World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]

[jim pinto]

First off, the a--kissing.
From the little I've read (skimming and 50% of A), the WLD is possibly the best laid out "module" I've seen in my 2 decades of gaming. Excellent job on the sensible setup in the book. It has supplanted "Skarda's Mirror" as my opinion of the best D&D module ever published.

Now what I would like to know from everyone who is running it, how are you all going about keeping track of EVERYTHING that is going on? I know I'm going to have to delegate a few tasks to players and take a hefty amount of notes. But I think even then it won't be enough. I'm not about to tell the players that they can't enter section B until they've cleared section A 100%. So that means keeping track of everything is that much harder.
We won't be starting the WLD for a couple of weeks, so that gives me the chance to find out what the other people who are running it are doing. So please, let me know what you have done (or are intending to do) that has worked for you, or what you've done that hasn't worked.

Thanks,
BBR

anyone who knows me, knows i don't respond well to compliments

however, in this case i will at the very least say, we went for a clean
layout and easy to use format for each encounter. so if that's what you
like, i thank you for noticing.

moving on to the meat of your post....

if you don't mind writing in your book, the obvious bookkeeping method
is to circle the room number of rooms that have been cleared. or, make
a photocopy of the map (4 8.5 x 11 b/w photocopies are about 5 cents each)
and circle the room number when a room is complete

you can also use a soft lead pencil to strike through the treasure in
a given room, to indicate that its gone.

also, you can make yourself a sheet for each room with monsters,
so you can "mark them off" as you go. you can also add a column
listing all the "wandering" darkmantles, orcs, etc. so you know
exactly how many remain, even after all the rooms have been cleared

i don't recommend this last method, because its a lot of extra work
and the book ISN'T supposed to be work. but, i'm finding there's a
myriad of DMing styles out there and some people really do want to
know what's under EVERY ROCK.

lastly, appoint one PC to write down everything they found in every
room.

A16... killed two liches. found magical sandwich.
A22... smote dragon. ate heart. left carcass for the stirges.
A55... kicked longtails ass (second time). drank orc beer.

and so on.

that way when they enter a room, you can look at the sheet
and see if they've been there before.

hope this helps.

if i've missed the point of your questions, let me know

 

[twofalls]

First off, the a--kissing.
We won't be starting the WLD for a couple of weeks, so that gives me the chance to find out what the other people who are running it are doing. So please, let me know what you have done (or are intending to do) that has worked for you, or what you've done that hasn't worked.

I've only run one session so far, I'm leaving in two hours to begin a weekend long foray into the Delve and hope to finish A and get a hefty ammount of E tracked. (BTW Jim, thanks for the map, I was able to make a color print and remark my rooms.) My method so far has been to keep a notebook and simply make notes on important events it the dungeon. On the map itself I place a dot on every room entered, and if anything noteworthy happens there I make notes after session on what it was in the notebook I've created. In that notebook is a revised descripton of every room and its occupants.

As a campaign the dugneon can be highly interactive it you decide to take on the addtional work. I happend to be the kind of GM who has to put his personal touches on most everything, so this adventure has been a lot more work for me that is nessesary. I have patrols from section E going into section A becouse of a Demonic influcence there for example. I don't like olayer mapping, so I'm switching out section F with a different area to avoid the maze.. etc. Basically copious notes and taking the dungeon one peice at a time rather than digesting it all is the only way I can think of to run it comfortably... from my vantage point.

 

[jim pinto]

I've only run one session so far, I'm leaving in two hours to begin a weekend long foray into the Delve and hope to finish A and get a hefty ammount of E tracked. (BTW Jim, thanks for the map, I was able to make a color print and remark my rooms.) My method so far has been to keep a notebook and simply make notes on important events it the dungeon. On the map itself I place a dot on every room entered, and if anything noteworthy happens there I make notes after session on what it was in the notebook I've created. In that notebook is a revised descripton of every room and its occupants.

As a campaign the dugneon can be highly interactive it you decide to take on the addtional work. I happend to be the kind of GM who has to put his personal touches on most everything, so this adventure has been a lot more work for me that is nessesary. I have patrols from section E going into section A becouse of a Demonic influcence there for example. I don't like olayer mapping, so I'm switching out section F with a different area to avoid the maze.. etc. Basically copious notes and taking the dungeon one peice at a time rather than digesting it all is the only way I can think of to run it comfortably... from my vantage point.

excellent point... this is something we couldn't cover in the book,
because it wouldn't have been useful to people who are "cutting it"
into sections, but patrols from region to region should be semi-common

i think region e and f have random encounters that are referential

 

[jim pinto]

a mighty crawl indeed

the gang at wiz kids are playing the world's largest dungeon
and posting their weblog at

http://www.worldslargestdungeon.blogspot.com/

its very interesting to see different groups starting the adventure
and their interpretation of the important elements of the dungeon

these guys glazed over the dead titan at the front door, while
another group spent 1/2 hour arguing over what the pages
meant.

 

[Jim Hague]

Interesting stuff indeed - that's, what, at least 3 blogs we're aware of that concern the WLD? I don't think it qualifies as phenomenon yet, but it just might end up that way.

I wonder...if you dropped folks into different Regions and had their parties occasionally cross each others' path, what would the campaign blog look like?

Hmm.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

Thanks for the assistance.

I'll be using some combinations of your suggestions mixed with some of my own techniques.
...I can't write in the book though...just because it's the size of a college book doesn't mean I'm going to be highlighting everything in it

I think I'll be combining the room note-taking with the mapmaking and letting a player do that at my direction. We use the magnetic floor tiles made by Skeletonkey Games, so I just have to set it up and they can map it, or vice-versa.

I'll also be letting a player take care of the timeline and food consumption (1 days food = 7 days food, but water is 1:1).

As for special items and magic items, I will keeping track of who has them, what they really are, and the page from the book they were gotten. Yes, it will be a pain, but the PC's will have to Identify their own items...at least until I'm tired of dealing with it.

But hey, I have a few weeks before we jump into it and I'm constantly scouring the net for new opinions, notices, warnings, reviews, and ideas.

Oh and I'll definitely be using the ideas given to prevent the excessive use of "Take 20".

Now to decide what is the fair number of points to allow for character creation...

 

[jim pinto]

Thanks for the assistance.

I'll be using some combinations of your suggestions mixed with some of my own techniques.
...I can't write in the book though...just because it's the size of a college book doesn't mean I'm going to be highlighting everything in it

I think I'll be combining the room note-taking with the mapmaking and letting a player do that at my direction. We use the magnetic floor tiles made by Skeletonkey Games, so I just have to set it up and they can map it, or vice-versa.

I'll also be letting a player take care of the timeline and food consumption (1 days food = 7 days food, but water is 1:1).

As for special items and magic items, I will keeping track of who has them, what they really are, and the page from the book they were gotten. Yes, it will be a pain, but the PC's will have to Identify their own items...at least until I'm tired of dealing with it.

But hey, I have a few weeks before we jump into it and I'm constantly scouring the net for new opinions, notices, warnings, reviews, and ideas.

Oh and I'll definitely be using the ideas given to prevent the excessive use of "Take 20".

Now to decide what is the fair number of points to allow for character creation...

if the PCs are running low on water, don't be afraid to place a well
somewhere we didn't think of. especially in a well guarded room, as
humanoids will consider this a most valuable treasure.

as for character creation... i like 25 to 30 points.
if you're running a bigger group, 25 is ideal. but if the party is really small
and the PCs need to multitask, increase it to the 32 ceiling in the DMG

sounds like a good game.

 

[Soul]

Hey Jim, you'll be happy to know (or atleast I'd like to think that =P), the guy in the green flanel from gen con, that you atleast seemed to midly enjoy heckling about buying the book, finally has a copy. I'll be running my first session monday, so i'll be spending a lot of time preping. It'll probably be around a 10 hour session or so. Excellent work all of you who have contributed to this work. I'll probably be posting more in this thread here on out.

 

[jim pinto]

Hey Jim, you'll be happy to know (or atleast I'd like to think that =P), the guy in the green flanel from gen con, that you atleast seemed to midly enjoy heckling about buying the book, finally has a copy. I'll be running my first session monday, so i'll be spending a lot of time preping. It'll probably be around a 10 hour session or so. Excellent work all of you who have contributed to this work. I'll probably be posting more in this thread here on out.

the guy who came back to the booth three times,
eyeing the book like a christmas ham?

or the guy who said, "shuh... $100... whatever... buh."

 

[SpikeKeeper]

A journal of the Great Delve.

My character is journaling his experiences in the dungeon from his own somewhat unique perspective.

http://spikesjournal.blogspot.com/

Available for your amusement or disdain.