Castle Maure - Not All That
- Thread starter Numion
- Start date
Numion
First Post
Grimstaff said:
I did make the Gnoll Cleric a running pest for them (or actually she did what the module suggested - retreated further down and gathered troops to assault the PCs later, and I was able to snuff one them), because she was able to get away. Due to my players tactics the ranger unfortunately got caught in his room, and with no way to escape was beaten to a pulp before he could make suitable adjustments to his tactics.
In any case, disintegrate is a disintegrate, and it's probable that some, even high level, opposition NPCs are going to get vaporized if the module has no logical reason to make the PCs feel they need to get information or something else from said NPC.
I do acknowledge that, but the problem is that Castle Maure doesn't really reward or require the PCs to ask questions before shooting, or even later. The adventure hook is to catch the bozo who's been known to go there. While some of the encounters are connected, there isn't any larger mystery to the place that would require asking questions (while there indeed is a cool backstory). In Banewarrens there is investigation required - why are the villains breaching the place? Who are they? Who's their boss? How to get to them? Maure is less connected, and while asking questions could lend some tactical advice (whats behind the next corridor? What spells did the bozo use?), brute force approach works also, even too well for seasoned and tactical minded party.
Besides, the encounters are quite often wired for immediate combat with the tactics that are provided for the villains. Quite often the NPCs plan for ambush, and PCs are quite likely to not parlay after that.
My 'defense' here isn't rock solid here because you can always return to doubting my DMing skills or my players inclination for bloodshed, but please try to back your arguments with stuff from the module, and whats written there, as much as possible.
Numion said:
You know, I think you're right. Reading through the module, I was very excited to run something like it. I found the broad brush strokes compelling and interesting, but I think you might be right - the module as is can turn into a slog.
When I ran RttToEE, I was disappointed that my players never tried diplomacy or stealth. I hoped/expected that they'd work to turn the temples against each other, or pose as minions of the Elder Elemental Eye, and so on, but they never did. Reading your comment, it strikes me that the adventure I read, and the one the players saw, were two different things. The players never really figured out that the temple was divided. They weren't aware of the possibilities.
I'm building a dungeon for my campaign, and I was thinking of this the other night. I was inspired by Castle Maure (mainly in terms of coming up with weird/interesting definitions for each level, like "The Divine Oubliette" or "The Infernal Triskelion", just random mash ups of words to inspire me and give each area a theme) and it hit me that I needed to communicate that info to the players in a really clear manner to get them to buy into it.
I think I'm going to create a number of immortal elemental creatures, caretakers who worked within the dungeon when it was a dwarven fortress, and use them to help guide play. So, when the PCs first enter the dungeon, there's a caretaker near the entrance who can tell them that the duergar in the first level are prospectors that the PCs can bargain with, or that the wizard on level 3 is always looking to hire adventurers for expeditions to level 8, or that the goblins in level 2 are divided into two warring factions, and so on.
The idea is to give direct sign posts as to what's ahead, give the players time to think about their options, and set up non-combat encounters.
RPG theorists have come up with the concept of a social contract. The social contract is a combination of implicit and explicit rules/guidelines that help dictate our actions. The design idea behind it is that it's better to be upfront about expectations, rather than let them come up in play.
There's a basic definition here:
http://wiki.rpg.net/index.php/Social_Contract
For example, let's say you want to run a political game in Waterdeep. If you don't tell the players that you're game is based on roleplay and intrigue, it isn't their fault if they show up with low-Charisma barbarians and monks for the game. It's better to openly hash out expectations before play begins, so the players can create characters that are fun for the game and the DM can get a sense of what the players enjoy doing.
Oh, and to build on the above post: I think that when players hear "This game is set in a dungeon", they assume lots of combat, room-to-room fighting, and so on. There's an implicit social contract there that builds expectations. If those expectations don't meet the DM's plans, you need to talk them over.
smerwin29
Reluctant Time Traveler
I think a lot of the older-style, hack-n-slash modules don't "work" anymore in part because of the aspects of the new rules that tend to slow combat a bit. Back in the days of 1st and 2nd editions, combat was often a bit more free-flowing. Those 4 rooms with the standard gnolls that you had to go through to get to the "cool encounter" took about 2 minutes each. There was no worrying about AoOs, threatened squares, etc. You rushed in, rolled the dice, and chopped things up. That's why you could have dungeons full of critters and it didn't necessarily slow the game down.
Now even these easy and standard encounters take time up to two minutes per character as players consider movement options, among other things. Trying to run something like ToEE using 3E rules can be just plain torturous if you map it all out and run it "by the book."
Of course, those old rules' combats could be drawn out too, but in general 3E requires a greater focus on positioning and movement than before.
Regards,
Shawn
Now even these easy and standard encounters take time up to two minutes per character as players consider movement options, among other things. Trying to run something like ToEE using 3E rules can be just plain torturous if you map it all out and run it "by the book."
Of course, those old rules' combats could be drawn out too, but in general 3E requires a greater focus on positioning and movement than before.
Regards,
Shawn
I think mearls is right only if your players play a bunch of videogames. Most people that Ive played with over the past twenty odd years who cut their teeth on old gygax or were totally new but didnt play videogames were good players in the sense of surviving and employing multiple tactics, parleys, negotiations, checking background, etc. Video game players simply do not ever do this without extensive dm coaching. gygax himself has opined that many modern players today tend to die like mayflies in his dungeons because they are simply too one tracked to ever run away. My own experience with modern videogame type players is similar -- one 17 year old gamer addict that we played with lost more characters in a month than I have in 27 years of playing.
Personal opinion, the first level of maure castle is really good and evocative, the lower levels are ok, the statuary level is also pretty good. Banewarrens is one of the worst, least imaginative dungeons Ive ever seen (ok its better than 'Puppets', 'Gargoyles', the first Dragonlance modules, the final Ravenloft modules and the two counterfeit Castle Greyhawks) -- with Banewarrens as a precursor, I shudder to think how bad, how overwritten, how 'balanced', how modern and politically correct Ptolus will be. The Adventure Path stuff that mearls and others equate with 'modern' is technically proficient but horribly linear, incredibly balanced (when did obsessive balance become a good thing?) and basically predetermined without any memorable introductions of new monsters like the drow or the Lovecraftian and Gothic aspects of some pioneering modules like Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun or Ravenloft.
Think about the Tharizdun module, it is like Maure castle, it exists not just in physical layers of exploration but in mental layers of comprehension and even with perfect understanding of the nature and purpose of the place, there is ambiguity and room for the DM to create. Only determined and intelligent players will figure it all out and that is the way it should be. Its not like the 'modern' Adventure Path where every room or module leads ('yawn') clearly to the next, little is hidden or unknown. In Maure Castle, Ravenloft, the Drow Series, Tharizdun, Saltmarsh and Hommlet, if your players want to bash monsters, open the chest, pick up the golden key and move onto the next room, then they simply will never figure out anything. Tough s*^t. They dont deserve to perceive more than a simplistic dungeon crawl. Modern dungeons are generally graded on a curve where everybody passes and no one gets left behind. Old school dungeons are like the cranky old socratic professor that wants you to figure out things on your own and is perfectly content to let you live with the consequences of your actions if you arent up to the challenge.
Returning to objectivity, Maure Castle did win an Ennie and evidently it sold very well so the detractors arent that representative.
Personal opinion, the first level of maure castle is really good and evocative, the lower levels are ok, the statuary level is also pretty good. Banewarrens is one of the worst, least imaginative dungeons Ive ever seen (ok its better than 'Puppets', 'Gargoyles', the first Dragonlance modules, the final Ravenloft modules and the two counterfeit Castle Greyhawks) -- with Banewarrens as a precursor, I shudder to think how bad, how overwritten, how 'balanced', how modern and politically correct Ptolus will be. The Adventure Path stuff that mearls and others equate with 'modern' is technically proficient but horribly linear, incredibly balanced (when did obsessive balance become a good thing?) and basically predetermined without any memorable introductions of new monsters like the drow or the Lovecraftian and Gothic aspects of some pioneering modules like Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun or Ravenloft.
Think about the Tharizdun module, it is like Maure castle, it exists not just in physical layers of exploration but in mental layers of comprehension and even with perfect understanding of the nature and purpose of the place, there is ambiguity and room for the DM to create. Only determined and intelligent players will figure it all out and that is the way it should be. Its not like the 'modern' Adventure Path where every room or module leads ('yawn') clearly to the next, little is hidden or unknown. In Maure Castle, Ravenloft, the Drow Series, Tharizdun, Saltmarsh and Hommlet, if your players want to bash monsters, open the chest, pick up the golden key and move onto the next room, then they simply will never figure out anything. Tough s*^t. They dont deserve to perceive more than a simplistic dungeon crawl. Modern dungeons are generally graded on a curve where everybody passes and no one gets left behind. Old school dungeons are like the cranky old socratic professor that wants you to figure out things on your own and is perfectly content to let you live with the consequences of your actions if you arent up to the challenge.
Returning to objectivity, Maure Castle did win an Ennie and evidently it sold very well so the detractors arent that representative.
You're harsh, but I basically agree with your points about old school dungeons...
I haven't read the Banewarrens, so I have no opinion on that one.
I haven't read the Banewarrens, so I have no opinion on that one.
Endur
First Post
Numion said:
As a gm, you have a power called discretion. You can focus the adventure where you want. If the party enters several rooms with boring gnolls and cool murals, you can say, "After slaying several rooms full of gnolls, the party begins to realize that the murals on the walls are very cool...."And then go deep into background discussion.
As a GM, the module is as cool as you want it. If most of the encounters are boring, then skip those or handwave them off and focus the party's attention where you want to focus their attention.
But yes, I quite agree, it won the award based on nostalgia and coolness. We want to see more adventures like this one.
As the editor-in-chief of the magazine in which Maure Castle appeared and as one of the two editor/developers who updated and expanded it for the new edition, I can certainly understand how a party trying to slog their way from room 1 to "the end" would get bored. Honestly, I think that's a challenge of any adventure, from any era.
For what it's worth, the adventure itself has more than just one adventure hook, as someone suggested above. In addition to seeking out Eli Tomorast, the DM might also choose a hook that involves a snatch-and-grab of some mysterious papers held in the dungeon, a hunt for a specific chamber tied to shadow magic, and a scouting mission for Mordenkainen or Bigby. Several suggestions are provided regarding the "in and out" style that was so common to many of us who played D&D in the early days.
Allow me a second to tell a story that speaks to this thread. A while back, after college, I fell in with a great group of gamers in the Minneapolis area, where I was living at the time. I'd met these guys through local conventions and game days, and I was always impressed by the problem-solving and roleplaying techniques. Eventually, I offered to run them through one of my favorite classic adventures, "The Village of Hommlet," because they had come to the game for the most part in the early days of 2e, and didn't have the obsessive knowledge of the "classic" stuff that I did.
I've run "Village of Hommlet" about a half-dozen times in my life, with varying levels of success each time. About the only constant has been that the green slime at the bottom of the stairs leading to the moathouse basement always, always, always kills a PC. Friggin green slime.
Anyway, these players, used to "pushing through" to get to the end of an RPGA scenario in four hours, thought it would be a good idea to apply the same approach to one of the "classic" first edition dungeon crawls.
It didn't work. By the time they faced the insidious Lareth the Beautiful, they had about three hit points each and a couple members of the party had already fallen into negatives. And did I mention that Lareth has a staff of striking?
As far as these old adventures are concerned, in my experience there are two kinds of players, and they break down roughly by when the players learned how to play D&D. The groggiest of the grognards know when to retreat. They know to be careful because the traps and monsters are not always 100% appropriate for the level of the characters in question. Sometimes, they remember, Lareth the Beautiful has a staff of striking, so if everyone's wounded it's best to retreat, regroup, and come back later.
The other style of player (and I realize I'm oversimplifying this considerably) is more likely to assume that the challenges are more or less perfectly balanced for their character, and that the dungeon essentially exists to be defeated, and to be defeated rather handily and easily. These guys are more likely to press forward even when everyone is approaching 0 hit points, because they want to "finish" in one go.
"Maure Castle" is not a great adventure for the latter type of player. It is very definitely in the classic style, and it is ideal when it is entered and exited several times during the course of play.
The idea of a huge, unbeatable dungeon has a lot of pedigree in this hobby, starting from the earliest dungeons from the very first campaigns (Gygax's Castle Greyhawk, Arneson's Castle Blackmoor, Kuntz's El Raja Key/Maure Castle). These locales provided literally years of fun to their players, but the biggest problem with reading them today is that they can seem really, really boring (this is also true of modern attempts at the same genre, in my opinion).
In order to keep things less boring, it's best to insert a lot of compelling background material. While a lot of this material might seem difficult to work into play, it's important to keep in mind that characters appropriate for Maure Castle have a lot of divinitory resources at their command, have good bardic knowledge skill, etc. Plus, a lot of that background keeps things interesting for the DM, which shouldn't be overlooked.
"Maure Castle" is meant to be a hub of an ongoing campaign. If the players want to stay within it from the moment they enter until the moment they clear it out, that's certainly one way to do it, but the environment is meant to support "foray" play, and the edifice is best when it stands on the horizon of the campaign, serving as a destination irregularly throughout the heroes' career.
--Erik Mona
For what it's worth, the adventure itself has more than just one adventure hook, as someone suggested above. In addition to seeking out Eli Tomorast, the DM might also choose a hook that involves a snatch-and-grab of some mysterious papers held in the dungeon, a hunt for a specific chamber tied to shadow magic, and a scouting mission for Mordenkainen or Bigby. Several suggestions are provided regarding the "in and out" style that was so common to many of us who played D&D in the early days.
Allow me a second to tell a story that speaks to this thread. A while back, after college, I fell in with a great group of gamers in the Minneapolis area, where I was living at the time. I'd met these guys through local conventions and game days, and I was always impressed by the problem-solving and roleplaying techniques. Eventually, I offered to run them through one of my favorite classic adventures, "The Village of Hommlet," because they had come to the game for the most part in the early days of 2e, and didn't have the obsessive knowledge of the "classic" stuff that I did.
I've run "Village of Hommlet" about a half-dozen times in my life, with varying levels of success each time. About the only constant has been that the green slime at the bottom of the stairs leading to the moathouse basement always, always, always kills a PC. Friggin green slime.
Anyway, these players, used to "pushing through" to get to the end of an RPGA scenario in four hours, thought it would be a good idea to apply the same approach to one of the "classic" first edition dungeon crawls.
It didn't work. By the time they faced the insidious Lareth the Beautiful, they had about three hit points each and a couple members of the party had already fallen into negatives. And did I mention that Lareth has a staff of striking?
As far as these old adventures are concerned, in my experience there are two kinds of players, and they break down roughly by when the players learned how to play D&D. The groggiest of the grognards know when to retreat. They know to be careful because the traps and monsters are not always 100% appropriate for the level of the characters in question. Sometimes, they remember, Lareth the Beautiful has a staff of striking, so if everyone's wounded it's best to retreat, regroup, and come back later.
The other style of player (and I realize I'm oversimplifying this considerably) is more likely to assume that the challenges are more or less perfectly balanced for their character, and that the dungeon essentially exists to be defeated, and to be defeated rather handily and easily. These guys are more likely to press forward even when everyone is approaching 0 hit points, because they want to "finish" in one go.
"Maure Castle" is not a great adventure for the latter type of player. It is very definitely in the classic style, and it is ideal when it is entered and exited several times during the course of play.
The idea of a huge, unbeatable dungeon has a lot of pedigree in this hobby, starting from the earliest dungeons from the very first campaigns (Gygax's Castle Greyhawk, Arneson's Castle Blackmoor, Kuntz's El Raja Key/Maure Castle). These locales provided literally years of fun to their players, but the biggest problem with reading them today is that they can seem really, really boring (this is also true of modern attempts at the same genre, in my opinion).
In order to keep things less boring, it's best to insert a lot of compelling background material. While a lot of this material might seem difficult to work into play, it's important to keep in mind that characters appropriate for Maure Castle have a lot of divinitory resources at their command, have good bardic knowledge skill, etc. Plus, a lot of that background keeps things interesting for the DM, which shouldn't be overlooked.
"Maure Castle" is meant to be a hub of an ongoing campaign. If the players want to stay within it from the moment they enter until the moment they clear it out, that's certainly one way to do it, but the environment is meant to support "foray" play, and the edifice is best when it stands on the horizon of the campaign, serving as a destination irregularly throughout the heroes' career.
--Erik Mona
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