This past weekend, I finished running "Totentanz" from Issue #90, and I thought I'd post my thoughts on it for those who were interested.
My game is set in Greyhawk, specifically in Bissel, and this adventure came right on the heels of "Vanity" from an earlier issue. At the end of that adventure, two characters had suffered level drains from the spectre of Dorl Tavyani and one was dominated by Skullcrusher, the evil, intelligent club. However, he had a problem: between the negative levels inflicted on him by the spectre, and the negative levels inflicted by picking up an opposite-alignment item, he should drop dead on the spot.
I decided this was no fun, and instead had it be that every time he picked up the club, he passed out. And because I didn't want the characters to have to worry about permanent level loss (I don't think any of us could have taken them being fourth level again), I ruled that Tavyani's peculiar drain could not be shrugged off, but also would not be permanent if they could find a restoration spell. Thus, they were searching for a cleric, and given how undead-heavy Totentanz was, I put an NPC in the town to join their group for the duraction of the adventure.
The module took three sessions of roughly four hours each; combat, while present, was minimal and generally not very taxing to a group of six 5th-level characters. This suited everyone fine, after the pounding they all took in "Vanity."
The first part of Totentanz as written has the characters travel to the town of Luzern through a handful of villages, picking up rumors, and occasionally having random encounters. I discarded all of this, and got the characters to Luzern by chasing their mentally-dominated member, who had fled the group, dragging the club on a rope behind him to avoid passing out. I also inserted an encounter that ties to my long-range campaign plot, which isn't worth going into here. Instead of a remote mountain town, I moved Luzern to the edge of "The Burning," a section of Bissel that was devastated by the war with Ket.
THINGS THAT WORKED: Overall, I was pleased with how it went. Alas, the actual "Dance of the Dead" part of the adventure never came up -- when the characters learned what it was, they made a point of getting the heck out of town at night. The creepy ambience of the skeleton farmers in the fields, the skeleton townies going about their business, and of course the skeleton innkeeper serving them empty alemugs made a nice, Halloweeny atmosphere. Setting the Wizard's Keep as the only thing across the river was a brilliant stroke on the designer's part -- since it contained most of the big clues, making it be the obvious choice of something to check out right away managed to get the players the info they needed without hamfisting them into it.
I also liked the little snippets of Luzern history (the suggested background of Lord Bohort and the river nypmh, reflected in the town fountain and the shrine, for instance); that made Luzern seem like a real place, rather than Generic Fantasy Village #1047. The strength in this adventure is really in the flavor text.
The best moment in the thing, actually, came in the cellar of the wizard's keep. After coming up with creative ways to get past the lightning-floor trap, they encountered the gray ooze in the well, and decided it would be a handy way to get rid of Skullcrusher the evil club. In a bit of inspiration, I had the ooze absorb the club and undergo a metamorphosis into a _fiendish_ gray ooze, which burst out of the well and attacked them. (Only in D&D will you hear a phrase like "The fiendish ooze attempts to Smite Good on Dragor!")
THINGS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER: I've never been a fan of forced-perspective exploded maps; I much prefer good old-fashioned flat maps of the "Keep On the Borderlands" variety. I eventually broke down and copied the maps over onto my own graph paper. While doing so, I added a walled courtyard and some servants' quarters to Luzern Keep to make it a little more interesting than just a big square block of stone.
The writing was very scattered -- the contents of "The Book of Dancing Death" were detailed in the Wizard's Keep, for instance, even though the book itself was located at the Bridge Shrine. The description of Lord Bohort's sword was similarly buried somewhere in the text of the castle, even though the sword itself was hidden in the town temple. There were lots of examples of this, unfortunately. Background information being scattered through the adventure is annoying but workable; stats for items or key information about characters need to be where you encounter that item or character.
OVERALL SCORE: I'd give this one 3.5 out of 5. It's a nice, solid adventure, if a bit pedestrian (driving the Wraith King out of Luzern was fun, but hardly epic). The not-so-great maps were outweighed by the strong sense of "place" given by specific details of local color. If the item stats had been WITH the items, and the whole thing been a bit more organized, it would have earned a 4.
-The Gneech
Ahhh...the Totentanz...the adventure that spawned the werewolves...
I ran this one with an all-evil party of 10 (my group of 5 each ran 2). It's the first all-evil party we've ever had and we had a blast with this one. We had a human ranger (favored enemy elves), 2 orc barbarians, a dwarf sorcerer, a halfing ranger (favored enemy human), a halfling rogue, a gnome barbarian, 2 half-elf brothers- a sorcerer and a fighter, and a halfling cleric of Nerull. Like you, John, I also ran this one right after running Vanity. How odd...
One of the orc barbarians was on his way to becoming a cleric and a pale master, so he voluntarily spent time with Dorl Tavyani and agreed to become his disciple and spread the word about the Sword Saint. The half-elf sorcerer took possession of Skullcreeper and had 2 bugbear bodyguards who followed him after being impressed that he took down the ogre with his magic.
It began on the way to Luzern with the half-elf sorcerer being dominated by Skullcreeper and killing the human ranger. The sorcerer was then killed by other party members because they didn't know why he suddenly went berserk. Party of 8 now.
Then they encountered the first werewolf...the fight only lasted 2 rounds but the half-elf fighter was bitten and rolled a 1 on his save. He contracted lycanthropy. The full moon was due before they'd get to Luzern. When he wolfed out for the first time, he attacked the party who had restrained him some, but not eonough to contain him when he shifted forms. He infected the halfling ranger and the gnome barbarian. Skullcreeper dominated one of the orc barbarians during the confusion and killed the human ranger. The following night, all 3 werewolf party members wolfed out and attacked, and both orcs were infected. I had werewolves in the party for a long time. There's only 1 left right now, but they all got infected at 4th level and are currently 15th...
By the time they got to Luzern, half of the group had become a werewolf. Since they were all evil, they enjoyed the skeletal denizens of the town. A lot of good roleplaying came about when one of the orc barbarians tried to barter with the skeletal merchants of Falcon Square. They saw the dance a few times, the first time half of the party joined in and from then on they all stuffed their ears with wax when the dance came through.
They made an ally with the other werewolf in the wizard's keep. They freed the Baroness and agreed to help her only to kill her during the final fight with the Wraith King. Then of course there was the gate itself. Then they had the gate. They had all sorts of evil schemes and ideas involving the gate. They managed to get it moved into a wagon and out to their wooded hideout. The used it a few times to start their army of skeltons, but they haven't really gotten a chance since they keep killing each other and are constantly hunted by the authorites. Now the Gate is hidden in a small cave that has been stone shaped shut while they are out doing other unspeakable things and the only one left who knows its location is the gnome werewolf barbarian...