RPG Retro Review: B3 Palace of the Silver Princess 

Failing this module became the basis for a 5+ year-long campaign. Our party was wiped out at the end and Auriks influence and chaos began to seep into the world. We spend the next few years with another group traveling and trying to secure other eyes of Aurik to prevent his full return via modules such as the desert nomads series and finally culminating in a massive battle with Aurik whom we made a sort of demi-god.

*I was born in 71', and was introduced via the Holmes Basic set, with 1st Ed. soon afterwards, and I had B1 and B2 like everyone else, but I nor my buddies ever had B3... Thank you for still being able to reveal to me some of the hidden magical gems that I missed during the original playthrough of my youth...*

First module I bought. Fond memories. White Dragons weren’t evil in Basic, iirc. That lead to some confusion when referring to AD&D materials.

Thanks for the idea of linking B3 to the Temple of Elemental Evil.

The orange version is among my favorite modules.

This was the only module my ex-wife ever DM'ed and it was perfect for her in that role.

Spot on with the liberal use of the F word Captain - “Fun!” - that’s exactly what this module is. I remember our DM bought this when we went to a Games Convention in Victoria in London - he started reading it on the bus journey home and looked at the new monsters. “Ooh, Vampire Roses!” he said to us grinning - at which point we resolved to avoid all gardens and rose bushes when we played the module! He tried to suggest we had misheard him and that they were actually Vampire Rogues! Needless to say we gave those roses a very wide berth when we played it! We had great fun playing it though - looking forward to B4, another classic Moldvay Monster Condo!!!

This was one of the first modules I 'played' (after Saltmarsh) and I have fond memories of it. Was either 14 or 15 at the time and I think the DM did a pretty good job at the programmed entrance into the Palace, so he had clearly done some good prep.

Haven't run it myself (though I plan to) but with all controversy aside in my opinion the orange version is way better than the green one. I really love the idea of modules that are designed to be personalized by the DM. Especially if you're like me and end up change a bunch of things anyway. The bubbles aren't even that weird when we have the living jello boys that are gelatinous cubes. Magic works in weird ways and makes weird things.

Duchess and Candella! My very favourite NPCs of all time! Allies, potential romantic possibility, and foils to the PCs. I used them extensively, to the point that Duchess was the female thief in G3.

Got the orange Jean Wells version pdf, and adding it to run for my AD&D campaign later on in the year. Was just checking the map a few minutes ago. Grab the orange original, I say. Surprisingly, one of my players is running a centauress.

Thanks for the review! It’s one of my most favourite adventures! You took me back almost 40 years! Thank you!

I would make the cleric from the caves of chaos flee to haven with the eye of arik. That was what allowed him to attract all of those monsters

Great review Cap as always. Please consider supporting Cap during this time on Patreon. Cap is putting out lots of quality content and afterall, everybody's good enough for some change. 👍

oh the memories...

Glad you took this one on. You definitely did the scenario all the justice it deserved and introduced a lot of content I was unaware of and, as ever, some great ideas Captain!

this was my first adventure i ever played in pen and paper. we made our characters within minutes, i roled a rogue or thief (dont know what it was called) and we were a really big group around 10 kids which most never played pen and paper before and the DM was an oldschool roleplayer. Useless to say we stormed the dungeon like mad and had the best time. 15 years later i bought the red d&d beginners box and this adventure and i was the DM and all my friends who never played d&d before had a blast with this dungeon.

Always loved the Decapus on the cover of this module. If memory serves it was a pretty nasty encounter.

We ran this 0ne a couple times . It was a successful introductory run for us with the Moldvay module. The first four rooms were useful for a new DM and one of our players Dmed this module successfully and found the format helpful. I have reworked this module as more of a fairy tale with a different curse and larger interconnected dungeon. The gnomish bride groom of the silver princess was trapped outside but knows a secret way in to the palace. He begs the party to save his Princess. I wrote the knight and his dragon out, but it was fun. Fun traps. Some neat Monsters. A liitle like the Castle Amber railroad.

2nd module we played!!! It was the only other one in our town back in the day!!!,😂 After this we were FORCED to start creating our own adventures!

the goat of the og adventures thank you

The first module I ever bought (at the local pool hall which, for unknown reasons, was the only outlet for RPG-stuff in my town at the time). :D

I'VE RAN THIS FOR SO MANY GROUPS IN SO MANY WAYS IN SO MANY CAMPAIGNS... THANKS!

Great review as we spool up to run it using Shadowdark! Thank you! I'll probably run a slightly modified Orange version. The loss of the charm and overland portion is just too great a loss, but I'll add some details from the Green ocpy.

I purchased this module when it came out. I ran it once. It is worth running it again. Thank you for the review!

I have both versions on pdf and prefer the Moldway version. Great review and I love the idea of using the module as a link to Temple of Elemental Evil. Good stuff.

I feel like this is a great early capstone adventure for my Basic Fantasy game. In the second dungeon of Morgansfort there are lots of allusions to elven majesty of a time gone by, even an illusionary princess. This feels like a suitable follow up if the players want to play the heroes of their own Legend of Zelda story.

Awesome review and information -- almost reminds me of the Wendy's dungeon that Questing Beast reviewed, but not quite that bad because at least the players have some choice of what railroad they want to be on in a "choose your own adventure" game. But it gave me flashbacks. Having lived as a teenager in the 1980s, I don't remember the "satanic panic" being as early as 1980, but I am sure that it was in the air (but there was also a lot of misogyny). It seems to me that the first I heard of it was around 1982, when some of my D&D-playing religious friends had these tapes of your evangelists talking about "backwards masking" and the evils of rock music. That was the same year that "Mazes and Monsters" movie Tom Hanks came out, but the argument in that movie was that D&D leads to insanity (or something). It wasn't until about the time of the 1985 Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) hearings that it became full-blown. Recall that the PMRC was a strange offspring of an unlikely collaboration between "liberal" Baby Boomers like Al Gore of the New Left and the ultra-conservative Reaganite christofascists who later became the WWJD people. It was basically a bunch of adults trying to control Gen X -- they just wanted to shut down everything kids were doing, probably because they didn't feel cool anymore and they founds that simply eating Frosted Flakes did not make them so -- and I will never forgive them for it. We are still under the yoke of that generation at the highest levels of government. Sorry, the words "satanic panic" still bring back punk rock rage in me. Millennials don't even realize that there is a whole silent and small generation between themselves and the Boomers. Sad world.

First Module I EVER played! (Keep on the Borderlands was next.) Ah, such sweet memories. (I even still have my Magic User's original, faded character sheet somewhere.) Man were we so clueless back in the day (including our DM who had to 'hand wave' us through a couple encounters or our 2 player party would have gotten TPK-ed). lol

Well done, Captain!

God I miss TSR! The new version is less like D&D more like Star Wars. To many playable races. Well for my taste anyway

One of the best! Have you ever played Eye of the Serpent before? I ran an epic two day session of that module once. Would love to see a review of it!

I have lost count of how many times I have played Keep on the Borderlands. Incredible re-play-ability. What was great about Jean Wells is that she wasn't shy about getting hardcore. Too bad, TSR didn't let her fly.

DrivethruRpg really needs to get a few of these in POD! I have been waiting for B3 and B4 forever.

Another great review. This ones a favorite of mine. True a little gimicky to start but was an easy way to bring random PCs together. I did merge this with the lost city. I made the gem part of Zargon and ran a whole campaign. I thought the backstory in Princess was fun so I had it be a treasure hunt you had to get all the items to break the curse. IIRC you only needed one. Something where you freed the white dragon then the dragon froze the heart gem and you broke it with the sword. Eventually I connect the story line with lost city and had Zargons cultist be the cult in palace. This was years ago but I remember it worked out well and was a great campaign.

I have an original copy of this, I am considering slotting it into a random dungeon in my hex crawl. However I also have Against the Cult of the Reptile God, which I think just makes all around more sense to run.

Great review! I've a soft spot for this one as it was the first module I ever bought. I really like the fairy tale feel, and felt the encounters were varied and engaging (end boss, Travis, Duchess/Candella/inactive traps). It's not perfect, but it's a great low level adventure that gets characters directly involved in the affairs of immortals. As you say, there's tons of scope here, and it's more than just another dungeon crawl.

The Haven map includes a mention of Glantri, iirc. Was that the first ever mention of it?

Hey, I really enjoy all of your reviews. I've been playing since 1979 and these modules are near and dear to my heart. I would love to hear you do a review of I5 - I7 the Desert of Desolation Series. Take care and thank you for the content.

I'd love to see Ravager of Time covered

In 1985 I bought this at the comic store.

7:48 J'onn J'onzz?? (Martian Manhunter of the Justice League)

This was part of my Northern Reaches Campaign With a little rewrite it can be placed in the Sodjerford Jarldoms. Then after that I put the PC's through the Jarl's Hall P51 from Gaz7 Next up was X3 (note this module needs a bit of a rewrite) Finally X13 (which again needs just a little rewrite...those names eghhhh).

Another great video! I enjoy reliving or in many cases discovering modules you have done. Have you given any thought into shedding some light on more of the less popular or "failed" modules like The follow up to Raven Loft?

Apparently, DriveThru have to wait on WOTC before they can add POD to Wizards products.

Apparently, on page 4, at the voice Abaddon woods, it spells inhibited instead of inhabited

I've never seen a dungeon module designed for first level characters. This one, like most is for levels 1 - 3. There are 4HD apes in here so it is definitely not for level one newbies. This is typical of all TSR starter dungeons, the player count is expected to be high (6 - 10 for this one) and the level is expected to be toward the upper limit. B2 is referenced in this (brilliant) video - everyone loves it. Well, except me. Yes, it is a sandbox because the players can always choose which room their characters will die in, the first cave or the second. That's my waffling way of saying for beginners, B3 is better than B2. B2 is good for sadists or DMs willing to re-jig things on the fly..

When will you cover the classic module Baltrons Beacon

I found it on Dungeon masters Guild at a very reasonable price. J Wells original text. easy to slide into my campaign.

I made the evil priest , a NPC who entered the Palace as part of the party . He pretends to be a cleric of one God but was really a worshiper of another. The Duke order them to take him to the Palace , thinking he will end the evil in the Palace . In fact , the Priest is the real danger .

Dang! I should have bought the orange one when I had the chance waaay back when.

The protectors seem to have been misnamed, as they failed to protect Haven. Also, "Argenta" is a variation of argent or argentum, which is the latin word for silver. By the way, "comprise" and "compromise" are not the same word.

I give a lot of leeway regarding pronunciation for fantasy names and such but this one I have to take issue with. Decapus is a like an Octopus. 10 (deca-) appendages vs 8 (octo-) appendages. Therefore, DEH-ka-pus. Apart from that, I enjoy your reviews. You hit a lot of my all-time favorite modules.

Hey Cap, is there any way you could take a look at BSOLO: The Ghost of Lion Castle. I am running that for a Solo campaign i have been running for a couple months. Thank you!!!

The first mention of dead babies in dungeons and dragons history?

I DMed this adventure 4 times before I bought better introductory adventures. Most of the encounters in this module made no sense and were not related to the plot of the adventure. It's like Ruins of Undermountain but without the depth. Why are there stirges in the bathroom? Why is there a doppelganger sleeping in a canopy bed that becomes a deadly foe if the party is so foolish as to search the bed? Why is a potion of ESP mixed up with shampoo? Are you a new DM? How about you try to DM the power of ESP and what it can and cannot do? It may hold a place in many people's hearts, but that is nostalgia. Looking at it objectively among the thousands of pages of other adventures, it just isn't that good. The fact that it could be rewritten to make it better demonstrates how poorly it was edited at the time. Now that DnD is mainstream, we can attract brilliant authorship to the medium.

How about the demon Jublix as Aurick

This place of the module is on Mystara?

What module got your highest rating so far?

@captcorajus Have you played/looked at Gates of Firestorm Peak?

Okay buddy... when are we gonna get a review of Castle Caldwell and Beyond?

I have run the original adventure and prefer it to the second edited version.

So this was a training module.. with those grim descriptions and hermaphrodite three headed monster artwork? Okaaaaaay. Just curious, what is the module which scored the lowest on your chart? My money was on this one before I saw this video.

Get rid of the Protector guardians? No way! lol

14:16 Ah so THAT'S what happened to Noah Antwiler!

Moldvay really switched on the cheese machine for this one. He should have left good enough alone. The Wells version seems preferable to me simply because it's not full of bad cheese. Note that I highly respect Moldvay's other work, but this one is a complete miss in my book.

sentient pocket of oxygen... so an air elemental....

Gold mining here mate. So old