Greyhawk Ruins - your experiences?

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

Greyhawk Ruins


Synopsis: Try your hand at the busiest dungeon ever created. There are more than two dozen levels of horror and treasures. Run into brutal foes and gain uncountable wealth—nearly 1,000 separate room descriptions in all! That's what the cover blurb says, anyhow...

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?

(With thanks and a tip of the hat to Quasqueton for his ground-breaking series of classic adventure discussions.)

I was initially planning to save this one for a little further down the line. However, following the announcement of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk, I figured that now would be as good a time as any to see what everyone made of this. I ran large chunks of it over the course of several sessions (half of the group tackled Dragon Mountain while the other half of the group did this one). I'll post more on my experiences later.

i bought it, read it, and put it away in storage.

i've got no respect for it.

diaglo said:

i bought it, read it, and put it away in storage.

i've got no respect for it.

Click to expand...

I have to admit that I am particularly looking forward to seeing the, ah, variety of opinions that this one will evoke ...

I actually had a lot of fun with it.

I ported the backstory to fit my world pretty handily. The guards that watch over the tower? Very much there for a reason.

I forget which tower the party descended when I ran it, but I recall that the mood bits about scrawled messages by horrified former adventurers had it's intended effect on the mood of the game.

The party did hit the infamous clown maze.

Lots of the dungeon got bypassed by stairs that led to deep levels. But after Night Below, that's okay with me...

Probably my second favorite mega dungeon.

I DMed it about 12 years ago, IIRC.

Just a fun dungeon crawl for my group.

I ran this for a friend some time ago. He ran a group of five characters (yes I know...what a chore, but he had it down pretty well, and even roleplayed them individually, it was a beautiful thing when he'd have them do conflicting stuff due to alignments...I'd help where I could), and they explored two of the three towers.

They went down several levels in each tower, lots of fights and general mayhem. Very memorable. I had to have a bit of a plot hook to get the group down there for something beyond just hack and slash (rescue mission, recover proof of a dead loved one, etc).

One memorable moment is when the group was trying to get out of the tower, they were beaten down and dying, the mage had the most points, and was covering the way out and was almost out of spells. He had a ring of fire resistance, and a burning hands spell left, with a back pack full of oil flasks. He waited until the goblins, orcs and ogrillons got close enough then smashed the bag on the floor and cast the spell. The whole area went up in flames, he ran into the enemies' midst and they pretty much freaked out and retreated.

The group made it to safety and a few minutes later the mage comes out...unscathed. The group is astonished...the mage says..." I took care of it.", needless to say, he was the subject of more than one bard's song at that point.

Aaaaahhhhh good times.

Can't wait for the new one!

I like the World of Greyhawk, but I don't like Greyhawk Ruins (and I hate the odious Castle Greyhawk with a burning passion -- had to get that out there, too). I found it flavorless and boring.

Personally, I'm hoping Gary's Castle Zagyg will be published in-full before my 10-year-old son graduates from college. I'm afraid to ask my magic eight ball about it, though...

To be honest, I enjoyed playing and running this adventure. None of the parties I played in or ran went very deep into it, as they had a tendency to die to the nastiness inhabiting the place.

The lower levels definitely seem as if people were just throwing ink on paper, but the upper levels were interesting. If it didn't say "Ruins of Greyhawk" on the cover, I'd give it a B+...but since it claimed to be the Be All and End All, I'll give it a C.

diaglo said:

i bought it, read it, and put it away in storage.

Click to expand...

I'm with diaglo on this one, though I don't feel quite as strongly.

It just didn't seem interesting enough to justify the time investment. However, I will admit that in those days, I was looking it more as something intended to be played all the way through rather than a setting that PCs might explore bits and pieces of at different points in a campaign, which is how I now understand many of these old school super-dungeons were originally intended.