So, as we saw last post the Orange cover version of this adventure was recalled and destroyed, it was then replaced by this one, which also came out in 1981. For this version the offending illustrations (which you can see in the previous post) were removed and Tom Moldvay completely rewrote the adventure.

In the process Moldvay innovated by adding a whole new section at the start with completely new game mechanics. Using a Choose Your Own Adventure style the section, the first in the module, gives the DM text to read to the players which include options to give to the players, each option will lead to a different textbox that the DM should read to the player and so forth. This is meant to teach both the DM and the Players how D&D works. It’s pretty effective at that as each new room gives a little tutorial on different aspects of the game, from locks to traps to fights. So, yeah, this is the first “tutorial mode” in an RPG game for first level characters… that’s still around.

Jean Wells story is still here as that bones of the adventure, but this is a completely different animal from her adventure, which was also innovative,  for example, her version had a kind of Wild Magic system where in a place called The Misty Swamp magic spells would go haywire, first time I saw that in D&D. So while this is a marginally better version they are both interesting modules.