I played in this one back in 1e - we went in there with our Evil Party to go get us some bitchin' weapons and stuff. Tim, a player in my regular homebrew was DM - it was his first time out as DM and he had just bought the module. None of us knew it and so we were all keen to encourage him and have a laugh.
I should point out at this juncture that Tim's character in my homebrew was Lars the barbarian. I had just run Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth for them and, as I mentioned in the thread on that module, I had subjected Lars to a variety of the caverns' indignities (guano swallowing, level-draining, gas-spore infection, trapper-engulfment, rug-smothering and relentless attacks from the Unkillable Demon Flies).
Payback's a bitch.
The sphinx seemed safe enough, if a little camp. I suppose the turnstiles should have been a tip-off that strange things were afoot at the Circle K but we just took it for another dungeon and went at it full-throttle. As I recall, we ended up facing the crab fairly rapidly and were doing fairly well, until our Stupid NPC Sorcereress started flinging the lightning bolts around. Bad move. We killed her. Even worse move. Stuck in White Plume Mountain with no wizard, DM-controlled or otherwise.
A little later I wound up in this godawful trap that seemed to be some kind of boiling geyser chute that kept shooting me from one end of a massive tube to another. The DM was in gloating hysterics throughout ("What good's your negative AC now, sucker?") and although our cleric got me out (I was playing a fighter, btw) it slowly began to dawn no me that I was in for some comeuppance.
(Needless to say, I only learned years later that Tim had invented this bit of the module entirely...)
We had real trouble with the odious Burket and had just dealt with him and Snarla and were sitting back for a minute to decide whether or not to continue with the whole insane plan or not, when the door to the game-room opens and in walks my Fabled First DM, Matt Of The Box Of White. Matt casually mentions that he had heard Tim was running White Plume and, as this had always been a fave of his, he had "asked Tim if it would be OK to DM for a bit". From Tim's fiendish grin it was quite apparent that the truth was far more nefarious, but whatever the case, within moments Matt was behind the screen.
He started rolling right away ("I always like to open with a little wandering monster check - oh look, a black pudding") and proceeded to hammer upon us righteously. Horrific rule interpretations, hellacious monster tactics, more black puddings than Yorkshire, all airily explained away as "a little old-school for you upstarts". Tim, of course, whooped, cheered and cavorted behind Matt as we expended precious magical items and even more precious hit points against the inhabitants of White Plume and the Pudding Collective.
Bluto was the turning point, for no reason other than we wasted his fat ass in very short order. It gave us a confidence boost and spurred us on and we started to come back off the ropes. And then I got Black Razor. Oh joy. Oh happy day. Oh cross Tim. Matt, ever the playah, gave Tim the chair back after that and sat back to observe his handiwork.
We kicked serious butt from then on in. That stupid vampire was undead toast, even without using the sword, given all the levels I started to gain. Most satisfying, nailing that vampire - especially as the last time I had played my fighter was in Castle Ravenloft, where Strahd had turned me into a chicken and drained me down to level 6. A frickin level 6 chicken, I ask you...
I was something like 53rd level by the time we slew Nix and Nox and Box and Cox and Dix and Dox and Rox and Sox and god knows who else and went our merry way towards the exit. Tim, who had been enjoying the latter part of the session less than he had the first parts, startd grumbling about it "all being too bloody easy once you got that sword" and reckoned that the weapons would unbalance the game and so we should give them back. We mocked him and we slew Fix and Fox and Mix and Mox and then the volcano erupted and Keraptis appeared as a three hundred foot-tall magma wizard and demanded we give the weapons back. Oh well. Sometimes the DM can be funny like that. 53rd level was nice while it lasted.
At the next session of my homebrew I gave Lars a +5 greataxe that could shoot lightning bolts, produce stunning thunderclaps and summon air elementals. Its bearer was also destined to be the next king of the barbarians. After all, us DMs have to stick together, right?
I also ran the adventure myself under 2e. The eternal Tsunami, skillz-and-powerz adventurers without compare, tackled it three times in a row and were defeated by the dungeon at each attempt, sent packing with not so much as a copper to show for it all. It's the only dungeon they were never able to crack. But it's not like I have an issue with the adventure or anything.
