Undermountain maps - yeck!!

[Mad Zagyg]

I am extremely disappointed with the Expedition to the Ruins of Undermountain adventure. The maps are indeed horrible. The one on the lower right hand corner of page 31 (labeled Vanrackdoom) is lifted straight out of the 2nd Edition Tomes adventure titled "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords." Way to go guys.

Not only that, but the adventure suffers from another annoying problem that goes all the way back to the original Undermountain boxed set. Pesonally, I don't want to purchase an adventure that contains a huge map that consists of 90% empty rooms with only 10% filled in with descriptions (and it's likely I'm being overkind with those percentages). I buy adventures because they are complete and ready-to-run. This adventure brought all that disappointment back all over again.

Undermountain is too big of a project for a 220 page book. Epic-scope ideas like this will never work with the new encounter format 2-page spread. I would have no problem with them eschewing that format for more content with the projects that warrant it.

 

[Jim Hague]

I am extremely disappointed with the Expedition to the Ruins of Undermountain adventure. The maps are indeed horrible. The one on the lower right hand corner of page 31 (labeled Vanrackdoom) is lifted straight out of the 2nd Edition Tomes adventure titled "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords." Way to go guys.

Not only that, but the adventure suffers from another annoying problem that goes all the way back to the original Undermountain boxed set. Pesonally, I don't want to purchase an adventure that contains a huge map that consists of 90% empty rooms with only 10% filled in with descriptions (and it's likely I'm being overkind with those percentages). I buy adventures because they are complete and ready-to-run. This adventure brought all that disappointment back all over again.

Undermountain is too big of a project for a 220 page book. Epic-scope ideas like this will never work with the new encounter format 2-page spread. I would have no problem with them eschewing that format for more content with the projects that warrant it.

It's exactly this kind of reaction that got folks involved with the World's Largest Dungeon. Barring a weak start in Region A, you won't find Empty Room Syndrome in there.

 

[Olaf the Stout]

I am extremely disappointed with the Expedition to the Ruins of Undermountain adventure. The maps are indeed horrible. The one on the lower right hand corner of page 31 (labeled Vanrackdoom) is lifted straight out of the 2nd Edition Tomes adventure titled "Axe of the Dwarvish Lords." Way to go guys.

Not only that, but the adventure suffers from another annoying problem that goes all the way back to the original Undermountain boxed set. Pesonally, I don't want to purchase an adventure that contains a huge map that consists of 90% empty rooms with only 10% filled in with descriptions (and it's likely I'm being overkind with those percentages). I buy adventures because they are complete and ready-to-run. This adventure brought all that disappointment back all over again.

Undermountain is too big of a project for a 220 page book. Epic-scope ideas like this will never work with the new encounter format 2-page spread. I would have no problem with them eschewing that format for more content with the projects that warrant it.

I would have though that they learned their lesson re:lots of empty rooms from the original Undermountain adventure. Maybe they thought that people would appreciate the nostalgia of doing the same thing again? If there are such people, I'm not one of them.

Personally I just see it as lazy. I don't want to buy an adventure where I have to come up with contents for half of the rooms. That's why I'm buying an adventure in the first place, so someone else can do that for me!

Olaf the Stout

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I would have though that they learned their lesson re:lots of empty rooms from the original Undermountain adventure. Maybe they thought that people would appreciate the nostalgia of doing the same thing again? If there are such people, I'm not one of them.

Personally I just see it as lazy. I don't want to buy an adventure where I have to come up with contents for half of the rooms. That's why I'm buying an adventure in the first place, so someone else can do that for me!

Given the (known in advance) page count of Expedition to Undermountain, how on earth could they have filled even a fraction of the dungeon in any sort of satisfactory way?

You guys are angry that WotC didn't perform a miracle here.

 

[phindar]

That makes it much harder to instantly get the size of the moon.

That's no moon. That's a space station.

Although this does remind me of something my GM said one time while he was running the original Undermountain boxed set. "I'm pretty sure this entire map was knocked out in one weekend using the old random dungeon generator from the 1e DMG." Maybe crappy maps are the Undermountain legacy.

 

[kaomera]

You guys are angry that WotC didn't perform a miracle here.

Expedition to Undermountain is a 224-page super-adventure that revisits the greatest dungeon in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Located beneath the city of Waterdeep, Undermountain has lured countless heroes to their doom. Like other adventures in the “Expedition” series, this product takes a classic D&D location, updates it for D&D v.3.5, and features many new surprises. It also includes source material for the players and a new combat encounter format designed to make the Dungeon Master’s job easier, as well as information to help Dungeon Masters adapt the adventure to serve their home campaigns.

I am not, personally, upset. I'm not a huge fan of the Realms, and Undermountain (and Waterdeep) are part of why I'm not. I also have no problem with being given plenty of room to expand and personalize the product. I tend to prefer the DIY areas to be off (or at least off to the side of) the map (and that doesn't fit my memories of the original Undermountain boxed set, but I could be mistaken).

What does kind of bother me is that WotC does not seem to be making it clear exactly what kind of product this is. Obviously if you know any Realms history they where not going to fit the whole of Undermountain into this product. Personally, from what I've seen of the "Exedition to..." format I expected at best an adventure that was set in Undermountain, most likely with a few chapters of material on Undermountain as a whole. But that was an assumption made based on information that, if I was trying to sell the book, I would not expect the average buyer to know.

Honestly, this whole fuss has got me kind of worried about Expedition to Castle Greyhawk. I was kind of trying to be excited by it, and it's the only one in the series I have any interest in actually buying.

 

[hexgrid]

Not only that, but the adventure suffers from another annoying problem that goes all the way back to the original Undermountain boxed set. Pesonally, I don't want to purchase an adventure that contains a huge map that consists of 90% empty rooms with only 10% filled in with descriptions (and it's likely I'm being overkind with those percentages). I buy adventures because they are complete and ready-to-run. This adventure brought all that disappointment back all over again.

The product is described as an adventure, not as a comprehensive catalog of Undermountain room descriptions. Undermountain is the setting where the adventure takes place.

If the book is really lacking adventure material, or if there isn't information about the locations used in the adventure, you've got something to complain about.

 

[Kris]

Yeah, those maps don't look all that good, but I'm sure they'll do the job they were intended for.

However, as someone that probably spends too much time creating maps and stuff for his own games (it's a sickness really ), the map in a product is usually something that I pay a lot of attention to, and these do indeed look like something that were rushed out or done by someone just starting out with photoshop (though we all have to start somewhere right?).

Though I have to admit that as free downloads they look OK, but if they are the maps that appear in the book itself, then I guess I would be a little disappointed with the quality seeing as how nice (IMO) most of the WotC stuff usually looks.

I also agree that a lot of third party stuff looks great, as does a lot of free stuff, and it's also kinda nice (in a strange, warped and twisted way) to see something in a published product, and think you could probably have done a better job yourself

 

[BadMojo]

I was originally pretty excited about Undermountain, being a huge Realms geek, but now it's gone from a "must buy" to a "browse throught it at the store first". I'm not writing this one off yet, but I haven't heard many good things about it.

The maps on the website look awful; I'm not optimistic that they'll look much better in print.

And, yeah, there are a lot of great maps in 3rd party products. Ed Bourelle does awesome work, as was mentioned a few times in this thread, but he's not the only one. FYI, I believe Mr. Bourelle happened to be involved in a little project called "Ptolus". Check it out!

 

[Jupp]

That's no moon. That's a space station.

Although this does remind me of something my GM said one time while he was running the original Undermountain boxed set. "I'm pretty sure this entire map was knocked out in one weekend using the old random dungeon generator from the 1e DMG." Maybe crappy maps are the Undermountain legacy.

Yikes, I should limit the consumption of shrooms while posting in the forums.