The problems mentioned with the module didn't bother me back in the day because I didn't run modules in series. Being a young teen at the time, purchasing D&D modules was a "You have to pick one once in a while". So would have this ongoing campaign that I wrote myself, and if I purchased a module, the thing would just get altered and hammered into my personal storyline. I'm sure that's how most of us did it back then. I don't think that I owned a complete series of modules. My modules were all just.. random. Whichever had the coolest covers.
In '83, $5 for a module was a lot for a ten year old. And you had to make sure your mom didn't look too closely at the artwork. So I can totally agree with this method of collecting and running modules. Plus, it was hard to find and assemble and schedule a party of like-minded youngsters with enough regularity to complete one module, let alone a series of seven.
@@j.m.s_3285 My parents didn't care about that artwork. One of my favorite things to do as a young kid was to do the rounds of the local used book stores with my father every Saturday. We had a few, very quirky, used book stores in our area. And at the time, most of them, when you would go into the Sci-Fi, fantasy section, wouldn't be any of the "popular crap that you would see everywhere". Almost every damn book in this area was this... unusual book that you just couldn't find in the chain bookstores at the time. And all the covers either looked like Boris Vallejo threw up onto them, or they had some REALLY crazy, but realistic, paintings of ultra-high-tech space ships and space environments. That was MY section, and starting at 4 years old, I began amassing a large library of those books. My parents NEVER turned down a book. They were used to that type of artwork from my reading material back then, so neither of them batted an eye when it came to the art on the D&D stuff. They were used to it. What they batted an eye at was PRICE.
@@BlackburnBigdragon that sounds great. My little Midwestern town had one bookstore. And for a time after they closed shop, none. I'd have to tag along with my older brother to the mall an hour away to find D&D goods. At that point it became much more fun to shop, though not for him.
@@j.m.s_3285 Let's just say that by age 5, in the very early 70's, I had read a good portion of the "Gor" series. Haha! We had three used book stores in our town back then, and they were all run by these hippy types who looked like they just came back from Woodstock, and opened a store. One of them was a legit head shop. But they ALL had that.. 60's hippy vibe. And like I said, you would go to the fantasy and Sci-Fi section in these little stores (One of them was even in a double wide trailer), and just find all these cool books that you NEVER saw in the big chain book stores in the mall. There were so many titles I fond that the mall bookstore just didn't even carry. I'm assuming that these were the fantasy and sci-fi books mostly from the 60's where there was this.. renaissance of hard science fiction and really beefy Conan type fantasy stuff. The section in our mall bookstore for that stuff was super small. Maybe one small rack. These bookstores had an entire aisle of these books...and all of them were just... cool and unusual for back then (EIther that or fantasy and sci-fi just didn't sell back then, so the mall book stores just.. didn't really carry much stock of the stuff.).
Your videos are all among the best I've seen on D&D - I love how well versed you are in all the topics you attack. So sick of starting to watch other reviews and having the old "Well, I uh never actually played this module but ah I read part of it today and there are a few typos and um it looks kinda cool - love the retro artwork!" I love that your reviews offer such a deep understanding - really helps me. Sincere thanks for taking the time to make them.
I'm glad you mentioned Eberron, I play Dungeons & Dragons Online where the setting is Eberron and there is a chain of quests that ties in with The Forgotten Realms, the Underdark, the Demonweb and of course Lolth.
I never realized how much our DM changed in this module. Lolth and her minions ambushed the heck out of us, and it was definitely trippier in the way you suggest it should be.
EXCELLENT! I listened to you review of the whole series. I was already familiar with all of it from playing and running the games in the early 1980's. I must say your ideas for fleshing out the stories and intrigue are wonderful!! It highlights why I'm a substandard DM, in that I lack imagination!! I will return to these reviews for ideas in the future! I have already shared them with some friends.
I just finished a year long campaign starting out with the temple of elemental evil and then going all the way through GDQ and ending with the Skein of the Death Mother (dragons foot) all of your videos and reviews have been a key part of my preparation. Thank you Cap!
I was a player when our group crashed through Q1 back in 1982 or 1983. As I never read the module I don't know how much it was changed, but I guess the DM didn't like the idea of a demon-goddess getting killed. He juiced her up, but our trump card was a plan by a few good deities supporting us to trap her in one of her mirrors. We just head to whittle her down enough to decide that a tactical retreat was called for - which made her step into the trap set by the other gods. As players, we never figured out a pattern or web, we just kept moving until we finally got to the end - maybe the DM just made sure we got to the climax.
Got this in 1981 and the idea of killing a god was awesome at the time, as was Lolth’s steam ship. I didn’t notice that it was totally incoherent with the rest of the series until a few years later when I read them together more closely.
When I ran this, the party fought their way to Lolth, who used her Unholy Word, sending all the good characters back to the Prime Material Plane. However, even with her AC -10, the Chaotic Evil fighter and Neutral dwarf fighter had no problem whittling down her miserly 66 hit points. A demon lord or prince(ss) slain on his/her own plane is slain permanently, so really that was the end of Lolth. I should have offered the Chaotic Evil fighter the opportunity to claim that layer of the Abyss as his own to rule.
Or he could have been killed in the maelstrom that forms after the (former) ruler of the plane is "removed". But you already knew that, right? Or how about humans, being non-denizens, have no ability to survive the Abyss without alterations to their bodies / minds? Or the Lolth that your (so called players) defeated was a lower-level Aspect, right? A lesser power would simply create an aspect ("demi god") which is what the original players confronted. The REAL Lolth would have simply teleported to some other location, to exact revenge.
She ain't dead. They fought an Avatar; not the "real demoness". The DM is allowed to change spells and/or content as He/She sees fit. Also note the INT and Wisdom stats Lolth has. If you're "playing her as dumb", then you are not playing the part correctly. It is theoretically possible for Lolth to be defeated - but it's not the "real" Lolth.
Yeah, I seem to recall her getting killed by the party when I played it back in the day, but we were all like 13 or something, AD&D was still new (1st edition had only been out 2 or 3 yrs) but dealing with other planes and encountering divine beings wasn't well understood at that time (this was also before AD&D was using avatars etc, if you encountered Zues or Lolth etc, that was them, no aspects or avatars etc) Sure she had stats just like any other encounter but that whole layer was part of her whim, it's not really realistic to destroy a goddess on her own plane. I mean technically she could've just willed the floor beneath the PC's to disappear or turned us all to larvae or some shit lol.
From memory, although she had only 66 hp she had the ability to go back to full hp 3 times a day at will. Could be wrong and I don't know if that was supposed to be in place of an attack but...
I remember starting this campaign with G1 on Christmas Eve 1980. We finished the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief that night. The adventures grew longer and longer over regular weekend sessions, until we finally slogged through Q1 the following summer. Were I to run it again, I would in all likelihood simply forgo Q1 entirely, and leave Lolth as simply the name of the deity of the local drow, and not a primary antagonist. Even then, G1-3/D1-3 would be quite a long, largely unrelieved run, a real test of player endurance to complete in one go, as presented. Fun? Sure! But hard to sustain, let me tell you, deferring player aspirations for their characters for *many* levels, and in an environment which doesn't exactly provide for the usual support mechanisms, like trainers (if you use them) and such. ='[.]'=
I just loved Descent into the Depth of the Earth though. Man that is such a classic... but yeah, not a fan of Lloth at the primary antagonist, as you can tell by my review!
Getting a player group into a situation where they have to bargain with Lolth herself seems like a bad idea. They either are at a demon goddess's mercy or you do the Forgotten Realms thing, where you provide the players with PCs above level 100, have them obtain the Final Word and the Wand of Orcus, and enable them to destroy an avatar of Lolth. I mean even visiting Lolth's layer of the Abyss, to find out why she neither answers prayers or grants spells anymore is a terrible idea for mortal beings, even if they are among the most senior member's of the institutions they represent, including the clerigy of Lolth and the primary drow wizard college. Mind you, all of this happens in the FR where meeting a deity is something that just might happen, even if you try your best to avoid it. Making contact with Zagyg or Iuz, seems much more sensible and less deadly and is already something only Level 20+ PCs should attempt. I just don't see how Gary Gygax would have turned the finale into a sensible and satisfying ending, under the premise that the PCs would go into the Abyss and meet Lolth, there is no way this could have ended well.
It ended well, for my team. Anti-Magic shell, for defense. Haste spell and a haste potion on 2 main fighters. [x8] Magic arrows, +3, each. a good damage roll, = 48 + 24 = 72 damage. First edition version (avatar) of Lolth is toast.
Funnily enough, before stumbling onto your amazing vids, I was planning writing up a modified version, creating a conclusion that is more inline with the series. Where the PCs would have to almost pick a side. The driving bad guy that wants to usurp Lolth and wage war on the world, or the Demon Queen who wants to keep her stranglehold over the Drow and maintain the power that all sacrifices provide.
Now you know you're not the only one. The conflict between Lloth and the Elder Elemental Eye is a cool conflict to involve the PCs in. Like I said... Eclavdra served the Elder Elemental Eye, so the PCs MIGHT find themselve siding with some Spider Queen Elves, and of course.... as DM you just KNOW that after the PCs help them destroy the Eye god the Drow will turn on them, so that THEY can invade the surface realms. :D
Another great video as always. I've been waiting for someone to do a video review of this module for a long time. I've been working on a conversion of the series for a while, and Q1 always stuck out to me like a sore thumb.
I have never run any module as written, Demonweb Pits was no exception to this although I agree this one desperately needed to be altered to fall in line with the story that came before it. As far as your suggestion of removing or altering the mundane monsters on the web you can be assured that I certainly did back when I ran it in the 80's. There was so much awesome in this module in addition to the what were they thinking?
Temple of Elemental evil SOON! Yeah, that's gotta happen. Sinister secret of salt marsh. LOVE that module, and yeah, that one too! lol. Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed it!
Another great video man. I see some already mentioned Saltmarsh and Temple of Elemental Evil in requests. I would love to know your experiences with a module not mentioned as much. Cult of the Reptile God from the N series.
Even in CRPGs from the era that required mapping, I find that maps that are based on a gimmick become subservient to the gimmick itself rather that what is good for the game (such as a level actually being a crossword puzzle). The Demonweb map is in this category. Making it look like a spiderweb was more important than logic or fun.
I think hindsight is 20/20 with a lot of this early d&d stuff. Gygax is a bad module writer people say? Sure, maybe by modern standards, but they were making it up as they went back then. Module too brief? Printing costs money, and your profit margin goes down for every page beyond a point because you can’t just keep adding to the price. Gygax didn’t describe things consistently, or was too brief? Funny how we laud modern OSR modules for being brief and to the point. Sutherland took inspiration from a place mat? Its only mocked because we know it - how many other ideas were inspired by weird stuff? Hell I based an entire campaign on one Kate Bush song. It seems clear to me that Gygax wanted to be a module writer but also he had a company to run. ToEE took how long? His business partner, being a practical business person, no doubt wanted Gygax to delegate. I can see him telling Gary that having these module conclusions hanging out there is pissing off fans and impacting sales of other modules. Gary’s intro to this module, saying his plot was too close to ToEE sounds absolutely true- he later said that players would be able to free or further restrain a powerful entity in his version, which is exactly the same as ToEE. And Sutherland didn’t follow on the plot from the previous modules? I bet you anything he felt - or was told - that it would be bad form to usurp Gygax’s creations. I’m not saying this module is good. It’s not, not even when compared to others at the same time. But it isn’t all that worse than a lot of the other stuff. Good review. I agree with the review, I just think we often forget that these were pioneer days.
Yeah, this adventure still ranks as one of my top fails of TSR. I detest the "web"; anyone wanting to see how such should be approached should research "the ways" that R. Jordan created in Wheel of Time series. My greatest repulsion of the adventure is the whole point of it: Lolth? What in the heck did she have to do with Eclavdra and the House of Eilservs plot to gain control of the surface world? Isn't Eclavdra/HoE actually foes of Lolth and her followers? What a hot stinky mess this whole plot is. However, you touch on this and, I always enjoy your reviews. Keep up the good work.
Yeah, I think the failure of this module was an indicator of other issues with TSR at the time. From what I've been able to gather from Gary's postings around the web is that he fully intended to revisit the Elclavdra/ EEG plot in the finale of the series.
Thanks a lot for reviewing this series. I went on eBay and grabbed monochromes of D1, D2 and D3 after watching this. No Q1 though, it sounds like a shitshow, although I dig Sutherland's design for the Abyss a lot.
Came here cuz I've been doing a multi year long camapign that has been leading to a confrontation with lolth in the demonweb pits. But it's a Spelljammer camapign and while the Spider ship makes 0 sense in the normal adventure background....it's gonna KILL in spelljammer lmao
I would make the web an web of like the souls of the people who dare travel the abyss and the material of the web is a wet sticky silk that if a character or monster broke with a sword they would make a saving throw to hold the ends of the silk together or something else. Or the doors could lead to other modules that would be tied to Loith
I always assumed they nerfed the opposition in this module because the Abyss seriously fucks the PCs. Lots of items and spells don't work or don't work right. But yeah, I definitely agree that this module is a mixed bag.
G'day, Cap. I was wondering if you could tell me the name of the music at the start of the intro. I know the music that makes up the second half but not the part at the beginning. I really enjoy it, it sounds epic and I'd like to try and find a copy of it. Thanks for any help, mate, and thanks for yet another great video.
Talk to Lolth? Parley? Bargain? I can't think of any players back when this was written that would have ever considered any of those with a being such as that. It's one thing to run into intelligent humanoids that might make good allies or can at least be useful in some way. But when you run into the big bad there is no talking, only fighting.
2nd edition relabeled devils as "baatezu", demons as "tanar'ri" and daemons as "yugoloths" because of fears of Satanism in D&D. The changes were most clearly reflected in the Planescape setting. The Nine Hells were renamed as "Baator". From 1998 onward, however, devils and demons came back in their "original glory" through sourcebooks like Chris Pramas "Guide to Hell" . The 3rd edition reinstituted devils, with "baatezu" as an alias. Demons are broken down into groups, the main group being "tanar'ri" and the others being "obyrith" and "loumara".
I'll only touch on the double standard I think exists whenever somebody breaks down Sunderland's encounters versus Gary's, by reminding that the latter is guilty on more than one occasion of every offense we hit Sunderland with, and UA-cam and various RPG forums are filled to the brim with people who will call Gary out on same, and rightly so. I will also say that I am not sure Gary is the best source of truth, as - and I love him just as much as you guys do - he seems to have changed his stories frequently over the years, and much of what he said and did seemed to be designed to cover his butt, or to take more credit than was necessarily owed him. Like all of us, Gary Gygax was a complex, flawed human being. And he screwed up as much as he innovated. So let us not approach this with too much bias, either cognitive or confirmation-based. All that said, the thing I take most umbrage with, is the way the story of the towel or placemat, or whatever, is presented. It always seems to be presented as if inspiration is some definitive, stone-set thing where any idea worth chasing appears magically fully formed and realized, and in this light, Sunderland is somehow considered a lesser creator for drawing an idea from a simple source. In reality, inspiration is unpredictable, and the greatest of final concepts can often have the most humble of sources. It is either disingenuous or outrageously ignorant to harp on the humble beginning of the demonweb pit in this way. I can only think that anyone who does so, is himself an unimaginative creature who has rarely experienced inspiration firsthand. As for the ship, yes, that is incongruent (again, see above), but Steampunk, though it didn't yet have a name, had already been a thing since Jules Verne, in regard to the aesthetic of steam-powered machines and other such tech, with echoes down the line through H.G. Wells, TV shows like The Wild Wild West (you do know it was a TV show from the 1960s before it was a movie, right?), and various artworks from European artists contributing to such magazines as the precursor to Heavy Metal, Metal Hurlant.
My biggest criticism of Sutherland's work here isn't the demon web, or even the steam ship. The adventure overall is fine. My problem is that it does not conclude the series. It does not address Elclavdra or the Elder Elemental Eye, and supplants that in favor of a cliche monster hunt.
Skein of the Death Mother??? Totally lacking in imagination. It turned Lolth's Spider Ship into a simple dungeon crawl. I guess some people cannot think outside the box.
Its an alternative. I actually think that the steam ship might have been a bit ahead of time, as I said in the video... but, its there as an alternative, and its actually pretty interesting.
I'm skimming through Skein right now, and I have to say it's looking like what PungiFungi said. It seems rather bland. What do you find interesting about it? I think your ideas for updating the module are very interesting. The steampunk ship was unexpectedly gonzo for the time. I'd say re-tool it, going full on gonzo. Loth is a Goddess, with access to multiple dimensions, universes, times... and a transcendent, otherworldly intelligence. So, she would incorporate both weird super-science as well as magic, often making a hybrid between the two. Do you know Peter Mullen's cover for the 4th printing of DCC RPG? It is reminiscent of the Space Jockey in Alien. Also, look at the LotFP art with the pods and the holographic display being hacked by their Magic User. I'd go with those evocative elements, rehauling the thing to give it a real Gigeresque, weird/alien science, dark and mysterious magic feel. Go with the twisted plot element and add some real twists regarding what Lolth's plan is all about and bring up the paranoia, like she has all kinds of shit going on everywhere and is planning a huge, cataclysmic thing that will shake the multiverse... maybe giving it a kind of Call of Cthulhu and X-Files feel. Maybe she's brokering deals with aliens and old ones, etc.? goodman-games.com/store/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/02/GMG5070P-Mullen.jpg 3.bp.blogspot.com/-7axo_sZVp98/UnuX7UjtBWI/AAAAAAAACHg/FtBYeoLVFC8/s1600/LOTFP-spire-image.jpg
The first time I ran the module, I ran it with the steamship and hated it. I ran it again in 2021 and completely changed the setting so that the final location was a port on an ocean and changed her ship into an actual ship, which would make sense if she wanted to invade another planet with a significant amount of water.
Soon. I started writing the script for Masks of Narylathotep and got stuck, and then I started on Undermountain, and then decided to switch up my approach, so now I'm sort starting over. lol
Your reviews alone are worth watching, but your suggested improvements make these videos must-see!
I say we do a module that ends with what Gary had in mind for this whole story lines conclusion...could be epic!
The problems mentioned with the module didn't bother me back in the day because I didn't run modules in series. Being a young teen at the time, purchasing D&D modules was a "You have to pick one once in a while". So would have this ongoing campaign that I wrote myself, and if I purchased a module, the thing would just get altered and hammered into my personal storyline. I'm sure that's how most of us did it back then. I don't think that I owned a complete series of modules. My modules were all just.. random. Whichever had the coolest covers.
That's really a true thing. It was a bit challenging to really understand what lead into what if you didn't know, or weren't reading Dragon magazine.
In '83, $5 for a module was a lot for a ten year old. And you had to make sure your mom didn't look too closely at the artwork. So I can totally agree with this method of collecting and running modules. Plus, it was hard to find and assemble and schedule a party of like-minded youngsters with enough regularity to complete one module, let alone a series of seven.
@@j.m.s_3285 My parents didn't care about that artwork. One of my favorite things to do as a young kid was to do the rounds of the local used book stores with my father every Saturday. We had a few, very quirky, used book stores in our area. And at the time, most of them, when you would go into the Sci-Fi, fantasy section, wouldn't be any of the "popular crap that you would see everywhere". Almost every damn book in this area was this... unusual book that you just couldn't find in the chain bookstores at the time. And all the covers either looked like Boris Vallejo threw up onto them, or they had some REALLY crazy, but realistic, paintings of ultra-high-tech space ships and space environments. That was MY section, and starting at 4 years old, I began amassing a large library of those books. My parents NEVER turned down a book. They were used to that type of artwork from my reading material back then, so neither of them batted an eye when it came to the art on the D&D stuff. They were used to it. What they batted an eye at was PRICE.
@@BlackburnBigdragon that sounds great. My little Midwestern town had one bookstore. And for a time after they closed shop, none. I'd have to tag along with my older brother to the mall an hour away to find D&D goods. At that point it became much more fun to shop, though not for him.
@@j.m.s_3285 Let's just say that by age 5, in the very early 70's, I had read a good portion of the "Gor" series. Haha! We had three used book stores in our town back then, and they were all run by these hippy types who looked like they just came back from Woodstock, and opened a store. One of them was a legit head shop. But they ALL had that.. 60's hippy vibe. And like I said, you would go to the fantasy and Sci-Fi section in these little stores (One of them was even in a double wide trailer), and just find all these cool books that you NEVER saw in the big chain book stores in the mall. There were so many titles I fond that the mall bookstore just didn't even carry. I'm assuming that these were the fantasy and sci-fi books mostly from the 60's where there was this.. renaissance of hard science fiction and really beefy Conan type fantasy stuff. The section in our mall bookstore for that stuff was super small. Maybe one small rack. These bookstores had an entire aisle of these books...and all of them were just... cool and unusual for back then (EIther that or fantasy and sci-fi just didn't sell back then, so the mall book stores just.. didn't really carry much stock of the stuff.).
Your videos are all among the best I've seen on D&D - I love how well versed you are in all the topics you attack. So sick of starting to watch other reviews and having the old "Well, I uh never actually played this module but ah I read part of it today and there are a few typos and um it looks kinda cool - love the retro artwork!" I love that your reviews offer such a deep understanding - really helps me. Sincere thanks for taking the time to make them.
I'm glad you mentioned Eberron, I play Dungeons & Dragons Online where the setting is Eberron and there is a chain of quests that ties in with The Forgotten Realms, the Underdark, the Demonweb and of course Lolth.
Yeah! I thought it was a wonderful tie-in!! My players want to start an Eberron campaign and maybe this is a hook I will use.
I never realized how much our DM changed in this module. Lolth and her minions ambushed the heck out of us, and it was definitely trippier in the way you suggest it should be.
I really think a lot of players have fond memories of this module because DMs took what was presented and made it their own.... which is great!
I've wondered about the connection between this module and the obsession some film makers have with giant robot spiders, myself
EXCELLENT! I listened to you review of the whole series. I was already familiar with all of it from playing and running the games in the early 1980's. I must say your ideas for fleshing out the stories and intrigue are wonderful!! It highlights why I'm a substandard DM, in that I lack imagination!! I will return to these reviews for ideas in the future! I have already shared them with some friends.
I just finished a year long campaign starting out with the temple of elemental evil and then going all the way through GDQ and ending with the Skein of the Death Mother (dragons foot) all of your videos and reviews have been a key part of my preparation. Thank you Cap!
I was a player when our group crashed through Q1 back in 1982 or 1983. As I never read the module I don't know how much it was changed, but I guess the DM didn't like the idea of a demon-goddess getting killed. He juiced her up, but our trump card was a plan by a few good deities supporting us to trap her in one of her mirrors. We just head to whittle her down enough to decide that a tactical retreat was called for - which made her step into the trap set by the other gods. As players, we never figured out a pattern or web, we just kept moving until we finally got to the end - maybe the DM just made sure we got to the climax.
Got this in 1981 and the idea of killing a god was awesome at the time, as was Lolth’s steam ship. I didn’t notice that it was totally incoherent with the rest of the series until a few years later when I read them together more closely.
i agree with your insight into this module. great job as always. i really enjoyed this video.
Thanks for this being an old gamer from way back I have enjoyed your clips.
14:00 In most modern setting's, Loth's palace is powered by magic; in at least one, the engine is fueled by damned souls.
When I ran this, the party fought their way to Lolth, who used her Unholy Word, sending all the good characters back to the Prime Material Plane. However, even with her AC -10, the Chaotic Evil fighter and Neutral dwarf fighter had no problem whittling down her miserly 66 hit points.
A demon lord or prince(ss) slain on his/her own plane is slain permanently, so really that was the end of Lolth. I should have offered the Chaotic Evil fighter the opportunity to claim that layer of the Abyss as his own to rule.
Or he could have been killed in the maelstrom that forms after the (former) ruler of the plane is "removed". But you already knew that, right? Or how about humans, being non-denizens, have no ability to survive the Abyss without
alterations to their bodies / minds?
Or the Lolth that your (so called players) defeated was a lower-level Aspect, right? A lesser power would simply create an aspect ("demi god") which is what the original players confronted. The REAL Lolth would have simply teleported to some other location, to exact revenge.
Her ability to use command (two rounds) with no saving throw at will should have dealt with the other two characters "surrender."
She ain't dead. They fought an Avatar; not the "real demoness". The DM is allowed to change spells and/or content as He/She sees fit. Also note the INT and Wisdom stats Lolth has. If you're "playing her as dumb", then you are not playing the part correctly. It is theoretically possible for Lolth to be defeated - but it's not the "real" Lolth.
Yeah, I seem to recall her getting killed by the party when I played it back in the day, but we were all like 13 or something, AD&D was still new (1st edition had only been out 2 or 3 yrs) but dealing with other planes and encountering divine beings wasn't well understood at that time (this was also before AD&D was using avatars etc, if you encountered Zues or Lolth etc, that was them, no aspects or avatars etc) Sure she had stats just like any other encounter but that whole layer was part of her whim, it's not really realistic to destroy a goddess on her own plane. I mean technically she could've just willed the floor beneath the PC's to disappear or turned us all to larvae or some shit lol.
From memory, although she had only 66 hp she had the ability to go back to full hp 3 times a day at will. Could be wrong and I don't know if that was supposed to be in place of an attack but...
I remember starting this campaign with G1 on Christmas Eve 1980. We finished the Steading of the Hill Giant Chief that night. The adventures grew longer and longer over regular weekend sessions, until we finally slogged through Q1 the following summer. Were I to run it again, I would in all likelihood simply forgo Q1 entirely, and leave Lolth as simply the name of the deity of the local drow, and not a primary antagonist. Even then, G1-3/D1-3 would be quite a long, largely unrelieved run, a real test of player endurance to complete in one go, as presented. Fun? Sure! But hard to sustain, let me tell you, deferring player aspirations for their characters for *many* levels, and in an environment which doesn't exactly provide for the usual support mechanisms, like trainers (if you use them) and such. ='[.]'=
I just loved Descent into the Depth of the Earth though. Man that is such a classic... but yeah, not a fan of Lloth at the primary antagonist, as you can tell by my review!
Just remembered this tidbit. I had the opportunity to purchase the back cover artwork of this module. It sold on eBay for less than $200. Aww...man!
Wow!!
Getting a player group into a situation where they have to bargain with Lolth herself seems like a bad idea. They either are at a demon goddess's mercy or you do the Forgotten Realms thing, where you provide the players with PCs above level 100, have them obtain the Final Word and the Wand of Orcus, and enable them to destroy an avatar of Lolth. I mean even visiting Lolth's layer of the Abyss, to find out why she neither answers prayers or grants spells anymore is a terrible idea for mortal beings, even if they are among the most senior member's of the institutions they represent, including the clerigy of Lolth and the primary drow wizard college. Mind you, all of this happens in the FR where meeting a deity is something that just might happen, even if you try your best to avoid it. Making contact with Zagyg or Iuz, seems much more sensible and less deadly and is already something only Level 20+ PCs should attempt. I just don't see how Gary Gygax would have turned the finale into a sensible and satisfying ending, under the premise that the PCs would go into the Abyss and meet Lolth, there is no way this could have ended well.
It ended well, for my team. Anti-Magic shell, for defense. Haste spell and a haste potion on 2 main fighters. [x8] Magic arrows, +3, each. a good damage roll, = 48 + 24 = 72 damage. First edition version (avatar) of Lolth is toast.
Cpt, have you scene the D&D 3.5 book Expedition to the DemonWeb Pits ? It seams to wrectify many of the issues with this Mod. 🤗
Funnily enough, before stumbling onto your amazing vids, I was planning writing up a modified version, creating a conclusion that is more inline with the series. Where the PCs would have to almost pick a side. The driving bad guy that wants to usurp Lolth and wage war on the world, or the Demon Queen who wants to keep her stranglehold over the Drow and maintain the power that all sacrifices provide.
Now you know you're not the only one. The conflict between Lloth and the Elder Elemental Eye is a cool conflict to involve the PCs in. Like I said... Eclavdra served the Elder Elemental Eye, so the PCs MIGHT find themselve siding with some Spider Queen Elves, and of course.... as DM you just KNOW that after the PCs help them destroy the Eye god the Drow will turn on them, so that THEY can invade the surface realms. :D
I've put my own thoughts down on 1st ed AD&D. A quick google on "AD&D tablo.io" ought to do the trick. Be happy to hear your thoughts.
Another great video as always. I've been waiting for someone to do a video review of this module for a long time. I've been working on a conversion of the series for a while, and Q1 always stuck out to me like a sore thumb.
I have never run any module as written, Demonweb Pits was no exception to this although I agree this one desperately needed to be altered to fall in line with the story that came before it. As far as your suggestion of removing or altering the mundane monsters on the web you can be assured that I certainly did back when I ran it in the 80's. There was so much awesome in this module in addition to the what were they thinking?
Other modules I'd love to see reviewed.....The Temple of Elemental Evil and the Sinister secret of salt marsh series (U series). Great job as always!
Temple of Elemental evil SOON! Yeah, that's gotta happen. Sinister secret of salt marsh. LOVE that module, and yeah, that one too! lol. Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed it!
OMG, I haven't heard reference to ultravision in AGES!
Another great video man. I see some already mentioned Saltmarsh and Temple of Elemental Evil in requests. I would love to know your experiences with a module not mentioned as much. Cult of the Reptile God from the N series.
Even in CRPGs from the era that required mapping, I find that maps that are based on a gimmick become subservient to the gimmick itself rather that what is good for the game (such as a level actually being a crossword puzzle). The Demonweb map is in this category. Making it look like a spiderweb was more important than logic or fun.
One suggestion after watching this video, could you review The Bloodstone Modules (including The Throne of Blodstone). Thanks!
I'd love it if you re-worked this particular module like you recommend and make it available for download. :-)
I think hindsight is 20/20 with a lot of this early d&d stuff. Gygax is a bad module writer people say? Sure, maybe by modern standards, but they were making it up as they went back then. Module too brief? Printing costs money, and your profit margin goes down for every page beyond a point because you can’t just keep adding to the price. Gygax didn’t describe things consistently, or was too brief? Funny how we laud modern OSR modules for being brief and to the point. Sutherland took inspiration from a place mat? Its only mocked because we know it - how many other ideas were inspired by weird stuff? Hell I based an entire campaign on one Kate Bush song.
It seems clear to me that Gygax wanted to be a module writer but also he had a company to run. ToEE took how long? His business partner, being a practical business person, no doubt wanted Gygax to delegate. I can see him telling Gary that having these module conclusions hanging out there is pissing off fans and impacting sales of other modules. Gary’s intro to this module, saying his plot was too close to ToEE sounds absolutely true- he later said that players would be able to free or further restrain a powerful entity in his version, which is exactly the same as ToEE.
And Sutherland didn’t follow on the plot from the previous modules? I bet you anything he felt - or was told - that it would be bad form to usurp Gygax’s creations.
I’m not saying this module is good. It’s not, not even when compared to others at the same time. But it isn’t all that worse than a lot of the other stuff. Good review. I agree with the review, I just think we often forget that these were pioneer days.
Yeah, this adventure still ranks as one of my top fails of TSR. I detest the "web"; anyone wanting to see how such should be approached should research "the ways" that R. Jordan created in Wheel of Time series. My greatest repulsion of the adventure is the whole point of it: Lolth? What in the heck did she have to do with Eclavdra and the House of Eilservs plot to gain control of the surface world? Isn't Eclavdra/HoE actually foes of Lolth and her followers? What a hot stinky mess this whole plot is. However, you touch on this and, I always enjoy your reviews. Keep up the good work.
Yeah, I think the failure of this module was an indicator of other issues with TSR at the time. From what I've been able to gather from Gary's postings around the web is that he fully intended to revisit the Elclavdra/ EEG plot in the finale of the series.
This reminds me of Pools of Darkness from the Gold box series. I wonder if this is what it was based on when travelling to another plane...?
Thanks a lot for reviewing this series. I went on eBay and grabbed monochromes of D1, D2 and D3 after watching this. No Q1 though, it sounds like a shitshow, although I dig Sutherland's design for the Abyss a lot.
outstanding as usual. and...if time please bump up your review of "alignment" with examples
Always looked at this module as a red headed step child
Came here cuz I've been doing a multi year long camapign that has been leading to a confrontation with lolth in the demonweb pits. But it's a Spelljammer camapign and while the Spider ship makes 0 sense in the normal adventure background....it's gonna KILL in spelljammer lmao
700 Likes!! Woot! Well deserved!
Thank you !
Loth Ship has the same energy as Thanos Copter
I would make the web an web of like the souls of the people who dare travel the abyss and the material of the web is a wet sticky silk that if a character or monster broke with a sword they would make a saving throw to hold the ends of the silk together or something else. Or the doors could lead to other modules that would be tied to Loith
That thumbnail before the video starts looks like Freddie Mercury 😂
I always assumed they nerfed the opposition in this module because the Abyss seriously fucks the PCs. Lots of items and spells don't work or don't work right.
But yeah, I definitely agree that this module is a mixed bag.
The other prime worlds I had my players explore them all. I had create more too them
G'day, Cap. I was wondering if you could tell me the name of the music at the start of the intro. I know the music that makes up the second half but not the part at the beginning. I really enjoy it, it sounds epic and I'd like to try and find a copy of it. Thanks for any help, mate, and thanks for yet another great video.
Many have asked me this, and really, I can't specifically give you the placement because its a modified bit from another work.
@@captcorajus No worries, thanks anyway, I appreciate it.
What if the giant steam-spider was a Spelljammer? 👀
Talk to Lolth? Parley? Bargain? I can't think of any players back when this was written that would have ever considered any of those with a being such as that. It's one thing to run into intelligent humanoids that might make good allies or can at least be useful in some way. But when you run into the big bad there is no talking, only fighting.
I hated the map for this! Thank goodness I didn't DM IT!!!!
good video ,well done
Didn't they get rid of demons and devils after 1st edition due to public pressure? I stopped playing before 2nd came out.
2nd edition relabeled devils as "baatezu", demons as "tanar'ri" and daemons as "yugoloths" because of fears of Satanism in D&D. The changes were most clearly reflected in the Planescape setting. The Nine Hells were renamed as "Baator". From 1998 onward, however, devils and demons came back in their "original glory" through sourcebooks like Chris Pramas "Guide to Hell" . The 3rd edition reinstituted devils, with "baatezu" as an alias. Demons are broken down into groups, the main group being "tanar'ri" and the others being "obyrith" and "loumara".
The ship looks more like a tick than a spider
Didn’t anyone at tsr considera reboot of this mod?
"Reskinned Pit Fiend"
excuse me, I think you mean "Reskinned Balor"
I'll only touch on the double standard I think exists whenever somebody breaks down Sunderland's encounters versus Gary's, by reminding that the latter is guilty on more than one occasion of every offense we hit Sunderland with, and UA-cam and various RPG forums are filled to the brim with people who will call Gary out on same, and rightly so. I will also say that I am not sure Gary is the best source of truth, as - and I love him just as much as you guys do - he seems to have changed his stories frequently over the years, and much of what he said and did seemed to be designed to cover his butt, or to take more credit than was necessarily owed him. Like all of us, Gary Gygax was a complex, flawed human being. And he screwed up as much as he innovated. So let us not approach this with too much bias, either cognitive or confirmation-based. All that said, the thing I take most umbrage with, is the way the story of the towel or placemat, or whatever, is presented. It always seems to be presented as if inspiration is some definitive, stone-set thing where any idea worth chasing appears magically fully formed and realized, and in this light, Sunderland is somehow considered a lesser creator for drawing an idea from a simple source. In reality, inspiration is unpredictable, and the greatest of final concepts can often have the most humble of sources. It is either disingenuous or outrageously ignorant to harp on the humble beginning of the demonweb pit in this way. I can only think that anyone who does so, is himself an unimaginative creature who has rarely experienced inspiration firsthand. As for the ship, yes, that is incongruent (again, see above), but Steampunk, though it didn't yet have a name, had already been a thing since Jules Verne, in regard to the aesthetic of steam-powered machines and other such tech, with echoes down the line through H.G. Wells, TV shows like The Wild Wild West (you do know it was a TV show from the 1960s before it was a movie, right?), and various artworks from European artists contributing to such magazines as the precursor to Heavy Metal, Metal Hurlant.
My biggest criticism of Sutherland's work here isn't the demon web, or even the steam ship. The adventure overall is fine. My problem is that it does not conclude the series. It does not address Elclavdra or the Elder Elemental Eye, and supplants that in favor of a cliche monster hunt.
Is Tharizdun the Elder God?
One might say... the Elder Elemental God is a 'disguise' that Tharizdun uses.
Skein of the Death Mother??? Totally lacking in imagination. It turned Lolth's Spider Ship into a simple dungeon crawl. I guess some people cannot think outside the box.
Its an alternative. I actually think that the steam ship might have been a bit ahead of time, as I said in the video... but, its there as an alternative, and its actually pretty interesting.
I'm skimming through Skein right now, and I have to say it's looking like what PungiFungi said. It seems rather bland.
What do you find interesting about it?
I think your ideas for updating the module are very interesting. The steampunk ship was unexpectedly gonzo for the time. I'd say re-tool it, going full on gonzo. Loth is a Goddess, with access to multiple dimensions, universes, times... and a transcendent, otherworldly intelligence. So, she would incorporate both weird super-science as well as magic, often making a hybrid between the two.
Do you know Peter Mullen's cover for the 4th printing of DCC RPG? It is reminiscent of the Space Jockey in Alien. Also, look at the LotFP art with the pods and the holographic display being hacked by their Magic User. I'd go with those evocative elements, rehauling the thing to give it a real Gigeresque, weird/alien science, dark and mysterious magic feel. Go with the twisted plot element and add some real twists regarding what Lolth's plan is all about and bring up the paranoia, like she has all kinds of shit going on everywhere and is planning a huge, cataclysmic thing that will shake the multiverse... maybe giving it a kind of Call of Cthulhu and X-Files feel.
Maybe she's brokering deals with aliens and old ones, etc.?
goodman-games.com/store/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2016/02/GMG5070P-Mullen.jpg
3.bp.blogspot.com/-7axo_sZVp98/UnuX7UjtBWI/AAAAAAAACHg/FtBYeoLVFC8/s1600/LOTFP-spire-image.jpg
The first time I ran the module, I ran it with the steamship and hated it. I ran it again in 2021 and completely changed the setting so that the final location was a port on an ocean and changed her ship into an actual ship, which would make sense if she wanted to invade another planet with a significant amount of water.
When will be your next video?
Soon. I started writing the script for Masks of Narylathotep and got stuck, and then I started on Undermountain, and then decided to switch up my approach, so now I'm sort starting over. lol
what about the vampire queen?
A lot of these highly rated and legendary modules suck.