Gelatinous Icosahedron

 From the second installment in the B series of modules to the penultimate one: B11: King's Festival, by Carl Sargent. Though it was not packaged with a rule set, B11 was billed as an introductory module, complete with DM advice and background information on the wider setting beyond the immediate environs of the module itself. While not a "bad" adventure, it lacks many of the greatest strengths of the earlier modules like B2, and leans on a lot of trends that deviate strongly from the earlier ethos of the game, making it a good module to contrast with the classic Keep on the Borderlands.  Nowhere are these differences in ethos more evident than in the DM advice with which the book opens. To be sure, there are some good bits, but a great deal of it is geared toward running "scripted" adventures, including advice on how to keep players on the rails and how to get them back on if they insist on deviating from the path. That's a stark contrast to Gary's wisd...

 TSR-era D&D produced a plethora of published adventure modules. Some are beloved, some reviled. Some exemplify the modern "old school" ethos and some started D&D down some very dubious paths, which old schoolers today by and large disavow. Some of them made for engaging, fascinating reads, but were problematic at the game table.  In this series, I plan to take a look at some of these old modules for Classic (that is, non-"Advanced") D&D, not necessarily as a reviewer, but really digging into the specifics of what I like, what I don't like, what works and what doesn't, and most importantly, what DMs and authors of today might learn from them. It seems appropriate to kick it off with the module that introduced me to the game, that is still considered a classic among classics, so without further ado, I give you may take on... Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands, by E. Gary Gygax himself (Spoilers to follow, on the off chance you're not famil...