Dungeon of the Mad Mage thoughts?

[Vox Silentii]

So i've benn DM'ing CoS for sum time and there are only a handful of sessions left until they go into ravenloft and battle Strahd.

So i was thinking what to do next, i was thinking about Dungeon of the Mad Mage and The Dragon Heist campaigns.
Although i am new enough to know what Waterdeep is, i have never played in it so i don't know the story and hooks behind it.

So i was wondering if you had any experience playing or DM'ing those two adventures and what your thoughts might be.

Or is there something else you'd rather recommend.

[Legendairy]

I have run dragon heist, and personally it felt way too railroady for me and my players, they enjoyed it but were also ready for it to end. I have dungeon of the madmage, but haven’t run it yet, looks promising.

I have read, ran or played in most of the stuff. My favorite to run and which my players had the most fun was Out of the Abyss. That campaign was fun, but I love the demon lords/princes and the underdark in general so it worked for me.

One thing I would say for dragonheist is to be sure you add in the events in waterdeep let your players experience the fun pets of the town.

[bc56]

DotMM is a dungeon.
23 glorious floors of dungeon.

If your players like dungeon stuff, then it's a good fit, but otherwise you might be better off doing something else.

[Vox Silentii]

DotMM is a dungeon.
23 glorious floors of dungeon.

If your players like dungeon stuff, then it's a good fit, but otherwise you might be better off doing something else.
I figured, it says so in the name :)

[Jamesps]

I'm playing through it now and I find it kind of bland.

The dungeon seems so far like it was designed to be a very interesting location where nothing important is actually happening, and we're just kinda there. Paradoxically, the fact that the designers managed to make the location interesting is actually making the adventure overall more bland because most of the players will stop to look or figure out all of the various knickknacks (because they're there and nothing else is happening) and we end up moving at a snails pace over an incredibly expansive area. We're playing every week and I'm expecting to be doing this adventure into 2021. :P

[bc56]

I'm playing through it now and I find it kind of bland.

The dungeon seems so far like it was designed to be a very interesting location where nothing important is actually happening, and we're just kinda there. Paradoxically, the fact that the designers managed to make the location interesting is actually making the adventure overall more bland because most of the players will stop to look or figure out all of the various knickknacks (because they're there and nothing else is happening) and we end up moving at a snails pace over an incredibly expansive area. We're playing every week and I'm expecting to be doing this adventure into 2021. :P

That is a good point.
It would be prudent to provide a motivation other than the generic "fame and fortune" it uses

[dejarnjc]

That is a good point.
It would be prudent to provide a motivation other than the generic "fame and fortune" it uses

Here's a great article about how to make the adventure more engaging.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/385-how-to-tell-a-story-in-waterdeep-dungeon-of-the

Additionally this is definitely an adventure where the DM should work with players on their backstories and then provide continued personal motivation as the dungeon unfolds.

[Beleriphon]

Having not run DoMM or DH both a fun on first read. That said DH biggest non-linear function is for the DM. You pick which villain you use of four, and that informs the game setting to a fairly large degree. But, if the players have no say in it as such, but you could poll them and ask what season sounds most fun, and have them decide with the caveat that they know it will affect how the adventure plays out.

[detro]

I regret buying it. I've only ran the first chapter, but I've played through a couple of floors.
It's a megadungeon. Rooms descriptions are scattered. There's no random encounter tables. Just 1 or 2 encounters at the start of the chapter "if players are being bored throw this at them".
WotC forgot how their own game works. Since rooms are basically static, it's on the DM to decide what stops the party from just taking a rest after every encounter. There isn't really any advice on how to actually run the game. For example, one the first floor there's a tight cluster of rooms with a bunch of goblins in them. The rooms are plain, no interesting terrain that interacts with combat. There's no narrative reason that the goblins don't all run out of their rooms and swarm the party at once. At which point, it kind of begs the question. Why so many rooms? It felt like it was a single encounter that was heavily implied to be a series of encounters. There is also a lot of mechanically empty rooms that don't do anything. My party was nothing but 3 5th level characters, and they have completely breezed through the 1st floor so far.

There's no narrative, but there's little content for how to actually run a dungeon. It's basically just a series of disconnected rooms themepark. If this is what every floor is like, it could have easy slashed the number of rooms and actually write about an ongoing narrative. For the first floor, the two factions are "vampires" and the usual goblins/bugbears.
In character there's little reason to do anything. Which would be fine, if it was a competently designed dungeon. Only it's not. There's no interesting traps, enemies, or encounters.

I'm kind of rambling but I'm dissatisfied with my purchase.

[Bubzors]

I've never played through DH but after reading it looks like a lot of fun. I havent played through the whole of DotMM but have stolen whole levels of the dungeon for other campaigns and we are currently working through the last 5 levels of the dungeon on a side high level thing since my group has never played 15+ levels after 11 years of d&d.

I love DotMM. Yes it's a bit bare bones in places, but I feel it's just an amazing tool for an experienced DM to work with. They skimped on exact details and tactics to give you a huge dungeon to work with. You do have to come up with motivations, and to make it feel a little more alive, but I feel that way with all premade adventures. I always change them in some fashion.

I do feel like DotMM would get old playing straight through from start to finish. Too straight forward and dungeon crawly. But for stealing dungeon ideas, or for short side campaigns it is great. Generally just a great tool for an experienced DM to pick and choose what they want out of it.

[djreynolds]

I tell my party they work for company, so whenever the go back to Waterdeep they can switch out characters.

Players will make money, so they can save up for items and gear.

I let players lead the game. What do they want to do tonight?

Combat, more traps or exploration, or more social encounters.

Spice it up. Volo is up in the yawning portal waiting on material for his book, your stories.

But, yes it will get boring. It's 23 levels. IMO it is a campaign players can come back to. Keep notes, quit for a month, come back.

[Bel-Torac]

I'm dming it and my group just finished level 10/23 and they are level 11ish. The first 4 levels are engaging in difficulty, then it trails off. I find that I have to up some encounters or throw in very high CR monsters from mordenkaninens time of foes so it poses a challenge. The writers obviously created the levels based on flavor and a party of 4 people, and not really scaling combat. Level 13 and higher does look more challenging though.

Some good loot there if you are running it as Adventurer's League as I am. My group is pretty optimized so they are mowing down everything with ease. It's more of an exploration dungeon where you look around for treasure and monsters to kill. There are some npcs you can talk to and factions you can ally with so it isn't a complete kill fest. I would say every level is like a completely different adventure since there are different enemies, but they do connect in some way. There are some secret rooms and traps, but not a whole lot.

Overall I would say it's alright, except the combat doesn't scale with the level. I'm planning on taking out a lot of garbage encounters and putting in just a few tougher ones.

[Great Dragon]

I got DotMM and the Maps and Misc as my first 5e books.

For the most part, I have liked them.

I was surprised that the "Vampires" on Level One were just some Down and Out Actors
- that could have been a 1st Level Encounter.

Not really much of a challenge for the suggested Party of four 5th level Characters.
I'll be adding a Vampire Spawn as the 'true' leader of the Gang for the next Party.


---
I ran Level Seven: Maddgoth's Castle - as a one shot for a 10th Level Party.
Very disappointed! I figured that since the Dungeon started out 5th level, Level seven would be close enough for a 10th level party. That, and I wanted a Castle Encounter.

In all the castle there are only two real things - the Homunculus and the Faerie Dragon.
The 12-foot-long Faerie Dragon is at least fun to run.

But there was nothing {that I saw} for what a (lesser) Mad Mage would have left in place when he went Dimension Hunting.
No trapped Monsters (The Slaad Encounter was ok), no real traps, and not a single Magical Puzzle to be seen.

Also, the Plot for the Outside Encounters was a kinda sad.
Stone Giants that are forever trapped, doomed to forget everything everyday.


---
I'm still of the Opinion that the Devs at WoTC designed the 5e system with the assumption that everyone was already familiar with all the other Editions of D&D, and as such just put in the Bare Bones for what they thought was needed. Kinda "Oh, everyone knows about Undermountain" and only put in what they did to say that they have a 5e version of it.

But, I remember the old Undermountain boxed sets, and DoMM is a pale reflection!
The latter is less then 1/4 the size for each level - and no-where nearly as detailed!

Sure, even the Old Undermountain had rooms and area that were left blank - on purpose, for DMs to add their own flavor to the Dungeon.

[Legendairy]

As others have said, it’s a good chassis for a dungeon crawl. I personally have written a few pages out to have forest dimensions and open planes that the mad mage shoved into under mountain.

[Temperjoke]

DotMM isn't really intended as a campaign in the same sense that other adventures are, in my opinion. It's a self-contained adventure place that players can leave and come back to at different points during a different campaign, assuming they survive. That's why there isn't an over-arching plot outside of Halaster's goals; instead each floor has it's own mini-plot (granted a couple floors are linked together story-wise). There are some hooks provided to create reasons to go in, but if you plan on having them run this exclusively top to bottom, then you'll need to create a bigger plot for the players.

[Kyace]

I regret buying it. I've only ran the first chapter, but I've played through a couple of floors.
It's a megadungeon. Rooms descriptions are scattered. There's no random encounter tables. Just 1 or 2 encounters at the start of the chapter "if players are being bored throw this at them".
WotC forgot how their own game works. Since rooms are basically static, it's on the DM to decide what stops the party from just taking a rest after every encounter. There isn't really any advice on how to actually run the game. For example, one the first floor there's a tight cluster of rooms with a bunch of goblins in them. The rooms are plain, no interesting terrain that interacts with combat. There's no narrative reason that the goblins don't all run out of their rooms and swarm the party at once. At which point, it kind of begs the question. Why so many rooms? It felt like it was a single encounter that was heavily implied to be a series of encounters. There is also a lot of mechanically empty rooms that don't do anything. My party was nothing but 3 5th level characters, and they have completely breezed through the 1st floor so far.

There's no narrative, but there's little content for how to actually run a dungeon. It's basically just a series of disconnected rooms themepark. If this is what every floor is like, it could have easy slashed the number of rooms and actually write about an ongoing narrative. For the first floor, the two factions are "vampires" and the usual goblins/bugbears.
In character there's little reason to do anything. Which would be fine, if it was a competently designed dungeon. Only it's not. There's no interesting traps, enemies, or encounters.

I'm kind of rambling but I'm dissatisfied with my purchase.

I agree with your substance if not your final result. I've been running it for a group of friends and we've had 7 sessions are part way through level 3. There is a lot of scattered information to keep track of (especially each time an Elder Rune appears) and I've noticed that there isn't a lot to keep the players moving forward.

I've kept track of how long they've been in the dungeon and have recently started making them roll Wisdom saves every 100 hours in the dungeon or pick up a long-term madness (https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dmg/running-the-game#Madness) (per the lore, the longer folks stay in the dungeon, the more the dungeon is supposed to drive them crazy). I've also tried to tweak how much healing they have to try to encourage them to keep up the pace, but still have players who Nova and want to rest frequently. Still a work in progress.

I enjoy the dungeon so far but yes, it needs a some more carrots and sticks to keep the party going forward or else they can easily get distracted by room descriptions looking for puzzles that aren't there.

[PeteNutButter]

I've been playing it in adventurer's league and I have to say it's probably the worst hard cover I've played yet, though it's hard to tell how much AL season 8 rules are ruining it.

It's a dungeon crawl so you're doing it for the exp and loot, but you can't keep anything, and just get rewarded for showing up. Literally the only thing you actually get from playing it is "access" to magic items you find. At least Dragon Heist seemed to be built towards the RP end so there was something else to show up for. In DotMM you have no goal, no reason to do most things. We've been scouting a lot and giving most rooms a miss if we could.

I'd recommend some homebrewery to make it more fun, such as the the article posted above. It's a fine dungeon and all, but its still just a dungeon.

[Bel-Torac]

I got DotMM and the Maps and Misc as my first 5e books.

For the most part, I have liked them.

I was surprised that the "Vampires" on Level One were just some Down and Out Actors
- that could have been a 1st Level Encounter.

Not really much of a challenge for the suggested Party of four 5th level Characters.
I'll be adding a Vampire Spawn as the 'true' leader of the Gang for the next Party.


---
I ran Level Seven: Maddgoth's Castle - as a one shot for a 10th Level Party.
Very disappointed! I figured that since the Dungeon started out 5th level, Level seven would be close enough for a 10th level party. That, and I wanted a Castle Encounter.

In all the castle there are only two real things - the Homunculus and the Faerie Dragon.
The 12-foot-long Faerie Dragon is at least fun to run.

But there was nothing {that I saw} for what a (lesser) Mad Mage would have left in place when he went Dimension Hunting.
No trapped Monsters (The Slaad Encounter was ok), no real traps, and not a single Magical Puzzle to be seen.

Also, the Plot for the Outside Encounters was a kinda sad.
Stone Giants that are forever trapped, doomed to forget everything everyday.


---
I'm still of the Opinion that the Devs at WoTC designed the 5e system with the assumption that everyone was already familiar with all the other Editions of D&D, and as such just put in the Bare Bones for what they thought was needed. Kinda "Oh, everyone knows about Undermountain" and only put in what they did to say that they have a 5e version of it.

But, I remember the old Undermountain boxed sets, and DoMM is a pale reflection!
The latter is less then 1/4 the size for each level - and no-where nearly as detailed!

Sure, even the Old Undermountain had rooms and area that were left blank - on purpose, for DMs to add their own flavor to the Dungeon.

Yeah it's garbage. Party downed it super fast and posed no challenge.

[ProsecutorGodot]

My group has been playing through the Waterdeep modules since they released and we're having a great time.

I will concede that if you run it straight as it's printed it might be a bit boring. My DM has (to my knowledge) added a few overarching goals, some of them with my input (as I was the usual DM prior to this campaign)

Retiring characters offer a lot of story opportunity. My rogue has begun transitioning Trollskull Tavern into an adventuring company. Funny thing, our DM sold us "all the permits" so we took that as an opportunity to do a lot with the tavern. Another player retired his warlock and she was taken into the Dwemer Core. We're trying to track her down and see if she's coming home, last we heard she was so successful at the school that she was sent deeper into Undermountain alone.

The Waterdeep campaigns (in my opinion) require character backgrounds, unless you plan to change characters frequently. Most 5E campaign don't require backgrounds but you spend so much time grounded in Waterdeep that you will end up bored without personal character goals. This is ad much of a strength as a weakness as some people aren't looking to put in that kind of effort. I don't mean this in a dismissive way either, it really is a lot of effort to ground a character to such a specific setting.

My opinion is that it's a good base to build around but if you're looking for a pick up and play campaign this is not what you're looking for.

[guachi]

I don't think either Dragon Heist or Dungeon of the Mad Mage are worth buying. I wish I hadn't bought the latter but it was on sale. It is fine if you want to lift a dungeon level out and run it on its own.

[Zuras]

Personally, I think Dragon Heist and Dungeon of the Mad Mage are great.

After Dragon Heist, my son told me it was his favorite D&D adventure so far. It is a railroad in certain parts, but it is very much a case of having certain set pieces that are “destined” to happen, with everything else under PC control.

In his opinion he had the most agency of any adventure yet, because being set in a city, they always had dozens of options for how to handle challenges.

DotMM is a great dungeon—many rooms have stuff detailed in them, sometimes it’s fluff, sometimes it’s a trap, sometimes it’s treasure. It really conveys the Funhouse dungeon well (vs the Killer Dungeon of Tomb of Annihilation). I have had to do some more work with NPCs and developing the conflicts between denizens to keep my players engaged, though, because the whole room by room exploration gets old.

[Great Dragon]

I don't think either Dragon Heist or Dungeon of the Mad Mage are worth buying. I wish I hadn't bought the latter but it was on sale. It is fine if you want to lift a dungeon level out and run it on its own.

I mostly bought Dragon Heist for the Map of Waterdeep, to be honest.

Since my Players are currently exploring Waterdeep (Trying to solve the Mystery of the Rat Infested Warehouse) I'm thinking that I'll drop the Heist Plot in next and see if they bite.
[They just got to Level 3, and DotMM recommends Level 5]

And all the premade maps for DotMM is useful, even if it is a pain to constantly have to change/add things to make the Dungeon Level actually a challenge and interesting.

Plus, I don't have to justify why a Monster or Puzzle/Trap is there, since Halastar is famous for constantly changing things in the Dungeon.