'B2' Series: B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands

The reputation of B2 Keep on the Borderlands and its influence on fantasy roleplaying is such that publishers keep returning to it. TSR, Inc. of course published the original as well as including it in the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, which is where many gamers encountered it. The publisher would also revisit it with Return to the Keep on the Borderlands for its twenty-fifth anniversary, and the module would serve as the basis for Keep on the Borderlands, part of Wizards of the Coast’s ‘Encounters Program’ for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. Yet before that, another publisher would revisit B2 Keep on the Borderlands not once, but twice. The second time was in 2009 with Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure, but the first was in 2002, with B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands: An Introductory Module for Characters Level 1–4, upon which Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure was based.

Like B1 In Search of the Unknown before it, B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is written for use with written for with HackMaster, Fourth Edition, Kenzer & Company’s retroclone based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, but ultimately derived from the parody of Dungeons & Dragons played by the characters of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic strip. (A review of HackMaster Basic, the introductory rules to HackMaster, Fifth Edition can be found here.) Where B1 Quest for the Unknown is not a parody of B1 In Search of the Unknown, so B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is not a parody of B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Like B1 Quest for the Unknown it is rather, a mostly faithful adaptation from Basic Dungeons & Dragons to HackMaster, Fourth Edition—and more. In B1 Quest for the Unknown that more was only slightly more; in B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands, that more is a whole lot more!

Beyond the obvious pink colouring of the trade dress—an obvious nod to B2 Keep on the Borderlands—the first thing that you notice about B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is the size. The original B2 Keep on the Borderlands was a mere thirty-two pages, but at one-hundred-and-forty-four pages, B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is over four-and-a-half times the length. That sounds like a lot, but actually, some fifty of those pages consist of detachable Battle Sheets listing the stats for the various NPCs, monsters, and creatures, along with the ImageQuest Adventure Illustrator. The latter is a set of seventeen images which the Game Master is prompted to show the players when their characters come upon a particular scene or locale, much like S1 Tomb of Horrors and the other scenarios in the ‘S’ series. Instead, B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is about two-and-a-half time the length of the original. The other noticeable thing about B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is the cover, which depicts a rather bloody encounter between a group of adventurers and an Owlbear. Like the cover to B1 Quest for the Unknown, this is a rather grisly cover and hints at things to come inside the cover of B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands. The back cover though, lovingly recreates the actual cover of B2 Keep on the Borderlands.

The set-up for B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands will be familiar to many. A lonely outpost located in the hinterland between civilisation and orc or goblin infested wilderness. Unbeknownst to the soldiery and inhabitants of the keep, dangers lie close by and a serious threat is readying itself to sack the keep and sweep down on the civilised lands—just as the orcs and goblins did years ago. It is to this keep that the adventurers will come and in the course of interacting with its inhabitants will learn rumours and pick up small tasks that will eventually lead them to not only uncovering this threat, but thwarting it too. So saving the keep, its inhabitants, and the civilised lands behind the keep. The likelihood is that this will take multiple sessions of play and multiple excursions from the Keep out into the wilderness, and certainly, the scenario’s Level range of 1–4 lends itself to that…

In fact, as written, B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is really designed for characters of Second to Fourth Level. Now the scenario can be run and played as an introduction to HackMaster, Fourth Level, with the player characters having made their way from civilisation to have their adventure and make their first mark on the frontier. Really though, the intent is that the Game Master will have run and the player characters completed B1 Quest for the Unknown first. After the events inside Quasqueton—and this is not the only link between B1 Quest for the Unknown and B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands—it is inferred that they will have fled into the wilderness and after wandering in the region for a while, will have finally have come across one last bastion of civilisation. Which of course, is Frandor’s Keep, standing on an island atop the Tan’Gra Falls. 

The first quarter of the actual content in B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is devoted to describing Frandor’s Keep and its inhabitants, a history of the region, and more. The history places Frandor’s Keep and the surrounding region in HackMaster’s ‘Garweeze Wurld’ setting—as opposed to the Kingdoms of Kalamar of Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure—hinting in particular why the inhabitants and soldiery of the keep have little or no idea as to the existence of the nearby Mines of Chaos. Located in the valley known as Hell’s Throat, the keep has protected a major access route down to the civilised and so has been targeted by Orcs again and again. They have successfully laid waste to the keep and so presumably the knowledge was lost… 

Frandor’s Keep consists of an Outer Bailey, Lower Bailey, Middle Bailey, and Upper Bailey. Its various buildings and inhabitants are described in some detail, but the buildings themselves are not individually mapped. Fans of Glorantha and Apple Lane (and thus RuneQuest) will enjoy the inclusion of Gwindle’s Pawnshop, but the keep is also home to a jewel merchant, a charter house for all guilds—including adventuring party guilds, a fortune teller, traders of various skill levels and demeanour, taverns of varying character and price, and more. There is a wide variety of NPCs here for the player characters to interact with, which ideally will ultimately be with the Keep’s commandant if they are of good character. Further, these are fun NPCs for the Game Master to portray and roleplay. Mixed in with this is a notice board of announcements and job adverts—also available as a ImageQUEST illustration so that the players have a handout—that should provide various story hooks and links into the scenario. One aspect of the set-up in Frandor’s Keep that some may find disquieting is an institutional distrust of Demi-Humans—Dwarves, Elves, Gnomes, Halflings, and Pixie Fairies—are begrudgingly tolerated, but Half-Orcs, Half-Ogres, and Grel are not and refused entry. Except if they are bounty hunters, and that means bounty hunting on Orcs, Lizardmen, and other Demi-Humans. In fact, the player characters could make some money by handing in Demi-Human ears…

Beyond the walls of Frandor’s Keep, the surrounding area is lightly sketched out. The Caverns of Quasqueton—as detailed in B1 Quest for the Unknown—are marked, as are various other adventure sites not detailed in B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands, but elsewhere. Just a few locations are detailed in the campaign supplement, perhaps the most fun of them being a nice little nod to the cover of the Player’s Handbook for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition. This again sets up another plot strand, but one that lurks in the background of the campaign, rather than the one that is ongoing in the keep.

Of course, half of the actual content of B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is dedicated to the infamous Mines of Chaos, home to a plethora of Demi-Human tribes, including Kobolds, Goblins, Orcs, Hobgoblins, Gnolls, and Bugbears, just as in the original scenario. In comparison to the original module, the Mines of Chaos have been switched to run West to East rather than East to West, with several of the individual complexes split across two levels. Then below that there is another series of caverns. The individual tribal complexes will be familiar to anyone who knows the previous versions of the module. This does not mean that there are not differences. The most obvious is in the individual location descriptions, which start with detailed lists of the location’s contents in terms of their monetary value and denizens in terms of their Experience Point value. Basically, these work as checklists for the benefit of the Game Master who can return to each location after her player characters have explored it and then work out how many Experience Points they have earned and what goods and items they have discovered. The other major change is to the temple of evil, which here is tied into ‘Garweeze Wurld’ with the substitution of the Shrine of the Ape Gawd, served by several Ape priests. Throughout though, there is plenty of flavourful description, a great deal of effort is put into making the tribes different—the various slogans of the disciplined Hobgoblins are hilarious, and many of the monsters are given motivations and personalities, so that as much as HackMaster is a roleplaying game of ‘dungeon hacking’, it is also possible to interact with many of the inhabitants of the Mines of Chaos rather than hack at them.

The other connection between B1 Quest for the Unknown and B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is an NPC, Melanee. Like B1 Quest for the Unknown, she does not actually appear in B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands, but Melanee her presence and influence in Frandor’s Keep has consequences which will affect everyone in the keep, including the Player Characters. Having fled Quasqueton, abandoning her former boyfriend in favour of his henchman, she has dumped him, taken up with the commandant of Frandor’s Keep, made him pay for the luxury to which she is accustomed, and is now on extended ‘holiday’ in the nearest big city… Her plot intersects with another ongoing plot in the scenario and the consequences ripple all the way through the adventure. If anyone had sympathies for Melanee after playing through B1 Quest for the Unknown, the likelihood is that they will have evaporated after learning of her exploits at Frandor’s Keep.

Physically, B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is an impressive book. The contents are clean and tidy and in general, well written. The book includes a detailed index and barring the ImageQUEST illustrations is lightly illustrated, some of it having a rather cartoon-like quality. The maps, although readable, are a little cramped and it would have been nice if the area map around the Mines of Chaos had been produced larger so that the Game Master could better understand the relationship between the two levels of the various cave and mine networks. Of course, all of the stats, maps, and the ImageQUEST illustrations are neatly organised ready for the Game Master to pull out of the book should she so desire.

In comparison to earlier interpretations of B2 Keep on the Borderlands, the tone of B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is more mature and does involve content of a more adult, even prurient nature. They include elements of necrophagy and male rape, which are likely to sit uncomfortablely in today’s gaming culture. It should be noted that B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands lacks the sheen of the scenario it is based on—and similar adventures, and many locations, especially the Mines of Chaos, are mucky, dirty, and vile. This is reflected in there being an increased chance of the adventurers of catching diseases from the unclean locations detailed in the pages of B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands.

As much as B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is based upon B2 Keep on the Borderlands, the adventure it feels like it draws from more heavily is Return to the Keep on the Borderlands, primarily because of the detailed and named NPCs at the keep and because of the stronger story threads that run throughout B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands. Not as strong or as well handled as they are in the subsequent Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure, but they are present. B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands also feels quite self-contained—despite the links to B1 Quest for the Unknown—primarily because of the tight network of valleys that represent the playing region in comparison to the more open nature of the playing region in B2 Keep on the Borderlands.

B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands greatly develops B2 Keep on the Borderlands, filling in a great many of the details, in particular, fully populating and naming the many notable NPCs residing at Frandor’s Keep. It also adds strong plotlines to the scenario’s exploratory and combat elements, which all together provide quite a lot of strong play over the course of the player characters’ first four Levels. The module does lack the advice of B1 Quest for the Unknown, but as much as it is designed as an introductory module, the Game Master may need a little experience under her belt—and may well have got that running B1 Quest for the Unknown.

Now of course, in terms of the Old School Renaissance, B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands has been surpassed by Goodman Games’ more recent Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands and were a Game Master to want to run a version of B2 Keep on the Borderlands, that would probably be the obvious choice. Were a Game Master be interested in examining a developed version of B2 Keep on the Borderlands then perhaps B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands might be of interest to her. Ultimately though, B2 Little Keep on the Borderlands is a HackMaster scenario first and foremost—and a suitable first exploration and combat adventure, plus quite a lot of plot, for that roleplaying game.

'B1' Series: B1 Quest for the Unknown

The ‘B’ series, the series of modules published by TSR, Inc. for Basic Dungeons & Dragons did not begin with B2 Keep on the Borderlands. That much is obvious, but there is no denying that it feels that way. This is not surprising given that it was packaged with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set between 1979 and 1983, it is estimated that more than a million copies of B2 Keep on the Borderlands were printed, and for a great many gamers in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was their introduction to Dungeons & Dragons. Yet before this, there was another scenario, also part of the ‘B’ series, and also packaged with Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set until it was replaced with B2 Keep on the Borderlands. That module was B1 In Search of the Unknown.

First published in 1979 as an introductory adventure for the first Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set that had appeared the year before, B1 In Search of the Unknown set out to provide an adventure that could be run by the novice Dungeon Master and played by novice roleplayers, both just setting out on their first foray into the world of dungeoneering. Thus it is designed to challenge Dungeon Master and players alike and to be instructive for both, but it is not designed to be particularly deadly as a dungeon for experienced players might be. Yet where in the decades since its original publication B2 Keep on the Borderlands has been visited and revisited, from Return to the Keep on the Borderlands to the Keep on the Borderlands series for the Encounters Program for Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition, the fact is that B1 In Search of the Unknown has been all but ignored by both TSR, Inc. and Wizards of the Coast. Instead it has been third party publishers who have revisited the first entry in the ‘B’ series. Most notably and recently, of course, by Goodman Games with  Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands, which covered both B1 In Search of the Unknown and B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Before that though, in 2002, Kenzer & Company published B1 Quest for the Unknown.

B1 Quest for the Unknown: An Introductory Adventure for Characters Level 1-3 is written for with HackMaster, Fourth Edition, Kenzer & Company’s retroclone based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but ultimately derived from the parody of Dungeons & Dragons played by the characters of the Knights of the Dinner Table comic strip. (A review of HackMaster Basic, the introductory rules to HackMaster, Fifth Edition can be found here.) B1 Quest for the Unknown is not a parody of B1 In Search of the Unknown, but is a mostly faithful adaptation from Basic Dungeons & Dragons to HackMaster, Fourth Edition. Except in one important detail that was a significant feature of B1 In Search of the Unknown, but which is wholly absent from B1 Quest for the Unknown. 

The notable feature about B1 In Search of the Unknown is that none of the rooms—barring the bats in the caves below—have any monsters or any treasure. This is where the scenario’s innovation comes in because it does have both monsters and treasure, but both given in a pair of lists at the back of the module. From these lists the Dungeon Master’s primary task in preparing B1 In Search of the Unknown is to populate the two levels of the dungeon and seed it with treasure. Twenty-five monster options are given along with thirty-four items of treasure, but since the module advises that only sixteen to twenty of them be used between the two levels, there will be certain sections of the dungeon that will be empty. There are slots with each room or location description to record the Dungeon Master’s choice of monsters and treasure taken from the two lists. This innovation is designed to help the Dungeon Master learn the craft of dungeon creation and to an extent, it works since the Dungeon Master is working with the author of the module to fully detail the dungeon. Yet it is also a handicap to the full design of the dungeon because it effectively ignores story or plot and it can lead—at least in the hands of a neophyte Dungeon Master, for whom the dungeon is actually written—to it being populated with a random assortment of monsters and creatures.

B1 Quest for the Unknown entirely eschews that option and populates the dungeon with a range of creatures from the roleplaying game’s series of Hacklopedia of Beasts bestiaries. All the stats for both levels of the dungeon are collected in four pages of pullout ‘battle sheets’ at the end of the module. Even so, the issue with this is that the Game Master will need access to all eight volumes volumes to use all of the creatures B1 Quest for the Unknown. That said, a HackMaster Game Master is likely to have those anyway, but a Dungeon Master could easily take each of the monsters in the module and find their analogue in Dungeons & Dragons or the retroclone of her choice and run B1 Quest for the Unknown using rules other than HackMaster. Now there are easily recognisable monsters like Orcs, rats, bats, Troglodytes, and so, but there are lots of odd vermin, such as Giant Dire Cockroaches, Giant Kangaroo Fleas, and so on. Unfortunately, some of the creatures and encounters used are rather puerile in nature. So there is the inclusion of a Feces-Flinging Lemur as a random encounter, but early on in the dungeon the player encounters will encounter a pair of Magic Mouths. In B1 In Search of the Unknown they shout out simple warnings and they do so here, but here they have gone wild. One is described as a Rogue magic Mouth and the other as a Sassy Magic Mouth. Whilst the Sassy Magic Mouth will simply be obnoxious to the player characters, the Rogue Magic Mouth is described as focusing its attention on any female characters and going through a series of ‘pick-up’ lines that it will use on them. Arguably the latter is more obnoxious than the former and if you think back to the time of B1 Quest for the Unknown’s publication in 2002 and just how few female roleplayers there were in comparison to today, this implied attitude towards women—even through an NPC—would have been highly off putting. Just as it would today, but perhaps back then it was simply carry over from the comic that HackMaster drew so strongly from? It is almost as bad for the Game Master who is expected to come up with these pick-up lines. Certainly this is one detail about the module which is worthwhile changing.

In ignoring the salient design feature of the original module, what B1 Quest for the Unknown actually allows to come to the fore, at least to some extent, is story. Now there was some story to B1 In Search of the Unknown in that Rogahn the Fearless, a Fighter, and Zelligar the Unknown, a Wizard,  the Wizard, the legendary owners and designers of Quasqueton—as the dungeon in both B1 In Search of the Unknown and B1 Quest for the Unknown is called—have disappeared, as has Rogahn’s girlfriend, Melanee. It is also hinted at that Melanee was being unfaithful. B1 Quest for the Unknown has this and more, actively making the discovery of this story and the reasons behind the current state of Quasqueton an important part of the playthrough of B1 Quest for the Unknown important by including Experience Point rewards for each fact gleaned and surmised.

As well as the lists of monsters with which to populate the dungeon as per B1 In Search of the Unknown, what B1 Quest for the Unknown is also missing is a list of pre-generated player characters and NPC hirelings. Again, much like the absent lists of monsters, the lack of pre-generated player characters is not really an issue, but the lack of hirelings is slightly disappointing, in part because there is advice for the Game Master on how to handle NPCs and hirelings during the play of the module. There is nothing of course to stop the Game Master creating her own, but their inclusion would have been useful alongside the monsters the designers populate the dungeon with. The advice though, in keeping with the intention that B1 Quest for the Unknown is an introductory module for both Game Master and players, also covers how to be an effective Game Master, discussing the type of features that the player characters might typically find in a dungeon—and in this one, how to handle the passage of time—fairly tightly in this instance, how to be an effective Game Master, and so on. As with B1 In Search of the Unknown, this advice is accompanied by a double-sided detachable for the players. On the one side is the background that their player characters would know, whilst on the other is a list of tips on how to be a good player. Of course, in B1 In Search of the Unknown this was as a good player of Basic Dungeons & Dragons, but in B1 Quest for the Unknown this is as a good player of HackMaster. Which means that as reasonable as some of the advice is, there is a certain tone to it, highlighting the adversarial nature of play between the Game Master and her players in HackMaster. So be an organised player and keep an accurate record of your character lest you be unprepared for an audit; pace yourself lest you be too slow in play and bore the Game Master who might send more wandering monsters to kill your character; avoid arguments in the dungeon as that will also attract more wandering monsters; and so on.

For the most part, the background to B1 Quest for the Unknown is the same as B1 In Search of the Unknown. Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown are friends renowned for throwing back a great Gnome-Titan invasion—the Gnome-Titans of HackMaster’s ‘Garweeze Wurld’ setting being the equivalent of the barbarians in B1 In Search of the Unknown—which threatened the land and taking their well-earned reward into the wilderness where it is said that they had a hideaway. More recently it is said that they lost their lives in a great battle in the Gnome-Titan lands and then a map marked with a ‘Q’ falls into the hands of the player characters. Could this be the hideaway, Quasqueton, of the famous victors over the Gnome-Titans?

Open up the B1 Quest for the Unknown and inside both the front and back covers are the same maps as in B1 In Search of the Unknown. So notably that includes the maze-like twisting corridors, rooms full of lumber and building materials, the overgrown garden room, and of course, the infamous Room of Pools with its shallow stone pools containing all manner of liquids—bane, bland, and bountiful. The descriptions given of individual locations are rich in detail, not just the aforementioned rooms, but also the living quarters of Rogahn, Zelligar, Melanee, and their staff. It is here that the majority of the clues will be found that will help the player characters discover the story and the reasons behind the current state of Quasqueton and so earn Experience Points other than for hacking through the dungeon.

Now of course, much of the details and rich descriptions are a holdover from B1 In Search of the Unknown and they worked in the original just as they do in B1 Quest for the Unknown. Yet B1 Quest for the Unknown adds further detail. For example, it takes the books found in Zelligar’s library and develops them for use with HackMaster, making them valuable not just in terms of what could be sold for, but in terms of what a player character might learn from them and improve his skills. The books receive a page all of their own and there is a lot of detail here that the Game Master can draw from them and develop in her campaign. There are also actual explanations of why certain dungeon features exist, such as the spiral corridor which goes nowhere. In B1 In Search of the Unknown it goes unexplained, but in B1 Quest for the Unknown a believable, if somewhat mundane explanation is given.

Another consequence of B1 Quest for the Unknown being fully stocked is the addition of the Homunculus, Mister Pleasington. Essentially, he is an annoying rather than helpful Wizard’s Familiar, which explains why he did not accompany Zelligar on his excursion into the Gnome-Titan lands. The fact that he is alive when Zelligar is supposedly dead… Well that presents one further plot hook at least, especially should the Wizard return and discover that someone has been plundering his home, let alone wandering around its halls uninvited. Mister Pleasington is designed as an irritant, but he is one of the few actual NPCs rather than monsters in the adventure that the Game Master will have to portray if found.

Physically, B1 Quest for the Unknown is neatly and cleanly presented with array of decent illustrations. There are two issues with the artwork, one the front cover, the other the back cover. The fully painted front cover illustration is not only grisly, but gives away a notable secret of the Room of Pools. It is in effect a spoiler, but arguably, this was a spoiler for a module which was an adaptation of a scenario which in 2002, was some twenty-four years old. The cartoon-like back cover illustration is a colourised version of an illustration inside the book which depicts an early encounter in the dungeon. It shows a bloody and again a grisly scene, but here presented in a rather cartoonish fashion. That aside, the writing inside is decent, though the room descriptions—marked in grey boxes for easy reading—feels more like bullet points in places.

Of course, B1 Quest for the Unknown fills in all of the spaces and populates the two levels of its dungeon so that the Game Master does not have to. In some ways, this takes away the very purpose of the module it is aping. After all, B1 In Search of the Unknown is designed as an introductory module through and through. B1 Quest for the Unknown still is designed as an introductory module, and has good advice for players and Game Master alike, but it is designed for the somewhat more arcane retroclone that is HackMaster. Yet as much as it apes an earlier module with an emphasis on exploration rather than plot, B1 Quest for the Unknown nevertheless emphasises plot—not as strongly as it does exploration, but the emphasis is there. This shows in the Experience Rewards for uncovering the story behind the current situation in Quasqueton.

Now of course, in terms of the Old School Renaissance, B1 Quest for the Unknown has been surpassed by Goodman Games’ more recent Original Adventures Reincarnated #1: Into the Borderlands and were a Game Master to want to run a version of B1 In Search of the Unknown, that would probably be the obvious choice. Were a Game Master be interested in examining an example, filled in version of B1 In Search of the Unknown, then perhaps B1 Quest for the Unknown might be of interest to her. Ultimately though, B1 Quest for the Unknown is a HackMaster scenario first and foremost—and a suitable first exploration adventure, plus a little plot, for that roleplaying game.

Another Keep on the Borderlands

Hell’s Throat is a seventeen-mile long river gorge that cuts through the Krond Heights. In the past century it has been used as means for orc and goblin tribes to invade settled lands of the city-state of P’Bapar below. A decade ago, a great confederation of Orc tribes flooded through the pass and sacked the keep that had been built on an island above Tanara Falls. In response, the Earl of Reyifor constructed Frandor’s Keep, a larger and more impressive fort intended to monitor and curtail any further incursions down Hell’s Throat, on the same site. In the years since, it has become a base for hunters and trappers, lumberjacks and prospectors, as well as a focus for bandits and thieves and orcs and goblins that have snuck into the region to prey upon the merchant traffic that passes through the Borderlands to Frandor’s Keep and back again. Such is the threat that they represent that the Earl has established a bounty on the heads of all non-humans and non-demi-humans in the region. In the keep itself and in Quarrytown—the shantytown outside it—rumours abound of ghosts on Hell’s Throat Trail, of missing trappers, and more…

Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure is a mini-campaign setting for HackMaster Basic published by Kenzer & Co in 2009. One reason that I did not review it at the time was because of how irritated I was by certain parts of HackMaster Basic, though my intention had been to review it as part of the mini-series of reviews devoted to B2, Keep on the Borderlands. Putting aside my dislike of HackMaster Basic—or least certain parts of it—I finally picked up Frandor’s Keep and decided that I wanted to review it. The good news is that I was more than pleasantly surprised by how good it is.

Designed for characters of levels one through five, Frandor’s Keep takes its cue from the classic Basic Dungeons & Dragons scenario, B2 Keep on the Borderlands. Its set-up is that of a lonely outpost located in the hinterland between civilisation and orc or goblin infested wilderness. Unbeknownst to the soldiery and inhabitants of the keep, dangers lie close by and a serious threat is readying itself to sack the keep and sweep down on the civilised lands—just as the orcs and goblins did years ago. It is to this keep that the adventurers will come and in the course of interacting with its inhabitants will learn rumours and pick up small tasks that will eventually lead them to not only uncovering this threat, but thwarting it too. So saving the keep, its inhabitants, and the civilised lands behind the keep.

Much of Frandor’s Keep’s one-hundred-and forty-four pages are devoted to describing the keep’s history and the region around it, before focusing specifically on the keep itself. The setting is that of the Kingdoms of Kalamar, Kenzer & Co.’s house setting for HackMaster. Thus it moves from B’Par to the Earldom of Reyifor to the vicinity of Frandor’s Keep and the series of watch towers mounted on the peaks above Hell’s Throat. Frandor’s Keep really consists of two locations. The first is Quarrytown, the former quarry the mined stone from which was used to build the keep, the second the keep itself. No longer mined, Quarrytown has become a shantytown, home to outcasts from Frandor’s Keep itself, its continued existence allowed by the Earl so that he can keep an eye on its inhabitants. It is a lawless place, though a gang known as the Ravens maintain order and exact taxes of their own. The Ravens serve as the supplement’s primary antagonists.

Frandor’s Keep consists of an Outer Bailey, Lower Bailey, Middle Bailey, and Upper Bailey. Its various buildings and inhabitants are described in some detail, but the buildings themselves are not individually mapped. Two aspects of the supplement stand out throughout the descriptions given. The first of these aspects is the book’s cartography. Where possible, an isomorphic view is given of the layout of the buildings. This provides a three dimensional view of the buildings, the effect being to make them stand out and bring them to life. The other maps in the supplement are clear and simple, but lack the sophistication. The second aspect is effort made to integrate the NPCs into the setting of Frandor’s Keep. This is done through their knowledge of the keep and its surrounds—several lists of rumours and commonly known information being included in the bok, and by providing story hooks designed to get the players and their involved in the life and events of the keep and its surrounds. Each is also accompanied by a story award of several Experience Points.

For example, when the adventurers enter the keep for the first time, they see a man manacled to the pillory. He is a hunter who has been whipped because it believed that he committed a murder—he brought in the head of his victim saying that it was that of a centaur in order to claim the bounty placed by the Earl of Reyifor on the heads of non-human humanoids. If the adventurers can find the body of the centaur and prove to the officials at the keep that hunter was telling the truth, then they will have gained an ally and earned themselves 200 Experience Points.

Opportunities for story awards are seeded throughout the supplement. As long as the players engage their characters in the setting beyond the desire loot and pillage—though there is opportunity to do that too—all the GM has to do is work them into the game and the events of the campaign should all but drive the play of game forward. This is in addition to six named, larger encounters in the book and three multi-session adventures that round it out. Of these three, it is the first—‘The Ransom’—that stands out and is the most interesting. The other two, ‘The Kobold Brambles’ and ‘Mine of the Goblin King’, feel like more traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style adventures and are not quite so tightly bound into the setting of Frandor’s Keep. Lastly, player characters from the keep and up to one of the watch towers overlooking Hell’s Throat. Both The Mysterious Shrine and White Palette, Ivory Horns are available for free, whilst In the Realm of the Elm King serves a similar function and is available for purchase.

Physically, Frandor’s Keep is well presented. It is clean and tidy, and reasonably illustrated in a fairly simplistic style. Bar a single map of the greater region that lacks detail, the maps in the book uniformly good. What is particularly pleasing after having read and reviewed HackMaster Basic, is that the writing is straight and to the point. There is none of the silliness and missed opportunities that marred the pages of that book.

Still, Frandor’s Keep is not perfect. Both ‘The Kobold Brambles’ and ‘Mine of the Goblin King’ could have been better woven into the campaign built around the keep and lastly, it is missing the one element key to B2 The Keep on the Borderlands and its various iterations—that is the equivalent of the feared Caves of Chaos. That equivalent is actually the Mines of Chaos as described in the adventure supplement, The Mines of Chaos. Intended for use with higher level characters and HackMaster Fifth Edition, the sad news is that five years after the publication of Frandor’s Keep, its sequel campaign is yet to see print.

Frandor’s Keep: An immersive setting for adventure lives up to subtitle. It works very hard to involve the players and their adventurers in what is a low fantasy setting—one that could easily ported over to another setting or ruleset, the Kingdoms of Kalamar not being absolutely necessary to play through Frandor’s Keep. It works hard to involve the adventurers and it presents them with plenty of story and plenty of opportunity to create stories. It is this that makes the HackMaster Basic iteration of B2 Keep on the Borderlands a surprisingly mature and contemporary approach to a classic set-up and format.

White Box Fever VII

In coming to a review of HackMaster Basic, I begin with a terrible bias against it. As one of the book’s introductions states, “When HackMaster 4th Edition came out it earned something of a reputation among some gamers as being a ‘silly’ or ‘joke’ game.” I must count myself amongst them. After all, how could I take a game seriously that detailed its monsters in alphabetical order over the course of eight books? My cursory examination of the game along with the reviews suggested that the game was nothing more than the designer’s attempt to create his own fantasy heartbreaker based on Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, Second Edition. Based on that, what made it deserving of the Origins Award for Game of the Year 2001? Certainly when there were more deserving and more interesting games published in that year?

Fast forward six years and Kenzer & Co. published Aces & Eights: Shattered Frontier, an alternate history, highly detailed Western RPG that would win the Origins Award for Game of the Year 2007. And deservedly so. I was impressed by the RPG and I gave it a positive review at the time in Steve Jackson Games’ Pyramid e-zine. It also made me rethink my attitude towards HackMaster 4th Edition such that when the publisher released HackMaster Basic in 2009 I was interested enough to review it. I bought a copy and started reading it, and was pleased to note in the same introduction that as part of the game’s redesign, the designers had “…reeled in and scrubbed the game of much of the over-the-top “silly factor”.” So I set out to read the book with interest, but I got to a certain point in the book and wanted to throw it across the room. Instead I swore, put the book down, and walked away from it. HackMaster Basic had made me angry.

This is one reason why, after almost four years, I still have not reviewed HackMaster Basic. Originally, I had wanted to review it as part of the “White Box Fever” series which reviewed various introductory level fantasy RPGs in the run up to the release of Wizards of the Coast’s Red Box edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Fourth Edition. The other reason as to why I did not review it as part of the “White Box Fever” series was that despite having the word “Basic” in the title, HackMaster Basic is not an introductory RPG. It is to HackMaster 5th Edition what Basic Dungeons & Dragons was to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but where Basic Dungeons & Dragons was in essence a simplified version of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, there is a complexity to HackMaster Basic that Basic Dungeons & Dragons never had. Instead, HackMaster Basic is an introduction to HackMaster 5th Edition, one that streamlines rather reduces the complexity of the full game’s rules and mechanics.

That said, HackMaster Basic echoes certain elements of Basic Dungeons & Dragons, though its complexity grants a player choice, detail, and flexibility. It is thus a fantasy RPG, one replete with Dwarves, Elves, Halfings, and Humans and Fighters, Mages, Priests, and Thieves. It has Character Classes – though these only go from first to fifth level; it has a set of character attributes that are rolled on three six-sided dice; and both attacks and Saving Throws are made on a twenty-sided die. The complexity and detail come in the form of the Honor, Quirks, Flaws, Skills, Talents, and Proficiencies that every character has. The choice, complexity, and flexibility gives a player the freedom to select his character’s race and class as he likes; to take the skills he wants; to train in whatever weaponry he wants; Mages get to cast their spells using Spell Points; and so on…

As with other Dungeons & Dragons style RPGs, the Thief is slightly different to the other three. The emphasis with this Class is mobility, reactivity, and stealth, and unsurprisingly, the Thief is also skill orientated. Thus the Thief receives an Initiative Bonus and rolls a lower die type; he can Backstab for more damage and greater weapon penetration; he knows how to avoid blows and can deliver an effective counter-blow; and he receives the base rolls for his Core Skills (Climbing/Rappelling, Disarm Trap, Hiding, Identify Trap, Listening, Lock Picking, Pick Pocket, Sneaking, and Trap Design – only the Thief gains the latter skill). In addition, the Thief begins play with a store of Luck Points, which can be spent to alter rolls ahead of the rolls, including rolls made against the Thief!

For the most part HackMaster Basic does have the feel of an “Old School” style RPG and enforces that with certain limitations on the game’s flexibility. When a player creates his character he receives Build Points (BP) with which to modify his character’s attributes and buy and improve his Skills, Talents, and Proficiencies. He receives more Build Points if he decides not to move his character’s attribute scores around, but keeps the attribute scores as rolled. Also, whilst he is free to select whatever Race he wants for his character, but he must purchase his Class. Here there is a bias that reflects certain expectations of the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy genre. Thus, it is cheaper for a Dwarf to be a Fighter at a cost of 20 BP as opposed to the 75 BP that he must pay to be a Mage. Similarly, the Elf and the Halfling has its bias towards certain Classes – the Mage and the Thief respectively – whilst the Human has no particular bias. Similarly, whilst a character is free to select and train in any weapon that he chooses, it is cheaper to train in certain weapons in some Classes than it is for others. For example, where a Fighter pays half the standard cost to improve his use weapons, the Mage pays double, except for the dagger and the staff.

A character is defined by the six standard attributes of Dungeons & Dragons, plus a seventh, Looks. Each is rolled on three six-sided dice as usual, but in addition, a percentile number is generated for each attribute. The higher the percentile figure, the closer the attribute is to be being raised to the next full number. Then a player receives his Build Points with which to create the character, the amount depending upon whether or not he swapped two or more attributes around. The Build Points are spent to increase the percentile figures attached to the attributes, and to purchase the character’s Class, Skills, Proficiencies, and Talents. Skills are handled as percentiles, whereas Proficiencies and Talents are more like the Feats of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. Proficiencies cover weapons and armour though, and need to be purchased on a weapon-by-weapon or armour-by-armour type basis, although the ability to attack and defend, inflict damage, and the weapon’s speed can all be increased by purchasing the appropriate Talents. This being a Dungeons & Dragons style game, a character also needs to have an Alignment, this adhering to the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons standard, though if a playing a Cleric, a player will also need to select a deity for his character to worship, the choices coming from the house setting for Kenzer & Co, the Kingdoms of Kalamar.

Besides rolling for a character’s Attributes, a player also rolls for a quirk and a flaw, both of which at best can be described as roleplaying features. In fact, whatever the player rolls for his character, both the rolled quirk and the rolled flaw are actually character flaws. Not a single one of the quirks can be described as a positive character feature. Essentially in HackMaster Basic, the only thing that you roll for that might have a positive aspect are a character’s attributes – and then only if a player rolls high. Everything else a player has to purchase with Build Points.

Another oddity of the character in HackMaster Basic is the way in which Hit Points are determined. Initially, they are based on a character Race and Constitution plus a die roll determined by the character’s Class. This though is just for First Level; beyond that, a character only receives another die roll to add to his Hit Points at every odd Level – Third Level, Fifth Level, and so on… At Second Level and at every other even Level after that, a player can choose to re-roll the last roll he made for his Hit Points! He can, of course, choose to keep the higher of the rolls. It should be noted that whilst a character in HackMaster Basic has more Hit Points than a character in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons of equivalent level, the weapons in HackMaster Basic do more damage and the dice rolled for the damage can “penetrate” or as other RPGs would have it, explode to increase the total of the roll.

One last aspect of a character to be determined is his Honour. Its value is equal to the average of the character’s final attribute scores. Once determined, a character can spend it to reroll combat, skill, and attribute rolls, or to increase the type of dice he would roll, such as a four-sided die to a six-sided die, and so on, usually for damage and other effect rolls. Honour is awarded by the GameMaster to his players for good roleplaying, for honourable play, for playing to their characters’ Alignments, and so forth. Honour though, is a relatively scarce resource, so a player should only use it when it really matters.

Although both the process and the end result of character generation will be at least familiar, the means is not actually easy. Two means of creating characters are provided in HackMaster Basic. The first of these is the QuickStart Rules, which by no stretch of the imagination can be described as the QuickStart Rules. The misnamed section comes right at the start of HackMaster Basic and should in fact, have been named the “QuickStart Character Creation Guide” as there is no detail of the actual rules beyond those of character generation. The result of the “QuickStart Character Creation Guide” lacks the detail of the full process, which itself takes no little time spent flipping back and forth. Of course, the lack of an index only hampers the exercise.

Our sample player character is representative of the simplest class in Hackmaster Basic – the Fighter. Eori Prayergem is a grumpy and unpopular Female Dwarf who grew up with a loving father, but a mother who saw her as a burden. Both her parents are alive, but her younger brother and sister are both dead. She is a skilled miner and labourer, but an unpleasant co-worker. She enjoys gambling, but is a poor loser.

Name: Eori Prayergem
Race: Dwarf Age: 59 Gender: Female
Height: 3’ 10” Weight: 121 lbs. Handedness: Left
Class: Fighter Level: 1
STR 16/05
[Damage Mod +3, Feat of Strength +9, Lift 291 lbs., Carry 108 lbs., Drag 728 lbs.]
INT 16/40 [Attack Mod +2]
WIS 11/19 [Initiative Mod +2, Defense Mod +0]
DEX 11/26
[Initiative Mod +2, Attack Mod +0, Defense Mod +0]
CON 18/02
LKS 09/43 [CHA Mod -1, Starting HON Mod -1]
CHA 04/11 [Starting HON Mod -3, Turning Mod -6]
HON 08

Hit Points: 35 (Roll 7) Threshold of Pain: 17
Racial Benefits: Low light vision, Magic Resistance +6, Poison Resistance +6
Proficiencies: Light, Medium, and Heavy Armour, Shield, Weapons (Longsword, Dagger, Javelin, Warhammer), Labourer, Maintenance/Upkeep, Fast Healer
Talents: Swiftblade (Warhammer); Weapon Specialisation (+1 to Attack, Defense, and Damage plus -1 to Speed with Longsword); Weapon Specialisation (+1 to Attack, Defense, and Damage plus -1 to Speed with Warhammer)

Universal Skills: Climbing/Rappelling [DEX] 22%, Fire-Building [WIS] 13%, Observation [WIS] 18%, Recruiting [CHA] 05%
Other Skills: Appraisal (Armour & Weaponry) [INT] 20%, Gambling [CHA] 16%, Geology [INT] 54%, Literacy [INT] 25%, Merchant’s Tongue [INT] 23%, Mining [INT] 41%
Quirk: Superstitious (Mother’s ring)
Flaw: Hard of Hearing

Equipment: 41sp; Clothing (Woollen trousers and tunic, leather boot, linen undershirt, wool cloak, leather belt with two small pouches), wineskin, trail rations (three days), knapsack, warhammer (damage 2d6p, speed 8), dagger (damage 2d6p, speed 7 (jab speed 5)), studded leather armour (damage reduction 3, defense adjustment -3, initiative modifier +1, speed modifier 0, movement class penalty none).

Not surprisingly given its heritage, the mechanical aspect of playing Hackmaster Basic focuses on combat, but for all that heritage, combat is radically different to that of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of rolling against a fixed number, or Armour Class, determined by the defender’s agility and type of armour he is wearing, the attacker makes an attack roll, whilst the defender makes a defence roll equal to, or better than, the attacker’s roll. Modifiers of course, apply. Armour itself reduces the damage a defender suffers, just as it does impede his ability to move and attack – if it is bulky or heavy enough. Saving Throws work in a similar fashion, with the equivalent of opposed rolls as per attack and defence rolls.

More radical are the means of handling Initiative and time. The former is handled by a die roll as you would expect, but the die varies according to the situation, so for example, the standard roll is a twelve-sided die, but the die type lowers the more aware the protagonists are of the situation, such as a six-sided die for staging an ambush. The result, when added to the character’s Base Initiative determines when he acts. Instead of rolling Initiative and acting from one Round to the next, combat in HackMaster Basic drops the Round as a measure of time in favour of a continuing Count Up. As soon as combat begins, this begins at one and counts up, one by one. When the Count Up reaches a protagonist’s Starting Initiative, he is no longer Surprised and can declare an action, each action taking a number of counts according to the speed of the weapon being employed.

The rules for combat are complex and to an extent, quite detailed, though probably no more detailed than the later versions of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition. The Count Up is at heart an elegant means of handling the flow of combat, with an emphasis upon the “flow.” This is supported by a detailed example of combat that is drawn as an episode of Knights of the Dinner Table in which the characters are ambushed by Goblins and then an Orc, using not only the comic book characters, but also a plan of the continuing action and an explanation of the rules, the action, and the dice rolls. It is very good at showing how combat in HackMaster Basic works, yet it is ultimately flawed for three reasons. First, it only shows how a mêlée works, and completely ignores the use of missile weaponry. Second, it does not show how magic works. Not a single character casts a spell despite the fact that two of them are spellcasters – a Cleric and a Mage. Third, and even worse, is the fact that one of the players completely declines to have his character participate in the encounter. That character, the Mage in the party, could easily have thrown a weapon or cast a spell, but instead hides throughout the entire encounter until at the very end, when he steps out of hiding to deal the killing blow to the main opponent in the encounter, the Orc, and loot the body. This despite having contributed nothing to the outcome of the encounter.

So whilst the encounter presents a solid example of a mêlée in HackMaster Basic, it ultimately presents an appalling example of play. In having the Mage act so badly it sets a dreadful example, an example of how not to play. This is only exacerbated when you take into account the Mage’s Alignment which is meant to be Lawful Neutral and the fact that the GameMaster fails to levy any penalty for this poor play.

If the example of combat left a poor taste in my mouth, my reaction to the twelfth chapter left me outraged. The eleven pages of this chapter were what had made me swear, put my copy of HackMaster Basic down, and walk away from the book for three years. The title of the chapter is “On Dice…” and is devoted to the care and use of your dice – dice nomenclature, dice etiquette, choosing/purchasing your dice, dice rolling procedure, dice rolling don’ts, and so on… 

Now there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the writing of the chapter, but there is absolutely nothing right with the chapter. At its most base, it is an asinine piece of pedantry, whose subject matter is inherently immature. Arguably, after thirty-five years of the roleplaying hobby, who needs eleven pages of advice devoted to the care and use of their dice when such advice can be summed up with, to paraphrase Wil Wheaton, “Don’t be a dick with your dice”?

In coming back to write this review I read up on the book and discovered that these eleven pages had been inserted into HackMaster Basic when it was discovered that there were some blank pages. Kenzer & Co filled this blank with a piece that had previously been available to download from the publisher’s website. So it is nothing more than a space filler. What a waste of a space though, because even as a space filler, the “On Dice…” chapter does nothing except fill up what would be blank pages. It not only adds nothing to the game, but it detracts from the book. After all, once read, who is going to want, or need, to read its eleven pages ever again? They serve no purpose except to fill up space, and even if the “On Dice…” chapter is intended as a satire on the mores of Old School style roleplaying, then it ought to have an element of humour to it. Sadly it does not. It is not funny in the slightest, and whilst a page or two might have achieved some satirical point, here the eleven pages just beat both its subject and the reader into submission with its pedantry.

Ultimately, the “On Dice…” chapter was a quick fix made in the face of a publishing deadline. In hindsight, it was the wrong decision because it gives entirely the wrong impression of HackMaster Basic – just as the earlier example of combat does about the play of the game, and because it flies in the face of the statement in the game’s introduction that as part of the game’s redesign, the designers had “…reeled in and scrubbed the game of much of the over-the-top “silly factor”.” Sadly, when a sample adventure or setting, or just more advice or monsters would have both helpful and useful, the decision to include the “On Dice…” just leaves the reader with eleven unfunny pages that serve no purpose in the game and are patronising to the reader.

Much of the section written for the GameMaster’s eyes only is devoted to a useful bestiary of monsters and antagonists plus treasure to be found and looted. Actual advice for the GameMaster comes in the form of a Code of Conduct, more a series of dictates rather than real advice. If taken as advice, it is at least to the point, something that the “On Dice…” chapter fails to achieve. The fact that it reads more as a series of dictates than actual advice is one indication that HackMaster Basic is not a basic, introductory game. Indeed, it compounds the fact that the GameMaster needs to have experience and knowledge of how to run a game before coming to HackMaster Basic.

Physically, the most eye-catching element to HackMaster Basic is its cover, drawn and painted by the doyen of the Old School artists, Errol Otus. It captures the feel of the Old School Dungeons & Dragons very nicely, particularly the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set, published by TSR in 1981. Though in doing do, it may well mislead the potential purchaser in that HackMaster Basic is anything other than a Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set style game as has already been mentioned. Behind the cover, HackMaster Basic evokes the feel of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons with lots and lots of charts. The illustrations vary in quality, but do much to capture the feel of HackMaster Basic. The writing is generally clear and readable, although its tone does occasionally grate, especially when the fictional personalities behind the game are let off the leash.

As much as HackMaster Basic has the feel of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, it has a feel that is very much its own, one that the seeps from the pores of the pages in HackMaster Basic. It is a combination of complexity and muscularity that makes HackMaster Basic stand out from the rest of the Old School Renaissance. This is no surprise, after all the game’s inspiration is more post Old School than actual Old School. There is even something likeable about this combination, which does give much to lift HackMaster Basic above the ill-advised missteps of the example of combat and the “On Dice…” chapter that threaten to drag the game back into the “over-the-top ‘silly factor’” territory of the game’s previous edition. As long as that element is kept restrained and the muscularity retained, then all bodes well for HackMaster 5th Edition. In the meantime, HackMaster Basic provides decently done introduction to one of the more idiosyncratic approaches to generic fantasy roleplaying.