I must interject in here: The Temple of Elemental Evil is one of my top three favorite D&D adventures of all time. It is the quintessential D&D dungeon adventure. And it does include the full T1 The Village of Hommlet module.
Ditto. TOEE was the best adventure I ever played, and later the best adventure I ever DM'd. I found running the TOEE to be a breath of fresh air in an era (2e) when both the published adventures and the games I played in were far too often linear narrative railroads.
Treat the dungeons of the actual Temple much like a sandbox. It has many ambitious leaders and competing factions, and many (relatively) open spaces for navigating between its obvious and not-so-obvious hazards. Note that many of its factional leaders really have no interest in freeing the BBEGal. Allow the players to interact with the various NPC's in town and in the dungeons, to let the characters develop a narrative of their own.
Yes, the nodes are only sketched out - but I'm hardly a skilled improviser, and I had no difficulty statting them out by opening up my 2e Monstrous Manual and the 1e monster books. By the time the party ended up there (unarmed and in their smallclothes), the adventure seemed to write itself, based upon the narrative the players had developed for themselves.
Good luck, don't be afraid, and enjoy!
p.s. Skip RTTTOEE, for all the reasons mentioned above.
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