B3: Palace of the Silver Princess (1980) has an interesting history. The original version, with the orange cover, was written by Jean Wells, the lone woman game designer at TSR at the time. No one is entirely sure what led to that version being recalled, literally the night it shipped to stores. There was an Erol Otus illustration that might have been poking fun at TSR’s management (though no one can put there finger on exactly who). Kevin Blume seems to have thought a Laura Roslof illustration depicted S&M. That same illustration, which has little demon-ish imps in it, might have raised anxieties about the ongoing Satanic Panic kerfuffle. Whatever the cause, the majority of the orange cover B3s were recalled and pulped (making it quite the expensive collector’s item) and Tom Moldvay was assigned to basically rewrite the thing entirely. All of this seems silly 30 years later, especially if you take a peep at the PDF of the module Wizards released online a little while back. It’s weird, sure, and the tone is a little strange for an introductory adventure, but nothing seemed terribly scandalous to my eye.
The green version, which has a completely different plot, involves an evil entity attempting to come back into the world. To do so, he has magically taken over the titular palace, turned the inhabitants to stone and ordered a servant (the cleric Catharandamus, which…A+ name) to perform an elaborate ritual to get the job done. Enter the PCs to unravel the mystery of what is going on and put a stop to the ceremony. It…also feels kind of weird for an introductory scenario. And weird for D&D – there is a white dragon who is on the side of the good guys (odd) who has frost breath (standard) but is currently imprisoned in a dimension of ice (sounds like a nice vacation for a white dragon, rather than a prison).
There is a glossary though! If there’s one thing I love more than an index, its a glossary. This one covers technical RPG terms, which totally makes sense for an intro scenario, and also the characters and important artifacts, which is something more adventures should do for quick reference.
