# Queen of the Demonweb Pits - what's so bad?



## Bullgrit (Aug 18, 2011)

> ...the fact that Q1 is objectively a pretty terrible module, and that one person's 'bizarre' is another person's silly, anticlimatic and ridiculous.



This is the latest example I've seen of someone saying Q1 was a bad adventure module. And no one ever seems to argue with anyone making this kind of statement.

What's so bad about Q1? I've never run it or played in it, but I have read it, more than once. And I thought it seemed like an interesting module. (But then, I also really like T1-4 _Temple of Elemental Evil_, and many people were highly disappointed with that product.)

What are the problems?

Bullgrit


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## Rodrigo Istalindir (Aug 18, 2011)

I don't know that 'objectively' it's a bad module.  I'm not sure anything that's so subjective and variable from player to player could ever  be 'objectively' anything.

I didn't care for the sci-fi elements at the end.  IIRC (it's been almost 30 years since I played it) we hand-waved a ton of the throw-away encounters as not being worth the hassle, and so we didn't suffer as much attrition as expected.  And the various conflicts on other world in the Prime Material could have been modules in their own right; expanding on them would have made the whole thing seem more epic.

That said, I thought it was a worthy conclusion to the series, and I have nothing but fond memories of the G/D/Q campaign.  There was definitely a 'we're not in Kansas anymore' vibe that is almost inconceivable post-Planescape, or in modern editions where the dial has been turned up to 11.  And given that we'd played those characters every weekend for a year or more at that point, the possibility of a TPK was definitely frightening.


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## darkseraphim (Aug 18, 2011)

I think it's unfairly maligned because the tone, atmosphere, setting and encounters are completely different from the 6 modules that went before it.  Also considering that years had passed since the last module in the series (D3), and that Gygax was not the author, people really just didn't know what to think about it when it came out.

When I bought it (1981?) I remember thinking that it was strange, but to me it seemed a natural extension of the rules in the DMG.  Other worlds and planes were supposed to be mysterious and completely foreign.  The DMG had an Arabian City of Brass on fire, and the two examples of other dimensions (tie-ins to TSR games, of course) were Gamma World and the Wild West, with vague hints at Pellucidar, John Carter's Mars and Metamorphosis Alpha.  Why should a non-Euclidean extra-dimensional spiderweb be inappropriate?

The module also has some truly fantastic and compelling encounters.  The chamber with the 3 drow thrones, the labyrinth of endless spiders and the dwarven city hopelessly besieged by chaotic evil come to mind.  The rules for extra-planar play are scary, internally consistent and groundbreaking.  But the running encounter with Lolth is a bit weak and the proto-steampunk spidership is not to everyone's taste.

It's not a big deal, of course.  BITD we just ended D3 the way Gygax intended - big epic battle below the Fane in the Vault of the Drow.  His Q1 was going to be going from the Fane down to the Sunless Sea and engineering a battle between her and the Elder Elemental God, as I recall, and then probably some kind of escape through portal or ancient ruin or whatever, focused on the talisman shapes.  Conservative play groups can ignore Q1 and call it good.

/shrug


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 18, 2011)

I think the fact that the Demonweb Pits themselves -- after a multi-year build-up -- turned out to be dungeon corridors in the void was kind of frustrating. And then there's the Wild Wild West finale with the giant robot spider, which was completely at odds with the tone of the D series.

That said, the planar rules were cool, the new monsters were awesome and most of the alternate prime materials rocked very hard.

It's definitely a mixed bag. I would have loved to have seen the Gygaxian finale. The Sunless Sea always spoke to me, even before I knew its poetic origins, and thematically, the showdown between Lolth and the Elder Elemental God would have made more sense -- especially since it had been set up, in a way, back in T1.


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## Wik (Aug 18, 2011)

My eyes glazed over reading the module - it was definitely one I never got around to running.  It was also one I never really borrowed/stole from, unlike some of the other 1e modules that were never run.

From my readings, the only part that really caught my attention were the alternate primes - the rest of it was definitely blah.  And the maps were boring - confusing without there being much reason to be.  I hate maze maps, and the demonwebs were basically maze maps.  

I am a fan of Lloth having less than a hundred hit points, though.  Having JUST run a 4e fight against "her" (I used her stat block, changed her name to a long-running NPC), I'm kind of wistful for the days when demigods DIDN'T have something like 1,200 hit points and dominated you every.round.they're.hit.


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## David Howery (Aug 18, 2011)

I always thought the GDQ modules were a DM's delight, since they were so expandable... you could add a lot of stuff to the underground caverns, and a lot more alternate planes to the Demonweb pits... you could run adventures in the two area for a long time...


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## Hand of Evil (Aug 18, 2011)

I think it is because it is a concept module; what I mean is that it took the players to a place hinted at and built on but that just did not come across in print.  expectations vs reality.


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## Vyvyan Basterd (Aug 18, 2011)

My players and I enjoyed this module. It was weird and alien and fit well with the fare of the day. Maybe it was our taste for the strange. We also loved Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Dungeonland and Land Beyond the Magic Mirror. We even had a blast playing the much-maligned Castle Greyhawk, in the comical vein it was meant to be played in of course.


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## wrecan (Aug 18, 2011)

How can anyone hate the Demonweb Pits. It has the Abed stamp of Community approval!






I always loved that map.


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## D'karr (Aug 18, 2011)

One of the things that is jarring about the adventure is that the opposition does not seem to be "thematically" consistent with the locale.

So you are in the abyss in this place called the Demonweb Pits but you're fighting trolls, bugbears, etc.  It just seemed strange, but I guess due to it's release it is very possible that the more thematically appropriate monsters for it were not yet created.

I like the adventure but there are places where I end up scratching my head and think, WHAT?!!!


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## Corathon (Aug 18, 2011)

I think that the difference in tone upset some people.

I liked Q1, myself. The spider ship of Lolth didn't bother me, as I like a mix of science-fictional and fantasy elements. When I ran it, the metal of the ship was imbued with the trapped souls of the damned (I can't recall if I made that up or if it was in the module originally).

Also, as David Howery wrote there's a lot of possibility for expansion in the worlds off the web. I added a lot of stuff, but I often do when I'm running a module.


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## Stormonu (Aug 18, 2011)

My biggest issue with Q1 was that it felt incomplete.  

While the finale is fully detailed, there are huge swathes that are given a paragraph or two, but no firm details (The DM would have to wing entire demiplanes) and the other fleshed-out encounters don't have much of a point beyond "Let's see what monster they've encountered beyond door #665!" (There's no where near those number of doors, but it is the Abyss...)  

A group could easily be flailing about, wondering what they're supposed to do next or where to go.  It's presented as a place for pure exploration, without elements of story or plot (beyond "find out where Lolth is, and kill her").

  There's no guidance on what to be looking for, clues which doors might lead to her (or where they might go) or guidance/clues about the demonweb and ways to figure out how disturbingly convoluted the webways are without physically spending hours wandering the twisted halls.

In my opinion, the demonweb would have been far better presented as a flowchart showing the relations of important features than the escher-twisted color-coded maps it ended up with (and I think later revisits in Planescape, Dungeon Mag and Expedition did this).  While those color-coded maps look pretty, they're worthless for actual use, boring, tedious, as well as more inhibiting to the imagination (we're in the heart of Chaos and looking at a roadmap that neatly conforms to graph paper?)


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## RainOfSteel (Aug 19, 2011)

Bullgrit said:


> > ...the fact that Q1 is objectively a pretty terrible module, and that one person's 'bizarre' is another person's silly, anticlimatic and ridiculous.



Could you please provide the link to this text so I can read and understand the basis of its claims?


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## Bullgrit (Aug 19, 2011)

RainOfSteel said:
			
		

> Could you please provide the link to this text so I can read and understand the basis of its claims?



http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/310151-seeking-advice-my-first-1e-campaign.html
5th post in that thread. What I quoted is essentially the entire statement.

Bullgrit


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## RainOfSteel (Aug 19, 2011)

Bullgrit said:


> http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-legacy-discussion/310151-seeking-advice-my-first-1e-campaign.html
> 5th post in that thread. What I quoted is essentially the entire statement.



Forgive me, but one poster's unexplained opinion is pretty thin to begin asking questions about what is so bad about a module when the greater than majority actual opinion of the module over the last 30+ years has been that it is fantastic.


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## Celebrim (Aug 19, 2011)

Well, since I have become a thread, I might as well participate in it.

The problems with Q1 are extensive.  Basically, I think that if this module had been submitted to Dungeon, it would have been rejected at any point in the magazines history.  I also think that had this work been contracted out by Pazio as part of their adventure path, they probably would have taken the virtually unprecendented step of releasing the author once the rough draft came back. 

Let's begin with the title: 'Queen of the Demonweb Pits'.  Now, this title invokes certain awesome images immediately in the mind.  There will be a queen presiding over demons, webs, and pits.  But the final module itself comes far short of the grandeur of even the most niave imaginings about what the Demonweb Pits are like.  There are few demons, fewer webs, and fewer pits.  The idea of an Escher like maze is fine, but the implementation is lacking most especially from the perspective of one within the maze.  Ultimately, the Demonweb Pits aren't a place of remarkable terror, but a mundane dungeon maze.

Secondly, all this action is supposed to be taking place within the Abyss - an infinitely deep pit of infinitely hellish planes.  This is the 'far realm' before there was a far realm.  But Q1 describes the Abyss in terms that feel like a sublevel of Castle Greyhawk and not an infinitely vast and terrible place.  The vast and incomprehensible terrors of the Abyss are rendered down to the scale of a demi-plane.  The Abyss, suitable for swallowing worlds, is here presented as a narrow basically linear corridor.  Any vastness associated with the modules has more to do with its door ways to other worlds, but these are - in point of fact - little more than empty rooms in the dungeon left with just a bare description to be filled in detail by the DM who has the unfortunate job of actually running the module.  The supposed place where the action is taking place is relatively empty.  You might could do something interesting with chasing the demon spider queen through a bunch of set peice battles set in other universes, but this isn't it.   The doorways to other worlds are extraneous to the plot, have nothing to do with the adventure,  and are basically throwaway devices better suited as 'suggestions for further adventures'.

Consider also how the dungeon, for that is all it is, is populated.  Removed from the context of the adventure, the list of combatants and obstacles would seem normal for a mundane dungeon for a group of mid-level characters.  They differ really only in numbers, and sometimes not that.  After six modules filled with terrors and increasingly alien and powerful foes, we arrive finally in the dreaded Abyss to find it populated with the same sort of creatures we were facing back before we thought Hill Giants were a particularly dangerous foe.  Moreover, its not merely a populated by mundane monsters in a mundane way, but its populated in exactly the sort of haphazard way that we associate with mundane early dungeon design by amateur authors.  The structure of the dungeon is similar to a more linear B2 or S4, in that the inhabitants seem to have been chosen without any clear purpose or relationship to each other or the setting in which they are found.  For example, a barracks full of 66 Gnolls seems appropriate to an entirely different demon lord and is likely to be a rote dice rolling chore at best by this level of play.  Thirty bugbears is little better, and again, we must wonder how Lolth has come to command bugbears rather than their natural lord.   The dungeon dressings and features - traps, torches, refuse, etc. - could all  have been pulled from any mundane dungeon of the ordinary mortal world.  Care to fight 20 ogres anyone?

Finally, after navigating this utterly mundane dungeon which is oddly perhaps less alien and certainly far smaller in scope than what we encountered in the 'Descent' series that preceded it, and less threatening than what we encountered in the G series that preceded that, we get to the grand citidel of the Queen and find it is a spaceship.  Why isn't Lolth known as the Captain of the Spider Ship, rather than the Demonweb Pits?  What visitor to this place thought to call it the Demonweb Pits?  To me, the Outer planes represent a place where ideas become incarnated.  So, given what we are presented by the module, what ideas does Loth incarnate?  How does this star ship of hers fit mythologically with Loth being the great foe of Corellon Larethian?  I mean, I suppose you could do something with Lolth being the rejection of the natural world in favor of artificial environments, and make of Lolth a machine godess, but if that is the case - why didn't it show up more in the culture of the Drow?  It might have been cool for the Drow to live in a steam punk city filled with coal smoke and grinding gears, and for the Demonweb Pits to be the ultimate manifestation of that, but neither this module nor the campaign actually develops those themes in any fashion.  This is just me brainstorming one of the inifinite number of ways the module could have been better.

Worse yet, the Star Ship is a mostly mundane dungeon as well, filled with the usual collection of mundane and out of place creatures with no apparent connection to Lolth.  The science fiction elements of setting aren't even well developed, especially in comparison to work like 'Barrier Peaks'.   There is just nothing memorable and iconic here compared to the 6 modules leading up to this 'climax'.

Which brings us to Lolth herself.  While she's not as weak as her 88 hit points might lead you to believe, properly playing Lolth to her strengths as powerful spellcaster with an extremely broad ability set is very challenging.  You'll need to select the right M-U, cleric, or psionic abilty in each round to minimize the damage she takes and maximize how much she hampers the party.  In a toe to toe fight or played badly, she's likely to go down in 2-3 rounds to a party that got this far and has a few spells in reserve, resulting in a very anticlimatic ending to the game (using her heal ability would extend the fight, but if she heals without removing herself from the situation that resulted in needing to heal, this is a losing strategy).  On the other hand, if you do play her the way a player experienced with playing spellcasters would play her, you probably would just do everything you can to avoid going toe to toe with the party.  If the party makes early saving throws and seems to have the means of penetrating your defenses, you'd probably just opt to make use of one of her many means of evasion and withdraw from the fight.  Again, this is likely to be anticlimatic.

I suppose it would be asking too much of a module at this early date to have some semblence of a coherent plot or a proactive antagonist who didn't just wait in her lair for the party to come and kill her, but I don't think it is asking too much of a module from this time period to be as good as what else existed at the time.  Instead, this is a regression by a less experienced author to an extremely primitive sort of design, that even by G1 we are seeing superceded.  G1 is a far better designed, more coherent, and better written module than Q1.  Gygax and his genius is sorely missing from the module.  Dave Sutherland would produce a masterpeice collaborating on Ravenloft, but module writing didn't prove to be his strongest point.

The best thing about the module is that it mechanically tries to make the Abyss feel threatening by changing the way that spells work, making clerical spells weaker or not available, and dampening the power of magic items.  But even this is not something we ought to be praising without reservation.  Ultimately, this is an example of giving a player something and then taking it away - a practice which a DM should not do too often because it leads to player frustration.  It's also something of a reoccuring theme in the module, as for example the treasure trove that disappears when you take it home.


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## Celebrim (Aug 19, 2011)

RainOfSteel said:


> Forgive me, but one poster's unexplained opinion is pretty thin to begin asking questions about what is so bad about a module when the greater than majority actual opinion of the module over the last 30+ years has been that it is fantastic.




I dispute that.  

At the time it came out, it was reviewed as "not TSR's best effort" and - aside from the fame it gets from its association with the iconic GDQ adventure path - its generally been negatively reviewed since that time and as far as I know, is widely considered the low point of the GDQ series.


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## billd91 (Aug 19, 2011)

RainOfSteel said:


> Forgive me, but one poster's unexplained opinion is pretty thin to begin asking questions about what is so bad about a module when the greater than majority actual opinion of the module over the last 30+ years has been that it is fantastic.




I think that's gilding the lily a bit. Q1 is the red-headed step child of the G and D series. That said, there are some things going for it. 

The behavior of the plane and its effect on magic was very interesting when we first got our hands on the module. My memory is that it was the first to really delve into how a plane and its relationship to the others may limit magic in ways the prime material plane does not.

The upper level of the Demonweb, with gates to other worlds where Lolth's forces were at work, was also pretty cool. It was a gateway to other tangents the PCs could get involved with... or not. 

In the end, running a classic module campaign, I'm going to cut Q1 when the PCs finish D3. It's just not compelling enough to want to run and experience as much as the real classics of 1e modules like the A series, G and D series, I6, and so on.


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## Stormonu (Aug 19, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> .snip..




A very thorough and apt analysis of the modules faults.  On the converse, I'd love to see folks take a stab at giving a summary of what/how they would change the module.  (Personally, I wasn't fond of Exedition to..., it struck me as too convuluted).


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## Celebrim (Aug 19, 2011)

Stormonu said:


> A very thorough and apt analysis of the modules faults.  On the converse, I'd love to see folks take a stab at giving a summary of what/how they would change the module.




Theme: Each of the prior modules succeeds by picking a theme and doing it well.  Q1 has no theme.  Now, we could give it lots of different themes and there is no one 'right' choice, but it should have one.  If the space ship isn't to be abandoned, than lets run with Lolth as the evil incarnation of industry and technology theme.  It could work, and it fits well enough to Lolth as a spider, albiet we'd need to change the Drow - but they badly need a makeover anyway.  Lolth subtly protrayed as greedy evil CEO is a bit too anachronistic for my taste, but at least it is a theme.  Alternately, you could dump the space ship and run with Lolth as the evil incarnation of cunning, deception, and trickery with layers and layers of webs of illusion that have to be pierced before reaching her inner sanctum.  Or maybe both.  But some thought and care should be given to actually having a coherent theme.

Scope: The original portrays the outer planes on too small a scale.  Borrowing a page from how Gygax portayed the underdark, I'd make the first part of the journey to the citidel have a more wilderness exploration feel.  Only, here the wilderness is miles long 50' wide spider threads with the occasional asteroid trapped within.  There is an infinite universe of these threads suspended in an infinitely deep pit which is catching things as they fall on their infinitely long journey down the abyss.  Whole societies of unfortunate souls try to eke out an existance suspended in the intersections of several threads.  Spiders from the size of the garden variety to monterous collossal 1000' across things that less notice of you than you would an ant abound, each spinning webs anchored to the webs of the greater.  In the distance, 80 or so miles away from your starting point, is Lolth's mountainous fortress.  The whole point of such a scale is: "What the heck are you doing here?  You are trying to kill a goddess?  Are you insane or what?"  If such thoughts aren't entering your mind, you are muddling around a mundane dungeon.

Foes: The set peices against the Vrock is one of the better ones in the module, and shows better what a party at 14th level should be facing rather than 66 gnolls (wrong demon lord!) or 33 bugbears or 20 ogres or (wait for it) 10 trolls.  By no means should this be a place dressed like a mundane dungeon, but rather should reflect positively on Lolth's status as a sovereign and a deity.  Lolth herself should not be a passive foe sitting back waiting for the PC's, but some one who has tormented them actively every step of the way since the PC's invaded her realm.  Whenever any foe comes to interpose itself, they should see her hand at work.  Every difficulty and obstacle, from the thread they are walking on snapping to the violent thunderstorm that threatens to blow them into the infinite pits or other entrapment, should be Lolth trying to kill them.  She should - perhaps literally - haunt the background of the abyssmal plane as a giant, shadowy and fearsome foe who is clearly personally offended by the PC's and taking personal interest in them.  Give them players something to hate, and a reason to really relish their ultimate triumph. 

Climax: As long as you are going to have alternate planes you are going to have to chase Lolth into to utlimately kill her, then you need either a Q2 describing such a chase (including likely Lolth as the literal CEO in an office at the top of a skyscraper in a modern earth like world, imagine D&D meets the Matrix) or to include the details of such a chase in the module.  Don't just throw out these ideas, "Oh yeah, instead of an empty room for you to populate, there is an entire universe for you.  Have fun with that."

UPDATE: Ok, after a bit of thought.  Here is what I would do.  "Queen of the Demonweb Pits" would be broken up, like the G and D series before it, into three modules: Q1: The Demonweb Pits, Q2: Palace of the Demon Queen, and Q3: The Queen of the Endless Nets

Q1: Arriving in the abyss, the players see the scene I've described above of the incomprehensibly vast and infinite web.  Fortunately, the can also see Lolth's Palace, a mountain sized fortress city of towers and smoke stacks bound together by webs in the distance.  A wilderness jouney ensues, with the PC's having to deal with the spirits of dead Drow (possibly including some vengeful ones they slew in life), the hazards of an alien plane, and the Meddling of the Queen of this place in a 400' high wraithlike form.  

Q2: Arriving at the gates of Lolth's Fortress, the PC's must make their way through Lolth's slave pits, where the souls of dead drow labor in endless drudgery to maintain her huge smoke belching machines.  There they learn that Lolth's kingdom is enternally at war with itself, in a vast never ending and ultimately hopeless slave revolt.  Profitting from the confusion and backstabbing, the PC's enter the heart of the fortress and make their way through Lolth's minions in an increasingly magi-tech world where the webs are made of wires, living souls, and illusion.  Finally, reaching the throne of Lolth, they must fight through Lolth's last gaurds and illusions.  Lolth however, now fearing the PC's rather than despising them, in desparation jumps through a portal to an alien world.

Q3: Now pursuing the desparate spider Queen through her strongholds across space and time, the PC's enter a series of 6 mini-modules each with a different theme.   In each mini-module, Lolth has hidden herself.  The PC's must find and identify and unmask the real Lolth with in the environment that they find her.  Finally, at the end of the sixth interlude, the PC's awake to find that they have may never left Lolth's throne room after all, but are now bound to webs strung between pillars and are only now awaking from coma and bondage.  With no other options left, Lolth turns and fights her pursuers in an Epic battle while the threads that sustain her fortress snap and come unwound, and the Drow she dominated rise up and slay their taskmasters.  With Lolth slain, the PC's find themselves dangling from the end of a thread, while Lolth's fortress and all its inhabitants collapse into the Abyss beneath them.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 19, 2011)

RainOfSteel said:


> Forgive me, but one poster's unexplained opinion is pretty thin to begin asking questions about what is so bad about a module when the greater than majority actual opinion of the module over the last 30+ years has been that it is fantastic.



Citation?

Because there weren't a lot of people discussing AD&D online for much of that time, and no one I knew felt it was "fantastic," even though we ran it as the culmination to more than one campaign.


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## The Shaman (Aug 20, 2011)

It's not a "maze" - it is the Demonweb, strands crossing one another in the void of the Abyss.

Once you figure out the pattern of crossings then you can navigate through it.

I liked how magic changed in the Demonweb, particularly the disconnect between clerics and their deities. This disconnect is also what makes the alternate primes so important - this is where you need to go to rest-and-refit, and each one is a world all its own. They are my favorite feature of the module.


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## Beginning of the End (Aug 20, 2011)

Bullgrit said:


> What's so bad about Q1? I've never run it or played in it, but I have read it, more than once. And I thought it seemed like an interesting module. (But then, I also really like T1-4 _Temple of Elemental Evil_, and many people were highly disappointed with that product.)
> 
> What are the problems?




Depending on how you look at it, the module is either structurally broken or unplayably incomplete (or possibly both).

On the one hand, the primary content of the module seems to be the multiverse of worlds that you can access through the Demonweb. In an ideal world, it would play something like _Stargate: Spider Hell_. But none of those worlds are actually fleshed out in anything even remotely resembling playable content. So what you end up with is a bunch of undeveloped pitches for hypothetical _Stargate: Spider Hell_ episodes.

But without those worlds, the Demonweb is a really, really boring dungeon. It's too large, too repetitive, and the encounters are spread too thin.

Okay, let's say you decide to flesh out all the multiversal stuff. For example, you take out the Nightworld of Vlad Tolenkov and replace it with I6 Ravenloft. You whip up actual maps for Lolth's Prison. And so forth. Now the Demonweb is serving its proper role as just a conduit between Lolth's many schemes on many different planes.

Unfortunately, the more you spruce up the epic multiversal portion of this adventure, the more anticlimactic Lolth's spaceship ends up being: Even laying aside the genre clash most people have with it, it's too small to really hold its weight as the epic conclusion to a 7-part mega-adventure (which also now has a dozen multiversal excursions added to it).

So to make Q1 work you need to (a) redesign the Demonweb to make it more flavorful and less barren; (b) flesh out all of the multiversal content; and (c) expand or completely replace the final confrontation with Lolth.

At that point, though, you've replaced the entire module.

By contrast, T1-4 just has some organizational issues which make it difficult to run effectively. Q1 has vast swaths of missing content and the content which is there is inadequate and unthemed.


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## LostSoul (Aug 20, 2011)

I had no idea Lolth lived in a spaceship.

That's pretty awesome.

I can't help but think of elves as aliens now.


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## Stormonu (Aug 20, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> Q1: Arriving in the abyss, the players see the scene I've described above of the incomprehensibly vast and infinite web.  Fortunately, the can also see Lolth's Palace, a mountain sized fortress city of towers and smoke stacks bound together by webs in the distance.  A wilderness jouney ensues, with the PC's having to deal with the spirits of dead Drow (possibly including some vengeful ones they slew in life), the hazards of an alien plane, and the Meddling of the Queen of this place in a 400' high wraithlike form.




Of course, at the levels this is occuring, you have to be careful of spells like teleport.  It would probably be best if Lolth's palace isn't so easily obvious/visible/breeched upon entry and the characters need clues to get to it location (after all, the plane is "endless")  Searching for the palace also gets the charcter to flex some of their muscles using Divination spells, or seeking ou helpful clues/artifacts to get where they're going (a planar scavenger hunt, starting with the Egg from D3?)

Also, although I like the mechanical spider, it doesn't really fit and I'm not fond of the idea of steampunk drow.  Perhaps changing it to "chaos tech" or making it an enslaved gargantuan demon spider powered by souls (and chambers for Lolth and her minions within abcesses or the spider's organs) would be more fitting.

And instead of some CEO, perhaps a robber baron for the queen? (mixing elements of the old and new use of the term)


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## RainOfSteel (Aug 20, 2011)

Celebrim said:


> I think that if this module had been submitted to Dungeon, it would have been rejected



If it had been submitted to a magazine that didn't exist at the time?  Really?




Celebrim said:


> I also think that had this work been contracted out by Pazio



Paizo?  The above assertion about Dungeon is already invalid, but this one goes even further down this road.

Basically what you're saying here: if Q1 had been done later, it wouldn't have been well-regarded.

If Star Wars had been released today, it would not have anywhere near the success it did.




Celebrim said:


> Let's begin with the title: 'Queen of the Demonweb Pits'.  Now, this title invokes certain awesome images immediately in the mind.





Celebrim said:


> But the final module itself comes far short of the grandeur of even the most niave imaginings about what the Demonweb Pits are like.



You created false expectations for yourself and then you dashed them.




Celebrim said:


> The idea of an Escher like maze is fine, but the implementation is lacking



No more so than the G1-3 or D1-3.  There were only so many pages in each module.




Celebrim said:


> most especially from the perspective of one within the maze.  Ultimately, the Demonweb Pits aren't a place of remarkable terror, but a mundane dungeon maze.



Whether it was a terror or not is a personal matter, but to criticize a dungeon module for having a dungeon in it is a bit much.




Celebrim said:


> The vast and incomprehensible terrors of the Abyss are rendered down



Not to beat a dead horse, well, yes, to beat a dead horse: there were only so many pages, there simply wasn't room to do that.




Celebrim said:


> The Abyss, suitable for swallowing worlds, is here presented as a narrow basically linear corridor.



It wasn't the whole Abyss, it was just one corner of it.  Also, back then, nobody knew what the Abyss was "like", so all of this type of expectations-based disappointment on your part is moot (beyond you).

I certainly brought no such expectations to the table when I read Q1.

Over and over again you are putting modern glasses on when attempting to create critical points.




Celebrim said:


> The doorways to other worlds are extraneous to the plot, have nothing to do with the adventure,  and are basically throwaway devices better suited as 'suggestions for further adventures'.



That is a legitimate comment, however, I feel that "nothing" is not accurate.

Intelligent players could find allies in some of those other worlds to fight against Lolth, as well as to rest, get healing, and for clerics to pick up spells as the rules were, I believe, that clerics could not refresh spells above level 2 while in the Abyss.  So, actually, those other worlds were key player restoration and resupply points.

The players are chasing Lolth because of interference on Oerth through the drow elves.  Through the other worlds, the players get to see that the demon goddess is out for more than just them.

Those other worlds were great sparks of imagination.




Celebrim said:


> Consider also how the dungeon,



For the lower levels of the Demonweb, I'll give it to you that most of your comments are correct, but I disagree with your conclusions.

I did not see any encounters in the lower levels of the Demonweb that were, in any way, inferior to what was presented in G1-3 and D1-3.  Not better, but not inferior.  D1-3 had wild inconsistencies in power levels, from the weak to the immensely strong, splattered about in both set and random encounters.

As made obvious further above, I found the top level of the Demonweb to be extremely interesting and necessary to the adventure.

The spider ship was also a bit wonky, but it was the Abyss, you know, the place of Chaos, which also includes randomness and the unexpected.  To me, this sort of thing was to be *expected*.

I'll give it to you that there was no story whatsoever involved in any part of Q1 beyond following up on finding Lolth due to G1-3/D1-3 (and A1-4 earlier on if you ran that).  While I am ready to admit it would have been an improvement had this occurred, I am also ready to admit that the storyline in G1-3/D1-3, while it fired the imagination, was itself fairly thin to begin with.  This issue is hardly worth shooting down Q1 given that G1-3/D1-3 hardly did better.




Celebrim said:


> and find it is a spaceship.



I always thought it was a walker, not a spaceship.  [Goes off to read Q1: Yup, it's a walker.]




Celebrim said:


> Why isn't Lolth known as the Captain of the Spider Ship, rather than the Demonweb Pits?



Who said she isn't also known by that?  It just wasn't covered in the 32 page module.




Celebrim said:


> fit mythologically with Loth being the great foe of Corellon Larethian?



Was that even established then?

In any event, she's a force of Chaos, does whatever she wants, and the stranger it seems to you, the happier she becomes: with evil sprinkles on top.




Celebrim said:


> Ultimately, this is an example of giving a player something and then taking it away - a practice which a DM should not do too often because it leads to player frustration.



You mean, like all of D1-3 did with all that drow adamantite magic gear that disintegrated when taken back home?




Celebrim said:


> At the time it came out, it was reviewed as



This topic is the first time I've heard anyone come down on Q1.

It's just strange seeing it get boosted over so many years and in so many "best" modules topics (yes, right along with G1-3/D1-3), but nobody, not once, in this contentious nitpicky world of message boards, ever stopped to single out Q1 as being the boat anchor of the mega adventure.

I've never run into someone in RL who didn't like Q1.

I guess I'm just the hick in from the countryside.




Celebrim said:


> Q1:
> Q2:
> Q3:



Sounds good.  I'm expecting three 32 page modules from you, with maps sufficient to cover three sets of double covers.


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## Beginning of the End (Aug 20, 2011)

RainOfSteel said:


> If it had been submitted to a magazine that didn't exist at the time?  Really?




You'll note that Celebrim explicitly said that. He also explicitly compared Q1 to modules both of its time, before its time, and after its time. It was a pretty comprehensive take down, and much of it is pretty much objectively incontrovertible. (Like the fact that Q1 is both smaller in scope and less thematic than the D series and less challenging than the G series.)



Stormonu said:


> Of course, at the levels this is occuring, you have to be careful of spells like teleport.




Notably doesn't work in the demonweb according to Q1. I'm guessing Celebrim was intending to keep that sort of "magic works differently here" aspect of the adventure intact.


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## haakon1 (Aug 20, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> I had no idea Lolth lived in a spaceship.




A steampunk spaceship shaped like a giant spider!   (And apparently it may NOT have been capable of spaceflight, according to later posters.  I dunno.)

The movie "Wild Wild West" had an homage to the giant steampunk robotic spider (which wasn't a spacecraft).

Anyhow, I think how you react to this module has a lot to do with whether you read it, or played through it.

I went through it as a player, and found it very exciting and intriguing.  I have no idea where the module ended and the DM's creative began, but I suspect a lot of it was down to our DM.

Specifically I remember:
-- Dwarven fortress city under siege in a cold, cold mountainous winter.  We used a dragon to dive bomb the attackers and drive them back.
-- A planet with pink lemonade seas and lizardmen with Conquistador era ships exploring an archipeligo like the Caribbean.  The lizardmen had gunpower cannons, totally unheard of our version of D&D to that point.
-- A planet with centaurs and elves threatened by drow
-- The spidership.  When we nearly bested Lolth the first time, she teleported out.  We followed.  She was rebuffed, but we killed her again, this time for keepsies while low on spells.


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## Celebrim (Aug 20, 2011)

Stormonu said:


> Of course, at the levels this is occuring, you have to be careful of spells like teleport.




Granted, but having already established that we are willing to nerf the players stuff, having the fortress not set 'Teleport OK' would hardly be surprising.  And as for hopping on the magic carpet and flying there, well, that would not seem to me to be a bright idea considering we were facing a spider queen.



> It would probably be best if Lolth's palace isn't so easily obvious/visible/breeched upon entry and the characters need clues to get to it location (after all, the plane is "endless")




I have no problem with that, but I was also imagining what I could write in 32-48 pages.



> Also, although I like the mechanical spider, it doesn't really fit and I'm not fond of the idea of steampunk drow.




I'm not particularly fond of the anachronisms either, but I'm bringing them up as a nod to the few that seem to like the module as an example of how the module could be made better while still retaining its ideas.


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## LostSoul (Aug 20, 2011)

Was Lolth's "spider ship" really steampunk, or was it an actual sci-fi spaceship?  I find it hard to believe it was steampunk, since that genre didn't really exist back in the early eighties.

I should probably get my hands on the module.  I like sci-fi in my D&D fantasy; it just seems to fit.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 20, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> Was Lolth's "spider ship" really steampunk, or was it an actual sci-fi spaceship?  I find it hard to believe it was steampunk, since that genre didn't really exist back in the early eighties.




It was a big mechanical spider vehicle, just like the Wild Wild West movie featured. (The TV show predates the module by quite a bit. Steampunk by any other name would be just as greasy.)


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## Keeper of Secrets (Aug 20, 2011)

I really loved the Demonweb Pits.  I ran it years and years ago and had a lot of fun with it.

The one thing which I can see as frustrating were the corridors or endless mischief the characters could get into, doorways to other worlds which only had a paragraph and so on.  As others has mentioned, it was a concept adventure and did not seem to 'fit' with what came before it in the series.  

But Demonweb Pits is what D&D was all about - especially that era of adventures.  Gygax, Sutherland and the rest, running around putting together the zaniest of stuff that still made sense.  Even though it did seem to fit thematically with the rest of the adventures in that series, it still 'fit' with regards to D&D.


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## BenBrown (Aug 20, 2011)

It's described as "powered by large steam engines" and appears to be made of metal plates bolted together.  It's also lit by "hidden ceiling fixtures."

It's kind of a mixed bag.


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## RainOfSteel (Aug 20, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> Was Lolth's "spider ship" really steampunk, or was it an actual sci-fi spaceship?



I don't think they were going for what would now be considered a Steampunk look and feel specifically, but the spider ship was steam powered and would fit into that genre.

It was not a space ship.


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## darkseraphim (Aug 20, 2011)

I wish we knew more about David C. Sutherland III.  I was around during his illness and the DMG painting, fund-raising etc., but he was still pretty mysterious to me.

I have a pet theory that the otherworldly influences in Q1 actually stem from David's stint with M.A.R. Barker, serving as illustrator for Empire of the Petal Throne and other works.  When you consider Q1 through a Tekumel lens, it begins to make much more sense.


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## David Howery (Aug 20, 2011)

Yeah, the D series and Q1 modules were a bit 'incomplete', in that a lot of areas weren't detailed well (or at all); this was all too common in the older modules back then.  The D series modules all had that large scale hex map of the underground caverns, nearly all of which were 'for the DM to develop'.  Q1 had short descriptions for entire alternate Prime planes.  Still, the modules had the potential for literally years of gaming, if the DM wanted to take the time and develop all those areas.  If not, there was still the option of taking a straight path through the adventures and ignoring all the undeveloped areas...


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## PaulofCthulhu (Aug 20, 2011)

I ran this for my old D&D group over a quarter of a century ago. We had a blast with it. I fondly recall a room full of trolls pulling the party Paladin in through the doorway and giving him a good what-for and later engendering a situation where another party member was so distraught with small "cooing" rocks that had been broken that he used a wish spell to fix them.

Ahh, happy days. 

In essence we had no issue with Q1, just good rollicking (probably unquestioning) fun.


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## the Jester (Aug 20, 2011)

I like Q1 a great deal. Sure, it's not my favorite, but even if you consider it the "red-headed stepchild of GDQ", that's not bad; the G and D modules are all excellent.

That said, I'd probably place Q1 on equal footing with D1 in my book. 

I think the doors to other planes were awesome. I love that you get a glimpse of the scope of the plots of demon lords and their ilk. That has actually always inspired me since- in my campaign, demons, devils, gods, etc. have concerns that extend to plane after plane, perhaps in some cases to all planes. I love the idea of attacking an arch-devil's or demon prince's forces by assaulting them on a different plane in order to cause strategic weakness. (Hi Sepulchrave!) 

I even think that most of the monsters in the module make sense; I have no problem with the idea that not ALL gnolls follow Yeenoghu, for instance.


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## Nikosandros (Aug 20, 2011)

For those interested in variations on Q1, it is worth noting that Dragonsfoot released an alternative (modern) version called Skein of the Death Mother.


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## RainOfSteel (Aug 20, 2011)

David Howery said:


> The D series modules all had that large scale hex map of the underground caverns, nearly all of which were 'for the DM to develop'.



Yes, D1-3 definitely had that issue.  The first time I started a run with D1, one of the players wanted to turn right after the first encounter and go off the identified path on the map.  He thought there would be nothing but traps down that path and wanted to try and find a way around it, otherwise, what was all that blank space doing on the map?

Those were some reasonable assumptions and the party went with it.  I gave some hints to the contrary, but they were not believed.

Except for the first encounter, all the set portions of D1-2, which I had carefully studied, became useless.

It required quick thinking on my part for the various encounter points on the map, especially since I didn't want to throw up what amounted to a retaliatory wall for them not following the "path".

It also resulted in substantial delays because there is no really clear path to the Vault on either side of the map, the center path is the ideal way to get there.

I suppose I could flame D1-2 for not fully detailing the entire underground.  After all, it did not have to include all those extra tunnels.  It could have railroaded the players down one set tunnel.  But those extra spaces, empty and without detail, were fantastic.




David Howery said:


> Still, the modules had the potential for literally years of gaming, if the DM wanted to take the time and develop all those areas.



Another resounding yes.  I have spent quite a bit of time staring at the DM underground map for D1-3, imagining what would be going on down there.

The various peripheral encounter areas are not well-connected to each other.  There is little that could be considered as routes between them and the Vault.  Yet the random encounter table has drow merchants on it, and D3 has the Vault populated with various merchant houses.  I always wondered who they were trading with or how they could possibly have made a profit given all the dangers imposed by the wandering monsters chart.  This is a logical flaw in D1-3 design.  It's not one I am going to criticize, though.  D1-3 were great.  So was Q1.  They shared many similar design elements.


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## Bullgrit (Aug 20, 2011)

Gary Gygax said:
			
		

> [Dave Sutherland] showed me an idea he had for a "dungeon" level, and what a level! What an idea! This, I told him, was the perfect setting for the *DEMONWEB* and straightaway placed the entire project into his capable hands. Since then, he has been hard at work developing and perfecting the scenario you now have before you. My only contributions have been some brief notes, a monster, a bit of editing, and this introductory piece. I am certain that you will find *DEMONWEB* to be a superior design, and Dave deserves all the credit. It is a fitting climax of and culmination for the other adventures in the series. *DEMONWEB* is remarkably innovative and imaginative. Take a look now, and see if you don't agree that it is special indeed--guaranteed to give your players unsurpassed challenge. This module is truly for the expert player, and ability--not character level--will be the telling factor. Enjoy!



Bullgrit


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## TheAuldGrump (Aug 22, 2011)

LostSoul said:


> I find it hard to believe it was steampunk, since that genre didn't really exist back in the early eighties.



Watch Fritz Lang's _Metropolis_ (1927). See how many steampunk tropes you can spot.... 

Metropolis is the best example of Steampunk cinema, sixty years and more before the term was coined.







The trope existed, though the term did not.

The Auld Grump


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## wrecan (Aug 22, 2011)

With regard to the genre mixing, keep in mind that at the time, the game presumed a certain level of genre-mixing.  The AD&D DMG had rules for converting to Gamma World and Boot Hill and mentioned Metamorphosis Alpha.  Also why Gygax introduced Murlynd as a wild west gunslinger-turned-demigod.  Gygax didn't want TSR to be only about D&D.  That's why he kept releasing other genre games like Top Secret.  And folks like Jim Ward and Sutherland were happy to oblige EGG.  Also remember that Q1 was released around the same time as the other genre-bending module, S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.  

If the D&D world was intended to allow cross-genre, then traipsing through a goddess' lair is a good way to introduce alternate universes and alternate genres.


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## Whizbang Dustyboots (Aug 22, 2011)

wrecan said:


> With regard to the genre mixing, keep in mind that at the time, the game presumed a certain level of genre-mixing.  The AD&D DMG had rules for converting to Gamma World and Boot Hill and mentioned Metamorphosis Alpha.  Also why Gygax introduced Murlynd as a wild west gunslinger-turned-demigod.  Gygax didn't want TSR to be only about D&D.  That's why he kept releasing other genre games like Top Secret.  And folks like Jim Ward and Sutherland were happy to oblige EGG.  Also remember that Q1 was released around the same time as the other genre-bending module, S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.



And don't forget Gygax's article in The Dragon (republished in Best of the Dragon, Vol. 1) featuring D&D heroes facing off against a Nazi tank division.


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## Treebore (Aug 22, 2011)

I loved it when I played through it many years ago, and we had great fun when I wrapped up GMing the whole series last year at 13th and 14th level. There was some weird wonkiness to be found throughout the whole series, not just Q1, but like any good game master I made it work for my group and we had fun.

Plus I think ANYTHING that takes place on the Abyss is going to be weird, silly, insane, and even completely unimaginable. I think the module pulled that kind of feel off admirably without crossing the line of becoming unusable by GM's with anything close to normal sensibilities.


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## Ron (Aug 23, 2011)

Bullgrit said:


> Originally Posted by Gary Gygax said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...




It seems that Gary changed his opinion with time or, more likely, he was originally just trying to promote a product he wasn't happy with.



			
				Col Pladoh said:
			
		

> http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/171753-gary-gygax-q-part-xii-4.html#post3022735
> I did not write Q3, nor did I approve of it. complain to the Blumes, for they insisted on publishing it against my objections.
> 
> As for the chief antagonist, it was meant to be Exlavdra on behlaf of the EEG, with the minions of Lolth, not the demoness per se., being second and a counterweight to the former as noted. The latter will fight against the Eilservs and tolerate for a time the presence of a PC party that is discommoding their foes.




or



			
				Col Pladoh said:
			
		

> http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/171753-gary-gygax-q-part-xii-5.html#post3024765
> Ah well,
> 
> I had what I consider a much more interesting plan for the conclusion of the G-D series, one in which the PC party could loose the Elder Elemental god or send him into deeper isolation, thus assisting Lolth to become more powerful. By very astute play, they could have thwarted the designs of both evil entities. The Demonweb Pits were indeed envisioned as mze like, but there were to be no machines therein.
> ...





He also admits the reception of Q1 was also rather weak:



			
				Col Pladoh said:
			
		

> http://www.enworld.org/forum/archive-threads/171753-gary-gygax-q-part-xii-5.html#post3023213
> [Refering to the Fact GDQ was nominated the best D&D adventure of all time] Somehow I don't believe that was done by the veteran OAD&D audience, for I have received far too many comments panning the Q1 module  and it is worth noting that the rating was given for the module combining its predacessors, G 1-3 and D 1-3, not just Q1.
> 
> If the Abyss is a maze design on a towel, I am at a loss, completely overwhealmed
> ...


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## Bullgrit (Aug 23, 2011)

> It seems that Gary changed his opinion with time or, more likely, he was originally just trying to promote a product he wasn't happy with.



Well, the preface he wrote in glowing support of Q1 was inside the book, found only after having already purchased the material and removed the shrink wrap. If it was on the outside cover, I could see an argument for it being merely a sales spiel.

Bullgrit


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## wrecan (Aug 23, 2011)

He may have been required to write it and then afterwards, the Blumes (or whoever) put it on the inside.  Also, time changes memories.  He may have genuinely loved it and then, hearing criticism of it, internalized a "Well, I didn't write it" which became "I never liked it much".


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