Quasqueton

 

To me, B1: In Search of the Unknown is a bit odd.  Although it is full of nostalgia, especially with the old-school black & white illustrations by Dave Sutherland, I personally do not consider it a classic. It seems to have been written for the Holmes Blue basic boxed set and as such it falls in between Moldvay's Basic D&D and Gygax's 1E AD&D. Looking at the pre-gen PCs on the players' sheet, it is clear that race and class are two distinct aspects of character generation.

In terms of running the adventure, it is an out and out dungeon crawl. No NPCs pleading for help, no quests or the like. There is a background that talks of two powerful adventurers, the wizard Zelligar and the fighter Rogahn setting up their lair here and then disappearing, and some random rumours (a few of which are false) but that's about it. Whether this appeals to you and your group will definitely depend on your tastes. Personally I find it a bit dry but certainly not a deal-breaker. 

The map of the 1st level is convoluted. It is meant to confuse intruders (including the PCs' party) and quite possibly the DM. I reckon it dates back to the idea when mapping was considered an extremely important point of play and one of the players in the group would be the official mapper. Being the mapper in this dungeon is an honour I could do without. Weird thing is that this is meant to be a beginner's dungeon. What the hell does an advanced dungeon look like?! I'm pretty sure there were times when Zelligar himself got lost and confused in his own home.  Or at least fed up with wandering around miles of twisting corridors.

Another aspect that may have seemed a good idea at the time but has not aged well for me is the blank spaces where DMs fill in the encounters. At first I thought this was whatever came to the DM's mind, but at the end of the module is a list of 25 monster encounters and 34 treasures, and the DM is expected to place some of these (up to 20 monster encounters and 25 treasures) in the various rooms. This has the effect that there won't be clusters of the same monster species, unlike B2's Caves of Chaos where one cave system was dominated by orcs, another by kobolds etc., giving a sense of tribal territories. 

As this is one of the earliest modules published, I suspect the folks at TSR were still working out what DMs actually wanted from published modules and thought that DMs would want to fill out the encounter areas to their own tastes. Another possible answer is replayability - the players taking different characters through Quasqueton a second time may roughly remember the room descriptions but  the monsters and treasures will be quite different. These days it is generally accepted that the module authors should provide all the main encounters and if the DM doesn't like them, he is entitled to change whatever encounters he sees fit.  

The rooms are for the most part quite detailed, with all those on the upper level at least getting a paragraph of description and some a lot more. This is probably the best bit of the module, giving the areas lots of detail, including some traps and tricks (teleport rooms, pools of strange liquids) as well as some unconventional treasures that are usually not very portable - after defeating the monsters the PCs may change from being swashbuckling adventurers to furniture removal men. I don't think these heavy items of treasure are a bad idea, but if players do realise their value it may change the pace of the adventure. 

Hirelings and henchmen take up the last few pages, and these are expected to be hired to bulk out a small party of PCs. Although I am absolutely okay with this, I am not so sure about the very random way they are generated here. DM discretion applies. 

My suggestions?

• Keep the background with Zelligar and Rogahn, the location within Karameikos and the name Quasqueton. I have placed it near Grulven's Prospect. 
• Redo the maps (especially the upper level) in a way that does not drive people mad. I have discovered a pretty good alternative map in this discussion on Dragonsfoot. 
• Keep some of the more interesting encounter areas such as the coloured pools and laboratory and place them in the redone maps. 
• Filling out the rest of the encounter areas could take time, but thanks to the absence of set monsters and treasures in the module you were going to do this bit anyway. This can be done randomly or rationally: randomly would be quicker and perhaps suit the fun-house aspect of the dungeon better though some of the results may not make sense. By all means use the encounters from the back of the module as a source of quick ideas, but don't feel limited to them. 
• Feel free to add reasons for adventurers exploring Quasqueton and drop them casually as rumours in the local tavern among the list of existing rumours. To keep the PCs happy, at least some of these should be true. Rogahn's powerful magical sword? Zelligar's extensive library of spellbooks? A captured merchant in need of rescuing?