Hacks for D&D Module B3 Palace of the Silver Princess

[@Paraboxify]

Perhaps you are not aware of this or simply rule differently, but to clarify for people who are not aware: in the OD&D-AD&D-B/X days doors were typically stuck for player characters, requiring noisy Open door tests to open which in turn attracted wandering monsters. Keeping them open expended iron spikes or other things used keep the door wedged open for sure. For monsters, doors are _not_ stuck so as to not make the dungeon a static place, the referee could move monsters around as they wished. Of course this way of playing might seem a bit silly, as may the idea that on subsequent visits, dungeons would be reshaped and expanded. As the adage goes: "the dungeon is alive, and it hates you". Whether your world with its dungeons works that way is up to you and your table.

[@leedunning1825]

I actually ran this module a million years ago, so it's extra fun to see it reworked. I'm looking forward to using your changes to introduce a new group of players to this module.

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

Cool! 😄👍🏻

[@ForestFWhite]

I reworked this to be a working castle with a main hall, kitchen, undercroft, and so on. There are so few privies it would not function. i love the setup but the execution does deserve more attention. Glad you did it as well

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

I also thought about adding privies, but in stead went with chamber pots 😄

[@slashdash846]

Great video! I like your work and I think it would be interesting to see rework of more story based module. Or may be even mystery one? Against the Cult of the Reptile God or The Assassin's Knot would be cool!

[@slashdash846]

Also i have sound only on left side same as anarionelendili8961

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

Thank you and Thanks for the suggestions. I will take a look at that 😊

[@anarionelendili8961]

Alright. Good: 1.) I very much like moving stuff to a dungeon level. Big thumbs up for that! 2.) Thinking about how the troops can move is also good. I am not sure I agree about putting all the barracks in a single cluster, but thinking how they will get to their positions when there is an alarm is good. I.e. not located in the farthest corner of the map. 3.) Also, changing the monster types to harmonize better is good. Critique: (More of the whole castle architecture and rooms rather than your reworking.) 4.) While your map is a definite improvement, I think it still has too many corridors. Corridors are essentially wasted floor space: there should be a reason for a corridor to exist rather than just have one room connect to the next. Now in an underground thing this can be because of structural reasons: with the weight of the castle above, you don't want to undermine the walls! So it can be better to have thicker 'walls', i.e. separate the rooms and connect them with narrow corridors. But within castle proper, corridors should be rare. 5.) Light & Ventilation. Continuing from the above point of corridors (especially exterior ones), space, light and ventilation were all very necessary in medieval castles. Thus, expanding the dining hall to reach the outer walls will give the dining hall much more of all three, and similar considerations could be used for the other locations (see next point especially), where possible. I might also add a light well in the middle of the castle to help with these issues. Now, there might be less need for those in a fantasy setting, especially if continual light items are plentiful and easy to make (i.e. cheap), but best practices and all that. 6.) More social rooms. Some of these might actually exist on the second level, but I think there should be a guard hall close to the dining hall, as well as maybe a sitting/waiting room, and another audience / parlor room.

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

Thanks. I agree with you completely. More consideration should be given ti light sources and ventilation. I generally try to take that into account. To my mind a GM should not be an engineering or an architect, but just putting light and ventilation in here and there goes a long way to make a fantasy place feel more real, even if it is not up to normal construction standards. I also like thicker walls; especially when they support one or more levels above. You can of course magic your way out of it, but that is not a very compelling solution. As for social rooms, both yes and no. Obviously, the lords of a castle and their guests will have many recreational areas available, but servants and guards will not necesarily have access to those. In some castles they may even be lucky to have anything beyond a kitchen or a mess hall.

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@TheGrandfathersCave I totally agree with you that there is no need to do actual architectural calculations to make sure that the place doesn't collapse! But I generally try to, when mapping a castle, stick to supporting walls and such in higher floors, with the interior walls much thinner (and hence lighter). So the players, if they are smart, might notice that there is a suspicious overly thick wall here (thin wall, secret passage, actual supporting wall)... :)

[@anarionelendili8961]

I want to watch this with some more attention, maybe even having my own module open at the same time to follow the explanations and changes. So I will comment more later. I like the changes that I saw so far. That being said, I think there is something wrong with the audio? At least for me, I am getting the voice just in the left ear (using a headset), and the voice quality is worse than in previous videos?

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

That is so weird! I did not notice anything wrong with the sound when editing, but when I re-warched the video, I had the same experience without sound in one side of the headset. If any one knows what the problem is, please let me know. FYI I use DaVinci for editing.

[@anarionelendili8961]

Extract error Since both of your maps are actually called 'map' within the zip files, trying to extract a zip package with both 1 and 2 inside it caused my file browser to crash. Downloading them separately and then extracting separately, renaming in between, got around that issue. Just in case someone else had the same problem. EDIT: Oh well, I wasn't able to open them in Dungeon Scrawl anyway. EDIT2: Dropbox was the issue. See comments below.

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

I don’t follow. Are you refering to the .ds files in dropbox? I don’t recall any of them being called map. They should be called Palace of the Silver Princess 1 and 2.

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@TheGrandfathersCave Hmm. Then Dropbox is doing some shenanigans.

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@TheGrandfathersCave Yep, that was the problem. I downloaded them, which zipped the files and messed up the file structure. Copying them to Dropbox and opening them straight from there worked. :)

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

@@anarionelendili8961 good to hear you solved it 😉👍🏻

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@TheGrandfathersCave Yep, I might even take a quick stab to make my own version of the map. Ought to be good fun, at least, and learn to use the Dungeon Scrawler, which I am struggling a bit as I have not used it before.

[@anarionelendili8961]

Now just from the security perspective, opening the portculis should be happening from inside the castle, not from the courtyard. But then you have to come up with a way for the PCs to reach the opening mechanism somwhow. Or, indeed, just leave the portculis up in the first place...

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

Yeah. We have to suspend our disbelief a bit there 😅

[@anarionelendili8961]

@@TheGrandfathersCave given that there are goblins etc in there, I think I'd leave the portculis up and then have the players find the mechanism upstairs to close/open them. You still get the cool factor without the suspension of disbelief. Sure, it is one less 'puzzle', but still.

[@anarionelendili8961]

Actually, thinking about this a bit more, I might even have some intelligent monsters close the portculis behind the PCs from that upper floor 'gate room', and put some nice cat and mouse stuff with a ticking clock. Might be good tension building when they know that they have been deliberately trapped by some unseen foes... Add some murder holes in the ceiling and the PCs will have to move fast. :P

[@toddevangelista]

Sound is really low.

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

With the gear I have right now, I am afraid there is not a lot I can do about it. If I turn the sound up higher it just becomes more noisy. Right now when I play it in the YT app the sound level is comparable with videos from other channels. Are you using the app? Is the sound equally low regardless of speaker?

[@toddevangelista]

@@TheGrandfathersCave I've never had to use an app before, and the other videos on your channel are fine.

[@TheGrandfathersCave]

@@toddevangelista Was the Sound better in the latest video?

[@toddevangelista]

@@TheGrandfathersCave Nope, still terrible. What I can't understand is why it was fine on the old videos. Hope you figure it out.