World's Largest Dungeon. Any good?

[Xellous]

Well the title basically says it all. Im thinking of running my group through this dungeon. Im wondering how it is. Ive heard that it was good but a few second oppinions could really help. If it matters I plan on having either 4 or 5 people run this.

Thanks

 

[Soel]

I've played in a few sessions of this adventure with a Dm that ran it straight from the book, no changes. It was one of the most monotonous adventures I've ever played. Hallways, and rooms, and more rooms...

I have read some transcripts of other's sessions and some parts sound really interesting. From what I understand now, its also not supposed to be ran in its entirety, just in blocks.

Perhaps if you are willing to make some changes or allowances, it would be ok. But that pretty much goes without saying for book adventures...

 

[DaveMage]

It's quite good (IMO).

However, as Soel mentioned, one of it's drawbacks is actually the first part of it - where it can be monotonous. Once you get beyond the first part (which really isn't too bad if the DM mixes it up a bit), it's a very impressive work.

There are 15 parts and they can be played as one long dungeon or broken apart to be targeted toward a specific level of PCs.

There is a mega-thread (with lots of spoilers - be warned) about the WLD here:

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=100030

Enjoy!

 

[Gothmog]

It really depends on what your group likes. If you love dungeon crawls and a lot of monotony (which runs throughout the module), then you'll love it.

A friend bought it when it came out, and he ran us through about 10 sessions of it (we got to about 4th level). I'd have to say its the most dull and monotonous D&D game I was ever involved in. My friend is a pretty good DM, and he tried to involved various side-quests in the dungeon as well as intrigue between various factions, but its an endless maze of rooms, battles, and searching. And our group kept asking "why would ANYONE build a huge complex like this and just seal it up?". There isn't any sense, rhyme or reason to it, but then again we hated Undermountain, .

I bought it for about $40 from my buddy after we quit WLD and he wanted to unload it. I'd have to say $40 is overpaying for it after having read through the first 6 levels thoroughly and skimming the other levels. Its billed as a complete campaign, but it would take the DM a LOT of work to actually make this monster work- more so than just getting Dungeon magazine adventures and stringing them together. Plus, in the WLD, there isn't a lot of opportunity for side quests, investigative adventures, or role-playing, but you'll likely get sore wrists from flinging 20 siders. I'd never try to run this thing as a campaign, and the only use I can see getting out of it is removing small sections of it and using them as isolated ruins/dungeons in a regular campaign. So if you love an endless series of combats with little variety, searching rooms, and looting bodies, you'll love it. Otherwise, avoid at all costs.

EDIT: As a side note, I also played through most of Rappan Athuk by Necromancer Games with the same DM, and while very difficult, it was quite enjoyable. We thought we'd give WLD a try because we did enjoy RA. RA is better thought out, has more variety in its encounters and locations, has more role-playing opportunities, and is much more challenging than WLD, and is SMALLER (which is a good thing IMO). If you're wanting a really good dungeon delve where you REALLY flex your tactical muscles and don't mind some PC deaths, then go with RA rather than WLD.

 

[Stalker0]

I only played one session of it. This isn't really a spoiler, since it happens in several places, but god there were a lot of traps...like annoying amount, no good reason for it number of traps. I literally think everytime the rogue attempted a search check there was a trap.

There was actually like 5 traps in one room!! My friends started joking about the traps per ft cubed in that room

 

[Derfel]

I have to agree with some of the sentiment posted here. I've been fairly disappointed in the adventure as a whole.

I bought the module because I have very little time to prepare for games. I have just enough time to read the module in prep for a session. The book received good reviews and other owners seemed to enjoy it, but god is the first region a bore. Right now my players are betting on whether a given door leads to another empty room, or a corridor. I know I could make it more interesting, but the fact is, I don't buy modules so I can spend hours adding extra material the authors should have.

Now my group loves the dungeon-crawl/hack & slash aspects of gaming, so that isn't the problem. The problem is that there are about 5-6 types of encounters in the first region, repeated over and over again. A lot of work is needed to make the first region more interesting.

So at this point my group and I have decided to just stop. From reading ahead the later regions seem a bit more interesting, but noone in my group has enough interest to continue. I'm hoping I'll be able to make use out of the book by pulling out the different regions and using them as small dungeons.

If you have a lot of time to spent customizing and re-writing the module (at which point I wonder what the point of buying an adventure is) I would say it's a good purchase. I liked the fact that monster stats are right there in the text (not an appendix or reference to the SRD) and some of the later regions are actually interesting. But first impressions are important and the WLD left a real bad first impression.

If you buy it I would strongly recommend dumping the first region, or spending some time and re-writing it.

 

[Steel_Wind]

I thought it was excellent.

Like any module, the DM has to read it well and carefully and try to make it fit into his party's style in order to make a campaign of it. It is a massive dungeon crawl of course - so you need to be in a position where this is what you want to run and have it be something your players want to play.

Given the nature of the module and what it sets out to be, it does an admirable job.

The encounter details and very well done and the tactics make sense. There is both a rhyme and reason and a plot in WLD - but it emerges too slowly in the first dungeon. The DM is in the know but the Players are not. This is a weakness solved by a DM who reads ahead and makes adjustments. As the book is so large, there are many DMs who will not be reading ahead as much as they should.

I believe it was worth the money and I look forward to World's Largest City.

 

[A'koss]

I'm interested in opinions on this adventure as well. I saw it for the first time last week (that book is just massive!) and I was tempted, but at $100+ CDN... I want to know a little more about it.

So far I'm getting the impression that it doesn't sound any better than me just converting a bunch of 1st ed. dungeon crawls...

Cheers!

 

[Psion]

Some people have mentioned some weak points (mainly, redundancy in the first section and traps in some sections) and I'll add that I don't think that some of the operating assumptions are too sensible (particularly regarding wizards and summoning spells), but I think it really needs strongly emphasized that in addition to the sheer size of the book, the book is very well ogranized and written. You don't need to spend a lot of prep time with the book... the encounter areas are organized to make important points clear, and every area has a scaling entry, making it trivial to adapt it to your group. You can even adapt it on the fly if you feel your group is having too easy a time!

 

[Lasher Dragon]

I agree with everything Steel Wind said. I have been DM'ing the WLD for a few months now and I think it is an awesome adventure. I also agree that map A (the beginning of the dungeon) can get incredibly boring about halfway through it. I spiced it up by changing the encounters and throwing some random loot in there to help the PCs out, like pearls for Identify. I have read about halfway through the book and so far have skimmed the rest, and yes there is a definite plot - which the players will find out about if a) the DM understands this and maybe nudges it along, and b) the players don't just immediately kill everything they see. My players were doing that for a while, then later on they had no idea what the hell they were up against. I had to chastise them a bit out of game... they had successfully killed off nearly every potential source of intel LOL.

As a side note, it seems to me that region A is kinda supposed to be like Doom in a way - I mean, nearly all of the encounters are fiendish, and creatures that aren't fiendish are usually holed up somewhere in terror of the fiendish creatures. Perhaps I have been playing too much Doom 3 BUT were I to run region A again, I think I would work on making region A much scarier and just give it an incredibly evil feel. I don't think this would take much work - just add in some random things like strange noises, maybe make some rooms covered in strange abyssal runes written in blood, make the PCs swear they "saw something" when nothing is there, etc.. A lot of this is taken care of in the Encounter Conditions - which it seems to me that people complaining the WLD is boring were not utilizing. To get the flavor you really must use the Encounter Conditions - I myself have just xeroxed the Encounter Conditions page so that I don't have to flip back to it. Also don't forget to roll random encounters whenever you feel it's necessary. The book suggests once an hour or so in region A, but me I really just roll random encounters whenever I feel things are getting slow or if someone sets off a trap. Using the chart, random encounters can be anything from an actual old-school creature combat, to some weird shrieking in the distance, to a major undergound earthquake.

Anyway, to sum up I think the WLD is incredible - as long as the DM uses what the book gives him and doesn't skimp on the details.