''The Silver Key'' is an adventure module for the 2nd edition of the '' Advanced Dungeons & Dragons''

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction involving Magic (supernatural), magical elements, typically set in a fictional universe and sometimes inspired by mythology and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became fantasy ...

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, published in 1996.

Plot summary

''The Silver Key'' is an adventure for a party of two to six

player character A player character (also known as a playable character or PC) is a fictional character in a video game or tabletop role-playing game whose actions are controlled by a player rather than the rules of the game. The characters that are not control ...

s of levels two to eight, in which orcs patrol the countryside as the humans of the city of Horonshar get ready for war. When the orcs ambushed a group of soldiers a few days earlier, a military officer carrying a magical item with teleportation powers called the Silver Key was taken prisoner in the orcish fortress. The player characters must be polymorphed into orcs to rescue the officer and recover the key because the orcs want to discover how it works. The adventure includes rules for players to gain "orc points" for good roleplaying as polymorphed orcs, however a character that accumulates too many orc points can stay as an orc permanently. The adventure does not provide a map for the orcish fortress, but the adventure instead uses a flow chart divided into regions which determine what encounters and information are possible, and the characters are able to move to another region using dice rolls.

Publication history

''The Silver Key'' was published by

TSR, Inc. TSR, Inc. was an American game publishing company, best known as the original publisher of ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D''). Its earliest incarnation, Tactical Studies Rules, was founded in October 1973 by Gary Gygax and Don Kaye. Gygax had been ...

in 1996.

Reception

Cliff Ramshaw reviewed ''The Silver Key'' for ''Arcane'' magazine, rating it a 6 out of 10 overall. Ramshaw felt that the "orc points" system would be fun, "but unfair on the better roleplayers". He felt that the system of moving around in the orcish fortress by flow chart and die roll was "more like ''Monopoly'' than ''AD&D''; there's even a 'Go to jail' - sorry, 'Busted' - region. Unfortunately, this innovative method of portraying strangers' confusions in a fortress preparing for war means that players have next to little say over their own destinies. Even the two key locations here don't warrant maps." Ramshaw concluded the review by saying: "''The Silver Keys originality is married by an over-reliance on the dice, its occasionally ambiguous rules, and a paucity of detail for critical locations and encounters. Experienced referees could turn it into an enjoyable jaunt; those less so should steer well clear."

References

Dungeons & Dragons modules Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1996 {{D&D-stub