Temple of Elemental Evil: Run time

[Bera]

I'm considering running Temple of Elemental Evil soon, but I'm having a hard time guessing how many sessions to devote to it. Obviously each group will be a little different, but does anyone have some experience with the module and a guess of how many hours of play time it'll be?

 

[Imperialus]

Are you talking about T1 Village of Homlett or the full temple? T1 can be done in a couple sessions.

The Temple of Elemental Evil is practically a mega dungeon. I've seen entire campaigns centered around it.

 

[Bera]

Are you talking about T1 Village of Homlett or the full temple? T1 can be done in a couple sessions.

The Temple of Elemental Evil is practically a mega dungeon. I've seen entire campaigns centered around it.

I'm thinking the whole thing.

 

[Imperialus]

It can take quite a while. The dungeon tends to be very 'meat grindery' at points. Lots of running in and out to heal up. At the end of the day ToEE is probably one of the biggest modules produced by TSR so it's a pretty big undertaking to DM.

At the end of the day I wouldn't look at it in terms of 'sessions' but rather months or years of playtime.

 

[KirayaTiDrekan]

It took my group about 4 or 5 months if I remember correctly. We skimmed over some parts and left out the Elemental Nodes completely, however.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

It can take quite a while. The dungeon tends to be very 'meat grindery' at points. Lots of running in and out to heal up. At the end of the day ToEE is probably one of the biggest modules produced by TSR so it's a pretty big undertaking to DM.

At the end of the day I wouldn't look at it in terms of 'sessions' but rather months or years of playtime.

As Imperialus said, and add that you should expect some PC casualites, which in turn means that you have to provide the replacements with some side quests to get to the desired levels. If you want to run in "simulation mode" you will see the PCs spend a lot of time outside of the Temple doing other stuff, recuperating, getting equipment, and so on.

ToEE is a fun adventure when you treat it as an adventuring environment rather than a simple if massive dungeon.

 

[MerricB]

About five minutes, if you properly play the lethality of the dungeon.

A bit more seriously, it very much depends on how you structure the adventure. To really get the most out of ToEE, you need to run it as more than just a dungeon crawl. Having the NPCs in town and the inhabitants of the dungeon reacting to what the party is doing will make the adventure a lot more rewarding.

I would generally be looking at running 10-20 sessions for the Temple proper.

As word of the Temple's resurgence gets out, consider having more agents of both good and evil show up in the area; the potential for them to sway the group to their cause (deceiving them if necessary) would be great.

Cheers!

 

[bruceparis]

You're looking at about 40 hours of play time. Maybe less if you railroad players more than usual (and discourage the "open every door" style of play). I've DM'd it twice now (incl. once back in the early 80's) and I can't see you doing it justice in under 35-40 hours. I'm actually considering running Village of Homlett (and the Moathouse) for my 5E group - and converting it. Should be fun!

 

[Bera]

Thanks everyone! This is amazingly helpful. The hour estimates are particularly good to have. I ran N1 last summer using the (then new) playtest rules in about 5 short weeknight (2.5 or 3-hour) sessions but had to cut a lot of the final dungeon. I easily could have made that last another 1-3 sessions, meaning that one could have used 20 hours of play, but my players did explore pretty much everything they could.

I was kinda wondering if T1-4 would need about 80 hours of play for the full experience or not, but it sounds like it could easily take 3 months of 3-hour weekly sessions and that might include some tricks that decrease play time a bit. Not sure if doing a 5th edition conversion would make it take less time or not yet.

I wish old school (and new old school) modules gave some approximation of play duration. Obviously it's super variable, but just knowing this might be a 40+ hour module lets me plan quite a bit more.