B1 In Search of the Unknown Review - Old School Role Playing

This adventure was written for use with Basic Dungeons and Dragons. However. It is easily converted for use with 1st edition or other editions of the game. This is intended to be a “starter” module. It offers a great deal of advice on dungeon preparation and on being a dungeon master. The encounters are appropriate for low level characters. But that does not mean that this is an easy adventure by any means. There are encounters in this adventure which will kill a low level character that is not being played well.

The adventure is written by Mike Carr. It was first published in 1979. In Search of the Unknown is thirty three pages from cover to cover.

Long ago two noted adventurers pooled their treasures and created a small fortress for their home. One was a powerful warrior. The other was a great wizard. This home was to be their base of operations from which they would continue their explorations. It was carved out of a hill which already contained a system of caverns. Eventually these heroes fell in battle. And now their treasures await a band of adventurers brave enough to seek them.

B1 In Search of the Unknown Link

There are lots of magical pools in one room

What I like about In Search of the Unknown

This adventure is intended to teach both the players and the newly minted dungeon master. It is set up exactly for this purpose. There are many sections in the module which help the would be dungeon master understand their duties and how to perform them. It explains in some detail the process of designing an adventure. And it teaches the dungeon master a little about being the judge of what happens.

This adventure has a lot of tricks as defined in the DMG. If you have read any of my own adventures then you know how much I love these. This is an old school adventure. The players are given a little nugget of information. There is a potential horde of treasure here. Lets go get it. There is no fixed story. There is no need to railroad the players into doing something. They will do it because they want to do it. And that is the way an adventure should read in my opinion. Too many later editions try to write a story and then force the players to play through it. That is totally upside down. And it is not the way the game was ever intended to be played. Not in my opinion anyway.

This adventure is unlike any other TSR product that I can remember reading. It sets out the outline of the adventure. And then it leaves it to the dungeon master to fill in the blanks. Literally. The rooms are described. And then a list of monsters and treasures are offered at the end. The instructions to the dungeon master are to select this many monsters and this many treasures and assign them to your whim. And make sure a few treasures are unguarded and that a few monsters have no treasures at all. The dungeon master basically does the final design in this adventure. And every group that explores this dungeon could find it quite different than the last one.

Some of the tricks that I mention in this adventure are old school things that one who has played a while might expect:

A room filled with magical pools (and some not magical). About twenty in all
A teleporter room to totally confuse mappers (two actually)
A corridor that generates it’s own wind and blows out torches
Illusions
Magic mouths
A few one way secret doors
A couple of nasty little traps that could prove deadly but should be avoidable by characters of this level
And even a few cursed items

The adventure pulls no punches. Exploration of dungeons is dangerous business. Even deadly business. There are encounters here that would kill a low level adventurer not being careful. But the encounters themselves should not be overwhelming to characters of these levels if they are using reasonable caution.

There is no boss monster here. There is no need for one. This is not an evil villain versus the party adventure. This is a party looking to find riches and exploring a place no one has seen in many years. It is almost like the sample adventure in the 1st edition DMG.

The adventure offers both stone dungeon walls and natural caverns. This gives the new adventurers an immediate taste of two different types of places that might be explored in the future.

What I do not like about In Search of the Unknown

If you do not need teaching then there is quite a bit of text here that you might want to skip. But just about anyone can learn from the information presented.

Not a whole lot of history is give about the two ancient adventurers and who they really are. In fact…one could easily come to the conclusion that they were both evil, both good or were both totally neutral. That, however, is not necessarily a bad thing. But it does leave you wondering a bit.

The teleporter thing might be a bit much. Characters at this level are going to have trouble mapping as it is. The teleporter will easily wreck that.

The portcullis trap is deadly. That is not necessarily bad either. But characters of this level might easily become a total party kill if they cannot overcome this one trap.

Would I recommend this adventure to others?

I definitely would. It is a great starter adventure and is simple to run. It is also easily converted to use with Advanced Dungeons and Dragons. And I have done so myself in the past. It is also a great starter adventure for new dungeon masters.

Would I run In Search of the Unknown with my own group?

Yes. And I have. Twice. It is a great starter adventure. And it is totally customizable. In fact. It is intended to be customized as mentioned previously. And I will probably run it again at some point in the future. One reality of playing 1st edition……..there are very few good published adventures for the lowest levels. At least by TSR.

Bring a party with diverse races and classes if you want to succeed here

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