World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]

[Bathnor]

Entering region C

Well .. my party is looking for the key to get into the maze now. They are going through region C. They decimated the gnolls after the gnolls attacked them. The gnolls attacked them because they had a Goblin rebel from region B with them.

They were very worried about getting through the Law and Good rooms for one of the Dwarves is CE. They managed to make their saves and the rope that help the CE Dwarf held.

They were also very surprised by the mimic stuck inside the Gel Cube. The Barbarian was stuck inside the cube for most of the combat .... she almost died in there.

Last week the monk became a tasty snack for the black dragon. He stayed behind so the rest of the party could run away and perhaps fight another day. He will be replaced with a Gold Dwarf Sorc/Cleric next week. I'm not sure how I'm going to work in his character.

So far the party hasn't met any of the celestials besides the lantern archons. They have come close to the entrance to G and necer made it far enough into region E to encounter them.

They are all level 6 now and next week they will probably see level 7.

I am curious about how people have done mapping for this beast. I am taping 4 pieces of graph paper together for each region. Then as they play I add where they go to the map. Between sessions I color code the maps so they can see where they go each session .. it also helps me to do experience. I don't tape the regions together. I only ask because a couple sessions ago I had a player survey about what they thought about the campaign so far. One of my players brought up that mapping took some time out of the sessions. I've thought about making permade rooms and cutting them out. When they come to the room I can give them the piece and they can attach it to the map. I think this may be time consuming as well. A player mentioned a "fog of war" where I could use the premade maps and cover up where they havn't been. I'm not sure how to work this because then they could maybe see secret doors and rooms and I don't want to ruin the maps that came with the book. Any sugestions?

In my survey I asked them what they thought the hardest encounter was so far. (this was before they entered region C) One said the fight with the Trogs, one said the fight with the shadows, and another said the fight with the rat man.

I also asked what the most memorable encounter was so far. The fight with the shadows, the constant Darkmantles in region A, and the lantern archon in region A (i used a voice program for that one).

I asked what they didn't like about the campaign so far. One made the comment about mapping (see above) another said that there's no vendors ( she doesn't know that eventually it will be possible to trade with different factions ), and the last said things were fine.

 

[Hussar]

Well, if you want to go the high tech route, I'd use a laptop with an art program. Just put the map in the bottom layer then add a black layer for fog on top. Erase the top layer as you go and turn the laptop back around. Put the map up on a wiki or message board at the end of each session for people to look at. Label it too.

And, if you really want to draw the players in, give them map fragments often. Drop them as treasure all over the place, even if they are map fragments of different regions. Really helps to give a feel to the players.

 

[erucsbo]

I am curious about how people have done mapping for this beast. I am taping 4 pieces of graph paper together for each region. Then as they play I add where they go to the map. Between sessions I color code the maps so they can see where they go each session .. it also helps me to do experience. I don't tape the regions together. I only ask because a couple sessions ago I had a player survey about what they thought about the campaign so far. One of my players brought up that mapping took some time out of the sessions. I've thought about making permade rooms and cutting them out. When they come to the room I can give them the piece and they can attach it to the map. I think this may be time consuming as well. A player mentioned a "fog of war" where I could use the premade maps and cover up where they havn't been. I'm not sure how to work this because then they could maybe see secret doors and rooms and I don't want to ruin the maps that came with the book. Any sugestions?

I've been using RolePlayingMaster on my laptop and by plugging in to a TV or projector extend my desktop and put the player map there for the players. RPM has the DM map with a light shadow overlay that I can hide or reveal and when I refresh the player map the bits that are shadowed on the DM map are solid black on the player map. Definitely improved the game flow by cutting out the mapping exercise. I can zoom in or out of the map as needed and I use the Player version of the maps on James Lorimor's site (or mine for ones that didn't make it there) which has numbers, secret doors etc removed.

 

[erucsbo]

The party decided to have the mystic theurge go and report back to Vinnara on their progress. On her way there she noticed a lot of Dread Wraiths heading south in a hurry. Vinnara isn't too pleased that the party hasn't retrieved Kasteoficiss' key for her but she allows them to rest on the condition that they get back on track.
Vrisht (lantern archon) finds them and informs them that the Great Death has been "killed" (at least until he regenerates) and his court has been thrown in to disarray.
The party surmises that this is why Vinnara has sent her wraiths south - to take advantage of the situation and gain some ground.
The party also thinks that they should tell Kasteoficiss this, so that she will send her troops against Vinnara, and then they can tell Invistis to go after Kasteoficiss' area and while he is sans golems try and take him down.
On their way to Kasteoficiss they set off one of the Chaos traps - killing the Arcane Trickster, and causing the main fighter to go insane - thankfully the cleric had learnt ressurrection and several heals. They enter Kasteoficiss' sanctum and discover that she doesn't have any mohrgs present and only half a dozen allips. She has sent her troops north because she had found out that Invistis had sent his golems west to attack the now under-defended Vinnara (this is called forcing the action)
The party makes a spur of the moment decision to attack Kasteoficiss even though they had chosen spells for fighting the lich.
The eldritch knight cast anti-magic shell on himself and ran to Kasteoficiss, getting to her before she could get a blade barrier around the party - then it was a toe-to-toe fight. The allips did drain a lot of wisdom from party members but ended up all being turned or dispelled or caught in the area effect of the AM shell.
Kasteoficiss did end up dropping the knight, but that didn't stop the shell and the main fighter ended up dropping her.
They cut up the body before it could start regenerating and stoneshaped the bits in to various parts of the room before the Arcane Trickster killed himself again opening the chest.
I think they still want to fight the lich, but may not do so immediately now that the situation has changed.

 

[erucsbo]

exit - stage right

short session last night and missing some players but after having dealt with Kasteoficiss last session and finding her key the group decided to head back to Invistis, huddling inside an Anti-Magic shell to avoid all the nasty magical traps on the way.

Now recall that Invistis had offered to show them the way out of the tomb in exchange for Kasteoficiss' key, or that and extra stuff if they pulled all the levers. The Arcane Trickster decided to accept the first half of the deal.

Accompanied by 4 Iron Golems the party headed north then east and south to the secret door exit. They found the mechanism to open the door and gave the key to the golems - who promptly headed back to Invistis. The party made their way through the chambers to the exit to the tomb and felt the icy winds from Region O on their faces, as the secret door in to the Tomb slid back up and an earthquake shook the tomb. A wall of blackness then rolled out from the tomb and on out on to the icy plain. - this is where we ended for the evening.
Now the party had been here before and fought winter wolves. They realised that they were not out of the dungeon as some had supposed, just out of the tomb - and I'm checking to see if the Garrison members have broken the charter by giving Invistis the means to release the World Eater. If they try and get out via Region O they are likely to find a devastated surface due to the ravages of the World Eater - and it will take them longer to finish the WLD (imho) than the 3 or 4 more sessions to get to the World Eater - will be interesting to see if the party heads back in to the Tomb - now that they have a way out, and now that they realise that Invistis can also pull the levers (via the golems).
If they do head back in they'll likely find Invistis has done a deal with Vinarra and opened the Central Vault.
The party knows that there is a "failsafe" room somewhere in the Tomb as well.
As of now - it becomes a race against time if they want to stop Invistis and the World Eater.

 

[rikski]

We spent about a year real time going through this book and on the whole really enjoyed it, as the DM I really had one problem though, understanding how the different regions meshed together. The main problem was going up levels... the characters were either too low level or too high when they were near an exit to another region. I really wanted it to be a linear adventure because it meant they had to miss certain regions because they were too high level (we used the 2 levels per region rule).
My players really enjoyed it also but the main moan at the end was leaving the dungeon at 20th level left them with feats/ levels in areas they did not want but had to take to survive this dungeon.
There was very few printed mistakes for such a large book (which did impress me), but you could tell different authors created regions which was a shame they didn't collaberate!
Does anyone know if AEG made a profit with this?
Oh and the full sized maps where wicked but only having a black and white page showing them combined did frustrate me!

 

[Hussar]

rikski - I'd say that's a pretty fair assessment.

This is not an easy module, although, it's not too difficult either. Most of the mistakes that I had problems with were due to some discrepancies between the maps and the text. For example, in Region B, there's parts where the goblins are actually cut off from each other entirely, despite the fact that they are supposed to be able to come and help each other.

But, there are some fantastic ideas too. The Room Conditions summaries are bloody fantastic and are something I use in all my adventures now.

Did AEG make a profit with this? No idea. But, my gut says not much if they did.

 

[rvalle]

And we are finished!!!

Our last game was this past Thursday when the party fought though the Frost Giants and headed out.

It took us 4 years almost to the day (the first game write up was Sep 9 of 2005). By rough count of playing every Thursday for the last 4 years (minus about 8 games a year or so from holidays, sickness and Gencon) gives us about 530 hours. So, with the cost of the book about $100 it's about .18 per hour.

Ahhh... my first attempt and dm'ing and we managed to play all the way though.

Much thanks to Jim P., AEG and everyone here for the book and all the tips. It truly was an epic adventure.

rv

 

[erucsbo]

And we are finished!!!

Our last game was this past Thursday when the party fought though the Frost Giants and headed out.

Congrats!

any tips or gotchas with the Frost Giants?
My group is sitting at the Eastern door of the Tomb, yet to decide whether or not to go back in and take the World Eater, or try and find the exit to the north east.

 

[Hussar]

HOLY CRAP!!! Well done Rvalle. I gotta admit, after 2 years, I was done and wanted to move on. FOUR YEARS!! That's fantatstic.