My game, so far
Let me start this post by sating that in 18 years of playing D&D, and thousands of dollars spent not only by myself, but also friends, this is the single best product I have seen. My hat is off to all the developers for such a wonderous game.
I've been running WLD for about 10 weeks now (started within a week or so of its release). Gaming session run for about 6 hours every week, and party size has luctuated from 4 to 6 members. Costom rules are that HP rolls must be above average or the PC rerolls (this helps ensure survivability) and charater death results in a new character being rolled at 1 level lowwer than lowest member of the party subject to GM discretion (this means a 1-2 level dropp if you die, but I raise the minimum level as they progress, so the party remains capable of handling enemies). For the most part, I'm running this as an old fashioned crawl, without too much worry about adding any plot elements myself (although I have left in the plots already included). Here's how things have gone so far:
The PCs were seeking treasure in the montains when they stumble across the remains of the titan. Exploring the cavern near his body, they quickly become trapped within the dungeon itself. They proceed to make a beeline to room A20 where they discover the secret door to the south. Progressing through the rubble filled rooms, they quickly encountered the kobolds holed up in A69. The kobolds, alerted to their presence by the noise made by the PCs, are ready for them and begin sliging as soon as the PCs step through the door. The PCs charge the fort and the end result is a near TPK (2 of 5 PCs are left standing to haul the other three back to another room, total party HP was at something like -7 due to several PCs being very near dead!). The PCs retreated, healed, and planned another attack. This went only marginally better, with the PCs retreating with only 2 unconsious members. They then proceeded to avoid this room until the party was around level 3 (and had serious doubts about going back even at that time
). Retracing their steps, they swept through the dungeon up to room A22. The ogre proceeded to floor the theif, but was quickly convinced to retreat when the dwarven fighter landed a punishing blow with his great axe. They now start to uncover the story of the factions (although I had the ogre be a little vague about exactly what longtail was). The PCs proceeded north, avoiding the trogs (the stench was too much for them, and they agreed to ignore the area) and finding the forges in rooms A37-A40. They wored their way through to the main hall via A45 and A50, then proceeded to go straight to room A91. Despite having fought several darkmantles before, they had no one watching the ceiling, and the result was horrendous. Ambushed inside the room, 3 of the 5 PCs were killed by the darkmantles, and a fourth dropped to -9 as he retreated to A49. Only the thief managed to come out with some HP left, and he makes a critical roll to stabalize the other PC, then drags him back to heal (I was feeling generous, so no random encounters). The players create new PCs and the game continued. Deciding they needed more exp before continuing east, they now swing south through the old prison areaA59-A68. They then proceed east along the south part of the dungeon until they reach the stirge nest. Realizing the situation in the room, they put the fighters in front and use missle weapons to draw the stirges to them in managable packs and effeciently clean out the room with only moderate difficulty. Now a mix of level 2 and 3, the party decides to try the kobolds again, this time with much more success (a couple of lucky rolls with the dice and the fact that they HAD managed to kill 2 of them earlier made it much easier this time around). They return to the stirges nest and then strike out north east, and quickly find themselves back in the room with the darkmantles. Forewarned of their existance, the PCs handle the encounter easily. They now wandered their way into the forgotten portion of the dungeon. Things went smoothly until they found the portal in room A110. Reasoning it was a way out, the party's theif walked through the portal, which promptly closed sealing him in another dimension (declared dead). The players now backtrack to make sure they have cleaned out the souther portion of the dungeon. Another thief dies when he mistakenly believes he has disarmed the fireball trap at A83 and is roasted seconds later. Only hours later, the PCs stumble upon the remaining orcs, and a terrific battle ensues. Over half the PCs go down (they number 6 at this point), including the party sorcerer who is slaughtered by the berserker. The PCs pull back and heal once again.
At this point, most of the PCs are level 3, with a few level two characters and a single level 4 PC (the only surviving member of the original team that entered the dungeon). They proceed north and into section E, where they are met by shadows. A breif fight ensues and startled by the loss of str., the PCs retreat back to section A. They now do a more thourogh search of the northeastern quadrent of A and find and befriend the two lizardmen. The section culminates with their discovery of Longtails portal and a fight with an owlbear that comes through moments before Longtail shows up. Longtail uses the few rounds the PCs are distracted to put invisibility on himself along with fly, then begins to use MM to rain havock down on the PCs once he is above them. They retreat to room A101 and Longtail, thinking he has them trapped, dropps down to continue peppering them with spells. Things looked bad until the party monk suceeds in grapling him and pinning him to the ground (He had him pinned for 4 or five rounds, and won every single grapple check, I think the lowest he rolled was 16
).
They now advanced to section E via the easternmost hallway connecting the two. They worked their way up to the old formian quarters where the thief is killed by shadows (theives have a remarkably low survival rate I've noticed). Trying to get out of the area the shadows control, they run afoul of a group of barghests in a rondom encounter in a narrow hallway, and both lizardmen are slain. However, they press on through the empty rooms, and are met by yet more barghests. Once again, fighting in the narrow halls proves difficult, so they try to retreat to a room. Unfortunately, one of the beasts blinks through a wall and charms the paladin, who decideds t try to protect his new friends by attacking the party until we stop (hey, half orcs aren't too bright). He eventually runs off, and the rest of the party is wiped out (4 PCs in total). The players retreat and decide to leave E and explore east into B.
They enter B through the stables in the south and proceed to kill the goblins mounts. Needless to say, this doesn't help possible relations between them and the goblin empire. They leave the stables and proceed to room B74, where they are repulsed by the goblins and forced once again to retreat. A series of raids from section A throws the goblins into disarray and leads to the eventual killing of the king (who they still have not figured out was a doppleganger despite ample evidence). They travesre north and have learned how to open the rooms in B89, but are too afraid to do so. They raise more havock with the bugbears, spend nearly two hours in the riddle room trying to puzzle it out (they still haven't taken the bloody tapestry yet!!). The trap in B43 nearly killed one of the group fighters, and BArtleby has them completely confused (they want to know why he is here, what the item of power ithat they've overheard others talking of is, and what he knows about the region, but he continues to elude them). When we last left off, they were headed back west through B15-17.
I swear, my group has the most random method of traveling I've seen. Still, it is entertaining to watch them bumble around.
Oh yeah, I should mention that the current cleric is a CN gnome, who insists on using the rod of wonder as his primary weapon. It's only a matter of time before one of the fighters gets sick of being lightninged or FBed in the back and kills him. Anyways, wish i had a blog space and the time to flesh out all the adventures they've gone through, but I bought the module to save me time
Despite my being quite vicious with the monsters in combat and high lethality of the game, my players have so far really enjoyed themselves. Once again, Kudos for such a great product.
