Running Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil

[Storm Raven]

Burn it.

I'm not joking.

Don't do it! I'm telling you it will lead to dissapointment.


WORST


ADVENTURE


EVAR!

You see Flexor the Mighty. He is walking, but not skipping, singing, or playing baseball. He is armed, but does not have a bouquet of flowers or a pogo stick. He walks up to the party where they can see he has no weapons. He does not speak, sing, or chant. The bear eats him. He rants about a module, but his fireplace has no secret doors, and there is no treasure hidden in his socks.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Whoa...

 

[Storm Raven]

Whoa...

I'll give a bonus point to anyone who knows what I am referring to.

 

[radferth]

I had much better luck running it modified than "as is", especially the premier moathouse encounter. My players complained about it being too hard, but earlier in the campaign they complained about 1 ghoul being too tough for a 1st level party of five, so I don't know if their assesments are accurate.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

I'll give a bonus point to anyone who knows what I am referring to.

Forgot the name of the thread, but it was for the "worst published adventures ever" with the guys who were not running or walking or skipping or playing the trombone. The same module also featured a nymph who needed big strong adventurers to ... help wake her boyfriend up.

Am I teh winnar?

 

[Jarrod]

Curse you! You beat me to it. And argh... can't remember the name.

Anyway, we ran through this module and it was a BLAST. Though I could also see it quickly becoming a boring meatgrinder. My suggestion as a DM is to keep a close eye on the party's interest, and try to hurry things along if they start getting bored. There is a large section of the module that can devolve into a room-by-room slaughterfest if the PCs get entrenched in "gotta clear the area" mode, and that will get boring. Our GM gave the monsters personalities and _really_ gave us the feeling that trying to kill everything would get us our butts kicked. He was _ruthless_ in having the different areas cooperate, and so if we tried frontal assaults we got waxed.

So basically, keep changing it up and don't let the PCs get jaded.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

I ran the moathouse and subbed another dungeon in place of the Crater Ridge Mines for the next segment.

DM

 

[grodog]

#2: If you can find the tie-in adventure from Dungeon Magazine, use that.

Someone please refresh my memory: I don't recall a Dungeon adventure that ties to either ToEE or RttToEE.

 

[Bryan898]

I ran this huge dungeon crawl, and I have a few suggestions for you:

1.) Do something to spice up the Crater Ridge Mines, otherwise they become tedious beyond belief. Highlight the split and conflict in the temple, and do so in a way that's obvious to your players so they can catch on and use it.

2.) This module has a lot of good and cool background. Problem is most of it never gets to the PCs as written. Try to get the background to the PCs however possible to make them more involved with the story of the temple.

3.) Go to the forums at Montecook.com and the RttToEE forum. Go through and read the stuff in the Best of the Boards topic, it should be sticky and near the top.

 

[grodog]

#2: If you can find the tie-in adventure from Dungeon Magazine, use that.

Does anyone have a reference for this? Paging Jay Hafner