Would these maps make for a fun dungeon adventure?

[Enkhidu]

I thought for sure this thread was going to be about this.

 

[Uder]

I say yes, if you're in the mood for a good old classic dungeon crawl. You' might have to be careful about mapping; It might be best to give the players a partial copy of the map (perhaps the party found a treasure map of the complex).

This is good advice. I usually make an outline of the dungeon (no interior details) to give to players as a clue at some point within the first couple of sessions.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

*Shrug* No where near enough information to judge. The best map in the world can have a crappy adventure set in it, and a rough pencil sketch may be enough to run a great game.

Looks a tad large, assuming a single dungeon, to match my tastes, but then they aren't my maps either.

The Auld Grump

 

[Hussar]

I love me the crawl, so, a groovy map is very important. These look like they have lots of possibility, so, yeah, I could easily work with these.

C'mon, let the cat out of the bag. Where are these from?

 

[arwink]

I'd use them. I develop a hankering for the relatively non-sensicle mega-dungeons of my youth from time to time, and the maps are just the kind of of layout I prefer.

 

[Mark Hope]

Sure, I'd use those. Classic maps from a classic dungeon . You should put all your cards on the table, though, Quas - it might make for a more informed discussion once the context is made clear...

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

Maps in and of themselves can both be conducive to certain kinds of fun and certain kinds of frustration given their layout. They cannot, however, utimately determine if the adventuring that takes place within them is actually fun. That depends much more upon the encounters and how the DM runs them. These maps are certainly chock full of real, old-school goodness with not a square of the graph paper left uncontaminated by SOME element of the dungeon, populated or not. It'd be a fun project to redraw them in Campaign Cartographer.

I can tell you that todays 3E adventures just don't need or want the kitchen-sink style of dungeon excepting the mega-dungeons which I learned to despise since first trying to run Undermountain in FR. Some people seem to like them but I haven't yet gotten into them no matter how hard I want tolike them. Part of the problem with that, however, has been that they have never suited my games since they first began to appear. I might take the adventure key and maps and redraw the dungeon to suit my own more modern, refined, and superior tastes but just as-is would almost certainly pass on these maps in favor of something with more unique style and less "busy". However, running a genuine old-school campaign set someplace like JG's Wilderlands a mega-dungeon or two is almost a requirement. Because they then exist SOLELY for the old-school flavor they impart they need not justify their existence in any other fashion. One does not question how or why Undermountain/Moria/WLD/Rappan Athuk/the RTTOEE exists - it simply IS.

 

[genshou]

And I vote yes to swing it back to a tie.

That's something a significant amount smaller than the WLD, and I enjoyed the short time I played in a WLD game before the DM (Elephant) lost access to the book. I hope to run a WLD game of my own someday.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

I think they look like fun as a player. As a DM, I think I would be hesitant.

The key is the DMs ability to decribe the dungeon without bogging it down. It is not a simple thing to do. I would probably have difficulty as a DM and would therefore be anxious that the players are getting confused/bored.

 

[KingCrab]

Weren't those sold on e-bay as originals of some early D&D game Gary was in?

They look like a pain in the a**.