Desert of Desolation - your experiences?

[Davelozzi]

This module, and Ravenloft, cemented Tracy and Laura Hickman as two of the top Module Designers EVER, in my opinion

...and mine as well.

Overall, this is one of my favorite module series of all time*, though if I remember correctly, Lost Tomb of Martek has some stuff that I found a little cheesy for my tastes. Of course, I can't remember what those things were right now anyway.

Before I ever played D&D, I picked up Pharoah as a gift for my older brother who was playing at the time. So naturally, when I did start playing on my own, it was one of the first modules that I had access to and we played it a bunch of times. I can remember going through it with two characters - a dark knight and a ninja -- pretty funny now. Unfortunately, I never got a chance to run the other two, though I haven't given up. My current campaign world, as well as every other one that I ever tried to develop include a desert like area where I could fit this in if the option ever came up.

*I might even be so bold as to say this is the best designed module series of all time. Giants/Drow/Queen is just as much my favorite, but that's got a lot to do with the nostalgia, I think Desert of Desolation is probably better. Interestingly, just as I find Lost Tomb to be the weakest of the desert triology, I've always though that Queen of Demonweb Pits was a lackluster ending to the giants-drow series.

 

[GrayIguana]

Ditto

is[/i] the best designed module series of all time. Giants/Drow/Queen is just as much my favorite, but that's got a lot to do with the nostalgia, I think Desert of Desolation is probably better.

I agree. We played this about 15 years ago, but I still remember the overall plot / setting / concept being the best I played. I would say that the fun we had with this adventure made many of the later published adventures rather disappointing.

 

[Sepulchrave II]

This was a good one. I DMed it, and remember the party fighter getting zapped by a wall of electricity. But the Efreeti was very cool. I mean, Pasha of the Efreet, Vizier to the Fire Sultan. How cool is that?

 

[CalrinAlshaw]

I think one of the more interesting events of my gaming. One memorable event, was at the top of the pyramid, with the painting that was a port some several thousand feet in the air. Well, seems this lead priest guy, with his book of his religion liked to use it as a weapon, DM rolled a 1, failed the paralyzation save we use, and rolled which direction, yep, you guessed it, right out the portal, he went and dived after it...

Calrin Alshaw

 

[Severion]

Ahh, i remember that series. The "portal" was our own "the fighter that fell to earth" situation, he fell out, took massive damage and kicked ass on a patrol of thugs. The players refused to let the Efreet go, they made the place look looted and hid the lamp in plane sight.

 

[MerricB]

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.

That's straight out of Oasis of the Lost Palm. No adlibbing required. The Desert of Desolation series is (for me) the best adventure ever written for D&D by a fair margin.

Cheers!

 

[DaveStebbins]

As a DM, one of my favorite parts of the series was the original illustrations, where a party, which was a thinly veiled Three Stooges trio, were always messing up different parts of the module.

Like others, it was one of my group's favorites when I ran it almost two decades ago. I'm also running it now for my current group (grabbed a 3.0 update here at EN World before the new WotC policy went into effect). The only problem this group has is that they are more of a hack and slash group, partly because we can only get together once a month, and the series is pretty heavily laden with puzzles, riddles, legends and other good stuff which they find very difficult to remember session-to-session.

 

[Steve Jung]

I remember DMing the first 2 modules for my brothers. One part we recall is one of the characters—a human ranger with about 50 hp—falling through a trap door to the room below. The fall wouldn't have killed him, but I was using the wound rules from Dragon #118. So I said, "He'll be alright… as long as he doesn't fall on his head." Roll. "Hmm. He hits his head and falls unconscious." Now they hear noises in the room which reveals a pair of minotaurs advancing on the ranger. So the elven cleric (post-Unearthed Arcana) jumps on the back of the human fighter (wearing a ring of feather fall) and they both leap down to rescue their friend.

The funny thing is, that ring had gotten destroyed by a fireball some time ago. Of course, I didn't remember that until hours later.

 

[johnsemlak]

What are teh differences between the 3 modules (which I have) and the mega-module? Did the megamod add anything cool?

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I got it about 2 years ago. Lend from an old gamer friend. It's really cool and theres some great stuff in it... The maze section is one I thought looked particularly good fun - I'd love to go into more detail, but someone reading this might want to play it.

In fact, the only bit I didn't get on with was the ending as written. IIRC, it basically boiled down to an *Spoiler*>'uber NPC face off' - which is not a plot device I enjoy as a player or DM.

Other than that it's a great! And it has been looted for the egyptian themed bits of my campaign.