We played Mists of Mwangi with a fairly challenging set of circumstances. Our party had a new player who had never played a pen and paper role playing game before - she did great! We had two players running pregens for fighter and cleric, and we passed maybe a single saving throw each throughout the scenario for our level one PCs.
**Spoilers follow**
We lost two characters to the template literally the moment we entered the building. Though it may or may not be the case, these two characters appeared to be escaping deeper and deeper into the building - this was great GMing by Doug Miles. I've never been so immediately gripped by the urgency of a situation in pen and paper before this afternoon, with our fighter and our cleric steadily moving farther out of reach.
I was playing the wizard, and I expended half of my prepared spells and two scrolls to rescue the party from what appeared to be a possible early loss.
**Specific details Spoilers! Skip the next paragraph**
(Alter winds to clear an area of breathable air, a toppling magic missile to knock the party member from the rafters, and as he charged me a prepared scroll cast of protection from evil - one down! We rescued the other, a halfling ninja, with an Enlarge Person'd Valeros plucking him from the rafters. It was at about this point I suggested the obvious mundane solution to avoiding the issue)
So we went on through an exciting, and at times potentially deadly, scenario. We had more than one hairy moment (Ha!) where the GM even suggested escaping as a possibility. Carrying on through and eventually completing the scenario felt like a serious accomplishment in Mists of Mwangi.
The mood in this scenario is superb and it features multiple 'gotcha' moments where the scenario reveals unexpected encounter conditions. Every character had a chance to be absolutely essential in combat, essential skill checks, and roleplay - at one point a good knowledge planes check found my strength 7 wizard desperately holding a waterproof bag over the paralyzed Valeros's head.
The end encounter's 'hook's' effectiveness hinges on any one PC making a good perception check, which made the reveal of that crucial information feel like a real accomplishment. The encounter itself's difficulty fell a little flat compared to the previous encounters, which seems to be the opinion generally espoused by other forum members. From the player perspective, though, it felt as if we had earned the advantage through investigation and skill - if we didn't have some of this key information it might have gone differently!
The faction missions were very straightforward and served their function - to keep you from missing the majority of the scenario by skipping to the end! We only missed one encounter - after peeking into the bathroom we quietly apologized for intruding and closed the door!
5 out of 5 fluff
4 out of 5 crunch
5 out of 5 Gamemastering
Thanks for reading
