Dwellers of the Forbidden City - your experiences?

[Joshua Randall]

Oh man. You've gotta love a module that introduces(*) the yuan-ti, tasloi, mongrelmen, yellow musk creeper (and zombie), and heavily features an aboleth.

* OK, maybe some of these monsters had appeared earlier. So sue me.

I DM'd this module many, many times, mostly using the tournament part. It's hard! Not only are there tough encounters, there is a ruthless time limit. In my DM'ing experience across a half-dozen parties, not a single one actually made it all the way into the City within the alloted time.

The city itself is a blast. There are various factions which the PCs can play off against each other, plenty of wandering monsters, Horan (of course), and just oodles of atmosphere. Sure, it's basically an above-ground dungeon crawl, and the ecology doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but who cares? I love describing the humid air, the vines, the weird monkey shrieks and bird cries, the sudden clattering of rock-on-rock... there's something about jungle ruins that screams out Adventure! to me.

Is the 3.0/3.5 conversion available somewhere? I don't see it in EN World's conversion library, and I'm too lazy to search the web extensively.

 

[Steve Jung]

/snip/
Is the 3.0/3.5 conversion available somewhere? I don't see it in EN World's conversion library, and I'm too lazy to search the web extensively.

And I'm too lazy to redo it properly.

 

[Silver Moon]

A great module. At the conclusion of the module back in 1986 the characters took over the abandoned city as their new home. Eighteen years later it still is, so I'd say this module made a lasting impression on the group.

 

[DarrenGMiller]

This was a great adventure! The Yuan-Ti were great villains and the bullywugs made for a good fight too. I don't remember much other than that (we're talking 1984 IIRC) though. I have re-read it a few times and still love it.

DM

 

[Stormrunner]

Ooh, that was a long time ago, and the details have gone fuzzy. The two things I still recall were taking out Horan in 2 rounds (the thief successfully backstabbed, + low hp = dead magic-user), and the TPK by the dragon (the dragon stepped on the fighter, shoving him deep into the mud, and stood on him while fighting the rest of the party. He drowned, the centaur druid got chomped in half, and the rest perished to spells, waterfire, and summoned crocodiles).

 

[David Howery]

I LOVE this module. It's my all time favorite adventure (I love jungle adventures in general, and this is one of the best). I ran through it as a ranger in 1E (those bugbears were toast!), and remember that my paladin buddy got turned into a garter snake by one of the snake guys. This was in my earlier days of gaming, and our group was a massively munchkin bunch, so we bulled our way through most of it... but the yuan ti were tough! We had to hit and run with them (mainly run), but we ended up 'nickle and dime-ing' most of them to death....

 

[Dr Simon]

. The expansion ideas in the back of the mod had some really great concepts (I never got a chance to run any of them, however). I

I know what you mean.

I'm still looking for a suitable opportunity to use the Orchonos - vampiric orchid creatures

 

[JohnBiles]

This was a great module to DM; the one time I played in it, though, it turned into a TPK.

DUE TO THE PCS SLAUGHTERING EACH OTHER.

The last campaign I played with my original group of D&D players before they all got so much into boyscouting that they were always gone every weekend and I never got to game with them any more ended in the Forbidden City. Greg Hines was the DM and I was playing Kelvin, a NG Fighter. When we found the Pan Lung's lair, the party began arguing over whether or not to kill it. Then the Druid got irrational and blasted the Cavalier with lightning for wanting to kill it. So he attacked the druid and soon, everyone but me was slaughtering each other.

I kept trying to convince them to stop until the Pan Lung came out and asked me what was going on. My reply: "Don't ask me, I just got here." So the two of us watched everyone else kill each other, then divided up the loot and I set out to try to haul everyone's corpse back to civilization. End of Campaign as camping season started and I never got to game with them again, sadly.

 

[Serendipity]

Played this one once, never had an inclination to run it especially (this one doesn't hold up terribly well IMHO). It was pretty much a non-stop slaughterfest (my favorite bits are the lengthy extended .... was it a canyon? entrance). By the time we got to the city proper there were only two of us left and we were shallow on hit points.
Not saying I didn't have fun. Mostly I recall this module for introducing the Yuan Ti which I've never myself cared for.

 

[Rechan]

Man. people keep raving about this map. I want to see it.