How great was the Temple of Elemental Evil?

As I return to this game and make my first delvings below the Earth Temple, I begin to wonder about two things:

1. Was the original AD&D ToEE campaign really the stuff of legends that people talk about?

Ok, when I say "people" I mean nostalgist geeks like us. This stuff ain't all over the Twitter.

Speaking as someone who never played it back in the day (I was more of a WFRP hound, which is a very different beast indeed) and having only skimmed the pages. And the prospect of GMing it now seems intimidating, not because of the size, but all the combat.

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  a)Hommlet was a very fleshed out location and the moathouse is varied. That is pretty much undeniable.
  
  b)The Temple is a much more "natural dungeon" then many of its predecessors - creatures are mainly placed with a reason and motivation and its possible to play allies and intrigue. But either way, there seems to be a TON of combat with many groups of similar enemies. Didn't it get a little tedious?
  
  c) The back story is exciting and actually relevant to the game, creating interesting dynamics and allowing much tinkering.
  
  d) It's an awesome name. Perhaps too awesome? I fell in love with the name before I fell in love with the campaign. Does the name give it credibility - perhaps more than it deserves?

2. In the video game, from an XP gathering perspective, is there any point running back and forth doing the various temple quests?

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  Why not just kill 'em all? I mean, the storylines are definitely interesting, but are there any tangible rewards for playing the intrigue side of things? Am I just better off murdering beasties wherever I go so that my team our tough enough to delve deeper? I've finished the game once, playing a few of the intrigue plots - then killing everyone afterwards!

That's a whole bunch of - possibly ignorant / misinformed - questions and opinions; and horribly convuluted sentence structures. But these are the most important questions as we look back on the history of the 20th century! WHY Temple, WHY?!

And also, maybe I'm jaded by the shadow of WFRP's The Enemy Within. (1st edition WFRP.) A campaign that, while it notably took a slide towards the end, has an absolutely golden first four books. I ran it on a forum and we got up to 4000 and something posts. Same core players from start to finish. And it's another awesome (both in the modern and literal sense of the word) title.

As you can tell, I'm conflicted.

Blah, blah, blah - what do you think? Feel free to address only a few of these ramblings.

 

I remember loving the PnP version and was sooo happy when i saw it as a computer game many years later.
I played other campaigns just as good but it is definately one of the best ones.


as too gathering xp, why not first do the tasks and then kill them all.

 

That's probably the route I'm going to take. My party was created by my kids, so the characters are a motley bunch of non-min maxed misfits!

 

To me it has the attraction of an ad for a sales event - "not just evil - elemental evil!"

Also, when Lareth says the name of the place, it's like the moment in Hammer's Twins Of Evil when the witch hunter cries, "The Devil has sent me ... Twins Of Evil!"

 

I know that in the computer game the priests refer to it in their dialogue directly by that name, but was that the case in the original paper module?

Maybe it was a name coined by the good forces who were battling against it, and the members of the temple just called it "The Temple of the Elements" or something. I don't own a copy of the original module so I can't say.

 

No, it's only referred to in the background. As a DM running the game, I would think it was dubbed the ToEE by some educated mage who aided the assault back in the day, and the name sifted into local usage that way. Lareth doesn't mention it, but the speech in the game is such a fab piece of melodrama it's worth bending the plot a little to accommodate it.

From the book:

Evil to the core, Lareth is cunning. If a situation appears in doubt, he uses bribery and honeyed words to sway the balance to his favor. He is not adverse to gaining new recruits of all sorts, and will gladly accept adventurers into the ranks (though he will test and try them continually). Those who arouse suspicion will be quietly murdered in their sleep. Those with too much promise will be likewise dealt with, for Lareth wants no potential usurpers or threats to his domination.​

 

(SPOILERS, I GUESS)

If you do the three quests for any one of the four Temple priests, he will lead you down to the main dude Hedrack for a chat. After the chat, if you accept a quest he gives you, you can at that point position your characters tactically in the room and buff up, which allows you to take out Hedrack's horde much easier than just confronting him head on. Two small rants about this:

1) They blindfold you to meet Hedrack so you don't learn the way since they don't completely trust you yet, which makes some sense, but yet they leave all of your weapons and equipment untouched so you can make a full attack at will.

2) A Paladin will usually "fall" trying to infiltrate into the Greater Temple this way, which I find :roll:. Each 3-quest path I have taken with the Paladin has led to him falling. I guess the program can't figure out you are trying to work for the greater good, and it thinks you are trying to actually join them. This is especially silly when he takes the quest to desecrate the Earth Temple with unholy water. I mean if he plows through the entire Temple slaughtering everyone and everything in his path (and physically destroying the structure itself if had the capability) it's OK, but pouring some water on it is out of the question. And about that quest, should unholy water poured on an evil temple destroy it? Shouldn't it be Holy Water that does the trick? Does that mean that the Earth Temple itself is not actually evil but it is the worshipers themselves that make it evil? I guess this is a possibility since the Elementals are not evil...

One time out of curiosity I saved the game after accepting Hedrack's quest, as I wanted to see what would happen if I "joined" the Temple. After running his quest I joined him and the game ended, and the rest of the adventure is missed. I guess they don't really want to make an adventure path of evil characters working for the Temple and infiltrating Hommlet and such. I happen to agree with this, as I find playing evil characters pointless and disturbing. But for those who are inclined that way, it must be a disappointing finish to the game.

OK, now I'm just running off in too many directions here. End.

 

When I ran the module back in college, we had a blast! I armed the gnolls on the second level with bows and tactics, and the party would always run from them. It was hilarious the way they'd sneak through the second level to get deeper in the temple, have a few fights, then have to sneak back out again,

 

Yes - I sometimes return to a game and try the evil side of things, but it just ruins my suspension of disbelief - I keep thinking, 'Ok, what's the evil option here." If its makebelieve I don't mind being Gandhi or Jack Sparrow, but Adolf Hitler is unpalatable and actually kind of dull.

 

Like I said, I've always gone the WFRP route with the pen and paper / forum games I run, so I've never GMed a dungeoncrawl. Doesn't all the to-ing and fro-ing start to drive you nuts?!??

(EDIT: if you've never played WFRP, it's decidedly unheroic. It's an excellent game (2nd edition - 3rd is just weird) but a D&D style dungeoncrawl would be suicide, even for advanced characters. One daemon is more than enough to obliterate a whole party! A party can handle a scuffle with a few goblins, but they'll probably need a couple of months of herbs and natural healing before they're ready to crack skulls again.)

 

It was college, so we didn't mind the to-ing and fro-ing. It was just a fun way to spend an evening or two every week.

 

Hah! I'm in the middle of playing the module now with a group of great folks that are a blast to adventure with. We're playing it on Fantasy Grounds, a PC table top software that almost perfectly mimics the around the table experience. We all connect with Mumble for voice and FG provides the secure server set up for the PC's to connect.

FG does require a paid license to use, but if the DM has an ultimate license everyone can play for free, or a full license will let one other person play free.

Here's a link to check it out. Fantasy Grounds 2

There is a list of available campaigns on the first page also.

 

Yes, TOEE is a great game -- buggy as hell and shallow as a puddle in spots, but a great game nontheless. The Circle of 8 team has done a great job.

The replayability of the game is one of its finer points. However . . . I have a little grump to share -- having rescued Chanda, Gleem & Nybble countless times, and having heard Chanda say they would join my party if only we were gnomes . . . I made a party of all gnome characters, and used the 4 PC/4NPC option so I could take on Chanda, Gleem, Nybble and Wonnilon for an all-Gnome adventure.

Well . . . I make my Gnome party and, with a lot of help from Elmo, get to Chanda, Gleem & Nybble . . . and that conversation about Gnomes . . . and she doesn't recognize us as Gnomes (like Smigmal didn't recognize the whole party facing her were half-orcs too, AND were working for the Temple . . . sheesh!) . . . and, thaNKFULLY, THERE'S A LINE WHERE I CAN TELL HER WE'RE GNOMES . . . AND SHE DOESN'T CARE, AND ALL THREE OF THEM GO SKIPPING OFF LEAVING MY ALL-GNOME PARTY SPEECHLESS AND DUMBFOUNDED.

Getting Smigmal hating on my half-orc party and Chanda ignoring my Gnome party almost made me want to stop playing . . . for a while. Instead, I've dl'ed ShingTed's modding tutorial and will attempt to make Chanda, Nybble & Gleem into joinable NPCs.

 

That's pretty cool, let me know if you need any help doing that.