You know what I hate?

[Faraer]

The Undermountain book was large and well written; The maps were just bigger than they needed to be.

TSR artificially expanded the published maps by pasting on additional map areas the cartographers had lying around, from places like Empire of the Petal Throne. Exactly why hasn't been explained. As you say, reverting it to the detailed areas is no more trouble than drawing in lines here and there.

 

[Melan]

Empire of the Petal Throne? Now this is becoming very interesting. Would you have any more information on the subject, Faraer?

 

[Faraer]

From a post by Ed Greenwood to REALMS-L in 1997:

Existing maps that TSR had lying around, such as Mike Carr's map and a lot of very geometrical, long passages/large rooms maps done by Dave Sutherland for his Empire of the Petal Throne campaign [if you're not a longtime gamer, EPT was a FRP by Professor M.A. R. Barker, published by TSR in its early days, and by other publishers, later], were 'picked up' and cut-n-pasted together, to add on to my original map, 'growing' Undermountain without using any more of my lower-level stuff.

That's all I know.

 

[DM_Jeff]

You could simply "close off" the unlabled rooms? :\

Yes, and I frequently do. In the infamous 1st adventure of Shackled City I scanned the map, and photoshopped out the rooms I wished to delete. Still, I'd rather be doing something else than removing empty rooms!

This all has to do, by the way, with the thread a while back where I asked about Ryan Dancey's comment on "20 minutes of fun in 4 hours of D&D" comment, coupled with the Tracey Hickman style of play. Checking for traps, listening to the room, entering and exploring the room, checking for secret compartments and doors, examing it for clues, watching buffs expire, to be told nothing is there is called sucking 15 minutes of game time out the window that could have been spent having FUN!

-DM Jeff

 

[DM_Jeff]

Warlords of the Accordlands: Absolutely amazing stuff by the way. I haven't read the adventure book, but I reviewed the other three on my blog. Some of the best gaming material Ive read in a very long time.

Wow, really great comments on them, so glad you enjoy them!

/threadjack...again

-DM Jeff

 

[Arnwyn]

Do those opposed to incomplete areas include adventures where a tunnel runs off the edge of the map and the author states that it leads further into the underdark and is beyond the scope of the module?

I find this to be tolerable, if used sparingly (and I mean sparingly among a bunch of adventures, not within a single one).

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

Do those opposed to incomplete areas include adventures where a tunnel runs off the edge of the map and the author states that it leads further into the underdark and is beyond the scope of the module?

I tend to try to find a way to include one of these type of areas in everything I write because I know that DMs often like to expand on written adventures and it can inspire creative ways of using it. Where does that tunnel lead to? What could I do with that? What kind of critters are waiting for my PCs down there? Should I just block it off?

It's probably one of the easier things to build off or ignore as opposed to mapping out an entire area and giving you some fluff, but no crunch.

BTW, this is a very interesting thread.

 

[+5 Keyboard!]

Sure - however, this leads to:

Originally Posted by Arnwyn, from just a few posts above
(what I call products like that nowadays) "too big for its britches". If you don't have the room to detail it, then don't make it so damn big!

*ahem*

Huh. A conundrum.
As well intentioned as the writer may be and detailed as he/she is in detailing all these little bits for you, in the end it all comes down to the whim and/or needs of the editor and his various "chopping" devices in the cutting room.
::shrug::

 

[Nyarlathotep]

WLD has very little, if ANY, unlabled areas and rooms. UM was, as a poster just wrote, an accessory which was really a bunch of poster-sized dungeon rooms you get to mostly fill yourself (which, even for an accessory is pretty poor).

Hmmm... you must have a different copy than mine, because I'd guestimate that at least half of the rooms per map have no description to them.

 

[Melan]

From a post by Ed Greenwood to REALMS-L in 1997:That's all I know.

Cool! Thanks!