Dedicated D&D players will know this, but some others may not; in fact I never knew about this in my time actively playing AD&D (the decade that was the 1980’s); that there were the two B3 modules. And although I came across references to it eventually; I have only really fully read up on it recently as I have been re-energising my interest in D&D. Jean Well’s B3 Palace Of The Silver Princess was published back in 1981 and released (featuring a distinctive Orange Cover); but it was immediately yanked the same day from the shelves (so to speak) and withdrawn; including even complimentary copies given to staff. It was never released and instead the whole module had a major rewrite before being released months later…

Why The Two B3 Modules?

What caused the withdrawal; the popular theory is the below piece of art, which a senior TSR executive freaked out about; you can read more detail at Wikipedia and at Justin Alexander’s (The Alexandrian) The Day the Old School Died. Needless to say the outcome was that Jean’s module was essentially gutted and rewritten by Tom Moldvay; who had just completed writing the new D&D Basic edition that became known as D&D B/X. This is not a negative on Tom Moldvay but more on the TSR Exec(s); who didn’t really understand their own product and their customer base and possibly over reacted. The result was the two B3 modules.

Justin Alexander (The Alexandrian) sums it up “as you look at the two versions of Palace of the Silver Princess, this is the core of it: Jean Wells is presenting a toolbox full of cool material and, in the classic old school style, challenging the DM to make it their own; to take the toolbox and do awesome things with it. Moldvay’s version of the module is a prepackaged experience.” Essentially the side effect of the rewrite was to change it from an expansive ‘Jaquayed‘¹ mega-dungeon adventure to a structured linear adventure with predetermined storyline, clearly defined encounters and a definitive ending.

B3 Today

You can still download a PDF of the original orange Jean Well’s B3 module care of WOTC here, and an alternate copy is available at the Internet Archive along with the original WOTC webpage it was posted on. There is also an audio interview with Jean Wells here, and a written interview with Frank Mentzer (of D&D BECMI fame) at Dragonsfoot here but is considered unreliable as he is recounting third hand information. Regardless now it’s possible to have and play the two B3 modules.

For more on early adventure modules and/or the B-series see my posts on Original Adventures Reincarnated covering classic D&D adventures and Judges Guild Deluxe Volumes I & II covering probably the 6 most iconic early Judges Guild D&D Adventures (and related material).

Notations

¹ The term ‘Jaquaying‘ a dungeon refers of course to Jennell Jaquays who worked for Judges Guild in the early days and wrote possibly my favourite, and one of the best D&D modules ever, ‘The Caverns Of Thracia‘. Jason Alexander (The Alexandrian) possibly created the term (I like it) has a good write up on ‘Jaquaying the Dungeon‘ and incidentally see also my post on the Judges Guild Deluxe Edition Books by Goodman Games: Volume 2 focussing on Jennell Jaquays work at Judges Guild.