YeOldeGeek - nice treatment. I’ve got an original print of this buried somewhere and I haven’t gotten around to revisiting it. It’s my experience that a bunch of the Intermediate modules suffered from a painful lack of fleshing out. Perhaps the intent is to provide an outline with ideas to be completed by the DM/GM to fit their milieu. I’m running a campaign based around I1 Dwellers of the Forbidden City. It’s a sandbox with some gems but no fully realized plot lines. It’s perfect for an experienced DM to build around.
The question is: Did you expand the woefully underwritten work yourself? Sparse works are good for that. I love them for that, allowing the DM to fiddle and make them their own. But that's me in my more advanced years. I prefer my own possibilities to others. But I understand your anger that the PCs are relegated 2nd fiddle. What's the point of that?
If I was to run it again I would.... but by the time we got to those bits I was already dreaming of running White Plume Mountain for the group when I5 was over..
A bit more info. I love adding storylines to a framework if that framework is solid - something like the Vault of the Drow or the Village of Hommlet. The problem with the unfinished feel of Martek is that there is a rigid storyline in place, and it's the base nuts and bolts to build the framework that are missing. I prefer to develop modules in the opposite direction.....
When one of my top 2 AD&D channels comes on the world stops while I watch. I've never ran this series before and I have the super module but never even ran it bc my group at the time wasn't interested in a desert campaign. What changes would you make to the whole series to make it epic and perhaps part of a larger desert campaign?
1st one is obvious - make the desert 10x bigger and more believable to make the resource management side of the series mean something. I would add a couple of smaller settlements and make the settlement at the Oasis larger, with an array of traders so the party can offload/convert excess loot. I would use the new smaller settlements to make the battle between the Efreeti and Djinni more meaningful. Remove the Garden in I5, expand the good bits, let the PCs battle the Efreeti instead of Martek - maybe he gives them something to assist in this. Replace the factions in the Garden with a replacement organisation for whom the release of the Efreeti is a sign, and thus they are working against the PCs from the very start of the series.... just a few quick thoughts :)
@@erikmartin4996 Thank you. I was hoping that maybe 100 people might see my reviews, so I'm over the moon with the response so far - especially given that I am using cheap hardware, and am using free software with no ability or aptitude to make the vids :D
The Supermodule was moved into the Forgotten realms - the intro to I3 was better, and the Desert a lot bigger and beefier. Material was added between the modules and to flesh out some other bits. The new stuff was of varying quality, some was great, but as a whole it felt even more on rails. They didn't enhance those interesting bits of I5 though, which was a shame. The Supermodule's biggest issue was presentation. Walls of text. Terrible rehashed art that frequently did not fit. It was a behemoth to run.
