Dungeon of the Mad Mage - First Impressions

I've begin reading through Dungeon of the Mad Mage


So far, here are my impressions and comments:


Great:

- Maps are black and white and highly readable. Also, they aren't poster-sized.

- levels come with a preamble telling you what you'll find - and good ones, at that! Very useful for OPM.

- room descriptions are minimal, just enough to work with.

- maps that include levels with multi-level structures on them, and many connection points.

Good:

- pages 5-12 are intro, adventure seeds, necessary prelims, etc. and then it gets right to the dungeon.

- play supports PCs getting in over the heads, and moving "ahead" of their level-appropriate challenges (and back-sweeping, as well.) Nice.


- lots of adventure seeds to give you reasons to keep going down - and have focused exploration - besides just "we need to get some XP and gold!"

- more monsters, including the creepy lava children from the Fiend Folio!

Ugh:

- "Each dungeon level contains enough monster XP to ensure that characters who clear out the level can advance to the point where they're ready to take on the challenges of the next level down." I have very definite feelings about megadungeons as ones you don't go around clearing level by level. You can, I think, but basically want to in order to make it through? Ugh.

- I personally still have an issue with the whole "pit to the dungeon in the middle of the Yawning Portal tavern." Really? You let people go down and stir up dangerous monsters in a big hole in the middle of the floor? You bet on their success and failure and let them die screaming below because they don't have the money to come back up? In my book that isn't "Neutral," that's flat-out Evil. Evil stands by and watches you die because you can't cough up a coin right now. Even Roman gladiatorial games seem less cruel.



So far, I generally like it, and while I won't run a D&D5 game, I will use some of what I like from this in my own GURPS game.