World's Largest Dungeon

Rating:
Summary: Staticians nightmare
Review: If you're not a power-game savey DM, or at least a DM very concerned with statistics, feel free to ignore this passage.

Ultimately, as is my problem with most products not directly created by Wizards of the Coast, this product doesn't pay much attention to the rules, and how they work. So far, the game has presented about five or seven sidebars each one talking about how a normal aspect of DnD is somehow bad or wrong and how the DM is supposed to control that. Fine.

The issue is that, the book seems to try and force itself on the game, rather than work with it. The DCs in World's Largest Dungeon are set so that, supposedly, a character of average skill would always succeed on a ten, and the book says "Oh! Don't let your players take ten gyuh huh." Bull. If you don't want a character to take ten, have the DCs routinely be 11 + predicted skill to 15+. Taking ten is a sacrifice of the ability to bypass very difficult occurences by chance. And as for taking 20, they're completely wrong: taking twenty requires that an event be allowed to be performed multiple times. If it can be performed multiple times, a player can just perform it multiple times until they get a twenty (obviously, DMs that have the approach of "I roll all your rolls for you" can avoid that problem). But the point is, that's how it's supposed to work: That's what taking twenty represents. A book that says this is wrong is essentially ignoring the implied aspects of the rules.

Apparently, the book wants you to have a 55% chance of success, not a 100% chance or a 0% chance. Of course, the funny thing is that if you average those two out, that becomes a 50%.

Seriously: World's Largest Dungeon is like every other book not made by Wizard's of the Coast. Because it doesn't have the mind of the creator of d20 and DnD, it doesn't pay enough attention to the *system* and ends up coming short. One thing I will admit is that there's no possible way to create a dungeon this gargantuan and have characters not over-earn XP, save perhaps by barring random encounters (adding set encounters in at set times).

This book *is a novelty item* You can run a campaign with it, but any decent DM is going to require as much effort interpreting and using this book as creating a simple campaign. If you have nothing else to do, it makes for an OK standby, but as far as practical DMing material goes, it's a no-show

Rating:
Summary: A good framework, but far from perfect
Review: My group and I have only played through the first zone, and we've had fun doing it, but the game is seriously lacking in some respects. First of all the traps in the dungeon have unrealistic expectations for the level of characters it was built for. When traps, secret doors, and locks require a rogue to roll an 18 to a 20 to deal with it, that is an unrealistic expectations. The party rogue in our game has died twice now and we lost our party cleric at the last session (granted his death was bad tactics not bad design).
Also my characters and I have been frustrated with the structure of treasure in the dungeon. Some rooms are chalk full of treasure and all you have to do is stumble on the room. Other times you'll fight a CR 5 encounter (for a party of levels 1-2 thats really tough) and they'll get next to no treasure. Also a lot of the treasure is pointless for the game, there needs to be more equipment treasure (weapons, armor, useful eqipment, common expensive spell components, and so forth), all the gold and jewels don't matter if the party reaches it's carrying capacity and has no where to spend it.
The Wererat Sorcerer that is the "boss" of Region A was a disapointment. The party had very little difficulty with him.
Also a lot of the material, and I mean A LOT is still written for v3.0 and not up to current 3.5 rules like the advertisments claim. This hasn't been a huge issue thus far because my group and I know the rules well enough to know what is stupid and messed up.
All that being said the book provides a decent frame work for someone who know's what they're doing. But that's all it is a frame work. The Dm really needs to craft most of it himself which is self defeating to the product.

Rating:
Summary: World's Largest Adventure!
Review: The book is hardbound and is very sturdy. It is bound in such a way that it will lay flat pretty much wherever you open it to. The layout is two column with pretty small text (I'd venture a guess and say around 6 - 8 pt.). Illustrations are grayscale and sparse. That is to say, you get an AWFUL lot of content in this book. The maps are very nice, color and are folded in such a way that each quarter of the map is 8-1/2" x 11"; perfect for scanning or copying.

The introduction spends a few columns going over the real-world whys and wherefores of the WLD. It then launches into a game-related backstory for the WLD. The backstory is important if you want to use it as a cohesive whole. The designers include notes at the beginning on alternate ways of introducing the dungeon. It gives well over 20 reasons/hooks.

After all the introductory stuff is out of the way, a mere 12 pages, we get into descriptions of things that aren't on the map. These include empty rooms for when the DM doesn't want to use what's in the region, or when they want an extra room to customize the experience. There are also some above ground encounters describe that lead to the first room of Region A.

The room descriptions is where the WLD really shines. They include grey-box text for the DM to read aloud, information on encounter conditions, tactics (including stat blocks for every creature/NPC in the room), and scaling info for DMs who want to make the encounter more or less difficult.

The storylines of the 16 regions are all interconnected, but it is done so in such a way that you can take one region out and run it on its own. I think this is a very cool way to handle an adventure this large. DMs won't have to run the whole thing straight through if their campaign won't support such an undertaking; they can pick and choose parts of it.

In addition to areas controlled by monsters, there are also "safe" rooms buit in where the PCs can recuperate in relative safety. All of these are in the dungeon in a way that fits in with the logic of the location.

The 16 maps all connect and can be laid out and one giant, wall-sized map. The "outside" of the dungeon has passageways that lead off to areas not detailed, allowing creative DMs room to customize their WLD experience, or allowing them ways to get higher-level characters into regions built for more powerful characters, thus avoiding the regions for lower level characters (e.g. Region A, designed for levels 1 - 3). That's pretty good foresight on the part of the designers.

The WLD is a huge undertaking for any group. I did notice a few errors, particularly in some room descriptions where they've been written as though the PCs enter from one direction, but there are multiple entrances to the room. But, these errors don't detract much from the enjoyment factor of this product. As I've mentioned, it's mind-bogglingly huge, and I can only imagine the amount of effort editing this monster was. I've seen more errors in TSR products (during the lean years of the mid-90's) that are half the size of but one region. A lot of people will balk at the $100 price, but astute shoppers can get this at substantial savings from online vendors. If you look at it from the prospective of 16 different dungeons (since each region can be run as a stand-alone adventure), then $100 breaks down to a reasonable $6.25 per region. If you want to challenge your players with a good old-fashioned dungeon crawl, the The World's Largest Dungeon is a good investment and will keep you busy for several years.

Rating:
Summary: World's Largest Suprise
Review: This book (more of a module really) requires more unpacking and understanding than any other I have ever bought. Well worth the price it contains so many rooms, features, monsters and other accoutraments to make your average adventurer (read: my gaming groups) drool with envy. I am very pleased with this purchase, and I highly recommend it. A note of warning though is that you should be very ready to sit down and tdo a lot of reading should you wish to FULLY utilize this module in your gameworld. An 800+ page book is nothing to laugh at, even should you be a fast reader. The only downside I can consider to exist, is that AEG doesn't also sell a poster-stle huge map of the dungeon. Not wishing to reveal too much about this module, I will not say much more. Simply put then I bought it, loved it, and recommend it to everyone who enjoys a good ole dungeon crawl... for if you enter this one it may never really end ;)

Rating:
Summary: Best thing in D&D for years
Review: This module/game world delivers the goods. The dungeon is well thought out and interesting. I haven't seen anything this good from WotC for a looong time.

The dungeon can be played as a marathon starting at level 1 and going to 20+, which is a very cool concept. OK, this could be a terrible concept if the quality wasn't high enough, but this one looks pretty good. While your character spending their entire game life stuck in a dungeon sounds limiting, in reality it has as much if not more flexibility than most campaigns I have played in. If you have ever played an RPGA living campaign, this dungeon is far LESS linear and gives you far more real choices with real consequences.

If the price bugs you, do what I did and don't buy any of the "Complete Warrior/Divine/Whatnot" books and just play this. You will be happier with this book than the others. This is a better buy for the money.

I don't agree with everything in the opening chapter about how to deal with summoning spells and whatnot, but that is a minor quibble.

Rating:
Summary: Planar Exploration
Review: While this product is incredibly large, the title of it is a bit of a misnomer. It is not exactly a "dungeon" in-as-much as a prison located over various planes. There are numerous areas, or planes if you will, that are shaped as a dungeon level, so the feel is mostly there. However, a few are less dungeony than others. For instance, one area is outdoorsy filled with unicorns and elves; another is based on a fiery plane, and a deep, dark watery plane just to mention three.

The writing is surprisingly good, considering the vastness that the authors and editors had to deal with. The encounters are well described with each "room" listing various elements, outlined in separate paragraphs, such as treasure, initial reactions, monster stats (not at the back of the book), Encounter level, and even suggestions on how to scale the room to make it easier or more difficult. I am quite impressed with this level of detail.

I only have two quibbles, and both are significant enough for me that I knocked the rating down a star for each. My first is that I prefer a product that is designed to cover a lot of different aspects of play, and by drafting this "dungeon" as a planar escapade, the entry level characters are essentially forced to be prisoners as well. They are forced to travel plane-to-plane to escape; no opportunities to go back-to-town with bags of loot; no roleplay opportunities with town adventures. It is strictly a dungeon experience, period. Even though it is mentioned in the first chapter that a DM can decide to have the "dungeon" be an in-and-out experience, the writing doesn't easily support it as the progression is designed to be an "Escape the Prison" idea.

The second quibble is the product cost. I would prefer a variation on adventures that can be purchased separately but be more fulfilling over the course of twenty levels. Not every player will want to be locked into a dungeon setting at every session. If the DM figures out a way for the players to exit the dungeon from time to time in order to accomplish some other goal, then the value of a self-contained 1-20 level adventure lessens as the DM has had to resort to other routes anyhow.

In summary, it is a fine product. But be certain to understand its limitations before deciding to invest in the hefty sum required to purchase it.