Need quick Greyhawk advice

[Ozreth]

Regarding Expedition to the Ruins of Greyhawk:

So there are tons of side quests in this module, and while most of them seem like they should be held off on introducing until after chapter 3, it never really states this.

When should I start introducing this plethora of quests to the players? I don't want them to advance too quickly or get into fights they cant handle, but I dont want to leave them dry in the city.

If you've run or played it, what do you advise? Thanks : )

Also, DMs, how often did you insert the random rooms into the dungeon? In between every major room that is detailed in the book? Several in a row? How did you keep them interesting? etc etc. I don't want to make their treks through the dungeons too long or too short.

[Psyx]

Having just played it... Near the start, there was a lot to do in town, it seemed. In the later stages though, we did seem to spend a lot of time in the dungeon. Form my perspective, I'd have enjoyed more city-based gaming and roleplay in the last third of the scenario, and more city-type encounters there would have been cool.

I'm not sure if it was written as such, but for us it was brutal. It felt like being a WWI fighter pilot, with a life expectancy measured in combat rounds. I think our GM may have thrown in extra monsters, but it did loose some continuity because of it. We had something like 30 character deaths in less than 4 weeks of elapsed game time. A slower pace to the campaign might have been nicer. As it was, we had only 1 character survive the whole campaign.

Good campaign, though. Kept us busy for ages.

[Ozreth]

Having just played it... Near the start, there was a lot to do in town, it seemed. In the later stages though, we did seem to spend a lot of time in the dungeon. Form my perspective, I'd have enjoyed more city-based gaming and roleplay in the last third of the scenario, and more city-type encounters there would have been cool.

I'm not sure if it was written as such, but for us it was brutal. It felt like being a WWI fighter pilot, with a life expectancy measured in combat rounds. I think our GM may have thrown in extra monsters, but it did loose some continuity because of it. We had something like 30 character deaths in less than 4 weeks of elapsed game time. A slower pace to the campaign might have been nicer. As it was, we had only 1 character survive the whole campaign.

Good campaign, though. Kept us busy for ages.

This is great advice, thank you : ) I will try not to introduce too many of the side quests early on.

Were you able to tell when your DM dropped in one of the "randomly generated rooms" as opposed to the ones outlined in the book?

[Psyx]

I don't honestly know how much of the dungeon was added to by the GM's fevered mind, and how much was original. It was impossible to really tell.
Generally the encounters were pretty clever and pretty harsh.

The final fight was very harsh. I have never had to make so many SoDs in so few rounds before!

As an old-school Greyhawk player I loved all the old references and famous characters cropping up. It's worth doing a little background reading to familiarise yourself with some of them.
I'd have also loved a few of the 'retro' elements to have been expanded upon.

We finished the thing at 14th level, although two of those were gained in a session thanks to a Deck of Many Things...