I've been looking at an old copy of the World's LArgest Dungeon and I'd like to get some people's thoughts on it. Back in 3.0/3.5 how was it? Enjoyable? Did it have any problems? Pitfalls? Issues easily corrected?
Do you think it is a good candidate for a conversion? Would it retain, or gain any enjoyment?
well a dungeon with every monster in it is a daunting task. Not sure if its worth converting as, Frankley, Its damn huge and seemed low on plot.
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Meh, we tried it for a little while, gave up fairly eary. Just not interesting; it was literally made just to place the monster manual and make sure every magic item is gettable.
If you want a good 1-20, Shackled City will mostly get you there, but you'll need to supplement or speed the XP at higher levels.
Is it easy to add plot to? What are your thought on Shackled City?
Color me interested. Since it's by the same publisher I imagine it would perhaps give me some idea s to what to expect.
we played the worlds largest dungeon in 3.5 and honestly it is something that i think if you don't have the right mind set your players can easily go mad and feel dragged on. I enjoyed in 3.5 but my personality is a 1, 2,3 a,b,c, kind of guy and it did literally go on for ever so i would of ran out of patience. there is really no plot involved that I can remember it reminded me of that old atari game where you started out next to a diamond ring and had to use a ridiculous route to get back to it.,
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I could fill five pages with what I have to say about the World's Largest Dungeon. In fact, I have.
From my experience thus far, you'll probably get more out of it based on how much you put into it. I'm running the thing, basically, as written, but I spend several hours every week poring over rules and plotting out how to connect the regions to one another based on the party's interactions with the dungeon's inhabitants. I enjoy the research and modification involved in Pathfinder-izing the Dungeon and weaving a story out of it, but I don't know how much time, energy or interest you have in that sort of thing.
My simple answer to all of the questions you posted: Yes.
It's a really big darn dungeon crawl. Each region (map) has its own basic plotline going on, but they do tend to be fairly basic. As in, the PCs might be able to uncover the mystery of "what happened here." Some sections have populations you can ally or negotiate with, but if I remember correctly, it's mostly very combat heavy. (After all...it is a dungeon crawl.)
We really liked the section where one early room has gargantuan broken chains and an obvious trail of something immense having escaped...
I'd say a few of the sections are interesting and are worth the time, but there are many sections that just become a drag after a while. So if you can get it at a reasonable discount, go for it...
Gods. I bought this monstrosity and attempted to run it. It is not for the faint of heart (and I didn't think I was until I ran this module. Module? Hah!
Master Arminas
I've been looking at an old copy of the World's LArgest Dungeon and I'd like to get some people's thoughts on it. Back in 3.0/3.5 how was it? Enjoyable? Did it have any problems? Pitfalls? Issues easily corrected?
Do you think it is a good candidate for a conversion? Would it retain, or gain any enjoyment?
I played in it for a short time, and my DM ran it for about 2 whole years. It's...what you'd expect and nothing more. There's really no story and no breaks. You have to contrive ways for your PCs to get gear they want and to rest and it is pretty brutally paced.
Honestly the best use I see for it is cannibalizing it for spare parts to insert into homebrew campaigns. Sections of the dungeon are actually well designed. Not all of it, but there are cool parts.
Overall it's not really worth the price. You're better off just buying some dungeon mapping software with a randomize option. Or just running the Pathfinder APs, which are all really good from what I've seen.
Well, personally, I wasn't excited by the World's largest Dungeon. I prefered Goodman Games' mega-dungeon and of course, Rappan Athuk Reloaded. But that's the Necromancer Games fanatic speaking, I guess. :)
After years of resisting 4th edition I found 1 and only 1 thing in all the propaganda that I liked. Small dungeons. The idea of Undermountain or Keep on the Borderlands or Temple of Elemental Evil style dungeons sounds like tremendous fun . . . in practice however they go on and on and on and on.
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After years of resisting 4th edition I found 1 and only 1 thing in all the propaganda that I liked. Small dungeons. The idea of Undermountain or Keep on the Borderlands or Temple of Elemental Evil style dungeons sounds like tremendous fun . . . in practice however they go on and on and on and on.
I tend to agree, but that could also be because I do most of my playing in play-by-post games -- if it goes on and on in a face-to-face game, it takes 10 times longer in a play-by-post!
I ran it with PF. Had no probs at all just using said monster in the Bestiary. Literal one for one and had no probs. I spiced up the story behind the place, and worked in some things that were tailored for the characters in it, but had no probs.
Never got to finish though due to group probs, reality kept getting in our way.
I could definately see what you mean in Play by post Balthazar. Even at the table thoough I prefer moving through a story more than I enjoy moving through room after room. Don't get me wrong I love the action I would rather get to the goal more often rather than the journey of attrition through 1000+ room dungeons. My group has never finished an adventure in one sitting even the 6 hour sessions. Attempting Undermountain, TOEE or 1000k room dungeon sounds like a commitment of 6 or 7 years of gaming.
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We tried it. I hated it.
Velcro Zipper said he enjoyed researching ways to create a workable plot and connecting the regions and such. In essence this is entirely rewriting the entirety of the dungeon.
If you are going to spend that much time and effort, you might as well custom create the rooms to match what is ring on. I think it would be even easier.
I hate giving negative opinions on products after someone has spent a lot of time, energy and money on producing it, but honestly I loathed that "adventure."
It's OK if you're in the right mindset. We had a period where we couldn't decide what we wanted to do next and nobody was itching to DM, so we went through this and swapped DMs every time we hit a new section. Some of the sections were fun, some less so. We didn't finish, but got to maybe 15th level or so.
If you have a group that can have a lot of fun with intra-party interactions you can have fun with it but it doesn't have a plot that will pull you through if you don't enjoy that sort of thing.
I played it for about a year. Uninteresting, lack of plot. I wouldn't spend the energy to convert it. I enjoyed it at first, but yea. not so much after like, 4 sessions.
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Velcro Zipper wrote...In essence this is entirely rewriting the entirety of the dungeon.
I wouldn't go that far.
I'm using all the monsters and plot hooks as written aside from converting some classed monsters to their Pathfinder equivalents. I've only made a few minor changes like adding a community of prisoners who trade with the adventurers since I'm running the dungeon as a massive "one way in, one way out" adventure. What I'm doing does still require a lot of work, but my players are happy so I think it's paying off.
I probably wouldn't have as much work to do if my players would just kill everything in sight instead of trying to set up peaceful relations with the different monster communities within the dungeon.
The intro for the dungeon doesn't require a DM to run the thing the way I am, and I totally agree that what I'm doing is not for every group. I did have one player drop out of the game because he didn't like dungeon crawls in general. Others have mentioned the dungeon might work better broken up into individual adventures, and some regions are better than others so that might be the way to go if you're into short term stuff or don't have the time or interest to get invested in the thing. Overall though, I still think there are some good things to glean from it even with its flaws.
Our GM ran us through this module for about 5 games. Most boring module EVAR!!!
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Having followed Velcro Zipper's journal on these boards and owning a copy of the dungeon myself (sold it a few years back when I was between groups and bought it again recently).
I think the WLD is a solid beer and pretzels dungeon. Even so here are some things I want to implement when I run it.
1- The Dungeon is Alive - WLD is Alive and each section represents a piece of a larger personality, if the PCs want to escape they will need to deal with the heart of the living dungeon.
2- LOST- The PCs awaken in the dungeon. Naked (yes I'm cruel), with no memory of how they got there.
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Color me interested. Since it's by the same publisher I imagine it would perhaps give me some idea s to what to expect.
World's Largest City had no plot, just a series of detailed buildings and inhabitants. Many had built in hooks from which you could build your own plots, but given the size of the product and number of hooks, either you would need extensive notes with potential plots laid out, or improvise. In other words, the book itself created work instead of lightening my workload.
Furthermore, even though the maps features thousands of buildings in over a dozen districts, the number of buildings actually outlined was maybe a quarter of what was pictured in any given district, meaning that any building without a legend code was useless unless you made it something important. Effectively the World's Largest City was a quarter of its advertised size.
The editing could have been tighter, the author should not have redefined terms that he found inconvenient (mostly redefining humanoid as monstrous humanoids and typing humans, elves, dwarves, etc by their subtype), and the hooks could have been more interconnected and serve more of a purpose. By the end of my time running it, I did not find much good about World's Largest City.
We never got far in the WLD. It's just that players get bored of dungeons, and in my group, if there's too many options for which direction to take we're screwed. It sorta goes like this:
ME: "This room has six doors aside from the ones you just stepped through."
P1: "Six!? Aw sh*&, umm, let's uhhh, go to, well, the first one to my left and clockwise when we get through."
ME: "Just like that?"
ALL: "Yeah."
P2: "I fu*&%ng hate doors."
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Shackled City, for the record, was an amazing and deep module; with elements of both intrigue and dungeon crawl. You do need to supplement it to get to the recommended experience levels; but for the most part it is a diverse and fun module that comes together very well. A few fights you need to add a few weak minions to keep challenging; otherwise PC action economy will overcome all possibilities. I generally converted "on the fly", and it was pretty easy.