Cartomancy: The Caves of Chaos (B2: Keep on the Borderlands)

  Okay, you knew this one had to be first. Possibly the most-played, and probably the least-completed, dungeon complex in the entire history of the hobby…monster zoo, multi-level, famous and controversial, we have the Caves of Chaos:

   
    
First of all, let’s talk about the presentation…it’s not great. The original TSR blue photocopy-resistant color can be a little uncomfortable even in a fairly traditional dungeon, but with an environment this complicated and layered, the overall effect is very overwhelming, busy and layered and all over the place. The cave entryways’ interaction with “trees” is less than clear, as are the slope setups. All this is given thought in the module itself, but it is a whiff on the information presentation side. The complex er…complex is perfectly runnable, but it’s a hard to parse from the direct view. “Stairs up” vs. “Stairs down” particularly wins an award for least helpful legend ever. C- for presentation.
  The design concept, though, is great. A narrow slot valley with multiple openings makes everything seem incredibly open to the approaching party, while also giving the subconscious message that “higher levels = higher level” in a wonderfully literal sense. People who unironically use the word “verisimilitude” will object to the monster zoo aspect of each species being a hundred feet away from the others but looking at the conceptual design of the space itself…great idea. Verticality is important in general, but there’s something particularly nice about being able to hit various bits of the map just by scrambling up the slopes. Really the biggest objection is that they don’t all have back-line interconnection, but that’s not the point of the adventure. A+ for concept.
  All that being said, in the actual execution…eh. The reason for this adventure’s classic status is more the setup and the room details, rather than the map’s direct flow. Branching little complexes like A or G have very fun encounter potential based on the writing, but in terms of exploration there’s just not a lot to them. The better early complex is south with the goblins managing to link D-E-F, there’s a lot of flow those secret doors allow, with extra props to the whole secret wing of rooms 28-31.  B-C is okay. Complex H is particularly annoying in how it staunchly refuses to link to C or G. As a finale goes, the J-K complex doesn’t bug me, I like how J’s link to K is in the most counterintuitive direction, while the final rubble-strewn passage out in the southwest is something that more module designers of today should consider.
  There overall use of secret doors is interesting to me with the Caves of Chaos. You like loops? Well they’re your reward for bringing along the elf. After you find the first one (probably between E-D), you’re keyed up to look carefully for hidden links between caves, with canny parties probably monitoring what height they’ve ascended or descended to so they can be on the lookout for a secret door leading to another evident cave mouth. I’m mixed in the intermittent reward aspect of the secret doors being only in some locations…I can imagine a clever mapper bashing his head into the wall for multiple torches in room 33 seeking passage to 40, for example. In room 45 that intuition might be rewarded in a surprising way.
  It’s easy to fetishize looping dungeon designs at the expense of actual play. Just because it’s all on the same page, every single point doesn’t have to link to every other in multiple ways…it’s okay that the caves are actually six dungeons, not a single one. In a very dense, slightly silly way, the module is teaching about how to implement multiple dungeons on a single map, with just enough travel between them to provoke a random encounter check. It’s a miniaturized campaign, which is very cool and why the module’s had so much staying power.
  Now within those aforementioned six dungeons I am more distressed at the level of linearity. Something with only six keyed rooms like A or G make sense to be branches-not-circles, but there are a lot of branches that suffer in the larger complexes too. I could also do with the verticality mattering more, very often its just a slope or a stair for tactical, not geographic, purposes. While trying not to be overly fastidious, there is more that could have been done with the map(s) to encourage exploratory play. I’d say it was avoided out of a sense of compassion to the player mapping, but complex I exists, so that’s out the window. B- for overall map execution.
  None of this is me saying that Keep on the Borderland isn’t an awesome module. The Caves of Chaos are well made for the module’s purposes…mostly. Unfortunately, B2 is “often begun, rarely finished” in part because of the disconnected nature of the various cave complexes. Couple that with a restock suggestion that can be a little demoralizing (you cleared the kobolds, yay, now enjoy the same complex but with goblins), and I think it’s evident why the upper caves don’t get explored that often despite the massive number of people starting with those dang kobolds. Some of that is the nature of the game, some of that is because of the module’s massive popularity leading to uncommitted groups, but a little of that does come from the lack of interconnection between upper and lower cave complexes. I’m not going to argue that B2 is anything other than completely successful, but I do wonder if with a little more map interconnection it could have been even better…

---