Let's talk about Barrowmaze

[The1True]

The more I run Barrowmaze, the more I enjoy it and see the nuances to the game design.
Like the last few sessions, I've been running the Temple of Set portion of the dungeon. During that bar-crawl downtime procedural I ran a little while ago, the players stirred up a nest of Necromancers of Set and ended up following them back to their secret entrance to the Barrowmaze. They rested up (in the Barrow Moors; never smart) and then headed in. What has ensued has been a fantastic time for all.

(sorry about the messy Snip'n Sketch from Roll20. I'm misusing my work computer atm.)

The top left is the stairs up to the Barrowmoors. The large area in the middle is the temple with its barracks full of low-mid lvl necromancers and their Bugbear and undead guards. The room descriptions clearly laid out a defence strategy for the temple as well as possible routes of movement/escape/reinforcements from allied monsters to the south (which I duly noted on the Roll20 map). Absolutely amazing. Instead of chaos, the characters hit organized and escalating resistance almost immediately and were eventually forced to flee into the deeper dungeon.

Then to reinforce that; the monster roster for this region of the dungeon is mostly necromancers and their undead servants. So, every time I rolled a positive on the wandering monster table there was a high probability of encountering necromancer hunting parties, hounding the characters around the dungeon. This led to some really rewarding play as the players were constantly reminded of this nagging loose end while they crawled the quieter crypts around the temple.

Eventually, they circumnavigated the temple almost entirely, probing its defences. The final assault was brutal, with wave after wave of monsters and a final desperate stand at the temple-proper (215). I juiced things up with a summoned demon (having established earlier that the necromancers can perform rituals of group suicide in order to summon powerful Set-themed outsiders) and the final fight ran them through most of their resources (I had been fretting about various wands and staves allowed to fall into the hands of the wizard in various Barrowmaze treasure hordes) and even killed (or reduced to unconsciousness) two guys. One of them, a duskblade (yeah yeah, candyclass) reduced himself to 0 hp casting a hp-draining spell into this sword so he could hit the demon. He killed it with his final blow before collapsing into unconsciousness! drahma! spectacle!

It just all fell into place naturally without explicit instructions from the author, and I think that's what people have been getting at here regarding the best terse designs. Maybe I'll dig around later and see if I can copy/paste some text examples from this section of the book to illustrate what I'm saying. Anyway, the more I run this adventure, the more sublime I find it to be.

 

[Johann]

Sounds great! I ran Barrowmaze many years ago and have nothing but fond memories -- it's a great module!

 

[squeen]

This sounds perfect!

It reminds me very much of the protracted battles we had against various factions in my old DM's "first level" dungeon. It was nearly always the case that we stirred up a hornets' nest of clever foes that quickly "ruined" the dungeon for first-level forays. When things eventually got bad enough (and we had finally gotten a player or two up a level or two), we'd head into another dungeon of his that wasn't polluted by our mistakes.

 

[The1True]

I've got his latest hardcover in the pile on my bedside table. I'm looking forward to reading it. Forbidden Caverns and Highfell are full of good stuff, but neither of them could touch the original work. I suspect it comes down to playtesting. Like he learned the elements of serious adventure publishing, but he's been pumping them out too fast to actually try them out. We've had the playtest debate elsewhere in this forum. It's obviously always best to thoroughly playtest, but in practical terms, especially with these BIG productions, not always possible I think.

 

[Beoric]

Other than the cover, is there any difference between Barromaze Complete and the 10th Anniversary Edition?

 

[The1True]

Other than the cover, is there any difference between Barromaze Complete and the 10th Anniversary Edition?

All I could find was a 4 yr old post saying not to buy the 5e conversion which is missing the critical Dungeon Restock Table for some reason. Greg updates his PDF's a couple times a year though, so that may have been sorted since then...

 

[Beoric]

All I could find was a 4 yr old post saying not to buy the 5e conversion which is missing the critical Dungeon Restock Table for some reason. Greg updates his PDF's a couple times a year though, so that may have been sorted since then...

Yeah, there's a LL version of both Barrowmaze Complete and the 10th Anniversary Edition, so that isn't really an issue. I note the question was asked several times on DrivethruRPG, without ever getting answered; I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that there is no difference except marketing. Will probably pick up the later version on the assumption that it is at least exactly the same, with some possibility of there being editorial cleanups.

 

[Johnny F. Normal]

Yeah, there's a LL version of both Barrowmaze Complete and the 10th Anniversary Edition, so that isn't really an issue. I note the question was asked several times on DrivethruRPG, without ever getting answered; I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that there is no difference except marketing. Will probably pick up the later version on the assumption that it is at least exactly the same, with some possibility of there being editorial cleanups.

Cover and an essay. No difference in actual content.

 

[Johnny F. Normal]

It took my crew a few years and a number of side quest diversions but they eventually defeated the great Barrowmaze.
We had lots of fun in the tomb of tombs.
For those playing or considering, giving some thought and planning to faction action can create a host of fun via manipulation, misdirection and general malevolence.
On the playtesting front it is obvious that BM had lots of play, I actually own Bryce's copies of BM 1 & 2, and by the time complete was published it had lots of play. With the followup MDs we get to the conundrum or produce or play test for years. With Caverns I have and will use bits and pieces. Highfell I would like to use in its entirety. Dwarrowdeep is still being chewed on and I'm trying to ignore the 'it's not Moria' claptrap from the blog. The followup dungeons were obviously made on much shorter timelines and I have accepted that more imperfect things that require some work or can be used piecemeal is likely better than having less.

 

[The1True]

For those playing or considering, giving some thought and planning to faction action can create a host of fun via manipulation, misdirection and general malevolence.

I'm finding these factions are kind of intuitively running themselves without a great deal of prep which is nice since usually faction play requires a lot of fleshing out NPC's and motivations or reading and highlighting long-winded write-ups. One of the better examples of this is a long wide hallway where a group of Necromancers of Set are battling a posse of Priests of Orcus. The PC's can choose to take sides or sit it out and just observe the capabilities and motivations of their enemies. So much information conveyed with such a simple encounter!

I actually own Bryce's copies

Sorry what?

Highfell I would like to use in its entirety.

You know what bugs me the most about Highfell? It's weird, but the buildings on the floating island are supposed to be various colleges of wizardry built above ground, but he basically treats them like above-ground dungeons. It makes NO sense that none of these buildings have windows.
Also, Barrowmaze is wide open, so technically your PC's can go almost anywhere right from the outset, but in practice it's arranged in a way that PC's are more likely to explore lower-level encounter-areas early on and gradually encounter greater threats (and have a chance to flee them) as they go along, and I'm not seeing that on the floating island.

 

[Johnny F. Normal]

I'm finding these factions are kind of intuitively running themselves without a great deal of prep which is nice since usually faction play requires a lot of fleshing out NPC's and motivations or reading and highlighting long-winded write-ups. One of the better examples of this is a long wide hallway where a group of Necromancers of Set are battling a posse of Priests of Orcus. The PC's can choose to take sides or sit it out and just observe the capabilities and motivations of their enemies. So much information conveyed with such a simple encounter!

Sorry what?

You know what bugs me the most about Highfell? It's weird, but the buildings on the floating island are supposed to be various colleges of wizardry built above ground, but he basically treats them like above-ground dungeons. It makes NO sense that none of these buildings have windows.
Also, Barrowmaze is wide open, so technically your PC's can go almost anywhere right from the outset, but in practice it's arranged in a way that PC's are more likely to explore lower-level encounter-areas early on and gradually encounter greater threats (and have a chance to flee them) as they go along, and I'm not seeing that on the floating island.

1) Yes, that encounter on the 'highway' is excellent and tends to be the first introduction to the two cults if the party is exploring the dungeon in a linear fashion from the beginning rather than 'going down the well'. What i am getting at is consideration towards what the factions are doing and where they are going. For example I was moving about the mongloids, Orcus, Set and Griselda fairly well at least once we were spending more time in their zones. However, i sorta fumbled with the harpies, gargoyles and Renatta. Greg does a very good of providing motivations we just need to breath the next level of life into them.

2) A number of years back our host was liquidating some of his collection (2014?) and acquired some items, including the original BM 1 & 2 books.

3) I am using (perverting) Pat Wetmore's Land of a Thousand Towers for the framework of my campaign so wizards are quite mad and exceptionally paranoid. If i have windows in my tower some hobo or nemesis could gain entrance to my tower and steal my secrets - therefore no windows! From a design perspective they are totally vertical dungeons so a compromise was required to prevent 1st level PCs from easily stepping into a 5th level dungeon without fairly warning them (e.g. BM stonework denoting age of the sector acting as a difficulty warning).

 

[The1True]

2) A number of years back our host was liquidating some of his collection (2014?) and acquired some items, including the original BM 1 & 2 books.

Crazy. I'm wondering if I'd pay sweaty fan-boy prices for a 'The Best' or 'No Regrets' with a signed/stamped copy of the review inside...