Starting Worlds Largest Dungeon - general suggestions, and jazzing up Region A

[hackmastergeneral]

My thoughts -

What about changing Section A: The hook, in the intro blurb for GMs, was about Longtail's battles. One of the hooks for players to go in is Longtail trashed their town on his way through, and they chase him. Well, the battles are LONG over by that time.

What about changing it, so that the players have to stop Longtail from releasing the fiends?

The Orc/Kobold battles are going on, to some degree, so theres loads of opportunity to get cool player hooks, and avoid the "dire rat/darkmantle" boring the region has.

Have the players converse with some captured Kobolds, discover Longtail's plans, and try to stop him from opening the portal his familiar is trying to get him to open. Would this break things? How would you handle it?

Also, I'm really a first time D&D GM about to embark on this behemoth (I've been gaming for 17+ years, gaming D&D for almost as long, and have played d20 since 3ed first came out, and have played 3.5 on a weekly basis since the day it came out - I've run some Hackmaster (as the name suggests), WoD and Marvel SH FASERIP SO much my eyes bled).

Any other general hints about WLD - theres other threads, but holy cow they are long. I'm going to skim them, but I thought a seperate thread would help condense the useful hints.

To those who read RPGnet - hola. My first forays into Enworld, so be kind.

 

[hackmastergeneral]

No help at all?

 

[Nyaricus]

Hey HMG

You've gotta understand dude that patience is a virtue, and that in the 4 hours between your posts, very few people veiwed your thread (26, by last count - and that's including you).

Basically, you just gotta sit back and give it a couple days, bumping and adding more ideas as you can

Also, I've noticed the boards HAVE been a bit slower lately, so that could be it too

 

[hackmastergeneral]

Patience. Yes.

Never my virtue.

Just up late, thinking about it, and wanted to talk about it, and talk through my ideas.

Given the huge response of the other two WLD threads, I'm sure someone will come along eventually to speak about it.

 

[Barendd Nobeard]

As a former player in WLD, here's my suggestion:

Reduce the number of [sblock]Fiendish Darkmantles[/sblock]! Way too many of them--it became quite boring to fight them over and over.

In fact, just cut about half of them out, leaving dead ones in their place (someone already killed them). Level A just seemed to go on forever because of those creatures.

And don't forget to post the PC (& cohort) deaths in the World's Largest Graveyard!

 

[hackmastergeneral]

Well, that was one of my questions?

I want to change the whole setup of Section A. The portal has not been opened, they are chasing Longtail, and must try to stop him before he does, or close it before it gets too out of hand.

Thus no Fiendish anythings, and running battles still happening between Kobolds and Lizardfolk and Orcs. Most of the big battles are long over, but there are still skirmishes and foray attacks happening.

Would this break some part of the game? IOs there some future connection that having the portal opened plays in later parts? Am I missing something that makes this a bad idea? I think tis FAR more interesting than the way its written.

How much would be too much? Obviously you can't have encounters in every room, and the set up was geared to give them lots of places to rest.

 

[Jim Hague]

My thoughts -

What about changing Section A: The hook, in the intro blurb for GMs, was about Longtail's battles. One of the hooks for players to go in is Longtail trashed their town on his way through, and they chase him. Well, the battles are LONG over by that time.

What about changing it, so that the players have to stop Longtail from releasing the fiends?

The Orc/Kobold battles are going on, to some degree, so theres loads of opportunity to get cool player hooks, and avoid the "dire rat/darkmantle" boring the region has.

Have the players converse with some captured Kobolds, discover Longtail's plans, and try to stop him from opening the portal his familiar is trying to get him to open. Would this break things? How would you handle it?

Also, I'm really a first time D&D GM about to embark on this behemoth (I've been gaming for 17+ years, gaming D&D for almost as long, and have played d20 since 3ed first came out, and have played 3.5 on a weekly basis since the day it came out - I've run some Hackmaster (as the name suggests), WoD and Marvel SH FASERIP SO much my eyes bled).

Any other general hints about WLD - theres other threads, but holy cow they are long. I'm going to skim them, but I thought a seperate thread would help condense the useful hints.

To those who read RPGnet - hola. My first forays into Enworld, so be kind.

Welcome to ENworld, HMG! I noticed that the folks on RPG.Net weren't terribly forthcoming with ideas - too busy bashing the WLD, I suppose - but we've got a thriving and extensive thread here where any and all of your WLD questions can be answered!

Behold:
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=100030

The guys on that thread have far, far exceeded my wildest dreams as one of the contributing writers to the WLD and come up with some truly wicked stuff to throw at delvers. They (and myself as time permits) will be more'n happy to answer questions, make suggestions and talk up the WLD 'til we're all blue in the face.

 

[rvalle]

Not having the portal open yet doesn't really break anything later on.

You could do this:

Keep the idea of the orcs and kobolds still fighting. Pc's trying to work their way though the mess. This could take quite a bit of work as you have to go though and rearange where critters are.

After a while give some sort of clue that Longtail has started to open up the portal. Maybe it takes a 24 hour ritual to open and the effects of this are felt thoughout the Region. Feelings of dread, fire coating the walls, dead things coming back to life ect. As the 24 hours count down the effects increase.

If the timing works and you want to be all dramatic you can have the party show up just as he is finishing the ritual. The first thing though should be the Fiendish Owlbear. That thing is just cool. And have Longtails reactions has he realizes it is not following his commands.

Don't forget... Longtail left with some body guards. If the Owlbear has not been released they will still be alive and guarding Longtail during the ritual... and maybe providing the blood needed to drive the ritual.

Also: you can have the Trogs take a more active part in the fun to fill out the empty spaces.

Have fun!!!

rv

 

[hackmastergeneral]

Thats actually pretty much my idea.

What I need is:

A way for 1st-3rd level characters to figure out whats going on, how to close the damn thing and a way for them to actually do it.

The orcs/kobolds I'm not worried about - theres more than enough empty rooms that some random battles are cool. They could arrive, battle is just finished and the winners are tired and hurt - a group of 1st level PCs might be able to surprise and overwhelm them.

Does it talk about his bodyguards at all? What they were?

The idea of the dead coming back is nice.

Perhaps they could enlist the aid of some Orcs, who are going tio be losing to the rapidly Fiendish looking Kobolds. The Orcs aren't really happy, and look for any way out. The leader tells him that something is going on with the Kobolds, they hear rumors, and their scouts report things are going wierd over HERE. I'll have them try to get the PCs to figure out whats going on. The Orcs, of course, will end up back stabbing them, but I'll have a plan in place to deal with the outcome.

Fiendish Kobolds - too much by the time they get to level 2-3 or what?

 

[rvalle]

I started the party out at level 2 with max hps. Had them at 3rd when they fought longtail.

The body guards are in rooms near the chapel. Just east and south of it. Currently in the book the doors have been battered down by the owlbear and there is only dead bodies.

There are also 2 lizardmen farther in the dungeon that are good for npc's. A druid and a ranger.