World's Largest Dungeon --- Gamer Killer?

[Gorilla726]

Just a thought that I thought I would share with all of you.

Someone did the math saying that at one session per week, four encounters per session, it would take seven years to complete the dungeon. I've heard of people finishing with much smaller campaigns (City Of The Spider Queen?) and just being tired of gaming. Do you think that something along those lines might happen after people finish the WLD?

Gorilla

 

[DaveMage]

The WLD was designed to be modular so you don't have to use the whole thing. Most people will probably use it this way.

I would guess that those who actually manage to make it through the whole thing will probably want a break afterwards, though.

 

[sparxmith]

My gaming group started the WLD about 3 weeks ago. We're averaging 7 encounters per session, so that should cut the time down.

But seriously, I'm tired of it already. It's just a perpetual dungeon crawl. Sheesh!

 

[BlueBlackRed]

I'll be running 2 campaigns.
One is the WLD. It just takes some reading.
The other is one of my own make. It takes a lot of attention and prep. Not to mention some offtime to "recharge" on ideas.

 

[doseyclwn]

Well first off, I doubt anyone playing in the WLD will hit all 1600 encounters. There are a multitude of ways through the thing. The nice thing about the group I play in is that we can switch campaigns off and on. I expect the WLD to take 2 or 3 years to play.

 

[JoeGKushner]

I don't think I would take the characters through every encounter. There are a few 'path's that PC's can take to get out of there.

Still, I do know what you mean. I ran Night Below and at the end, we were basically just running through it. Ditto for Temple of Elemental Evil where after the party went back to town to heal, I just followed the suggested or official timeline of events so that the PC's could go onto the next adventure.

 

[Piratecat]

This was also a major problem for people in RttRoEE's Crater Ridge Mines. I've found the solution to be mixing things up with side quests to change the pace periodically before anyone gets bored. Roleplaying encounters, traps, interesting NPCs, scary enemies -- these are not precluded by a dungeon crawl.

 

[MonsterMash]

World's Largest Dungeon - Gamer Killer

It could be if you dropped it on them.

 

[Jim Hague]

It might, I suppose - WLD is huge. There's a lot of variety in there that takes it away from being an endless dungeon crawl. If you're tired of the old school style sections, take a side trip to H. Definitely not a dungeon crawl there.

 

[Keeper of Secrets]

I think I may have brought it up before but as much as I am interested in WLD, I think it will be a gamer killer. Or at least a fantasy/D&D gamer killer ("Let's move on to Mutants & Masterminds, card games, or never see one another again.")

I think it would be a lot like climbing the highest mountain in the world. What next? Is there anything that could be a challenge at that point? Its sort of like the campaign 'Midnight.' In theory, if the characters could defeat all the ultimate evil's henchmen and then the ultimate evil (I forget his name at the moment), then what more could there possibly be to do?