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Monday, March 26, 2012

Looking Back and Forward at the Temple of Elemental Evil


















I took today off to move yet more stuff to storage.  Slowly but surely, things are returning to normal.  I'm putting about 90% of my gaming goodies into storage, but I'm doing quick looks through the boxes that I hastily packed up in November to make sure nothing "overly awesome" is going to be lost in the abyss.

One of the books I pulled from a box today was T1-4, The Temple of Elemental Evil.  I must have ran this nearly a half dozen times for different groups.  It's beat to crap, but that's from use, not shelf wear.

Notice the cover of the 16 page map booklet that accompanied it?  Not only does it include at the dungeon maps, 2 town maps, a map of an inn, a church, a guard tower, a trader's establishment and numerous ruins, it also includes a nice sandbox hex map with such labels as: "Beware Evil", "Danger" and "Evil Lurks Here".  This is how to make a sandbox work: you give leads to the players and see where it goes.

Now, ToEE wasn't much of a sandbox.  No, the sucker is one hell of a megadungeon, with many different factions at work within.  Still, it was placed within a micro-sandbox if you will.

When I take the Hex Series from Loviatar, mix in some Toys For the Sandbox, Barrowmaze and Dwimmermount, the players will have choices, but I'll be ready for 95% of the choices they make (you can never be ready for everything).

Hmm... do I want to make ToEE a third megadungeon in the area?  Nah... too much mega, too little space. But I could use the Moathouse.  Actually, I think I will use the Moathouse.  ToEE never gets old :)

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