D&D 5E Dungeon of the Mad Mage - Boring?

[Retreater]

A few sessions ago I started running Dungeon of the Mad Mage on Roll20 with player buy-in. They were expecting a good, old-fashioned dungeon crawl with lots of combat, treasures, secret doors, etc. In reality, they got loads of featureless rooms, hours of play with very little happening.

I am comparing Mad Mage to other dungeons I've run in the past several months, such as Frog God Games' Rappan Athuk or Tegel Manor, and it doesn't come close.

I picked Mad Mage because I wanted something "official" that was available on Roll20 with minimal design I would have to do. (Other dungeons like Rappan Athuk aren't available on the platform, and I would need to build it from the ground up for the VTT format.) Now my players are bored, asking if I can steer them to "exciting" parts of the dungeon.

Anyone else have a similar situation with Mad Mage? Any other suggestions? (I did look through the "enhancing Mad Mage" thread, but it's mostly about putting in treasure in a dungeon that has few traps, few monsters, few memorable areas, but just a plethora of corridors that go to 30' square, featureless rooms.

 

[robus]

Yikes! What the heck? I didn’t enjoy my brief excursion into the PotA temple but that sounds positively action packed compared to what you’re describing!

 

[Xenonnonex]

A few sessions ago I started running Dungeon of the Mad Mage on Roll20 with player buy-in. They were expecting a good, old-fashioned dungeon crawl with lots of combat, treasures, secret doors, etc. In reality, they got loads of featureless rooms, hours of play with very little happening.

I am comparing Mad Mage to other dungeons I've run in the past several months, such as Frog God Games' Rappan Athuk or Tegel Manor, and it doesn't come close.

I picked Mad Mage because I wanted something "official" that was available on Roll20 with minimal design I would have to do. (Other dungeons like Rappan Athuk aren't available on the platform, and I would need to build it from the ground up for the VTT format.) Now my players are bored, asking if I can steer them to "exciting" parts of the dungeon.

Anyone else have a similar situation with Mad Mage? Any other suggestions? (I did look through the "enhancing Mad Mage" thread, but it's mostly about putting in treasure in a dungeon that has few traps, few monsters, few memorable areas, but just a plethora of corridors that go to 30' square, featureless rooms.

What levels did you play in? Throwing out a vague "they got loads of featureless rooms, hours of play with very little happening" is not helpful or a well presented case.

I tend to find Wizards' official adventures do need the DM to work them into their group. But that is also the case with a lot of "official" works.

 

[Retreater]

What levels did you play in? Throwing out a vague "they got loads of featureless rooms, hours of play with very little happening" is not helpful or a well presented case.

I tend to find Wizards' official adventures do need the DM to work them into their group. But that is also the case with a lot of "official" works.

Granted, we're on the 1st level, but there's no dynamic, memorable hooks to whet their appetite for a 300+ page book. We're probably 5+ hours into the game, and very little has happened. And we're running briskly on VTT. They've uncovered a solid half of the 1st level map. Empty room after empty room.
And I know I can do roleplaying. I know I can add story. I know I can add descriptions and make it interesting in my own way. But it's like buying a meal at a restaurant. Sure you can add a little salt and pepper, but ultimately it's the cook who's responsible for most of the flavor.
A well-stocked, interesting dungeon half the size of Mad Mage would've been preferable.

 

[noko]

A few sessions ago I started running Dungeon of the Mad Mage on Roll20 with player buy-in. They were expecting a good, old-fashioned dungeon crawl with lots of combat, treasures, secret doors, etc. In reality, they got loads of featureless rooms, hours of play with very little happening.

I am comparing Mad Mage to other dungeons I've run in the past several months, such as Frog God Games' Rappan Athuk or Tegel Manor, and it doesn't come close.

I picked Mad Mage because I wanted something "official" that was available on Roll20 with minimal design I would have to do. (Other dungeons like Rappan Athuk aren't available on the platform, and I would need to build it from the ground up for the VTT format.) Now my players are bored, asking if I can steer them to "exciting" parts of the dungeon.

Anyone else have a similar situation with Mad Mage? Any other suggestions? (I did look through the "enhancing Mad Mage" thread, but it's mostly about putting in treasure in a dungeon that has few traps, few monsters, few memorable areas, but just a plethora of corridors that go to 30' square, featureless rooms.

Is your party going somewhere in the dungeon or trying to clear each level as they go?

 

[Retreater]

Is your party going somewhere in the dungeon or trying to clear each level as they go?

They wanted to kill monsters and search for loot. Beer and pretzels to unwind after stressful weeks, you know?

 

[Xenonnonex]

Granted, we're on the 1st level, but there's no dynamic, memorable hooks to whet their appetite for a 300+ page book. We're probably 5+ hours into the game, and very little has happened. And we're running briskly on VTT. They've uncovered a solid half of the 1st level map. Empty room after empty room.
And I know I can do roleplaying. I know I can add story. I know I can add descriptions and make it interesting in my own way. But it's like buying a meal at a restaurant. Sure you can add a little salt and pepper, but ultimately it's the cook who's responsible for most of the flavor.
A well-stocked, interesting dungeon half the size of Mad Mage would've been preferable.

Did you use any of the plothooks from the Yawning Portal? Or were they unceremoniously just dropped in the 1st level?

From the starting area alone there is quite of lot of featured rooms and encounters. There seems to be most things for the rooms. Maybe you are finding running the sheer breadth of the dungeons to be a hindrance.

 

[noko]

Then steer them into the more fun areas of the second level by means of a partial map (or set of directions written on the wall considering it's VTT) and take advantage of the stuff in the areas numbered 30 to 39. Try to get the revenant to join the party. Head down to third and let them go nuts and, I'd say dump them into Skullport from there. It's the perimeters of the maps that have the interesting things, all in their little groups of rooms attached by quite a few empty corridors. Chase them with a gelatinous cube or something of the sort to move them through dull areas. The dungeons are all set up but you do need to read quite a way ahead to keep things moving. This is an expensive module with its problems.

What it does have is plenty of areas for your players to hide and heal up in.

 

[Retreater]

Did you use any of the plothooks from the Yawning Portal? Or were they unceremoniously just dropped in the 1st level?

From the starting area alone there is quite of lot of featured rooms and encounters. There seems to be most things for the rooms. Maybe you are finding running the sheer breadth of the dungeons to be a hindrance.

One of the players is marginally concerned with plot, so I presented him with the "round up magic items for coin" hook, and that seemed sufficient. The others just wanted to go in and kill stuff, loot, and level up.
I'm more used to running dungeons that have interesting challenges in most areas. Whether they are combats to win, NPCs to negotiate with, secrets to explore, traps to avoid, or even an interesting feature to discover. Mad Mage seems about 50% empty, with many rooms "the only thing of interest in this 60 ft. area is a frayed coil of rope."

 

[Rellott]

I really like the Dungeon of the Mad Mage Companion by Wyatt Trull on DMs Guild. It adds an overarching narrative, gives Halaster a little more “face” time, and treats the characters as stars of a TV game show. It also comes up with a bunch of ideas to flesh things out so they’re less empty rooms and hallways - it adds special events and new factions and interactions.

 

[gyor]

Quick dirty simple solution, every time they run into a empty room have them roll on a table of random encounters and/or events.

 

[Prakriti]

I don't know anything about Rappan Athuk or Tegel Manor, but Undermountain was designed at a time when the aesthetic favored a lot of empty rooms in dungeons, say 60%. I believe the 1E DMG even advocates for this, and explains the reasoning behind it. Something to do with the fact that if every room has something of interest, purpose, or value in it, then players will always have their guard up and interact with everything, because everything they encounter has a reason for being there.

Personally, I always find my players growing bored when I throw empty rooms at them, so I tend not to do it. If that means that I have to stock a published adventure with interesting encounters, then so be it. It is frustrating at times, because it adds up to a lot of prep time, but it's better than having a table full of bored players.

 

[Ash Mantle]

One of the players is marginally concerned with plot, so I presented him with the "round up magic items for coin" hook, and that seemed sufficient. The others just wanted to go in and kill stuff, loot, and level up.
I'm more used to running dungeons that have interesting challenges in most areas. Whether they are combats to win, NPCs to negotiate with, secrets to explore, traps to avoid, or even an interesting feature to discover. Mad Mage seems about 50% empty, with many rooms "the only thing of interest in this 60 ft. area is a frayed coil of rope."

Sorry to hear you've been having some issues with it!

I think just playing the DotMM as a mega dungeon with the sore aim of killing monsters, looting rooms is unfortunately going to get old fast. Instead, think of the mega dungeon as a campaign setting in itself, with the inhabitants themselves serving as additional plot hooks. Meaning DotMM will need to be thought of as a dynamic world in itself rather than just a mega dungeon.
Give these creatures reasons for wanting to kill the PCs, reasons for talking to the PCs instead. Even a monster may just want help, in defending its brethren from things worse in the dungeon, or it may want food in exchange for simple passage, as examples.
You could also organise the inhabitants into factions, meaning a defeat of a certain group could mean ascendencies in power of another group, which means this group might make forays beyond the boundaries of their initial territory into other regions of the dungeon, or it could send the shockwaves of a power vacuum throughout the dungeon as a whole.
Which means you may need to give each inhabitant of the dungeon a goal, with motivations and relationships.

Make the dungeon dynamic, there's bound to random monster encounters roaming about.

Hopefully random generators can also help with this, because all of this sounds like extra work, but it'll be worth it because the inhabitants themselves, the features of the rooms are all already written for you. Best of luck.

 

[BrokenTwin]

Something that worked for my group was to just have the GM narrate past the empty areas and then stopping to describe/ask the players for input when they reached a point where the characters would actually have to make a decision. "You pass through the great hall and down the corridor, until you reach an intersection. To your left you can hear the faint sound of music, to your right, a hint of food on the fire. What do you do?"
Obviously, this doesn't work for every group and dungeon, but it might help if everyone's getting bored with the empty spaces.

 

[teitan]

So I think it is supposed to be a toolkit. It was always designed that way, even in the 2e set. The DM was expected to take what was there and then add their own to it to make it feel alive. The DMM isn’t very story driven unlike other 5e campaigns, have very loose ties to Dragon Heist. I’m planning to run it and have already planted seeds of a Hag coven living in level 1 for when we finish the heist in order to continue tying things together and building up the anticipation for going into Undermountain.

 

[Retreater]

Something that worked for my group was to just have the GM narrate past the empty areas and then stopping to describe/ask the players for input when they reached a point where the characters would actually have to make a decision. "You pass through the great hall and down the corridor, until you reach an intersection. To your left you can hear the faint sound of music, to your right, a hint of food on the fire. What do you do?"
Obviously, this doesn't work for every group and dungeon, but it might help if everyone's getting bored with the empty spaces.

I normally would, but the VTT displaying the whole map sort of puts the game on a tactical, "move your token 5 ft at a time" level. Maybe I could do something similar where I just sort of copy the tokens on the "more interesting parts" and give them the highlights?

 

[Mistwell]

I picked Mad Mage because I wanted something "official" that was available on Roll20 with minimal design I would have to do.

I recommend you go with Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury, or White Plume Mountain then. All are great beer and pretzel dungeon crawls fit for unwinding.

 

[Prakriti]

I normally would, but the VTT displaying the whole map sort of puts the game on a tactical, "move your token 5 ft at a time" level. Maybe I could do something similar where I just sort of copy the tokens on the "more interesting parts" and give them the highlights?

I have been running games exclusively on VTT for years now, and I never put down tokens until it's time to use them, i.e. during combat. During exploration, I use a single "party" token to represent the party's general location. This speeds up play and keeps people focused on the narrative aspects of the game rather than on the micromanagement involved in moving a token around the board.

Also, I have never run a game the way BrokenTwin describes, but I see nothing wrong with it. By glossing over empty dungeon rooms, you're just moving to the next part of the game where a meaningful choice is to be made.

 

[Retreater]

I recommend you got with Sunless Citadel, Forge of Fury, or White Plume Mountain then. All are great beer and pretzel dungeon crawls fit for unwinding.

Yeah. We played those many years ago. This group is my original college buddies who went through 3.x with me.

 

[GreyLord]

Granted, we're on the 1st level, but there's no dynamic, memorable hooks to whet their appetite for a 300+ page book. We're probably 5+ hours into the game, and very little has happened. And we're running briskly on VTT. They've uncovered a solid half of the 1st level map. Empty room after empty room.
And I know I can do roleplaying. I know I can add story. I know I can add descriptions and make it interesting in my own way. But it's like buying a meal at a restaurant. Sure you can add a little salt and pepper, but ultimately it's the cook who's responsible for most of the flavor.
A well-stocked, interesting dungeon half the size of Mad Mage would've been preferable.

Our group just finished the first level. A LOT of it is going to need to be DM investing in invigorating some characters and tensions between groups.

Spoiler: Spoilers

For example, the gang in the Northern portion and the groups that Xanathar sends out are the most likely to have interactions that the group can latch onto. In addition, there is the group of adventurers that could not cooperate with each other that have it's start in the Southern portion and can have some interesting interactions.

The next level has some more options laid out in regards to interesting sub plots that you can work with to create various subjects with the players. Some levels are more interesting than others. The 1st level seems a tad less interesting than later levels, but that's probably because it's more an introduction to the Dungeon while some other levels are more the meat of it.

All told, the DM will need to work with what the Dungeon provides with the various factions and characters. It's the interaction of those groups and characters which can make or break DotMM.