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

[Mr Samedi]

This week my players will enter Region F from Region B.

They're probably going to get pissed when they discover the Warp doors (or more likely, realise that they've gone through them).

I was just thinking, how does the warp door realise that the entire party has gone through?
I was thinking that maybe once half the party has gone though, the door could change and have the party split up, which could make things rather interesting.

 

[erucsbo]

This week my players will enter Region F from Region B.

They're probably going to get pissed when they discover the Warp doors (or more likely, realise that they've gone through them).

I was just thinking, how does the warp door realise that the entire party has gone through?
I was thinking that maybe once half the party has gone though, the door could change and have the party split up, which could make things rather interesting.

If possible, try not to separate the party, especially if the group is small in size. The 'non-diplomatic' encounters CRs may well be beyond them if you do, making it quite lethal.

A suggestion that I think came up earlier in this thread was to keep the warp destinations the same while the door is open and perhaps for an hour (or some other fixed measure of time) afterwards. That stops the "open door - close door - open door" routine.

 

[Mr Samedi]

If possible, try not to separate the party, especially if the group is small in size. The 'non-diplomatic' encounters CRs may well be beyond them if you do, making it quite lethal.

A suggestion that I think came up earlier in this thread was to keep the warp destinations the same while the door is open and perhaps for an hour (or some other fixed measure of time) afterwards. That stops the "open door - close door - open door" routine.

The party has eight players in it, some with VERY powerful characters, splitting them up would probably be more of an attention problem (as in having to split my attention between two groups with appropriate pacing).

I think if it takes too long for the warp doors to change, it ruins the whole cofusing element they add to the maze. I think I'll just stick with having the door change whenever the party goes through.

 

[Hussar]

I split the party up in Region A (using a Crypt Thing) and it was fun. For a short while. The attention span thing is tricky. At least in A, there are a lot of empty rooms, meaning a single PC can wander around by himself fairly easily without getting creamed. In region F, where there is pretty much an encounter behind every door, I would avoid it. You're going to have some seriously dead PC's PDQ.

Eruc - naw, my PC's generally don't notice it because I fix it before hand. That's one of the bennies of doing the DM's Master Maps. I know what is in each room before they get to it and I can adjust accordingly - either with a quick Photoshop of the room to make it bigger, or knocking off a critter or two or simply moving a critter into the next room.

But, it is a seriously annoying problem.

 

[rvalle]

The party has eight players in it, some with VERY powerful characters, splitting them up would probably be more of an attention problem (as in having to split my attention between two groups with appropriate pacing).

I think if it takes too long for the warp doors to change, it ruins the whole cofusing element they add to the maze. I think I'll just stick with having the door change whenever the party goes through.

I had the door auto close after a few min of being opened. Once closed it reset to another random place when reopened.

BTW, my group never made it much past the first door. Only two characters were immune to the random effects from walking though. Once character got confused/raged and attacked another party member, another was paralized. The raged guy was blinded while trying to leave.

The party did figure out the doors were doing some weird warping as they opened it up after it auto closed (after they had already left the room) and found it lead to a new place. There was a stunned silence as the party realized how close they were to being totaly screwed.

rv

 

[jim pinto]

Yeah, I can totally see that. Plus, I'm thinking that there may have been alterations to the maps during adventure writing that wasn't passed on to the adventure writers. I mean, look at the mess that B is. The way it is written, the Goblin Empire, despite controlling the southwest and northeast, cannot actually move from one section to the other. Pretty hard for the rebels to hide when the only way guards can shift from one area to the other passes right through their home.

C has issues as well. As written, Nardarik cannot actually leave his area of the map - he'd have to pass through too many nasty areas - including the hall of the Celestials which would pretty much kill him to do so. Even if he could open the secret doors, which he can't. I added a couple of passages to the map to fix that when I ran it.

ah. hussar. how you vex me.

but seriously, map b was an absolute MESS when i got it from the writer. i won't go into it here, but the material was four months late on top of everything else. i've avoided on EVERY FRONT avoiding speaking negatively of anyone's efforts on this book. but region b was completely re-written by me and region c had three authors because of people's inability to hit deadlines.

so much time was spent trying to reconcile everything, time we didn't have.

four years ago, this month, i had two broken fingers in my right hand, and i was editing and typing with my left. insane. region a took all of a week to edit. region b took four weeks. region c three. region d zero.

regions d, f, g, and k might be the best ones in the book, but few people get that far because

a is boring
b has typos

thankfully e is amazing and many people give the book a second chance because of that.

i always feel amazingly bad about the editing errors in this product, but at the same time slighly malign (and i know this isn't intentional), when said errors are brought to my attention.

or in the case, flaunted in front of me like a diabetic watching people eat mounds and mounds of delicious chocolate cake with rum sauce and a mountain of whipped cream while sipping sugar-infused espresso...

er.

where was i?

i am sorry there are 10 x 10 (or 20 x 20... if you change the scale of the map) rooms with monsters too big to fit into the dungeon. but that's great fodder for the "prison" that is the WLD.

editing errors suck. i know. i'm with you. if i saw someone else make this mistakes i'd be the first one posting behind hussar.

sigh.

at least i can be proud a few innovations in the book design, eh?

oh...

if you'd like to hear my rant about the ruins of undermountain, i'd be glad to post it on my blog.

 

[DaveMage]

if you'd like to hear my rant about the ruins of undermountain, i'd be glad to post it on my blog.

I would. (Although I have a feeling I'll share many of the same thoughts.)

Post a link if you do it!


But based on your post above, what path would you recommend someone take through the WLD? (And feel free to start in a region other than "A" - we can just create higher level characters as needed.)

 

[Kafkonia]

editing errors suck. i know. i'm with you. if i saw someone else make this mistakes i'd be the first one posting behind hussar.

If it's any consolation, Jim, I just wrapped up a DCC in which there is a 25'x20' room with two 20'x20' elder black puddings in it -- not only that, but there's a stairwell located in the middle taking out a 5'x10' chunk of the room. How that's supposed to work, I don't know -- unless puddings are overlapping each other.

I think that the WLD, for all its flaws, is a very impressive piece of work. I doubt I'll ever get to run it as-is, but I hope to pull a couple of the sections out for use as standalones if my group ever gets to the right levels.

 

[jim pinto]

I would. (Although I have a feeling I'll share many of the same thoughts.)

Post a link if you do it!


But based on your post above, what path would you recommend someone take through the WLD? (And feel free to start in a region other than "A" - we can just create higher level characters as needed.)

hmm...

i've done this several times before, but let me think on this

perhaps, PCs start in H (PCs fall six miles and somehow survive... who knows) or the center of E... that could be awesome... waking up in E... or the maze of F

after that they learn (somehow) of three great evils... the demons, the devils, and the undead (ce, le, and ne respectively). the pcs must somehow stop these atrocities before the power of the prison is unbalanced and the angel (the big one in G) is overwhelmed by the evil, causing the prison to collapse on itself.

so... in order, the regions are E, F, H, G, K, D, L/O, N

while L is my least favorite of the regions, this places N far away from everything else.

alternately, they must get through small portions of O to get to N... and enter through the opposite side of the region.

this is a supreme EVIL variant on the dungeon

a more relaxing version of the dungeon...

A, C, E, I, J

that feels like a more traditional dungeon to me

 

[jim pinto]

If it's any consolation, Jim, I just wrapped up a DCC in which there is a 25'x20' room with two 20'x20' elder black puddings in it -- not only that, but there's a stairwell located in the middle taking out a 5'x10' chunk of the room. How that's supposed to work, I don't know -- unless puddings are overlapping each other.

I think that the WLD, for all its flaws, is a very impressive piece of work. I doubt I'll ever get to run it as-is, but I hope to pull a couple of the sections out for use as standalones if my group ever gets to the right levels.

thanks, kafka... can i call you kafka?

i wasn't posting to beg for praise... although i appreciate your kind words

if i feel anything, it's pride over finishing an 840-page book in under 1 year. that in and of itself is beyond measure.

i had a conversation on story-games.com recently about artist disclaimers. and technically, all of these excuses that i spew about hard work and designer notes and well... you see... what we meant was... blah blah blah.

is all artist disclaimer nonsense. of which i am opposed.

if the work doesn't say it, then it doesn't get said. dvd commentary, interviews with lucas, and comic-con q&a sessions are all part of this "barf" that i'm really against.

sadly, i really like to talk about this book. it was a huge part of my life for a long time and it pleases me to see people enjoying it. and some debilitating part of my pride forces me to chime in whenever i hear that someone didn't like XYZ and:

a. i know XYZ wasn't great.
b. dang. how did we miss XYZ? that's so important.
c. XYZ rocks. what are you talking about?

anyway.

back to work.

peace