The 56 Good Ideas In Expedition To The Ruins of Greyhawk

Finishing up the Expedition To The Ruins Of Greyhawk scrape-through.

The nice thing (by which I mean the lazy, dull thing) about Expedition is there aren't very many interesting structural things about the set-up of either the plot or the dungeon.

This makes it pretty easy to use the parts you like in isolation, or to recombine them in ways that make about as much sense when you're done as they did to begin with.

So anyway, here are all the good ideas in Expedition To The Ruins of Greyhawk organized by type...

CITY/INVESTIGATION IDEAS

, when the PCs arrive, the bad guys are killing witnesses

, afterward, the PCs are contacted by two investigators about what they saw--the first is pretending to be legit, the second is

(this second batch of investigation ideas is technically about a different investigation, but they could be melded into one easily)

, a crime, the physical evidence traces it back to a shopkeeper who suggests 3 suspects

, culprit "protected" by boss who doesn't like him

, slutty wife of boss, spied on at all times

(some city NPCs)

, zoo owner offers money for monsters brought back alive

, unscrupulous map dealer

, taxidermist

, two prisoners in the jail: the first one offers the PCs a reward for getting the other to reveal the location of a magic ring, the other loudly and publicly offers the PCs a reward to kill the other one in his cell.

(other stuff that is best placed outside the dungeon)

, a ring in an item shop turns out to be the only way to open one of the dungeon features

, a cult that wants to free one of the trapped demigods in the dungeon

, bad guys have city watch, cleric, etc disguises in their closet

BOSSES

(there are many ways to meld and recombine the interesting parts of this handful of NPCs into a more manageable number)

, dracolisk

, dark naga

, mind flayers seeking each other--one has been evicted by the other

, evicted mind flayer sends you on a quest to reclaim its lair

, mind flayer sits in a chamber, meditating, remotely controlling combatants and creatures seeking his foe

, Livashti (impossible to summarize her awesomeness, go here then search "Boccob")

, disguised demoness trapped in a room tries to send you off to find a spell to free her

, city cleric is secretly evil and a rival to the disguised demoness in the dungeon

, woman whose prisoner/lover is a demon prince

, 5 identical creepy witch-queens on tentacles

, Quest: get a bizarro evil NPC to touch the Orb of Opposition

, lieutenant of big boss schemed against by his own sublieutenant

ENCOUNTERS

, inverted step pyramid in the floor with horrible effects on each step

, spell-absorbing T rex

, ape using severed plesiosaur head as weapon

, duo-dimension card guys

, intellect devourers

, aboleth juice and tentacles lying around area of the fight 

, ventriloquism to make dead aboleth talk

, redcaps won't fight in even numbers

, Warhammer goblin-types on juggernaut

, boss pattern mechanism

, suggestion: green slime is water

, librarian creates illusion of big monster to test PCs and make them waste their spells

, PCs captured and dragged to Zone of Truth

, invisible assassin who attacks when you start messing with his allies

, librarian ghost that hurls books and knocks over shelves

, looting wizard plus bodyguards and quasit--encounter happens in room full of potions and braziers

BACKGROUND

, Demon's heart suspended in mid air over 5-sided pyramid

, Prophet living in the head of a dead god of prophecy

, 9 imprisoned demigods

, skulls of the archvillain's enemies arranged along a 300 mile road

WEIRD THINGS IN THE DUNGEON

, psychedelic thought bubbles

, illusory feast=actually rotting food

, gambling shrine: you give it magic items, it gives you luck

, statue that traps you inside it if you say the command word

, a fight on a stairwell that you can collapse, killing everyone inside

, verbeegs afraid to enter the room with the bones of their shaman

, leaf--when grasped tight by an elf it becomes a key

, evil death god whose temple has been ruined by rival evil god worshippers bids you do its bidding three times--do it and you get a favor and nothing bad happens

, ancient library has a register of everyone whose been in it

, sub-boss' notes on mid-boss' fuckups for the benefit of uberboss

, rotate the statue at a door and the door cannot be opened

, the vertical dungeon area/level map

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Expedition To Suddenly Less Sucking Than I Expected, Part 7

After 148 pages and 6 blog entries we come to the last, longest, and (who knew?) best chapter of Expedition To The Ruins Of Greyhawk.

Last time the PCs found the boss, beat the boss, then the boss' boss came and smacked around that boss, then the pseudomom of that new boss showed her fake son who was boss.

Because unbeknownst to the boss of the first boss, the first boss was the boss of this homemade magical copy of his own boss' mom which he wanted to use to undermine his boss. But now that her boss has been slain by his boss, she has no boss and so wants to use the Godtraps of Castle Greyhawk to turn her into a true mom of the second boss and not just a copy of that mom.

Got it? No? Whatever, just follow the breadcrumbs until there's a Witch Queen.

Breadcrumb one is a glowwy fairy who is like Help Me PCs You're My Only Hope.

The glowwy fairy is like "Listen, my boss has been trapped by the fake momboss! To her we must go."

Why would the PCs believe anyone who asked them to do anything in this adventure? Believing people around here just gets you kidnapped by cults, pinned between warring demonesses, drinking green slime, researching pointless spells, and duped by larcenous sidequest thieves.

Probably because if they've made it this far through Expedition they've learned that when you almost die fighting a boss and then the GM turns the page and there's someone saying The Princess Is In Another Castle you pretty much suspend all judgment or urge to roleplay and bend over and follow the bouncing ball or else play some other game…

(Note to self: make bouncing breadcrumb ball magic item out of mixed metaphor.)
“I have only one real clue—a cryptic verse whispered to me by a lillend oracle who lives in the head of a dead god of prophecy on the Astral Plane! Perhaps you can make heads or tails of it: 



Watched above by hawks of gray, deep below old castle’s clay,
Guest of madness lost from ken, your mistress waits in Zagig’s den.

Under ziggurat crowned with fire, beyond the room of rainbow’s ire,

Lonely mistress filled with rage, caught within a pretty cage. "

Ok, the third line doesn't scan, but I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to anybody who  lives in the head of a dead god.

What stands between you and the glowwy's lonely boss? Bosses. Lots of bosses. Which may not be the cleverest answer, but it's a good one, because boss fights are what this module does best. Boss fights and call-backs to old TSR adventures.

At this point there isn't much plot left and the overall dungeon design, as usual, isn't really interesting--despite what it looks like on paper, it's essentially linear with chokepoints you need to pass on the way to the Final Goal, and most of the moving parts are too isolated to interact with each other very much--the aurumvoraxes won't chase you past the gates of their lair, the Orb of Opposition doesn't work on anyone but its intended target, the Room Where Whatever A Wizard Thinks Up Becomes Real So Long As Its In That Room has miles of hallway and a dracolisk between it and anyone you could use it to fuck with, the shrinking effect is localized to the Wonderland encounter, the big boss doesn't change her plan if you attack her then get scared and leave and come back later, etc.

So all we're left with is a list of rooms which are good (big text) or aren't good, including….

-Red caps (which amount pretty much to mischievous, tinkery Warhammer goblins) riding a mechanical juggernaut they reanimated while one shoots bolts at you from an arrow slit. The juggernaut has a "boss pattern" to its magic attacks (it's a machine, after all) and, fairy-taleically, the Redcaps refuse to fight in even numbers.

-A lich who the PCs interrupt in the lab dissecting an aboleth. The lich turns invisible--I know, I know, but listen--then he uses ventriloquism to make the severed aboleth head talk and threaten the PCs. Plus there's jars of aboleth juice and spare tentacles scattered throughout the room that'll slowly turn the PCs into only-water-breathers if they touch them.

-A pair of intellect devourers. Not too complicated but their mind control and confusion powers are interesting, plus, y'know, giant walking brains with claws.

-Yellow musk creepers with zombie bulettes. Not my bag but, hey, somebody's trying, nice to hear.

-A mind flayer looking for the other mind flayer earlier in the adventure (via remote control of a hook horror) who is mentally remote-controlling some hook horrors. It's nice that, unlike with the dragons and beholders, there's an actual in-game reason for the multiple supposedly-exotic high level monsters.

-Dracolisk. Not a very interesting encounter, but I like Dracolisks--and it seems to fit what's going on down here in the dark more than the blue dragon, asian dragon, wyvern and skeletal dragon. So between this and the intellect devourers I'm giving Expedition one style point.

-A thief and a bard. Guh.

-Dork with a horn he blows and a skeletal dragon.

-A Wonderland-themed throne room where you fight the Red Queen, some card guards, and an old Greyhawk wizard with a .357. Not my kinda crazy but, again, someone was trying (and referencing old Greyhawk stuff) and the fact that the card guys have a duo-dimension effect (impossible to see from the side) is cool, I wish I'd thought of that for A Red and Pleasant Land

-An ape who hits you with the severed head of a dead plesiosaur it was eating on a beach (why is there a beach in a dungeon? Long story, not good). It's kind of like if Rachel just farted in the middle of the Voigt-Kampff scene in Blade Runner. "Is this testing whether I'm a Replicant or a plllrrrrrrrrt". You wouldn't say it fits, but you'd have to be really boring not to appreciate it.

-An illusory feast and drink that compels you to eat it but really You're eating maggots, Michael

-A spell-absorbing T Rex named The Dormant King in a pool of psychic interdimensional mind bubbles. The actual spell absorption effects are dull--absorbed spells just add to various ability scores--but I'm sure you can do better. The bubble dimension is underdeveloped but has all the parts you need if you want to get all Beyond The Black Rainbow with it.

-Old Man Joke: A waiting room--bright blue walls, an unseen servant takes your hat a magic mouth says "Zagig will be with you shortly".

-Another Old Man Joke: A belt of giant strength +4 made of pink lace that constantly emits scandalous moaning sounds and ridiculous grunts when worn, negating any Move Silently checks and penalizing all Charisma-based skill checks by –6 (marked “Has its Uses”)

--Shockingly Lame Puzzle Seemingly Meant To Forever Discredit The Idea Of All-Character-Skill-No-Player-Skill Challenges Forever #1:

You are in a large chamber, seated in a semicircle with your friends. At the front of the room, your teacher—a powerful wizard named Slerotin—is lecturing you on the nature of the true magic that lies beyond what mortals can shape into spells. This, he says, is power magic, and its direct manipulation is what allows the Suel Imperium—your home—to prosper in the face of adversity. Eventually, your teacher turns to you and asks you to repeat the lesson to him.

No matter how the PCs respond to the question, each can attempt a DC 20 Spellcraft check. If at least one succeeds, the teacher smiles, and the group gains 1 [mcguffin acquisition] point. If everyone fails, feelings of shame overcome all the PCs, and each takes 2 points of Wisdom damage before the vision fades.

-Shockingly Lame Puzzle Seemingly Meant To Forever Discredit The Idea Of All-Character-Skill-No-Player-Skill Challenges Forever #2:

The false Iggwilv (the final fucking boss you won't meet for ages) knows the command words to operate this prison, and she is unlikely to reveal them. However, she possesses a tome written by Zagig that chronicles the prison’s creation and records its command words. (Where that is they don't say.)

Perhaps the simplest way to free Shenda from the prison, however, is through the Use Magic Device skill. A successful DC 30 Use Magic Device check allows a character to utter the correct command word by happenstance.

-A version of Wizard-choosing scene from Willow. This tests player skill--but since the player skill is the ability to have seen and remembered what happened in Willow, it's still stupid.

-A demon encounter inside an inverted stepped pyramid where each step toward the center has a different and more horrible effect than the last, so falling really sucks.

-Ichor shrine--the actual encounter is just another pile of losers but:

When Fraz-Urb’luu was finished with Telvechus, he left the demon’s heart suspended in the air above a five-sided pyramid designed to leach energy from it in the form of ichor and store it in bubbling pools below.

-And just when you thought Chapter 6 could not possibly be more metal:

Along the curved northern wall stand seven statues that once depicted Boccob in loving detail, but each has been warped by magic—one now sports demonic horns, another seems to be eviscerating himself with his own holy symbol, a third is eating the pages of a spellbook, and the others have been altered in other bizarre ways. To the south stands a pulpit, its stone floor awash in gore and filth, next to an eighth statue of Boccob that has been covered with blood and excrement. At the edge of the dais is a stone altar crawling with vermin.

...Livashti prepares for their arrival by draping some chains over her ankles and wrists and lying down on the altar. She then directs the blaspheme [undead duplicate] Riggby to stand over her and act as if he is about to sacrifice her in Boccob’s name...

 If she can trick a lone PC into clambering up onto the pulpit to “save” her,  Livashti attempts to dominate him. If successful, she orders her new ally to pretend to untangle her chains while calling out to his allies to stay back and fight “that monstrous undead menace.” In the meantime, Livashti directs the dominated character to use any protective magic items, spells, potions, and resources he might have to protect her. Then she cowers behind her new ally and begins casting her short-duration protective spells on herself—particularly divine favor and spell immunity to any spells the PCs seem to be casting a lot.

Once the blaspheme has been destroyed, Livashti telepathically orders her dominated ally to clutch his head and shriek out, “My mind! It’s in my mind now!” and then attack his one-time friends...

This combat should be the second toughest that the PCs face in the adventure, and they might be forced to flee. If they do so, Livashti does not stay idle here. She leaves the prison, teleports to Greyhawk, and immediately begins the process of tracking down the PCs, hoping to murder them one at a time if she can’t magically control them.

That's a god damn villain. I want her phone number.

-Remember how waaaaaay back in the introduction to the module it made you read about Zuoken the incongruous monk? That was for no reason. Zuoken doesn't do anything in this module. Motherfucker was just taking up space they could've used for more Livashti.

-Also, the touching-Billarro's-hand-to-the-orb-to-make-him-Robilar again quest isn't as cool as it should've been. Billarro's just tied up in the final boss room, you don't have to chase him down or bean him with it or anything.

-The rest of the final encounter is nicely disturbing though…

Five identical human females are held aloft in ghostly tentacles* of energy. Four other tentacles caress the southernmost gemstone. Flashes of energy travel down the four writhing arms and up into each of the five women. “You are too late!” cries one triumphantly. “You cannot stop us now!” says another with malicious glee.

Only one is the real evil mom copy, the rest are just creepy disguised demons.

Ok, so the disguise thing may be getting overused by this point but they are demons, after all and it's nice to see them used as something other than horned damage bears.

So this last chapter is fulla goodness. But is is chock fulla goodness? I mean: it's got a lot to like, but it's also rrrrrealllly long. Let's see the math:

Pages: 66

Words: 54, 185

Good Ideas: 16

...so a good idea every 4 anna quarter pages. I'll call that a happy ending--after a slow beginning and a middle that could give you a coronary.

Next time: The Final Idea Scrape.

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* (relax, they're just good friends)

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Advanced Unseen Fiendish Librariankin, Part Six

"Gygax Zagig built the Tower of Magic for one purpose—to teach others about his often controversial and always unorthodox theories of magic. But as his quest to become a god consumed greater and greater amounts of Zagig’s energy, his apprentices—many of whom were quite good game designers powerful in their own right—shouldered more and more of the burden of managing the tower and the chambers below. Zagig took no notice of the rivalries that sprang up among his followers, or of the factions that formed within the student body. Each faction was loyal to its own eccentric master, and its members were willing to do anything to stay ahead of their rivals. Alliances arose and died with regularity in the Tower of Magic as the years wore on, and the leaders of the various factions expanded greatly upon the subterranean levels below the tower in their bids for supremacy.

"When Zagig finally left the Material Plane, he did so without even saying good-bye to his apprentices. Some understood and remained loyal—indeed, more than a few actually aided in establishing Zagyg’s church. The majority, however, viewed Zagig’s abandonment as the final insult. Open warfare tore through the Tower of Magic as the conflicts between the factions escalated and grew bloody. Some factions opened tunnels to the Underdark to forge allegiances with White Wolf drow, story-gamers  kuo-toa, and other evil denizens. Others turned to retrocloning, necromancy or video games  golemcraft to bolster their ranks, and at least one sought aid from collectible card games the Lower Planes. It wasn’t long before the battle for supremacy came to its inevitable end, with the majority of the apprentices slain and huge sections of the dungeons under the control of monstrous “warlords.”


Is this a metaphor or is it just the intro to Chapter Five?

Nothing is certain in this Let's Mine Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk series except that if it was a good idea, it'd be in 48 point type.

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For example, what the fuck is up with this guy...


"Just south of the surface ruins of the Tower of Magic stands a strange, pyramid-shaped structure that serves as home to a small group of human priests of Zagyg. Their leader is a man known only as Grandfather Magic (CN male human cleric 17 of Zagyg). Addressing him in any other way results in a temper tantrum that combines a storm of tears with a stream of profanity.

"Grandfather Magic’s six followers are all relatively young and inexperienced (male and female human clerics 2 of Zagyg)—he refuses to associate with higher-level clerics because he fears that they might try to steal his body parts and sell them as relics. As soon as a priest reaches 3rd level, Grandfather Magic sends him or her away to seek one of the 864 secret words of Zagyg. (These words might or might not exist, but Grandfather Magic uses such quests to remove imagined threats from his immediate area.)

"Recently, Grandfather Magic received a vision from Zagyg in which the god warned him that intruders would soon come to the Tower of Magic and use it for nefarious purposes. Until one of them could present him with the key to the Ruby Skull (one of dozens of strange Zagygian relics that Grandfather Magic owns), no one must be permitted to enter the tower. Filled with terror at this prospect, Grandfather Magic used a miracle spell to seal all the entrances into the dungeons that he knew about. He doesn’t know about the deeper entrances from the Underdark that the forces of Iuz are using, so he has effectively barred entrance only to those who might be able to prevent the unfolding doom.

"Despite his apparently addled state, Grandfather Magic is among the most powerful clerics of Zagyg in the world. His actual name and background are left for you to devise, but for now, his sole purpose is to foil the PCs’ attempts to enter the dungeons below. He refuses to cast spells for anyone—including visiting PCs. In fact, he refuses to use his spells and abilities even to harm attackers, since he can never be sure who might be an avatar of Zagyg sent to test him. If attacked, he simply teleports away using word of recall, then returns a day later acting as if nothing had happened.

"The key to the Ruby Skull is the obsidian key that Mordenkainen presented to the PCs when they visited Zagig’s study in Chapter 4. If the PCs show it to Grandfather Magic, his eyes bulge briefly; then he snatches it while jabbering excitedly. After a brief examination of the key, he proclaims the PCs to be the people sent by Zagyg to liberate the Tower of Magic, then uses another miracle spell to remove the wards preventing surface entry into the dungeons.

"Grandfather Magic then begins to search through his robe and eventually produces a skull made of polished red crystal from one of several pockets. He then inserts the key into the skull’s left eye socket, turns it, and squeals in delight when the skull’s jaw opens, releasing a brightly colored butterfly that flutters around his head. “The butterfly of Zagyg!” he shrieks, clapping his hands. “It will show me the way to the one true portal!” Taking no further notice of the PCs, Grandfather Magic drops both the Ruby Skull and the key, then leaves the pyramid to follow the butterfly’s erratic journey through the world. Where the butterfly leads him (and whether his journey even matters in the grand scheme of things) is left to you to decide. For the PCs, the way into the dungeons is open."


...?

This guy who shows up for ten seconds and disappears is the most developed NPC in the module.

Another metaphor, or just the product of repeated exposure to tremendous quantities of mind-altering drugs? Having already spent enough time in art school, I see no need to ask this question again.

However, now that Grandmaster Butterfly has let us back into the dungeon, I do need a metaphor myself:


The central conceit the Ruins team has used to turn the old 2nd edition D&D Greyhawk Ruins location-based adventure into a 3rd edition event-based adventure is the concept of the evil Iuz's growing army, preparing itself for war deep in the dungeon.

But the execution of this idea has a problem and the problem is this:

Basically, Iuz's army is like a bunch of Social Justice trolls. They are a varied and heterogeneous group, but in order to distinguish themselves from just random trolls independently fucking with real people in a sort of endless meaningless old school monster hotel, they have united with a common purpose.

However, since, when you meet them they don't act rationally toward that common purpose, don't respond to changed facts on the ground or ever do anything to further their cause (you can leave them alone as long as you want and they will not have progressed an inch toward their goal), in practice they still come across exactly like a group of random trolls--only in addition to the implausible, charmless old monster hotel dungeon, they add on the charmless implausibility that they keep trying to pretend they have a purpose.

And, of course, on top of all of this there's the fact that the original draw of the place they inhabit is that it's supposed to be a wondrous environment full of bizarre places and inventions left behind by an eccentric now-dead dungeon master, yet the thing's actually set up to separate them from those locations and inventions. So you're either interacting with these places and inventions or with the trolls. The trolls themselves don't seem to interact with them in any way or even really notice them.

So the basic set-up could use some work.


All that being said, especially after the drillbit to the ear that was Chapter Four I'm happy to say Chapter Five is more like it. It's not it, but it it's like it, and that's refreshing because it helps you actually run a game.

In fact, if some obscure blogger had written up Expedition's Chapter Five: Wrath of Iuz and sold it as a  3.95$ pdf, the online-o-sphere would be calling it a gonzo-dungeoncrawl masterpiece.

I've seen worse, I'll say that. As usual, the good ideas will be in big text at the end. But first, the dead wood.

Vanilla shell:

Long intro. Then some concepts that don't get used in the chapter at all, the profound oddity that is Grandfather Magic, a reminder that lots of the dungeon is missing but this is a golden opportunity to write your own rooms, then Monsters In Rooms: a pudding, some verbeeg giants, an efreet, a purple worm, a giant statue that throws a skull at you (but its not his skull so no big letters).

Missed opportunities:

-There's a place the PCs can find a map:


Included on these labels are some key points of interest to the PCs, including a large tunnel leading into the lower reaches of the Tower of War from the Underdark and a tunnel connecting the Vaults of Creation to the Tower of War dungeons. Other notes of interest include troop placements, some dan- gers the troops have encountered so far, and regions as yet unexplored. Finally, a route from the lower levels to the surface world is mapped out and labeled “Army’s Path.”


...and that's it. Like the dangers are not enumerated or placed, what the army's path is is not explained. But then so they got someone to draw an illustration of this map--but then it has none of these details on it. "We're going to describe what could've been a really cool thing to show your players and then pay someone to not make it."

-...and, elsewhere, battle plans:

The parchments are hand-drawn maps of Greyhawk, each detailing an alternate plan of attack for the army depending on weather conditions, expected resistance from local forces, and other factors. None of the scenarios seems to bode well for the Free City. Destroying these maps won’t impact the invasion much—they amount to little more than doodles that Bailak has scribbled while away the hours.

-A poison gas trap:


"The gas is magical, so if it is blown or otherwise transported out of this room, it becomes inert and harmless—"

Mandy from the other side of the room: "That's boring."

-A mushroom forest. The mushrooms only come in: poison, valuable, edible or pointless and aren't integrated with any of the other hazards or monsters. Just a simple juxtaposition like mushrooms + purple worm could've turned this into an actual idea.

Yo, Dawg I Heard You Like...:

-Two more invisible monsters--mind flayer, giant.

-Two more beholders. One's technically a "gauth" named Iaxithrax which I don't even have the energy to make a pun about and the other is actually an illusion projected by another monster which might make it better except it's the second beholder librarian in the book which just makes it more of a joke. It's not another invisible beholder librarian though--that would make it a pretty lame illusion plus the designers may have some qualms about pulling all their monsters from the same part of the Venn Diagram.

The score so far

A monster on the next level that just used Ventriloquism to be like "I am an invisible giant naga mind-flayer beholder assassin! begone from my library" would be pretty funny though. I'd run.

-"With the proper incantations, clerics of Nerull could cause the statue to animate, hook into the ceiling with its titanic scythe, and lift the pyramid, allowing access to the tunnel."

-A giant vacuum transporter funnel that takes you to another dungeon level if you can take Gaseous Form. By sucking.

Now that that's over with, The Goods:

-The mind flayer does two interesting things: it uses Suggestion to make the party think a pool of green slime will heal you if you drink it and it doesn't try to kill you, it tries to enslave you so that you go off and help it retake its stolen lair from some other mind flayers elsewhere in the dungeon.

-Likewise there's some kind of pseudo-in-distress demonbabe who tries to trick you (and if that doesn't work, mindfuck you) into going off and finding a spell that can free her. This plus the mind flayer doing it too isn't mindless Venn diagram dungeonpimpery because it sends the PCs roaming off after possibly but not necessarily opposed objectives. Though it would be nice if there were a few more honest-to-god helpful civilians in need in the dungeon so that PCs wouldn't just develop the habit of killing everyone they meet.

-Another interesting thing about the demon babe is she's an enemy of the secretly-evil priestess back in Greyhawk. They both want each other dead, both are bad, and both are powerful and have access to interesting information. If the PCs realize this, there are a lot of possibilities.

-There's a statue with a command word on it. If you say the command word you're trapped inside it (and replaced with its previous dead inhabitant) until someone else says the command word and gets trapped inside. Not near any of the monsters, unfortunately.

-A shrine that, via a gambling mechanic, steals magic items but then gives you either good luck or bad luck.

-A stairwell that you can collapse--the collapse will kill anyone on it and (though the exact way is not specified in the module) force the army to change its plans.

-An angry underlieutenant has notes on all her boss's(Vayne's) fuckups in her room, she's planning to present them to his boss (Iuz) at some point.

-The librarian devil who uses the beholder illusion is actually pretty good--he hides and uses the illusion (which keeps missing them) to try to suss out the PC's tactics and make them waste resources.


-"the verbeegs are unwilling to enter the room as long as the remains of their shaman are visible." 

-Neither of these are so good alone but they are kinda neat, so I give them one point between the two of them: the devil's library has a register of everyone whose ever been in it, including all the villains and several of the major NPCs, and there's a sweet leaf: When grasped tightly by an elf, the leaf transforms into a green key. What lock this key might open is left for you to devise.
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... then you fight the boss. Then the boss's boss comes and kills him for failing him, smacks you unanswerably around if you interfere, then that boss is in turn captured by the tentacles of his fake mom. I hope you like to watch.

Thus ends Chapter Five. Score...

Pages: 40
Words: 30,910
Good ideas: 11

...Next up Chapter Six: Some Stuff I Haven't Read Yet.

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Gauntlet of Tyranny and Pain, Part 5

Zak tries really hard to read Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk and writes all the good ideas in big letters some more. 

Chapter 4: City of Thieves.

"Hey I just met you and this is crazy but the Thieves' Guild has learned of your exploits beneath Castle Greyhawk and will aid you in accessing the Guild of Wizardry, (which institution treaty, custom and spell forbid our members from infiltrating directly) and therein to thereupon acquire both the key we know is there which you need to explore the remainder of the Greyhawk dungeons and also a monkey we want."

"Fuck no, this is some kind of set up. Also, monkeys are cool, is there really a monkey?"

"No it's bronze. Anyway suit yourself, good luck getting into the Wizard Guild yourselves, there's absolutely no fucking information about how to do it without help from us and our magic bottle in the module."

"Magic bottle?"

"Yeah it's a magic bottle and you sit in it for 12 hours and we're the Thieve's Guild."

"How much crack are you on?"

Oh, if only.
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So, against your judgment you get in a bottle that they give to a thief.

A thief sneaks it into Hogw…I mean the Wizard Guild hall.

You get out and there are some wizards trying to summon a demon there. But the wizards gave you  robes and this is a railroad module so they won't notice you.

Then there's the library. You look for a book. There's an invisible beholder.

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I have a beholder. It's a wonderfully plausible, lifelike sculpt from Reaper. It was specially painted in understated reptile colors just specially for our TV show.

I have not yet, in 4 years of campaigning, sprung this or any beholder on my group, because I am saving it for late in the campaign--for the perfect moment, when its jarring appearance, keen alien intelligence and the well-known bad news of its eyeball powers will have maximum impact.

The authors of Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk clearly take a different view. This one's the Hogwart's librarian. And invisible. Which might've been at least tactically novel if there hadn't just been two powerful magical invisible monsters in the last chapter.

And...

Although it has been entrusted with the guardianship of the library, Galubgex does not hesitate to destroy one or more sections of the bookshelves (using its disintegrate ray) if doing so gives it a better chance of bringing its powers to bear against the intruders.

Now far be it from me to say any particular use of an invisible flying eyeball with death rays is unrealistic but, much worse than that is: it denies the PCs the use of a tactic that makes sense in the fiction--hiding behind the books. Holding the books hostage. So, again, for the dozenth time in Expedition: don't bother thinking outside the box.

Anyway after you count your battlemap squares and punch it a lot until it stops moving, the thing you are supposed to find tells you to find the next thing you are supposed to find.

To keep them on edge, roll a few random Listen checks for guild functionaries, but all of these miraculously fail in the PCs’ favor due to Mordenkainen’s interference and sheer luck.

Soooo…this Mordenkainen helps you sneak through the halls but not in your fight with his employee the 11 HD, CR 13 invisible flying magic monst…don't think about it, don't think about it.

Then there's the most tragic part of this entire chapter. The use the word "tragic" is not casual. There are worse parts of this chapter--much much worse parts, and very soon--but this string of sentences has the specific dramatic arc unique to tragedy: wild and total failure by someone who so easily could've known better.

On their way to the Chamber of Seven Secrets (area 5), the PCs pass doors bearing the titles “The Pentagonal Path,” “Adept’s Gambit,” “Cities of the Red Night,” and “Eldritch Wizardry.” These doors have no handles and are barred from the inside, so they cannot be opened with knock. If any of these doors are somehow bypassed, the rooms they adjoin are devoid of features. (In truth, the contents of these rooms are curtained behind powerful illusions, which cannot be penetrated except by a guild wizard who speaks the proper command word.)

An awful revelation: the authors of Chapter 4 didn't just write awful badness, they wrote it with clear examples of coolness staring them in the face.

And what new grand vast hatedick did they invite the ghosts of Fritz Leiber and William S Burroughs over to watch them suck?

Ladies and gentlemen, the worst room in the history of role-playing games:

5. Chamber of Seven Secrets

Seven stone pillars, each a different color, reach down from the 10-foot-high ceiling of this chamber to its floor, which is thickly blanketed in multicolored fog.

.On each pillar is the oversized face of a smiling, round-cheeked, wizard with his eyes closed. All seem to depict the same man, but he wears a slightly different expression on every case...

In each of three corners stands a mechanical man made of wood and stone bearing a massive metal club.

Whether one takes a retributive, deterrent or rehabilitative view, there is still no punishment punishing enough for inventing this room and no nation equipped to carry it out. It defeats the concept of justice. It's like some awful new shoe that not only manages to be uggboot, croc and fanny pack all at once but to wear a headband while doing it like some merciless loveless ballsack donkeypunch bludgeon to the base of the skulls of all humanity's aspirations. It is (and I say this as a musician and a Jew) worse than bards and Hitler.

I once saw a Brooklyn cop with a tattoo of a dolphin jumping over a yin-yang shining light onto a full-color earth. It's worse than him.

And money changed hands to make it happen.

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And:

1. Since everyone already knows how lazy and stupid "testing" rooms where the in-world justification for the room that challenges the PCs is that it was designed by the architects to challenge the PCs are
2. And how it's even lazier and stupider when it's part of a sorceror's school
and
2. Because the mechanics of the discodadwizard robotcaveman room are so lame they constitute something of a basilisk antimeme so toxically fucked it would actually be dangerous for me to explain it here lest it fall into hands that might use it…

I'll just say: there's a quiz, you have to touch the pillars, and it's all very bad. Please don't use your imagination.

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Then when your done with this load, fucking literally: a tall-backed chair swivels around to reveal…Mordenkainen. Waiting for you all this time.

"I knew there was no point in my fiendish traps or the monster I hired or the scholastic death-quiz Mr Bond, that is why I helped you a little bit with some of it…now…"

He, of course, Gives You a Quest.

The quest, at least, and at least in its bare outline, is interesting: Get the evil Bilarro to touch an orb deep down in the dungeon which will turn him back into a good guy (Robilar). Anything that requires a lot of kidnapping and NPC wrangling makes for a good moving part in an adventure.

Then horrible notes on roleplaying Mordenkainen:

Mordenkainen has spent a lifetime exploring the castle, so he is a useful resource for questions regarding the edifice. Though he wants to get back to the research he was conducting in Zagig’s study, he is willing to answer as many of the PCs’ questions about the place as you see fit to allow. Feel free, however, to have him hold back key pieces of information simply to keep the adventure interesting. Mordenkainen doesn’t want to make exploration of the dungeon that made him famous too easy for anyone else, lest his own legend be diminished—even if his reticence makes Robilar’s return less likely.

So Mordenkainen wants his trusted friend instead of the evil bizarro duplicate of his trusted friend…but not that much.

That is, he runs on plot logic. There's no point in talking to him or thinking about what he wants or bartering with him or any of that kind of shit. Again, yes maybe the wizard is unrealistic, but way more than that, he is not an invitation to think. He's just there to give you grief and jobs.

When you finish talking to him, you then get to leave, fighting the demon the wizards were summoning when you got here on your way out.

Headmaster Dumbled…I mean Mordenkainen…of course does fuck all to help you fight Ascariel the Unanticipated (which nice Vancian name reads here kinda like using the Venom font on a Black Keys T shirt).

And the module drops the ball on keepin' it real again:

Summoning Circle: The summoning circle in area 3 appears to be intact, but a careful examination (Search DC 10) reveals a small beetle covered with the paint that was used to finish the circle. The caster unknowingly painted over the beetle, and when it walked away, it disrupted the magic, allowing Ascariel to break free. (A successful DC 15 Spellcraft check reveals this fact.)

It never occurs to the module writers that PC might just fix the circle using materials lying around (the floor's covered in dead wizards who presumably carry magic chalk or whatever around) maneuver the demon back, and re-trap it. Or that you might then get it to do some stuff for you. Or that life need not be appalling.

Then you get back in your bottle.

Either you have already solved the cult subplot in Chapter Two or you haven't. If you haven't, the cult grabs the bottle and you wake up in the cult headquarters.

How did they know you were in there? They've been spying on you. Unpreventably. The module assumes ambient spying. That's also how Mordenkainen knew you were coming and why he gave you this quest which he gave you after you showed up because the Thieves' Guild was spying on you and sent you on the quest where you met him. See?

Here's a good part: when the PCs pop out of the bottle...

The cultists then begin to pepper the PCs with questions, hoping that the zone of truth keyed to the circular platform will ensure that the answers are correct. Typical questions include “What do you know of Vayne’s plan in Castle Greyhawk?” “Why are you investigating the castle?” and “Who else in the city knows about the Old One’s involvement?

Zones of Truth are always good for a laugh.

The cultists all have cleric spells and magic weapons and a undead monster of course, but whatever.

Here's another good part: "These small chambers contain several soiled overcoats used by the five cultists, plus three city guard uniforms, two noble’s outfits, and four purple-and-gold robes similar to those worn by clerics of Boccob."
I'm sure the point in the module designers' heads was just that it let you knew who was an agent of the cult in the city, but there are far better uses for all these things

These unanaesthetized abortions end when the PCs kill the cultists, get out and give the Thieves' Guild their widget and the Thieves' Guild gives them a magic item which will turn on them deep in the dungeon and make them do some dumb thing the Thieves' Guild needs done of course. But….

In the meantime, the PCs now control their own destiny.  With Zagig’s Key in hand, they are free to explore the dungeons below Castle Greyhawk’s Tower of Magic at their leisure. If they want to spend more time in the city, however, Greyhawk still has a few adventures left to offer them.

Dear Greyhawk City Tourism Bureau, I am a PC who just spent the last three days being Lebowskied from scene to scene by the Pinkerton Railroad, but now I have  a day off, what can I do?

Well a guy named Trolgar wants to sell you a haunted house! You buy it, then you fight three identical ghost monsters in it.

Remember that thief you may have released from the dungeon last chapter? You have the opportunity to find his unremarkable house and and then hit him in it for an xp reward.

And there's always that kung fu tournament over at the Temple of the Pointless Shoehorn...

"A gong hangs on the wall opposite the entrance. The fragrance of burning candles and the smell of autumn leaves pervade the air…"

The monks and authors jump through flaming (Energy: Flame, No reset) hoops to let the players use all their magic weapons and spells but only now in some kind of nonlethal way for the tournament. There are some magic rods or something which make it all work right. Dismal.

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Oh, Chapter Four, you undeniable choad, let us now take the measure of your inflicted misery, as Anubis will one day in the Hall of Two Truths, as Ammut the Devourer hungers for your ungenerous heart:

Pages: 20
Words: 14,741
Good ideas: 3

Truly you are an agent of mediocrity and woe.
Next up! A pyramid, a verbeeg, and something called IAXITHRAX.
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This Module Was Not Properly Loved, Part 4

Hi, I'm Zak and I try to write a blog.

A few days ago I started reading a module called Expedition To the Ruins of Greyhawk.

I am reading it all the way through it and when I find a good idea, I write it in big letters.

I've done it three times already and I keep not stopping.

(I guess I should give it its own tag.)

This morning, 55 pages in, I got to the first part of the actual dungeon, the Tower of War.

Ok so after the intro that repeats what we've already been told about this place we can...

No, wait, before you can go in there's Tax Dwarves.

Tax Dwarves?

Well here's the thing: players of adventure games have an automatically ironic relationship to those worlds. This is because adventure is, by definition, acts that are exotic and unusual in a given society. This is why heroes in fictions ask to be read about: they do what others do not. However, players of adventure games (since they--by definition--take the role of adventurers) are, unlike the imaginary population of the world they adventure in, all adventurers. So while inside the fiction adventuring and all the things that it involves are rare and exciting, outside the fiction, among the players of the game, it is not just common, it is the only thing anyone ever does. All players of adventure games over the age of 10 realize this fact, and great thick hoary veins of humor of it have been mined from it for decades from Dragon Mirth to Penny Arcade to whatever your last forum snark was.

Like First Panel Of Lame Webcomic: Curse You, Good Guys, I Had The Ruby In My Grasp! Now I Cling For Dear Life To This Bridge

Second Panel: Villain falls

Third Panel: Party Barbarian looks down

Fourth panel: Party Barbarian hangs head in disappointment

Fifth panel:

Wizard: Feather Fall?

Barbarian: Feather Fall.

So, yes, we all know how totally unexotic and done-before every single thing that is supposed to be magic and amazing and cool in an adventure is supposed to be. And you know what? 90% of enjoying a game is transcending that and finding ways to make it fresh and exciting again anyway.

SO sick of Sorry

And you're DMing and trying to do that and delving deep into 223 pages of dungeon and thinking Oh Certainly! Herein Lies Much Potentiality and Mystery!

And then even before you get in there's Tax Dwarves.

These are a clan of dwarves who make a living sitting at the gate demanding an entrance fee for everyone who wants to enter the dungeon and who are a perfect in-game metaphor for the kind of RPG gatekeeper dicebag DM who think Tax Dwarves are really clever.

Anyway, now can we go in?

Yes you can, and then face THE WAR WAGON! It's a chariot drawn by skeletal horses piloted by ghosts in the first room of the dungeon. It tries to kill you. It sucks.

Guys, life has simple rules: Righty tighty, lefty loosey. Beer before liquor never sicker. A skeletal horse chariot rumbling at you across a dying landscape in the arid dawn is apocalyptically cool. A skeletal horse chariot chasing you in circles around a room isn't. Learn.

Then…some stairs down down to the fourth and fifth levels of the dungeon.

We are now hot on the trail of those orcs that attacked that caravan in the introductory scene waay back at the beginning of this read through and we will remain so for the rest of the chapter. 

Such charm as these levels have is purely Stalinist: you have to believe that quantity has a quality all its own. 

And yes, I can see something of a vision for these dungeon levels beneath the dropshadows and between the overwide margins: it's a vision of desperate PCs racing like from room to room in hails of crossbow fire as ever more horrible monsters lurch from every corner, losing ammunition, losing spells, losing friends. Like a Halloween house plus Blackhawk Down plus They Have A Cave Troll over and over and over and over like a Laibach song of stone and death that just will not end.

This is a fine vision, and one that is really easy to bring to realize: put some tunnels, put some big beasts, lay back--it'll be fun. The question here is: did they bring any twists to this classic setup that are worth paying money for?

Highlights…or, lights….

-A fistfull of goblin archers plus 2 giants and a pit with a crazed tentacle monster in it. Makes you just want to walk over to the game designers and go "Yes that's a wonderful tower you've built out of your ravioli." Pat pat.

-A statue of an evil death god that wants revenge on the monsters now in the dungeon faction for decapitating it. It's nice because if the PCs do its creepy bidding three times in three places in the dungeon they get a raise dead spell (though it should be one for the whole party, not one for each party member). And nothing bad happens.

-Boss orc with disguised succubus: This could've been so much better. If the disguised succubus wasn't contained in this one encounter (Help an orc! Oh thank you sir! Kiss! Murder) but was instead just released into the dungeon to be rescued by the party and then activated when the time was right. But no, this is definitely pre-4e mentality where everything is an Encounter and happens on a Grid and you meet things and fight them and do it 'til they're dead.

Also, why do we already have a guy dating a succubus?

All respect to the Atolamyr, Male half-orc ranger 2/fighter 4/blackguard 3's game but do we have to burn through all the best parts of the monster manual in the first day in the dungeon?

-An invisible tiefling assassin-type who sneaks up to the PCs and tries an auto-kill attack. Always nice when the monsters act like PCs.

-Elevator: could've been s000ooooOOooo much better. The orc archers are waiting for you when you exit the elevator. How about: the orcs shoot up the elevator shaft the whole time you're in the elevator (which you make a rickety brass cage that does not snugly fit its shaft) and some of them crawl up and try to cut the rope? That's some Dungeons & Dragons.

-Den of the Dark Naga: I'm giving this one points just because it's among the module's rare eruptions of good taste:

This small square chamber is made entirely from polished black marble. A dais sits across from the doors, and behind it is a niche holding a silver gilded chest. Small mounds of bones litter the floor.

...even though it's really just a monster in a room (and it's invisible again.)

-Chasm of woe: Like the goblin/giant/tentacle pit again only with a bridge and some whole other carnival of freaks (zombie gargoyles I think?). Whatever.

-Boss fight in an arena: remember the first scene where you fought a high-ranking orc with an FAO Schwarz worth of standard magic items and a wyvern? Well this is exactly the same only now the wyvern has two more legs and more hitpoints and so we call it a "dragon".

-There's a thief to be rescued and a cleric to be rescued. One explains the plot and points out a secret door in case you missed it. One goes off and becomes a nuisance in the city that you can choose to do something about if you wanna. So: one too essential to be interesting, one too extraneous to be interesting. 

-Then a talking skull that summons a Vrokk. 

Say what you like, it's a full day.

Y'know what would make this area instantly better?

Array these rooms more or less around a central room and put the door-blocking statue puzzle from the last chapter in the center. Or make two hub rooms and put one in each. It'd make a great weapon if the PCs could figure out how to work it.

...as long as the disguised succubus and/or the invisible assassin didn't see them figuring it out and use it against them.

Man now I'm tempted to take off one point just because of how good it could have been. Anyway, no shenanigans--score for this section....

Pages: 31

Words: 19,910

Good ideas: 3

If you think that looks bad, brace yourselves for next time, because in the process of sucking every known dick, it includes the worst room in the history of role-playing games.
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