or 3rd grade was when I was introduced to D&D but I went straight to AD&D, let me tell you, reading college level books in 3rd grade boosted my intelligence tenfold) but me and my friends always played it with AD&D rules not Basic. We all thought we were above Basic rule lol. 3rd grade!
I have to good fortune to be running B2: Keep on the Borderlands with some brand new players using OSE as a ruleset. Good times! This module really does stand the test of time. There was a lot of intrigue when our level 2 Cleric cast Detect Evil on a certain priest. It really brought the game to a whole new level.
I love this module. Part of the reason it is good I think is that it was very unusuaul in it's design. Nowadays I feel it needs a bit more to tie it together; what I tend to do is make ALL the monsters slightly animalistic because of the influence of the Chaos Artifact, as this can explain a lot of their behavior.
Keep on the Borderlands… the old school OG adventure classic. Ty for the review Captain! 😊 Btw what’s your take on the Goldman games redo’s on older modules?
Well I like the goodman games updates and hardcover books. I got the 2-volume Temple of Elemental Evil but only perused it so far. I took a photo of it and my mint in shrink original copy several months ago.
This is the only Module I have ever played in any RPG (I prefer to Sandbox). My Mom was the DM (only time she ever played). My Thief "Rock" discovered my lifelong horrible dice luck (which my players really luv ) during that gaming session.
Great video! I liked the original you did 7 years ago, but I like this updated style. Keep on the Borderlands will always be my absolute favorite module because of the fond memories I have of playing it as a kid. Keep up the great work!
Im a lot newer to dnd having been born long too late to have experienced the classics but i feel i would have loved this as my 1st module. Tho i dont regret starting with 5es Dragon of ice spire peak. Loved that one too.
G123 Are great modules to run, and a great way to introduce the drow into your 1st edition game. Because of Unearthed Arcana and some other publications published later on, you can make things even tougher for a "know it all" party of adventurers.
I know everyone says "introduced more players to D&D than any other module" but given the popularity of 5e, I wonder if Phandelver hasn't introduced more players to D&D. I can't remember how long KotB was included in the box set (mine came with B!--In Search of the Unknown), but almost everyone I knew back in the early 80's bypassed the basic D&D set and went for the AD&D books. Having played and run both, the Keep is by far the better introduction to D&D than Phandelver but D&D is everywhere now. In my day, D&D was one of the major reasons I never had a girlfriend in high school.
Given the timeframe of its release, and the shear DECADES of its existence, it seems unlikely that it would be surpassed. Of course we don't have exact figures to be sure.
@@captcorajus I dropped out of playing D&D in the early 90's and missed 3rd, 3.5, and 4th editions only coming back to it now that my kids are old enough to play. Were there adaptations of KotB for those editions? Still, the impact of the module is huge, and I wonder why WotC let Goodman games do the 5e update of it instead of keeping it for themselves and putting it into one of their own products like they did with Tales from the Yawning Portal. I'm glad they let Goodman do the update because what they did is far better than what WotC did to against the giants and other AD&D classics.
I’m running some players through this now (using pathfinder instead of AD&D or an OSR game) They’ve conquered the orc tribes and one of them has actually become the new chieftain of the orcs from cave “C”; the character happens to be a gnome cook.
Ahhh you must have been a Conan the Barbarian fan? I approve of this mixing Keep on the Borderlands and Thulsa Doom cult. I'm going to try that next time! ;)
A little disappointed you didn’t mention Goodman Games “Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands”. Not only is it a nice reprint that adds new content but also converts everything to 5e. Also has some cool interviews in the beginning.
I did a review on it already. Though.. backstory, this is a reup, using the original script I used. I guess I stuck a bit to close to it. and yes, it is awesome and there great interviews in it!
One day you are going have to compile your classic module list, much as WotC/Paizo did with their 30 Greatest Modules. If you haven't done that already, that is. ;)
We had a riot with this one. Love Dming it. We had the Cave of The Unkown as the big bad who was organizing bandit raids to strangle supplies coming to this keep that had been built a little too deep into the borderlands. We had players jumped by kobolds from the tree who ended up hitting each other as they tried to scrape the kobolds off. My best friend's first character a1st level paladin got ripped to shreds by the Owl Bear. Everyone was thrilled when they took out the Minotaur, and got the great magic items he held. We had a druid who reasoned with the goblins. We had a long relationship with the rescued merchant and his wife . Lost one character who became a supplicant to the Shrine of Evil. Forever guarding the silver ware. Surprised by the wight and the medusa. The inevitable betrayal of a trusted party member was also fun. We did have a series of loyal spear carriers , Tom, Jerry, Larry, Mo, Curley . I think Larry might have survived to go to Restenford. Load of fun though we seemed to spend a lot of moral energy ejecting noncombatants from the caves. Had fun in the Keep as well, though I think my brother got killed there and the party tried a failed burglary of the Jewel Merchant. Large scope for adventure. Not a ton of roleplay in the caves. Your DM can put in some structure to explain the tight grouping od disparate evil creatures, but less essential than you might think.
Had quite a few inquires about this today. I should have mentioned this in the video, but it slipped my mind. I DID a review of 'Into the Borderlands' a few years ago. Here's the link: ua-cam.com/video/tdv0XcBqvJQ/v-deo.html
When I ran it, the "shrine of evil chaos" was a temple to Hastur, and the cultists' shields bore the Yellow Sign. The big twist was that the high priest of the cult was the Castellan's daughter, whose "capture" was faked to cover her disappearance.
Love it 🙂
Nice!
Oh, nice!!
I have probably run this, and Horror on the Hill, for a dozen different groups and con games over forty years.
It has such an open framework to be able to put almost any plot behind it. I could probably run them both without needing the actual module in front of me 😁
I used Arik of the Many Eyes from "Palace of the Silver Princess" as the evil deity. He (it?) has been the recurring cultist-patron in my campaigns over the years.
I'm going to sound like a total grognard but these initial modules are just magic. They're not just classics- they are actual bone fide magic. Lightening in a bottle where wonder, adventure, and the multiverse was there for those who sought it. I won't say that has been totally lost, but real life has crept into what should have been kept fantasy. Perhaps it's not too late to regain what was lost and protect and cherish this magical hobby. 🙂
I don't see anything 'lost' at all. Time moves forward, things change, that inevitable. Each generation brings their own take on things, and invariably that's going to alter and make things grow. Things can't remain stagnant or they'll die.
Honestly, from my perspective, things have never been better. More people to play.. more fun! Game on!
Truth! Gygax and the other RPG creators from that era really did capture magic in a bottle. To me running "Keep on the Borderlands" was right up there with watching 1981's "Excalibur" or 82's "Conan the Barbarian" for the first time. Barebones, violent and slightly cheesy pulp fantasy adventure that can't seem to be duplicated today.
@@lionelhutz3142 Very well said about early TSR and the movies mentioned! I think what changed in entertainment as a whole is exactly that: ENTERTAINMENT! They weren't interested in preaching or shaming- just entertaining us. That simple concept seems to have been utterly lost. We can still appreciate these golden treasures for the classics they are all the more...
what this hobby did was enable us the kids to try and create our own storys. Gary just showed us what his take was on. But the great aspect of this hobby to me is in the creative uses of our mind. Its funny but with just 3 basic rule books you can have a entire world. To me this was way more vital than the atari games. it was a way to make friends and show your creative side.
There's a ton of people still playing the old way. The OSR is still strong.
My best memory of this great module was this. I had run several groups through this adventure and the play style was different for each. In one of the goblin caves is a barrel of spears. Most groups would grab a spear or two and carry on. Later they would run into a group of goblins armed with, you guessed it, spears. Then I ran my wife through it as one of the players. The party came into that room, grabbed some spears and was going to carry on. My wife stopped, and then proceeded to break all of the spears. No one had ever thought of that before. So, later, when attacked by a group of goblins they were armed with short pointy sticks instead. Not nearly as effective and pretty funny in my mind.
That's great!! I love it! Good thinking on your wife's part too!
As time goes by my appreciation for KoTB grows. It’s an iconic D&D experience, not just for the reasons you describe Cap’n but also because it reveals through play the nature of the player character experience in those old versions of the game. Let me explain. Back in the day, your character upon reaching let’s say 10th level could gain loyal followers and the right to claim some land in an area not claimed by other lords. And that would typically be on the frontier. Your character would pay for the construction of a small fortification on that land and it would become a part of ongoing play, where the DM could use it to create new play experiences. And KoTB depicts precisely such a situation in a nutshell. What clever design by Mr Gygax! I cant believe I’ve never run this thing for players but I’d sure love to someday
T1 does the same thing with the castle under construction in town. Good stuff.
I got this in the box set 41 years ago. It's pretty worn today. Good times.
My favorite module is B2, followed by G1, G2 & G3. There's just something magical about the way Gary wrote his modules. I always enjoyed reading them, though I often ended up cutting the treasure in half. Gary seemed to love filling his modules with a large variety of treasure and magic items, and soon our party was very wealthy and all had many magic items, so when I ran it, I cut it down a bit. Other than that though, I always loved his writing style. I revised the module though, on my blog, and then turned it into an ongoing story. I had a blast writing it. Thanks for reviewing this great module again. I will never forget the first time I played this, 1980 freshmen year in college, when I played D&D for the first time, knowing almost nothing about the game. We played until 3am and I couldn't wait to play again. It was the most amazing game I had ever played.
Just reading this made my kid heart swirl remembering the giant series and what it still means to me.
@@Silversmith70 When we fought the Hill Giants, we were maybe 5th level, but we had Giant Slaying Swords, Gauntlets of Ogre Power and Girdles of Giant Strength, so it really wasn't a fair fight... but we had a blast : )
@@Lightmane I was playing Vanar a Ftr/Thief around same level but solo with my DM I snuck in through a window or similar and ended up near a loot room. Man that was so fun and scary!
@@Silversmith70 solo at 5th level against Hill Giants? Sounds like suicide : )
@@Lightmane It was scary! DM was running a couple NPC's. I guess not technically alone but it felt like it.
After 40 years, I still have that map memorized.
This was the first official module I played in 1980. It was just my DM and me so he started me with a lone thief outside the caves of chaos. Needless to say I didn’t make it through the first few rooms. We were just 13 at the time
The first module I ever owned, played, and then ran. Thanks for the walk down memory lane!
This is the module that got me hooked on D&D about 40 years ago. Been playing ever since. The artwork is iconic. Spent some dollars getting this module in almost mint condition on Amazon. Worth it. Very nostalgic. 😁
Yep---same here. It came with the Moldvay Basic set and 12 year old me was completely hooked. My friends and I ran this one over and over until we could scrape up enough paper route money to buy the Expert set and Isle Of Dread. Happier times!!
Ditto
Loved this as a kid in the 80s...so easy to customize and make it go all kinds of places.
This module was my 'gateway drug' into D&D, AD&D and other RPGs. I remember receiving a copy of the Moldvay Basic D&D for Christmas in 1981. I'm now approaching 53, and whilst I haven't played D&D since circa 1984, the feelings of nostalgia as regards 'Keep On The Borderlands' are still strong.
I'm about the same age (turn 52 this year) and got into D&D about the same time. My first real DM was an adult, a USAF sergeant, while I was in junior high, and he ran AD&D for us, started with B2, then did T1-4. Good times!
54 years old here. I met some younger folks years after my original group 'grew-up' or moved away. We've been playing ad&d since about 1995 off an on since then. I'm pretty sure we've played about 85% of most of the published tsr modules. Finally we have switched to Dark Sun from Greyhawk.
50 here. I'm trying to get a 5e group to play Basic and try this adventure.
@@shockerck4465 good luck shocker! I've tried getting to pry some of those "D&D lite" 5th edition-ers away but few have stayed. I'll admit that I do like 5th edition, but I don't want to DM it.
very strong. there was, is something so special about stepping into an alien world with a serious desire to stay alive.
As kids, the Basic D&D rule book ignited our imaginations, but it was this packed in module that blew our minds...
This module is a true classic. It was very challenging, but a lot of fun. It taught the game the hard way, with parties getting crushed until the players learned to get supplies, learn tactics, and pace themselves to avoid overreach. Made us all better gamers, honest. Less full of "fantasy wonders" than "In Search of the Unknown", less random and more fulfilling than "The Village of Hommlet", "Keep on the Borderlands" puts the player characters on the front lines of the war between Law and Chaos. When run as a straight BECMI starter, it is a hard slog, due to the PCs being more crunchy, and the monsters enjoying a combat "to hit" advantage. A Mystara-based run has more capable BECMI characters and won't be too hard. An AD&D/Castles and Crusades party will have an easier time of it. (As long as they don't go running into the ogre's cave or the owlbear's cave first...)
A young lady put an end to my D&D days....drat. ...
A young lady put an end to mine as well, but now she's an old lady and I'm back playing! lol
My wife set up a bookcase and put all my D&D stuff in order, just awesome. The problem is now I keep spending hundreds of dollars trying to find 1st printing modules, its a problem. I need D&D anonymous to kick this habit! Or people to come over and play these with me lol.
Sure! I’m down to play.
Send me a message. Been meaning to leave my country anyways wahaha
I set this module in northern Cormyr of the Forgotten Realms in the wildlands north of the kingdom. It works out pretty well. That area fits the description of the setting perfectly.
The cult in the Caves of Chaos are cultists of Orcus god of undeath, including the secret betraying priest in the keep. All the evil demihumams are their mind controlled slaves and I turned a lot of them into zombies or skeletons. The cultists are a tribe of subverted Uthgart barbarians who were turned into worshipers of Orcus by the demons from Hellgate Keep.
Good times.
Oh, that's a great place to put it and totally makes sense!!
Well this was a timely upload... one of my two groups is LITERALLY starting this module TONIGHT! :)
That's awesome!
This takes me back to my first encounter with D&D. This was my first adventure i played and i loved it. I was instantly hooked and i still am at almost 60!
Thank you very much for your reviews and please keep them comming.
Greetings from Sweden
Cool. Amazing to know that 60 year-olds still enjoy the RPG hobby. I'm 51 and still the feel the thrill of starting a new campaign as I did when I was 11 years old. It's a great hobby and past-time. Unfortunately I prob won't live to be 151 so I will never be able to play many of the different titles that I saw on shelves in the hobby shop back in the 80s or hear about online today. So many titles...so little time! 😂
52 years old and still play via discord
I run a greyhawk campaign home Brew
I got a d&d set for xmas when I was 7 and was too young to get how to play it and it had that very adventure. I wish I had somehow saved it. We moved house and it got lost somewhere :-(
Brings it back like it was yesterday. I lost myself in D&D and other fantasy games. Great way to escape and stimulate imagination.
The greatness of the game is the use of your storytelling and imagination .
To me it’s like my own way of making a mini series for a small group
Thanks for this awesome review and your own adventure backstory. KoTB has and always will be viewed as a classic due to the power of nostalgia but there are definite problems with the story and menagerie of monsters within this "introductory" module. A lot of it simply doesn't make sense and it's absolutely deadly to low level players. (You can't fault Gygax though as he was creating this game and setting from scratch.) Every DM has modified this adventure to their own vision so everyone has their own expansion & backstory, their own Keep and Caves of Chaos (all with Gygax's blessing). It's a little different yet the same. In other words...an OSR mini sandbox campaign...and OSR goodness!
I like to play it as the evil cult and their goblin army have forcibly taken over the caves from the other humanoids...so the lower level are scenes of recent bloody battles and slaughter. The party will face small amounts of humanoid skeletons and experience ghostly visions in those eerie and mostly empty lower levels. I'm always fascinated by other players' KoTB backstories. Better than anything on TV. 😁
I really like that the NPCs are left blank. In my campaign, the Keep is run by a group of former adventurers to protect the area from foul monsters from a terrible swamp to the north and a rival kingdom across the river, past the lizardman mound
Kill the Castalan! That’s about all I remember from this module. That and the Caves entrances were marked with sequential letters.
My first module, and I repopulated the Caves of Chaos dozens of times for more campaigns. Fond memories.
As an old time player I remember playing this for the first time back in 1982 in high school. I still have that copy in my AD&D stash .
Hackmaster had a well reviewed remake of it called 'Little Keep on the Borderlands' iirc
Yes! I have it!
Great video, I'd like to try this for my 7th level 2 member tag team party.
Who had the insight to dig under the hermit's bedding to find his coins...
KotBL gets a lot of criticism today, but that's because people are viewing it through a modern lens with almost 50 years of design experience improvements. When viewed in the right context, at the time it was created, it was a great adventure. Dungeon crawl + sandbox, all within 30ish pages? It set the standard.
Exactly!
It's honestly amazing that so early on, it covered or fit things that you would expect not to be thought of until after many times playing. Basically things that you wouldn't expect to be learned without the previous experience. Nowadays we have experienced DMs on the internet giving advice based on their experience to "do this, and that" and this module seemed to have already gotten the experienced DM advice for how to make a module, run a campaign before that much experience could be gained. From making a home base near the "dungeons" to adding more to the npcs than just stats, that will allow you to flesh them out more if needed, but also to plant seeds to expand that one adventure into a fullblown campaign.
I remember that module, I think I played thru it twice with two different characters loooooong ago.
Keep on the Borderlands is one of my absolutely favorite modules. Thank You for the review Captain.
My first adventure as a DM back in '81. My group ran it many times and even created chaotic characters that raided the keep as well. I never did create content for the caves of the unknown, I will need to do that some day. I had no idea what a west march style campaign was back in the 80s but would love to try it now.
Great video! Modules like this inspired me to run an old school AD&D and D&D Basic inspired 5e campaign for me and my friends based off of Gygaxian design in terms of dungein design, encounters, difficulty, and npcs.
For reviews I would like an example of how the module tries to assist the dm in roleplaying the npcs (including enemies), a puzzle, a trap and an interesting encounter. As a newer dm wanting to expand my skillset a little bit I'd like to know a little more about what is in a module so I know if there's something in there I can use other than getting stuck and frustrated with another module that doesn't do enough to help the dm through these things. Thanks for the video, it does make this module seem interesting.
Currently running this in OSE online using a West Marches approach and its been FIRE. We recently switched from 5e and its been glorious. People drop in from around the county when their schedules permit. It's great!
OSE?
@@dubuyajay9964 Old School Essentials. D&D BASIC
11:58 that’s Toevan (The Gaint Slayer)before he loses his leg while adventuring with Bjorn Bearclaw, now owns the “The Giant’s Head” Tavern, Ostland Haven , Ostland. “ I was hoping for a bit of gold rather than a body part!” Brenna Thorgood
Played it when my buddies and I discovered Holmes D&D and never looked back. Its one of the very few classic modules I ever played since we always homebrewed Bets part is , this is an excellent adventure too.
Holmes d&d? What's that?
@@guyfrattallone6029 The very first basic box set before the Moldvay or Mentzer box sets.
@@Grumium101 oh..the one with the red dragon wizard and warrior with bow on the cover. Gotcha.
Love this module! This is D&D holy ground. Love your reviews! Even converted this for AD&D and used this over 3 separate times. So much fun as a DM to run this. GYGAX FOREVER BROTHER!!!
I've run this for every edition of the game but forth. Couldn't agree more!
GM: You are all 1st level
PCs: Slaughtered at the first encounter.
GM: OK, You are all 2nd level.
PCs: Slaughtered at the first encounter.
GM: I guess you are now 3rd level.
Yep...i ran this way back in 1995 and I remember that the 1st level mage wanted to melee with kobolds. I had him make a wisdom check to try and warn him but he failed. "You think fighting with your dagger alongside the warriors is a GREAT idea!" I'm telling you....one clueless player.
Ah yes, One of my favorite starting modules along with the village of Hommlet and In Search of the Unknown.
This came in the basic box set with those gray dice. And think it had a white chalk you could mark your dice. We had so much fun!
Most assuredly a great one. I've run it many times in the past 30+ years.
Huzzah,, absolutely loved this adventure and agree with you wholeheartedly. Huzzah!
I call the Keep "Morgansfort" after the Basic Fantasy rpg module. And yes, the commander is the former adventurer Morgan Ironwolf.
Justice for Ironwolf!
Well, I'm gonna steal that. :)
@@Wolfogre Why don't you steal away :)
The Basic Fantasy rpg module “Chaotic Caves” is their (BFrpg) version of KotB.
And “Morgan’s Fort” is basically the same as the other module mentioned in this video.
Still the best title of a D&D adventure. So evocative and stirs the imagination.
Examining the map of the caves, there is actually a path through the dungeon that descends stairs continuously in one direction in a way that goes down from one entrance and exits at another entrance at the same level.
LOL THis was my first adventure I ran as a DM. My friends called it Cheap On the Borderlands lol.
My gosh! I'm currently playing the video game adaptation of 'The Temple of Elemental Evil' on Windows; the game uses the exact maps & setting from 'Keep on the Borderlands' the difference being that the video games adopts the 3.5 edition ruleset; sort of a combining the old with the new playstyle. 🙂
I use the keep itself as a Reward for the players. It was an amazing Base of operations
My favorite playthrough was once we played a party of mainly half orcs who lived in the caves. These wicked vile adventurers would attack us and our friends and families for absolutely no reason. We were just minding our business trying to survive. A Cleric showed up and said he would help us.
That is killer!
Awesome twist on KoTB! And yeah...I bet that "cleric" would help you all right. I shudder to think of the price your party had to pay for such assistance. 😲
Ironically, half-orcs didn't even exist in the basic rulebook.
@@JeffGeorge666 That was no problem. It was a AD&D 1e campaign set in Greyhawk.
@@TheBigGuppy That's what I love about the OSR in general and B/X specifically. It was open-ended enough with possibilities. The DM and serious players created their own world as they went along but it all made sense. Somehow I can see half-orcs being the voice of sanity in the Caves of Chaos...
Im still in a multi-year game with my friends during the pandemic, and i got into OCR stuff around 2017 (exception being, my obsession with dungeon world years before). I cant wait to run this with old school essentials at some point!
I've run this adventure at least a dozen times. Each time I added details, side missions, etc. It's a great adventure and I'm a huge fan. But it does need some work . It can be the basis for a long campaign .
Yeah...some work is needed but if your a dm that loves a challenge it's not labor...its love.
@@guyfrattallone6029 oh it's great. I attached Hommlet and the moat house as a nearby village, along with the lizard man lair of Danger at Dunwater and Cult of the Reptile God. I also added tons of details, side missions, etc. Ive played this for years. It can be great. A classic for sure.
I still have that.
Return to the Keep On The Borderlands was also fantastic.
Favorite UA-camr...favorite module. Just in time for my lunch break! :D
This module is the first I used as a Dungeon Master, and I used it again and again, even recently with 5ed (with T1).
I've seen videos and have ran this module a couple of times, but if the Captain makes a video, I got to watch it.
Fun module. My first one ever played. I still have it and other modules and books
One day I’ll find a group that plays old school games. Darned 5e is everywhere! 🤪
Run it 5E! Use the free rules online.
@@captcorajus maybe I will… where are the free rules at?
@@TheGeekDaddy929 Here
dnd.wizards.com/what-is-dnd/basic-rules
@@TheGeekDaddy929 And Here
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMDnDBasicRules_v0.1.pdf
@@TheGeekDaddy929 That sets you up with the core classes and races only.. sort of like Old School Basic D&D AND the other is a DM's supplement with monsters. That's all you need. :)
I'd like to hear your opinion on Lost Mine of Phandelver.
Already reviewed. Check out my review of the D&D starter set way back in 2015!
If you cannot give this one a straight '20', there's no reason to have that number on the list! The perfect D&D module.
While I appreciate the sentiment, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge its flaws. I've never given out a three way critical hit. It may exist, so certainly there's reason to have the possibility of it, but it is highly unlikely.
How about supermodule GDQ series?
I played the fuck out of this module in elementary school (2nd or 3rd grade was when I was introduced to D&D but I went straight to AD&D, let me tell you, reading college level books in 3rd grade boosted my intelligence tenfold) but me and my friends always played it with AD&D rules not Basic. We all thought we were above Basic rule lol. 3rd grade!
Ah joy...
I have to good fortune to be running B2: Keep on the Borderlands with some brand new players using OSE as a ruleset. Good times!
This module really does stand the test of time. There was a lot of intrigue when our level 2 Cleric cast Detect Evil on a certain priest. It really brought the game to a whole new level.
I love this module. Part of the reason it is good I think is that it was very unusuaul in it's design.
Nowadays I feel it needs a bit more to tie it together; what I tend to do is make ALL the monsters slightly animalistic because of the influence of the Chaos Artifact, as this can explain a lot of their behavior.
Keep on the Borderlands… the old school OG adventure classic. Ty for the review Captain! 😊
Btw what’s your take on the Goldman games redo’s on older modules?
Well I like the goodman games updates and hardcover books. I got the 2-volume Temple of Elemental Evil but only perused it so far. I took a photo of it and my mint in shrink original copy several months ago.
First module I ever played in and first one I ever ran as a DM.
The only module I enjoyed as much as Keep is Tomb of Horrors. Keep was my introduction to the greatest, most imaginative game ever.
The TOH is VERY enjoyable for evil DMs....not so much for overconfident players.
This is the only Module I have ever played in any RPG (I prefer to Sandbox). My Mom was the DM (only time she ever played). My Thief "Rock" discovered my lifelong horrible dice luck (which my players really luv ) during that gaming session.
Love this channel. Love this module too. It was always my go-to module with new players back in the day. I still have it!
Wow
I get great memories of this one. It was the first time I DM It was and still is a great time. Ty for the review
Bree Yark!!!!!!
When hitting the "translate to English" button....it should respond: "ALARM!!"
Great video! I liked the original you did 7 years ago, but I like this updated style. Keep on the Borderlands will always be my absolute favorite module because of the fond memories I have of playing it as a kid. Keep up the great work!
Hey Cap...any favorite "after-market" DM and player aids for this classic adventure (online maps, player-designed handouts, etc.)? 🤔
If you use a bit of google fu, there are some GREAT Keep maps, caves of chaos maps and such. Its been added to fantasy grounds classic modules.
Great module.
"There is no sin in exterminate this abominations, brother".
Haven't play this yet. Trying to finish the expert dnd book then starting this campaign . Thanks for sharing 😊🎉❤
After all these years and 5 plus editions, Keep on the Borderlands feels more like a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure than D&D.
Such a great module! Thanks for the re-review.
What's that meme with Elrond? I remember, because I was there 3000 years ago...
Im a lot newer to dnd having been born long too late to have experienced the classics but i feel i would have loved this as my 1st module. Tho i dont regret starting with 5es Dragon of ice spire peak. Loved that one too.
Against the giants best and hardest written by the great one Mr gg
G123 Are great modules to run, and a great way to introduce the drow into your 1st edition game. Because of Unearthed Arcana and some other publications published later on, you can make things even tougher for a "know it all" party of adventurers.
I know everyone says "introduced more players to D&D than any other module" but given the popularity of 5e, I wonder if Phandelver hasn't introduced more players to D&D. I can't remember how long KotB was included in the box set (mine came with B!--In Search of the Unknown), but almost everyone I knew back in the early 80's bypassed the basic D&D set and went for the AD&D books.
Having played and run both, the Keep is by far the better introduction to D&D than Phandelver but D&D is everywhere now. In my day, D&D was one of the major reasons I never had a girlfriend in high school.
Given the timeframe of its release, and the shear DECADES of its existence, it seems unlikely that it would be surpassed. Of course we don't have exact figures to be sure.
@@captcorajus I dropped out of playing D&D in the early 90's and missed 3rd, 3.5, and 4th editions only coming back to it now that my kids are old enough to play. Were there adaptations of KotB for those editions? Still, the impact of the module is huge, and I wonder why WotC let Goodman games do the 5e update of it instead of keeping it for themselves and putting it into one of their own products like they did with Tales from the Yawning Portal. I'm glad they let Goodman do the update because what they did is far better than what WotC did to against the giants and other AD&D classics.
Keep on the Borderlands. My 5th grade mentality thought this meant literally STAY on the borderlands.
lol... that's great! Like me, you definitely needed the glossary in the back!
I’m running some players through this now (using pathfinder instead of AD&D or an OSR game)
They’ve conquered the orc tribes and one of them has actually become the new chieftain of the orcs from cave “C”; the character happens to be a gnome cook.
Your videos are so good. Congrats. Thank you.
the hack master version was a major upgrade, but playingboth as a merged kind of game was amazing.
Ahhh you must have been a Conan the Barbarian fan? I approve of this mixing Keep on the Borderlands and Thulsa Doom cult. I'm going to try that next time! ;)
Lol, very much so!
The module that help inspired the Diablo and borderlands video game series.
Perhaps you should do review of the Goodman Games edition?
Already have.
Happy Thanksgiving 🦃
Thanks.
A little disappointed you didn’t mention Goodman Games “Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands”. Not only is it a nice reprint that adds new content but also converts everything to 5e. Also has some cool interviews in the beginning.
I did a review on it already. Though.. backstory, this is a reup, using the original script I used. I guess I stuck a bit to close to it. and yes, it is awesome and there great interviews in it!
Boo! This should be a twenty. lol.
great video
One day you are going have to compile your classic module list, much as WotC/Paizo did with their 30 Greatest Modules.
If you haven't done that already, that is. ;)
Ask and ye shall recieve. ua-cam.com/play/PL5wnJdLiTEBkgLQydO03QfThMIP3m7nZ1.html
If only this module was anywhere near good as nostalgia paints it.
Given the number of times I've run it, and so many others have run it for new groups successfully, it is THAT good. :)
I had the same thought - maybe I won't be the only one yelled at in the comments.
We had a riot with this one. Love Dming it. We had the Cave of The Unkown as the big bad who was organizing bandit raids to strangle supplies coming to this keep that had been built a little too deep into the borderlands. We had players jumped by kobolds from the tree who ended up hitting each other as they tried to scrape the kobolds off. My best friend's first character a1st level paladin got ripped to shreds by the Owl Bear. Everyone was thrilled when they took out the Minotaur, and got the great magic items he held. We had a druid who reasoned with the goblins. We had a long relationship with the rescued merchant and his wife . Lost one character who became a supplicant to the Shrine of Evil. Forever guarding the silver ware. Surprised by the wight and the medusa. The inevitable betrayal of a trusted party member was also fun. We did have a series of loyal spear carriers , Tom, Jerry, Larry, Mo, Curley . I think Larry might have survived to go to Restenford. Load of fun though we seemed to spend a lot of moral energy ejecting noncombatants from the caves. Had fun in the Keep as well, though I think my brother got killed there and the party tried a failed burglary of the Jewel Merchant. Large scope for adventure. Not a ton of roleplay in the caves. Your DM can put in some structure to explain the tight grouping od disparate evil creatures, but less essential than you might think.
@@captcorajus I’m guessing you made several changes to avoid the early instant death encounters. Of which there are many.
Thank you my liege
Can you recommend a good live play Fantasy OSR channel here on UA-cam?