Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure - your experiences?

Thirty-first thread of a series on the old classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules. It is interesting to see how everyone's experiences compared and differed.

Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure


Did you Play or DM this adventure (or both, as some did)? What were your experiences? Did you complete it? What were the highlights for your group?

Quasqueton

I never ran or played through this module, but the most interesting part to me was the four PCs listed in the back as "pregenerated" characters. Mordenkainen, Bigby, Rigby, and Yrag. I always love(d) seeing the characters from the "real/original" Greyhawk campaign.

Quasqueton

"Kerzit the Mighty,
Kerzit the Strong,

Kerzit! Kerzit! KERZIT!!!!"

Loved the module. Only time I ever DM'ed it (much less played in it), the sole PC met Arley the Weaver, had some choice words with him, and figured he deserved what he got. He kept the scintillating goblet as his official drinking cup until the day he was never played again, and destroyed the iron golem in the arena with a disintegration ray from his sword, and tossed the crystal sword and whip because they were "too weak." Can you tell he was a bit too high-powered?

Tomorast was fun to DM, because of his special powers that gave him a hand. In the end, the PC defeated Kerzit, took the tome, and destroyed it so that no one could ever use it again.

One day, I wouldn't mind actually playing it again, using the 3E update.

I only ran this adventure once and that was a conversion to 3E LONG before Maure Caslte graced the pages of Dungeon magazine. This was back in the early days of 3E and the core books had just been released.

It was at the end of a campaign that started about two days after the 3E PHB came out. We played for about a year in a FLGS. There were too many players at the table, they had conflicting tastes and many of them did not get along. Two of the players announced they were moving out of the area (and getting married), so we decided to wrap up the campaign. The problem was that we were in the middle of this adventure. It was going poorly, since there were too many distractions.

I look forward to playing the Dungeon version in the future though. I think the adventure had real potential. I also enjoyed seeing the old Greyhawk characters in the book. I own Rogues' Gallery and love to see write-ups of those characters at different levels.

DM

I've run the first adventure two times (off a signed-copy no doubt) and the "Return to .." from DUNGEON once.

I can say this about the adventures:

MEH!

Just party meat-grinders with nothing particularly interesting or novel about them.

jh

substituted the PCs in the campaign for the pregens. and moved some of the stuff around so it fit.


Kerzit was just nasty.

the PCs never did face him directly.

I read this module for the first time last week, and read the the Dungeon version at the same time along with it. The new version was definately an improvement, just because it was fleshed out a little more not 'cause I had anything against the original. At any rate, I'd definately say it would only be worth running one version, as it was more of an expanded/improved version, rather than a true sequel like like some of the other "Return To..." modules.

Seeing Mordenkainen and the others stated up was kind of cool, but I didn't like the fact that the only way the mentioned to pass the unopenable doors was

I have this vague memory of years past, stopping by at a house where the 'older group' of D&D players were playing (they were three to four years older than me). We were crashing the party because they had the house free. Asked what they were doing in game, and they said 'we just killed Mordenkainen'. Umm, okay. I remember thinking it odd that the premise of the game/module was to kill that arch mage, since he was an important good character, but I didn't question it. Now I wonder what was really going on in that game?

Unfortuately, I only ran the adventure once.

The party didn't complete it as the special golem mopped the floor with the party. After that, the new characters were too scared to go back in. Wusses

Now, I do intend to spring Mauve Castle (Dragon magazine) on our group at some point....

Let the good times roll

Ruined said:

Asked what they were doing in game, and they said 'we just killed Mordenkainen'. Umm, okay. I remember thinking it odd that the premise of the game/module was to kill that arch mage, since he was an important good character, but I didn't question it.

Click to expand...

Killing Mordenkainen on purpose is not part of this adventure, but he's presented for use as a PC, so it could be that they played him and got him killed. At any rate, I'm pretty sure that Mordenkainen is neutral, not good.