D&D 5E Revising Castle Grayhawk for 5e

[Urriak Uruk]

So I'm going to put up a contrary opinion here; you can use parts of this module, at bare minimum the maps (the maps of each floor actually seem pretty good). I think what you can also do is maintain some of the encounters and where they're located.

Other pieces I don't find gravely insulting, even though they're ridiculous. There is a piece for example with "land sharks." Yeah that's silly, but it's honestly not that silly compared to the weirdest dungeons in D&D, including 5E's Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Now, there is still a lot of other stuff that needs to be at minimum reskinned, or entirely stripped out. Starting with the opening paragraph;

The self-proclaimed Herzog Akitrom the Merely Worried is the latest in a long line of lords of Castle Greyhawk. He has initiated an intense campaign of advertisement meant to encourage worldly powers such as the Queen of Celene and the petty nobles of the Wild Coast to send daring settlers to the lands about the castle.

This is, top-to-bottom, dumb. The lord's title is dumb and his plan is dumb. But it's easy to fix. Take away the stupid title, change Herzog into a wizard who's gone mad, make the PC's goal the classic "We are going in to kill the wizard and plunder his treasure." Yeah that's classic and pretty unoriginal, but it's the simplest explanation for why there is so much weird s*it in this module.

From then on, you need to treat everything on a case-by-case basis. The really meta-stuff, like Dr. What, just strip that out. Other things I think work. Others need to be reworked, extensively or moderately.

 

[Urriak Uruk]

See the map below for what I'm talking about; that's a damn good map for a dungeon, and actually matches the style of many 5e books today.

Area 3 has a hydra. 4 has piercers. 7 has a roper. 8 has land sharks. 9 has minotaurs. 10 has an eye of the deep. 11 has orcs. 13 has killer dolphins. 16 has an ettin.

The wandering monsters are a gelatinous disk (a flattened gelatinous cube), four shrunken giants (fire, frost, stone, and hill), four uniducks (unicorns, except they're ducks), and six goblins.

That's actually a fun dungeon. It's weird as hell, but dungeons can be weird. Especially when they're built by insane wizards, as this module should be remodeled to be.

 

[Eltab]

If you want a Castle Greyhawk adventure, find 3e Expedition to the Ruins of Castle Greyhawk. (My Public Library has a hardcover copy.)
The only problem I found is that you have to go all the way through Part One and Part Two to enter Part Three, even though Part Three has a door to the outside at ground level and is supposed to be a deep dark secret.

 

[JeffB]

Land shark = Bullette

Ask Tim Kask

Or

Chevy Chase

 

[Sertemus]

No. Just No.

The problem isn't that this is a joke dungeon - the problem is it's a joke dungeon that's about as funny as Tomb of Horrors.

IIRC (and I trashed my copy decades ago so I am reaching way back) much of the humor was pop culture figures translated into D&D - e.g. a hafling with a floppy hat and long scarf named "Dr. What." There was another part where chefs were cooking up Black Puddings (get it - 'cause the're puddings! ROTFLOL!) These are literally the BEST jokes I remember from the module. As a 13 year old I found the humor too stupid to be funny, and at that age I though fart jokes were refined satire.

The article you link calls it a "a puerile, unfunny collection of shlock." That's pretty generous IMHO.

Well, there are others, like “mind filer” (mine führer) or a cre-Ettin, the uni-ducks, or the gelatinous cube cleaner rumba with diferent flawors, and, of course the paralizing “floating” eyes of an eye of the “deep”.
all it was a joke, but not less mortal than others. Try to map the level 4 if you can :’D.

 

[Stalker0]

Now I'm curious as my DM has taken a "Castle Greyhawk" module and changed it to Pathfinder 1E. Its definately filled with puns and jokes, but some of the ones people mentioned I haven't encountered yet (being level 8 of the 12 levels).

Its in the basement of the Castle, maybe "return to Castle Greyhawk?"

I will say the puns do range from really funny to completely Groan inducing.

 

[guachi]

I'll admit to finding the module funny when I bought it at the age of 14. I had no connection to Grayhawk so no possibility of being offended. It's a completely silly dungeon.

 

[Rhineglade]

I have always preferred "World of Greyhawk" to "Forgotten Realms". It has long been a tradition for WotC to adapt multiple Greyhawk storylines to fit into the Realms. Why not go the other way? I do enjoy the "Dungeon of the Mad Mage." Why not adapt that to fit into Castle Greyhawk? Zagyg was also a "mad mage" and a DM could easily adjust the storyline a bit to fit any campaign. I've used the traditional ground level map of the ruins of Castle Greyhawk but when players begin delving into its depths, they instead come across the 1st level of "Dungeon of the Mad Mage". And there are 22 more levels below that!

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Errh, no. Full disclosure already proceeds me...

 

[MerricB]

I did enjoy the horizontal, jet-propelled piercers.