A fond look back at the Black Box

[woodsdarkman]

From time to time on the forum I might want wax poetic about the good olds while waiting for 4E Ravenloft. Now I figure I-6 and I-10 have been done to death so I wanted to start almost from the begining. First a little background. When I was a kid about 8 years old I got my mom to get me the Basic Set which included The Keep on the Borderlands. I was hooked and ended up getting as many modules as I could. Tomb of Horros, Againts the Giants, Slave Pits of the Undercity, Palace of the Silver Princes those type of modules. My friends and I played them alot and we had a blast. On a side note; is it just me or does anyone else miss those days. It was fun back then. I know gaming has come a long way but there was just something special about those early modules or maybe it was just because I was kid with a wild imagination, but I digress.

I bought I-6 and I-10 when the came out and was blown away by them, especially I-6. Those two were all I played for a few years then I grew older and stopped playing all together. I was interested in other things and I did not care about D&D. Then in the summer of 1990 while on vacation in Panama City Beach I went to the mall. In the book store I saw the Ravenloft Box Set. I did not know what the hell it was. Was it an update, a repackage, an expansion or something totally new. I took a chance and blew my hard earned $20 (that was a lot of money to me at the time) on it.

I think we can all agree that when we first read our Black Box we were blown away. The art, the atmosphear, the domains, what a great concept. It had a mysterious quality to it that really was never duplicated. However there was a few problems with it. We all know that Ravenloft has evolved, and rightly so, from what I think what was envisioned in the Black Box. Intended to be a weekend of horrors type realm where the goal was to escape is weak and limited. Also I am a completest and the Black Box felt unfinished. It left out details of many of the domains and their lords. It leaned more towards fantasy than goth. I criticize with love. For however imperfect the Black Box may be it did many things for me at the time. The main one was that it brought me back into gameing.

[HuManBing]

Hear hear!

For me, the pivotal issue with the Black Box was the section on darklords. These are the most powerful creatures in the realm, and they're given all sorts of amazing traits and superhuman abilities. But they pay a high price: they're cursed to suffer for their depravities.

And then I read the phrase "There but for the grace of the gods, go I". The darklords are people who have been placed in terrible positions of overwhelming consequences - and they have chosen poorly and must suffer for it. But at heart, they were once people like us... and placed in the same positions, could we be so sure that we would have fared any better?

That section alone has done more to influence the nature and temperaments of my campaign villains than anything else. These days, for any game setting, I try to give at least one of the high-ranking villains enough of a redeeming feature for the players to stop a moment and ponder: "perhaps we are not so different".

[woodsdarkman]

Yes indeed. To me the best part of Ravenloft has been and always will be the Darklords. At the time that was a new and exciting concept. Great villians make a great setting.

[Strahdsbuddy]

The Black Box was the first D&D product i bought for myself. Having been introduced to the game by a friend, i had already borrowed his PHB, DMG and MM (Never to be returned, i might add; sorry, Drew). My "campaigns" had been epic in scope, but mostly monty hauls in practice and were heavily influenced by LotR. Like people say, the villains were paper thin and their motivations were never really questioned.

RoT wasn't the first product to suggest fleshing our villains for sure, but it became my guide. I ended up running three campaigns in the 90s with the same player group exploring such great domains as Forlorn, Barovia and Mordent. I have never run a Grand Conjunction adventure, and the Red Box changes seemed to come out of nowhere for that reason.

RoT is still my guidebook for the setting. Coupled with DoD and a little imagination, you can run anything anywhere. The Gaz Series does for the common folk what RoT did for the darklords, and that progression led to what I consider to be the most well developed of the campaign settings. Sure it took us 20 years, but wow what a setting we have now!

[Troile]

And then I read the phrase "There but for the grace of the gods, go I". The darklords are people who have been placed in terrible positions of overwhelming consequences - and they have chosen poorly and must suffer for it. But at heart, they were once people like us... and placed in the same positions, could we be so sure that we would have fared any better?

This is how I explain Gothic Horror to new players.

[Loethadai the Lurker]

When I was a kid about 8 years old I got my mom to get me the Basic Set which included The Keep on the Borderlands. I was hooked and ended up getting as many modules as I could. Tomb of Horros, Againts the Giants, Slave Pits of the Undercity, Palace of the Silver Princes those type of modules.

LOL! Well, I was 14 years old when I purchased the "Basic" Boxed set for D&D in 1981. So I can completely empathize with you on this matter. I do miss those days. Because I'm an old fart compared to the majority of D&D players out their today, I'm considered archaic when I tell my players that I will be sticking to 2nd Edition. LOL!! I know, I know, many of you out there can't stand the idea of THACO. LOL! It amazes me when I get younger players that just can't seem to grasp the concept of THACO, and how it works. To me, it's easy as pie! To others it's flawed, and a poor game mechanic. Maybe so, but it works for my purposes. I guess because I've been so mired in the 2nd Edition genre for so many years, the thought of going to 3rd Edition just didn't sit well with me. The addition of rules for the use of models?!?! What?!?! Your kidding me?!?!? That's for those miniature players!!! Not us role-players!! LOL! I can still remember how role-players scoffed at the miniature players, and vice versa. They may still do this to this day I don't know, but with the advent of 3rd Edition, and beyond, there was suddenly a rule for absolutely EVERYTHING you could think of, and as a GM, this was my worst nightmare, having several rule lawyers in my gaming group. Well, I currently run a monthly game of Masque of the Red Death. Second Edition of course, and my players are all in their 30s, so this works well, but I will always have fond memories of that day when I first opened that "Basic", and "Expert" Boxed sets. It's been an adventure ever since.(Pun intended of course. )

[woodsdarkman]

I'm glad I am not alone. I'm sorry, Ravenloft aside, but I don't anything can compare to he magic of those old modules. Maybe it was my age or the time period of the early 80's. I think it was some of that but the style of those old modules were great. Just play and have fun. There was no gazillion rules to weigh everything down. You played a module one afternoon, got finished and moved on to the next one. I even remember being able to buy them at K-Bee toy stores and grocery stores for like $5.99. What a deal! They were not thick but you sure did get a lot of bang for your buck.

[Loethadai the Lurker]

Yes, I agree about the early modules. For a young boy my age, it was an amazing thing to play through them. Of course, as the years went by, and my gaming experience began to take shape, I started to shy away from the modules in general. Today, I think they are great for burgeoning DM's to learn the system, and to get a strong knowledge base of how to conduct a good adventure/campaign, and for those DM's whom already have plenty of gaming experience, they are great source books for ideas, story lines etc. Of course, this is just my opinion, and to each there own.

There was no gazillion rules to weigh everything down.

I couldn't agree more. This is one of the main reasons why I didn't progress to 3rd Edition, and beyond. I guess I just feel that the game should be about the story, not the game mechanics. Don't get me wrong, game mechanics are important, but not at the expense of the story. With the advent of 3rd Edition, and 4th Edition, there seemed to be a rule for absolutely everything, and I found that players, and DMs as well for that matter, were paying more attention to the rules rather than the story line, and their character's development in story. For a role-playing game to be successful, you must have a good balance between "Story", and "Game Mechanics". Neither one should outweigh the other. Just my 2 cents.

[woodsdarkman]

We seem to agree. I don't look down upon 3E so much. But that is because I never really gave it a chance. I was raised in 2E and if it works why change. I did use a few ideas from 3E but not much. I think what really turned me off was the radical shift in somethings. I will use a Ravenloft example. In 2e Ivan and Ivana the darklords of Borca had low hit points as they should have because curses aside they were normal people. When 3E came along all of a sudden their hit points were more than Azalin and others who were way more powerful. I kept thinking what the hell that made no sense. Somebody tried to explain it to me once cause of their high constitution. It still made no sense. Feats were cool though.

[Loethadai the Lurker]

I don't look down upon 3E so much. But that is because I never really gave it a chance.

Oh, please don't mistake my intention. I think the 3rd, and 4th Editions are decent gaming systems. It's just not what I prefer. I've tried playing both editions, and even tried to run a game or two using them. More so with 3rd, and 3.5. than 4th. 4th Edition, I've only had the chance to play a few times. You, and I started literally with 1st Edition, and over the years the majority of that time was spent in 2nd Edition. It's only natural that gamers like us would prefer what we've become so accustomed to. The younger generations first experience with D&D most likely caught the tale end of 2nd Edition, and then changed over to 3rd when it came out, or they may have started in 3rd edition, having never known what 2nd Edition was like. Hence the reason why they prefer it over 2nd. It's apples, and oranges really. For me, I just don't have that much fun when I'm trying to figure out so many rules, and for a old school gamer like me, it appeared that the game, and it's overall feel had been changed dramatically. Something of which I was very disheartened by. *sigh* Oh well, I'll just continue to do my thing, and have fun. That's what it's all about anyway. Having fun!

[The Giamarga]

We seem to agree. I don't look down upon 3E so much. But that is because I never really gave it a chance. I was raised in 2E and if it works why change. I did use a few ideas from 3E but not much. I think what really turned me off was the radical shift in somethings. I will use a Ravenloft example. In 2e Ivan and Ivana the darklords of Borca had low hit points as they should have because curses aside they were normal people. When 3E came along all of a sudden their hit points were more than Azalin and others who were way more powerful. I kept thinking what the hell that made no sense. Somebody tried to explain it to me once cause of their high constitution. It still made no sense. Feats were cool though.

And that's one of the changes that I applauded. It rubbed me as all kinds of wrong that in 2E you had normal people with so few hps. That made no sense to me at all. You couldn't have a non-adventuring King who would not be dropped by a thrown pebble. Now don't tell me you can handwaive it so that the PCs miss or say he has 20 hps while still being 0-level. Yes you can always handwave anything. 3E provides another option though with in the rules: NPC classes. I think they are an awesome concept.

I delve into this in more detail in this post. check out the post titled "my pet peeve: NPC classes" for some really cool normal people that don't fall over dead if a cat scratches them.

But in the end it boils down to how much of a simulationist you are. 3E is very simulationist and everyone follows the same rules. 4E shed this again so maybe you should look into that edition to see if you like it.

But 3E gave us also much more, it clarified lots of things that were unclear to me in 2E, it streamlined many rules-subsystem, introduced a skill system that didn't suck, it provides open sourced rules and thus enabled the rise of D&D and RPGs generally from out of the 2E decline into pdf publishing age, and also the rise of so many great new games from 3rd Party publishers.

[Loethadai the Lurker]

I'm glad 3E works well for you Giamara. Seriously! If your happy with it, and you really enjoy the system, then you keep on playing it bud. You used the word "simulationalist". LOL!! I like that. It describes exactly what I was thinking 3e actually does for the game. It makes for a much more realistic approach. I guess some players just need to have a plausible rule for everything in their game, and there is nothing wrong with this, it's just not my gaming style. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around trying to make a game that has Wizards, Monsters, and Undead in it realistic. In fact, that's exactly what I'm trying to avoid, realism. LOL! Like I said though, if it works for you, and you, and your fellow players are having fun, then go with it. My players will tell you, they rarely die in my games. Unless they do something incredibly stupid, the chances of them being killed off are much less. This is because I try to preserve the story as much as possible. I hate killing player characters because I know the player has put a lot of time, and effort into building that character, and to have it die is just heartbreaking for myself, and them. The three tenants of role-playing are: Story! Story! Story! At least, this is my philosophy. For me, game mechanics, and feasibility of rules are much less of a priority as compared to "story". Because that's what I enjoy most about the game. The Story!

Now don't tell me you can handwaive it so that the PCs miss or say he has 20 hps while still being 0-level. Yes you can always handwave anything.

Your right, 3e gives another alternative here. I guess I just thought that part of my job as DM was to do those "handwaives", and help the players/npc's when necessary. For in the end, your not only responsible for coming up with the scenario, but keeping the integrity of the story alive as well. This of course shouldn't be done all the time, but there is no reason why you can't do it every once in a while. Just my 2 cents.

[Gonzoron of the FoS]

is because I try to preserve the story as much as possible. I hate killing player characters because I know the player has put a lot of time, and effort into building that character, and to have it die is just heartbreaking for myself, and them. The three tenants of role-playing are: Story! Story! Story! At least, this is my philosophy. For me, game mechanics, and feasibility of rules are much less of a priority as compared to "story". Because that's what I enjoy most about the game. The Story!

I could have written the exact same words as above, which is why I love 3e. I grew up on 1e and 2e. My first D&D game was from the OD&D Red Box. I loved that time, and had many a good time back then. And when 3e came out, I was very reluctant. For a while, my group insisted on sticking with 2e. But eventually, curiosity got the best of me and I gave it a chance. And never looked back. The fact that there is a rule for everything means we can focus on the story, instead of the endless house-ruling and rule arguments we had in 2e. The game mechanics are solid, and then they get out of the way. I also liked the freedom from restriction that 3e started. Why can't an elf be a paladin? Why can't a wizard use a sword? etc.. And the simulationist aspect (especially the muticlassing rules) meant that if I or a player could think of a character concept, we could probably find a combination of race, classes and feats to simulate it.


Anyway, I'm not trying to be an advertisement for 3e, and I totally agree: whatever system works for you and your players, go for it. Just trying to give a little perspective on why 3e feels more story-oriented to me.


Oh, and to get back on topic: The Black Box is what sucked me into Ravenloft too. So different from any other D&D product I'd seen, and a real eye-opener into what D&D could be.

[Loethadai the Lurker]

The fact that there is a rule for everything means we can focus on the story, instead of the endless house-ruling and rule arguments we had in 2e. The game mechanics are solid, and then they get out of the way.

Hmmm... I never thought of it this way, but I think your right! Granted, I've never really had too many rules arguments with my players, but that makes sense. Well now you've done it!! Now I'm going to have to go, and buy all of the 3e books now. Yeesh!! LOL! This won't happen anytime soon, but when you put it like that, it makes me think I should really give it a chance. Thanks for the insight Gonzoron! It's much appreciated.

[woodsdarkman]

I am so glad my post about the Black Box started a good debate on 2E vs 3E. LOL! I agree with Loethadai that whatever system you prefer is the right one. There is no right or wrong answer. I grew up in 2E and a majority of Ravenloft (the setting I love) is in 2E, not to say 3E is bad, it is just that when I play Ravenloft I tend to use 2E.

As for Ivan or Ivana I thought that you should be able to kill them easily, they are humans. Now Ivana having high hit points could be explained by her being an Emourding. Ivan is a weasel and a coward. What protects him is his ability to blackmail people in protecting him. There is no logical way he should be up their with Azalin. I don't care how it is explained. If a throw of a rock kills him then so be it. The hard part is getting near him to be able to throw the rock.