TSR TSR Module WG5 "Mordenkainen's Fantastic Adventure"

Silver Moon

Adventurer
I was recently given a large treasure trove of 1st Edition books, magazines and modules which included Module WG5, which I had not owned or played before. I'm thinking of running it with my weekly 1st Edition gaming group. Who else has played this module? What are your thoughts?
 

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MerricB

Eternal Optimist
Supporter
It's a problematic adventure. The first level has some really inspired (and nasty) encounters on it, but there's also a lot of empty rooms without any descriptions at all. After that, the lower two levels aren't really that interesting - a few encounters that have potential, but a lot of rather boring material.

(It should be noted that some of it is also a very old dungeon indeed, predating the publication of D&D! The golem with the whip of cockatrice feathers is described in the original three booklets...)

What the adventure really needs is for you to make the NPCs mean something. Eli Tomerast is a fantastic villain if you actually give him something to do rather than skulk around the bottom of Maure Castle. As a "let's explore this dungeon" setting, which is how the adventure is framed, it lacks a certain something.

A few other levels of RJK's castle were published in 3E stats in Dragon magazine, as I recall. [MENTION=1613]grodog[/MENTION] could tell you where!

Cheers!
 

Scrivener of Doom

Adventurer
I definitely agree with Merric's assessment.

There are some great ideas and encounters there, and then there is the interminable mapping of nothing. I recently adapted it for 4E and I compressed it down to about six encounters... and while I was doing that, I realised that if i was running it in 1E I would also do the same thing.

On a more positive note, I still have fond memories of the Unopenable Doors and the mysteries of the eight-pointed star etc....
 




pemerton

Legend
I ran WG5 over 25 years ago. I found it a bit lacking at the time, though probably didn't make the best of it that could be made.

My recollection is that it's rather Gygaxian - a lot of colour in places (like ToH or the EX dungeons), but most of that colour is applied to rather deadly encounters meant to be played in a very serious, "skilled" fashion. If you like that style, you might like the adventure more than I did.
 




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