Desert of Desolation - your experiences?

[Quasqueton]

Eighth thread of a series on the old classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure modules. It is interesting to see how everyone's experiences compared and differed.

Desert of Desolation or the 3 individual modules: Pharaoh, Oasis of the White Palm, Lost Tomb of Martek

Did you Play or DM this adventure (or both, as some did)? What were your experiences? Did you complete it? What were the highlights for your group?

Quasqueton

 

[Savage Wombat]

Ah, yes, one of my favorites. I thought these modules caught the flavor of a campaign setting without a lot of unnecessary details. I ran it for a small group back in college - they successfully fell for every single plot hook, had a hysterics over the guy that couldn't be killed, got seriously lost in a maze, and all sorts of other fun.

 

[Henry]

This module, and Ravenloft, cemented Tracy and Laura Hickman as two of the top Module Designers EVER, in my opinion. Of the times I've DM'ed it, the mystery was both tough at first blush, but had the players kicking themselves over its transparency. It's the kind of module that could last you a whole campaign.

The Three star gems and their ultimate purpose are a great concept (though not original, they are brought about in an original way), and Martek's tomb is one of the more fun places to visit, especially the displaced or time-trapped locations.

 

[diaglo]

well....

i had the modules several years before the PCs reached high enough level to play them.

i had them play B4 Lost City as a side trek on the way to Pharoah...


they totally messed up the series...due to not following several of the plot hooks...


so i had to reinsert them...

in the final module they made it there as a side trek from Q1 Queen of the Demonweb Pits... one of the extra planar events...

 

[rogueattorney]

It's probably been 15 years since I DM'ed those adventures, so I don't remember the details well. I remember that they were probably the most fun we had as a group. They were tough adventures. The group crawled out by the skin of their teeth four or five times.

I particularly remember the battle with the shadow demon and the ghouls. The entire party had been paralyzed or otherwise taken out of action except the halfling fighter/thief, played by my little brother, Scotty. The ghouls were all dead too. So it was just the halfling and the demon. The other players were yelling and screaming like it was a football game with each roll of the dice. When Scotty's halfling landed the killing blow they all mobbed him. It was awesome. Scott was 3 or 4 years younger than everybody else in the group and always treated like the little kid, so it was a really cool deal for him to get to be the hero.

Fun times.

R.A.

 

[Rl'Halsinor]

It has been 17 years since I played this under one of the best DMs I have ever encountered. Pharoah is burned into my memory especially the Maze and how my wizard ran for his life from those Minotaurs time and again. If there ever was a series that should be resurrected to 3.5 it is this one. Hours upon hours of enjoyment was had by all because of the immense creativity throughout the pages. There were twists and surprises galore. Our party loved it! Module builders could learn a lot about how one goes about making a good setting/product by studying this series.

And I think Savage Wombat is 100% correct when he says it caught the flavor of a campaign setting without a lot of detail, which is another thing many of today's module builders could learn from this series.

 

[Piratecat]

I loved this series. It played fast and loose with a few concepts - I had trouble believing the efreeti was all that tough - but dang if it didn't impress me time and time again with good design. I've stolen chunk after chunk of this for other games.

 

[Plane Sailing]

I bought it and was longing to DM it, but never got the chance. I'd like to run it under 3e rules but unfortunately the PC's have got too many other things to do and won't get round to that (and my next campaign is going to be Eberron and I don't think it would fit well there).

It is certainly one of the most flavourful modules I've ever come across, and I've got no regrets buying it.

 

[Hypersmurf]

I loved this series. It played fast and loose with a few concepts - I had trouble believing the efreeti was all that tough - but dang if it didn't impress me time and time again with good design. I've stolen chunk after chunk of this for other games.

I played through Pharaoh once, years and years ago... but I have no idea how much was straight from the module, and how much was the DM's ad-libbing.

I definitely remember the efreeti; after we released him, he started amassing an undead army. One of the fighters ended up with a gauntlet sacred to Seker, and decided to test it out - we were crossing a bridge over some chasm, and he pointed the gauntlet over the edge and tried a brief prayer to Seker.

No apparent effect. The fighter shrugged and carried on.

After the adventure, the DM informed us that the gauntlet had just wiped out half the undead army camped at the bottom of the chasm, but we had no way of knowing at the time...

-Hyp.

 

[Piratecat]

I definitely remember the efreeti; after we released him, he started amassing an undead army. One of the fighters ended up with a gauntlet sacred to Seker, and decided to test it out - we were crossing a bridge over some chasm, and he pointed the gauntlet over the edge and tried a brief prayer to Seker.

Ad-libbing - but incredibly cool! I think in the module as written he's a lot less of an immediate threat.