city of the spider queen

I received this module as part of my Christmas loot and am considering running it when my current Dragonlance campaign wraps up in February. I just started reading it, but from what I've seen so far and what I've read online, it looks like a pretty cool campaign. That said, I'm looking for any comments on experience with the module, whether from DM or Player, pitfalls or problems with it, etc etc. Any information is appreciated.

For any who are interested, the group will be created from scratch for this module. I am considering approaching it with the player-characters as drow for a change of pace from what we've been doing.

My only comment would be, if they are drow, have them be foremost either followers of Lolth or at least well connected to one of the Matron Houses in a city near by. Also recommmend you pick up the Underdark for more ideas if you can afford it. If not, well it's not that essenstial but it is helpful.

Tell your players not to get attached to their characters.

If you do a search, you should be able to find a number of threads discussing this module in this and other forums.


If you are curious, below is a play by post link to the COSQ game that I gm.
http://www.enworld.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1287053

Gregor has a point. I would say they'd better enjoy short lived characters as there are number of encounters that will probably kill them outright IF they aren't careful.

I would really suggest that you VERY CAREFULLY read the entire book; KNOW the book, the events, the movers-n-shakers, and why things are happening. Once you have that down, chop up the events and storyline so that you can slowly integrate various pieces into or in between your current campaign. After a certain point, the party is pretty much commited to finishing or dying. However, up until that point, your players will certainly figure out what you are doing. Many of them may have even read the book (it has been out for quite some time, after all), so if you only use a little bit of it here and there....they might easily miss the fact that you are using the book.

As with Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, I have gone for months between certain segments of the mega-adventures.

player: Oh, wow...City of the Spider Queen, eh? Months and months of gaming underground killing drow and other nasty stuff. This will get old quickly.

This is a comment that any DM can hear about any long storyline; make sure you break up the mega-adventure with a few things here and there that deals with other aspects of your gaming world. Otherwise, you might hear:

player cries out after gnawing on his Players Handbook: Oh, Holy Crap! Kill my character already! I don't know how many more drow, driders, and underground tunnels I can take!!!

I think if you did a fair bit of work to the module before its run your PC's might like you a bit more, add a few secondary plots, loose a few templated monsters and add critters that are interesting and it could be a good module.

Run it straight from the book though and its a brainless, railroad of a meat-grinder, the opponents have very little stratagy apart from the BBEG's "Big Picture" and theyre pretty predicatable.
This sort of module left a very foul taste for our group for FR's material and not a lot of love for the author... actually I go out of the way to avoid getting any products which he has been heavily involved in.

I agree and disagree.

I think you can run this module straight as written, however, keep in mind that, like most mega-modules, many of the NPC motivations and characterizatiouns have been left to GM discretion. So the GM is going to have to make decisions about the NPCs.

So its only a meat-grinder if that's what the GM decides to make it.

Thresher said:

Run it straight from the book though and its a brainless, railroad of a meat-grinder, the opponents have very little stratagy apart from the BBEG's "Big Picture" and theyre pretty predicatable.
This sort of module left a very foul taste for our group for FR's material and not a lot of love for the author... actually I go out of the way to avoid getting any products which he has been heavily involved in.

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