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Monte Cook’s Banewarrens is one of the best dungeon-based campaigns of all time.

The campaign, designed for 6^th to 10^th level characters, was originally published for D&D 3rd Edition in 2002. When I read it way back then, I was immediately enamored and knew that I wanted to run it. At the time, I was running an epic fantasy campaign where the PCs had to go searching for various artifacts, and I ended up routing them through Ptolus – the city where the Banewarrens are located – so that I could tease the strange and mysterious Spire that towers over the city, anticipating that when that campaign wrapped up, I would be running The Banewarrens for them next.

Unfortunately, that gaming group broke up. A few years later, however, I had a new group and Monte Cook was releasing Ptolus: City by the Spire, the nearly 700-page sourcebook describing that selfsame city where the Banewarrens were located. The stars were aligned, the campaign was begun, and I have never left the City by the Spire.

I’ve been singing the praises of both Ptolus and The Banewarrens for years, but I’ve never written a proper review. Recently, however, both books have been converted to D&D 5^th Edition, and so it seems like an opportune time to rectify that oversight.

BEHIND THE BANEWARRENS

Thousands of years ago, a good man believed that good and evil existed in balance in the world. Therefore, destroying evil was only a temporary victory, because the evil – released back into the world – would soon find some new way to manifest. The only way to truly triumph over evil, therefore, would be to instead imprison it; to lock it away from the world and keep it where it could do no harm.

This good man, therefore, began a grand project and daring crusade: Recruiting others to his cause, he sent them out into the world to gather banes – things of great evil, whether objects, diseases, or people – while he constructed the Banewarrens, a vast underground vault in which all of these objects could be stored.

Bringing all of this evil together in one place, unfortunately, proved to be a horrible mistake: First, the earth itself rebelled against the evil, thrusting upwards thousands of feet into a terrifying Spire. Then, as the good man’s servants labored to repair the vaults, something went wrong. The good man was corrupted by the banes he had collected. He became the Banelord, betraying his friends and using the evil artifacts they had collected to become a dark and terrible force.

Long ago, great heroes arose who defeated the Banelord. But the Banewarrens, and most of the evil banes which had been sealed within them, remained. In the millennia since, many have attempted to breach them, hoping to claim the banes within and perhaps becomes a second Banelord. But the defenses of the Banewarrens repelled all such attempts, and many believed that, despite his tragic fall, the good man had wrought well and the Banewarrens were, in fact, impregnable.

They were all wrong.

UNLEASHING THE BANEWARRENS

The Banewarrens campaign begins with a random encounter.

The PCs are passing through the streets of Ptolus when they encounter a dark elf named Tavan Zith, a nexus of wild and chaotic magic which is constantly mutating anyone who draws near him.

This is not, in fact, a scenario hook for The Banewarrens (structurally speaking). At first glance, it will likely seem to just be another example of the strange and exotic things that happen on the streets of Ptolus. This will quickly cease to be true, however, as the PCs’ reputation and their involvement in dealing with Tavan Zith brings them to the attention of two different factions.

Because it turns out that Tavan Zith is supposed to be locked up in the Banewarrens. And if he is instead wandering the streets, it can only mean that the Banewarrens have been breached.

The first faction to approach the PCs is the Church of Lothian. They believe the Banelord hid a holy relic known as the Sword of Truth in the Banewarrens and they want the PCs to retrieve it.

Next up is the Inverted Pyramid, an arcane guild which is deeply concerned about the Banewarrens being opened, but also wants to learn as much as possible before everything gets sealed up again.

At first it will seem as if the PCs can serve both their patrons, but as the campaign continues this will become increasingly difficult for them to do. Furthermoer, as they begin investigating the Banewarrens, they will discover that another faction, the Pactlords of the Quaan, is responsible for the breach. A little later, a fourth faction will likely discover what’s happening and also get involved.

This is, ultimately, what makes The Banewarrens such a special campaign. It’s a dungeon-based campaign that’s absolutely drenched in faction intrigue. The PCs will have to juggle the agendas of friendly factions, while simultaneously trying to deal with the machinations of antagonistic ones. (You might even be surprised to discover which ones end up being which in your campaign!) Cook does a fantastic job of presenting these faction intrigues in a format which is both easy for the GM to understand and also packaged into highly practical chunks that can be readily deployed on the table.

The two primary tools for doing this are:

• Events. Listed at the beginning of each chapter, these are floating scenes that can be dropped into the PCs’ dungeon explorations.
• Time Passes. Certain dungeon rooms are flagged with additional key entries describing how the room might be changed by the actions of other factions. (These can be used when the PCs first enter a room if they’ve been dilly-dallying or busy elsewhere, but can also be saved and used when the PCs return to the room later to show that they’re not alone down here.)

In practice, these are quite possible, making it possible to create the simulacrum of real activity with great ease and giving you all the raw materials needed to actively run the factions with only a little extra effort.

What makes this work particularly well is that Cook has designed the Banewarrens to periodically pull the PCs back into the metropolis above. (For example, at one point early in the campaign they’ll figure out that they need a particular magical resource to unlock the doors within the Banewarrens and continue making progress, so they’ll need to leave the dungeon to track it down.) This ingeniously creates absences from the dungeon, allowing the Events and Time Passes elements to be seamlessly implemented. It also allows the PCs to interact with the other factions in new and different ways. Plus, these interludes also provide breaks from dungeon-based play, mixing things up and preventing the campaign from become a monotonous slog.

THE NATURE OF THE BANEWARRENS

The Banewarrens are sometimes described as a “megadungeon,” but I don’t think this is quite right. They’re a rather large and ingeniously mapped dungeon, with more than a hundred rooms, but they’re designed as a single, coherent scenario with the PCs pursuing a singular goal, and not the warren of disparate scenarios you’d see in a true campaign dungeon. (See Types of Dungeons for a deeper discussion of the differences here.)

This is not, of course, to the detriment of The Banewarrens. The singular purpose and vision allows Cook to craft a truly memorable – and terrifying! – environment for the PCs to explore. The expertly xandered maps, distinct flavoring of the different sections of the Banewarrens, and the unique sense of progression (as the PCs travel in-and-up, rather than down-and-out) provide an excellent playground, into which Cook pours a ghastly variety of horrific foes and a creepy panoply of banes.

The banes, in particular, gives the Banewarrens a very unique feel. It fundamentally inverts the typical dungeoncrawling tropes: Instead of kicking down doors and grabbing loot to haul out of the dungeon, the PCs will instead quickly learn that they need to keep the doors locked at all costs and make sure nothing gets out. The Banelord may or may not have been right about the conservation of evil in the universe, but there’s little doubt that releasing these things of great evil into the world will have horrible consequences.

(“Hey! What are the PCs going to do about treasure?!” Fortunately, the other factions and the interludes that take place outside the Banewarrens are designed to solve this problem.)

CONCLUSION

And all of that is why The Banewarrens is one of the best dungeon-based campaigns of all time.

If it hadn’t already been converted to the 5^th Edition rules, I’d still be recommending that you track down a copy of the 3^rd Edition campaign and adapt it to 5^th Edition ASAP. (Or Shadowdark or Basic Fantasy RPG or Old School Essentials or maybe even Mork Borg, whatever floats your dungeoncrawling boat.) It’s not just that it’s a fantastic campaign that you and your players will remember forever; it’s also one of those transformative campaigns capable of teaching you a whole new way to run your game.

GRADE: A+

Author: Monte Cook
Publisher: Monte Cook Games
Cost: $12.99 (5E PDF) / $6.66 (3E PDF)
Page Count: 180

ADDITIONAL READING
Review: Ptolus – City of Adventure
Ptolus: In the Shadow of the Spire
Ptolus Remix: The Mrathrach Agenda
Ptolus Remix: The Vladaam Affair

On Friday night, So You Want to Be a Game Master won the Gold ENNIE for Best RPG Related Product and the Alexandrian won a Gold ENNIE for Best Online Content. The Alexandrian is now an ENNIE Award-winning Youtube channel!

The bad news is that there’s yet another Hasbro / Wizards of the Coast scandal.

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Released by Chaosium in 2021 as part of the 40^th Anniversary celebrations for Call of Cthulhu, Keeper Tips: Collected Wisdom on Running Games is a pocket-sized hardcover filled with exactly what the title promises — a motley collection of small tips and random thoughts, each generally no longer than a paragraph, about running Call of Cthulhu games and RPGs in general.

(A “Keeper,” for those out of the loop, is what a game master is referred to as in Call of Cthulhu.)

It’s a handsome volume, with a faux-leather cover and gilt print accompanied by a burgundy bookmark ribbon. Very much the sort of thing you can drop into a pocket and draw out from time to ruminate upon its contents, which are roughly divided into a number of categories:

• Ground Rules
• Inclusivity
• Preparation
• Players
• Sensitivity
• Designing Scenarios
• Gameplay
• Keepering
• Horror
• Sanity
• The Cthulhu Mythos
• Non-Player Characters
• Monsters
• Online Play
• Props & Handouts
• Miscellaneous

The tips themselves are drawn from almost two dozen Keepers associated with Call of Cthulhu from its very beginning to its most recent days. As editor Mike Mason writes, “Some of the tips are contradictory. Some repeat or reinforce advice. Imagine, if you will, that you are sat with a group of experienced Keepers, each sharing and building upon the ideas of the others. Take from this what you will.”

As you read through Keeper Tips, you will undoubtedly encounter much that is familiar, much that you agree with, and also much that you will disagree with. You may even read certain passages that will raise your hackles. But as I’ve slowly worked my way through the book, it has never failed to provoke a thoughtful insight.

I say “slowly,” and indeed this is how I would recommend one experience Keeper Tips. It’s a collection that invites you to read perhaps one or two pages at a time and then set it aside while you think about what you’ve read. Was there some new insight? How will you use it? Was there a unique twist or perspective on something you’ve done yourself? Is there something you vehemently disagree with? Why do you think it wrong and what would you do differently? Is this tip useful for tables with new players, experienced players, or both? And why?

Then, perhaps later in the day or the next day or a week later, you’ll pick the book up again and choose another page to meditate upon. Perhaps the next page. Or perhaps one that you flip to randomly.

To gives you a sampling of what you can expect to find inside, consider these tips:

Counsel your players to create characters that are involved in the story, rather than be passive observers. Example: an expedition to the Antarctic will be an active game for scientists and explorers, not so much for the pilot and radio operator.

Undermine the pillars of the PCs’ confidence. Are they members of an anti-Mythos organization? Drop hints that it has been infiltrated. Do they have academic allies? Strike those mentors with public disgrace. Do they have family? Keep the PCs afraid for them — or of them. Do they have high social statue or loads of income? Chip away at that through media gossip, the Company Board turning on them, threats of unemployment, a hostile company takeover, or a stock market slide.

When making NPCs, assign each of them an adjective (greedy, suspicious, trusting, etc.). This makes them easier to portray in a memorable and fun way for the players.

Pre-made NPCs can be useful as instant replacement investigators.

For an extended game, ask about an investigator’s history, and then say, “What was your first experience with the Mythos?” and let them make it up. The reason is to get past the boring, “No, no, this isn’t real,” part of the scenario. They ‘know’ it’s real.

Never be afraid to rewrite a scenario’s plot hook to better fit your party’s occupations or backstories. All the details in published adventures should be considered more as suggestions rather than as strict guidelines.

If you’d like to see more of the book “in action,” so to speak, I’ve actually featured it a few times on my Twitch streams, using it very much as I describe above as a spur for commentary and deeper thought. (You can see one of these streams here.)

Along similar lines, I think it could be quite rewarding to organize a GM’s book club, gathering fellow masters of the game and using Keeper Tips as a prompt text for any number of wide-ranging discussions.

Ultimately, whether for your own private circumspection or as the nucleus for shared discussion, I can strongly recommend slipping a copy of Keeper Tips into your own pocket.

Grade: B+

Editor: Mike Mason
Contributors: Daniel Aniolowski, Sean Branney, Allan Carey, Keris McDonald, Jason Durall, Paul Fricker, Bob Geis, Lynne Hardy, Bridgett Jeffries, Jo Kreil, David Larkins, Mike Mason, Mark Morrison, Thom Raley, Matthew Sanderson, Becca Scott, Seth Skorkowsky

Publisher: Chaosium
Price: $17.95
Page Count: 128

Bedlam in Neverwinter is a D&D-themed escape room board game for 2-6 players.

Which is a lot of stuff for designers George Feledichuk, David “Duvey” Rudow, and Leo Taylor to cram into one box.

If you’re not familiar with the escape room board game genre, the basic format is a box filled with hidden cards and sealed containers or envelopes. Players are presented with a series of puzzles, and the solution to each puzzle will indicate which card to draw or sealed box to open in order to find the next puzzle.

In the case of Bedlam in Neverwinter, this primarily takes the form of a card deck and map boards. Each card has a three-digit number on the back. The map boards, on the other hand, depict different locations that the players can explore, each labeled with a three-digit number which indicates which card to draw when you go there. In addition to advancing the narrative of the story, each card may also include instructions (to draw additional cards, for example) or a puzzle (the solution of which will be a three-digit number indicating which card to draw).

If you’re not familiar with D&D, then… Wait. Really?

In any case, D&D is a fantasy roleplaying game in which players create characters by selecting their race, class, and ability scores. The actions taken by these characters are resolved by rolling a 20-sided die, adding a bonus from a relevant ability score, and comparing the result to a target number. There’s also a combat system in which damage is tracked and characters die if they lose all of their hit points.

All of these elements are also found in Bedlam in Neverwinter, albeit in a heavily modified form: Players will create their characters by selecting from a familiar range of races and classes, each of which will grant them proficiency in one of the six ability scores. Each class also has a unique, themed skill/power and will gain additional abilities as they level up at the end of each adventure.

Various cards will require either solo checks (which the current player rolls) or group checks (everyone rolls and at least half the group must succeed). Each check has one or two ability scores associated with it, and if you have a matching ability score you add +1d6 to your d20 roll.

Combat is resolved via round-robin skill checks against the monster’s target number. Weapons and other items can be equipped, granting additional bonuses if your attack roll is high enough. (For example, if you roll 17+ with a Sword of Sharpness, you deal +1 damage.)

And that’s basically it: Bedlam in Neverwinter consists of three adventures, each with a separate deck of cards and map boards. As you play through each deck, you’ll discover and overcome puzzles and monsters. The box states that each adventure takes about 90 minutes, but our experience was closer to 2 hours. (But we did have an ultra-excited 7-year-old playing with us, which may have prolonged things a bit.)

IMPRESSIONS

There will be ONE MINOR SPOILER in the discussion that follows. It will have no impact or insight into the puzzles or other hidden secrets of the game, but ye have been warned.

My overall takeaway from Bedlam in Neverwinter is that it’s an extremely easy game. The box lists a difficulty of 4 out of 5, but at no point did the group I was playing with feel remotely challenged: The puzzles were all trivially dispatched and the combat never once made us feel in danger for our lives.

As a result, it really felt more like an activity than a game. I mentioned that we played it with a fairly young child, and that may be an ideal use case: A pleasant way to pass some time with your friends and/or family. We certainly enjoyed it as such.

The biggest question I have about the game is why, if it’s called Bedlam in Neverwinter, is the entire story set in Icewind Dale? It’s quite baffling, honestly. My best guess — and it’s just a wild guess — is that somebody said, “Don’t we have a movie coming out in 2023 that’s set in Neverwinter?” and a few references to Neverwinter were shoved in and a new title pasted on the cover.

(I’m not going to get more specific than this because, again, I’m trying to avoid spoilers. But it’s very baffling.)

Bedlam in Neverwinter’s biggest flaw, however, is the map boards. As I mentioned before, the idea is that you put a map board on the table and then each player chooses where they want to explore, places their miniature there, and reads the associated card describing what they find. Unfortunately, the illustrations on the map boards don’t match the card descriptions. The first sentence on a card will be something like, “This body appears to have been…” and you’ll look back to the map board in confusion because there’s nobody there.

The first few times this happens, you may think you’ve made a mistake, but you haven’t. The bigger problem, however, is that this failure is so pervasive that selecting map board locations is basically just random noise. Other decisions make this even worse. For example, there’s one map where a clearly Dexterity-based activity is depicted. So you send the Dexterity-proficient character and… ha! ha! Nope! The skill check here is a Charisma-based check where you encourage the most dexterous character in your group to do the activity. (The most dexterous character does not actually contribute to the check in any way.)

I’m not certain if this sort of thing was a deliberate bait-and-switch or just more bad design, but either way what could have been — and arguably should have been — the most significant interactive element in the game is needlessly rendered meaningless.

Like the rest of the escape room genre, once you’ve played through the content once, you’ll be done with the game forever.

Which, ultimately, brings us back to what I said before: The game basically plays itself, but the activities along the way are a pleasant way of passing the time.

You’ll want to keep in mind, though, that like other escape room board games, Bedlam in Neverwinter is not designed to be replayed: You’ll play this once and then never again. (Unlike some games of its type, however, Bedlam in Neverwinter is not destructive, so you could reseal the envelopes and pass it along to someone else easily enough.) You’ll want to keep that in mind when deciding whether or not to grab a copy.

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