I would love to see a well-known “name” author write an adventure module in the style of “Vault of the Drow”, and have it published by one of the big guns in publishing.

I would bet almost any amount of money that it would be utterly murdered by critics, and by a lot of gamers, including a few purporting to be old-school grognards, and dismissed as something completely terrible.

Which is a shame … because “Vault of the Drow” is a terrific module.

It’s also an interesting glimpse into what TSR thought modules could be – and possibly should be – back in the earlier days of published adventures.

My own experience with “Vault of the Drow” goes back a long way. It was part of the first true campaign that I ever played in. That particular game, as I recall, started with “The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh”, continued through with “Danger at Dunwater” and “The Final Enemy”, went on to one or two other modules that I sadly can’t remember, and then went to the fabled big guns: the Giants series (G1-2-3), followed by D1-2 “Descent Into the Depths of the Earth”, D3 “Vault of the Drow”, and then got capped with “Queen of the Demonweb Pits”. It was epic, epic stuff. Taking lowly characters from humble beginnings in Saltmarsh to taking on the likes of Lolth was really cool, and left a mark on me as a young kid that probably changed me from “casual gamer” to “lifetime gamer”.

I remembered playing “Vault of the Drow” at that time quite specifically, as it was one of the high points of that campaign. Travelling through the Underdark to the sinister drow city of Erelhei-Cinlu, surviving as much due to our wits as due to our spells and our swords … it had a lot of memorable encounters, and was brutally tough. I think my sister Laura and I were the only two who made it through “Vault” without needing a resurrection spell in one form or another. Even at the time, though, I remembered looking at that thin module, which we played for what seemed like weeks on end, and thinking … “man, the module really contains that much adventure?”

When we finally finished the campaign, I dug my pastel-covered copy of “Vault” out of my collection – I’d deliberately not read it, since I acquired my fabled $5 box o’ treasure in the middle of this campaign – and finally read it. Yep, “Vault” did indeed contain that much adventure … but not in the way you might think.

“Vault of the Drow” is a prime example of a sandbox adventure. There’s not even much in terms of plot hooks to get players moving towards Erelhei-Cinlu and the mad, terrifying places surrounding the city. In theory, the drow were responsible for inciting the giant attacks in the “Against the Giants” modules (led by the drow priestess Eclavdra), so the player characters might be seeking vengeance, or more information about the drow plot … but basically, it boils down to “drow are evil, and evil must be punished”. There’s no real compelling reason for the characters to travel there, apart from they wish to seek treasure and adventure – and of those options, “Vault” has plenty of both.

Once the players are headed towards Erelhei-Cinlu, there’s a few set encounters that are really cool (particularly one involving a succubus and a drow vampire, which I paid tribute to in “Crypt of the Devil-Lich”), but most of the adventure is random encounters, and whatever the DM wants to throw at the players. Gary Gygax – who wrote “Vault” – provides a lot of suggestions as to what these encounters might be, and why the players would encounter a wide variety of horrible monsters, but ultimately leaves the final details in the DM’s hands. And stat blocks for these monsters, of which there are literally dozens? Fuhgeddaboudit. There are no stats blocks at all for those legions of umber hulks, trolls, ghouls, kuo-toa, bugbears, troglodytes, purple worms, and the like anywhere in the module. If there were stat blocks, they'd easily quadruple the size of the module. Be prepared to flip through a lot of Monster Manual pages and do a lot of prepping if you ever run this module. (And there’s plenty of encounters where drow warriors are led by a 6th-level drow priestess … think you can find stats for a 6th-level drow priestess anywhere in the adventure? Think again.)

Some might call this sloppy adventure design. It’s not, as far as I’m concerned. From reading “Vault”, it’s quite apparent that Gary Gygax believed that most modules should provide DMs with some tools for encounters, a basic plot for an adventure … and then, everything would be customized and tweaked by each individual DM running the module. Specifics of exactly how everything worked in the adventure didn’t matter, as Gary assumed the DM would take care of those specifics. As Gary himself wrote in the introduction to “Vault” …

This module is ideal for elaboration and extensive development by the Dungeon Master. The subject matter deserves this, and it should be done by you in order to put personality and finishing touches into a set-piece scenario which lacks the individuality particular to your campaign.

The city of Erelhei-Cinlu itself follows these same loose guidelines – there’s a few set encounters, including the finale of the module, but for the most part, it’s all suggestions, random encounters, some helpful suggestions as to the politics and Machiavellian plotting going on in the city … but again, it’s definitely not laid out in concrete fashion, and players aren’t expected to simply go from point A to point B. Part of this, I think, is just due to the inherent nature of the module – railroading the players through a hostile city filled with drow would border on the ludicrous – but part of this is again due to Gary Gygax’s expectation that the DM will be improvising during the adventure. Note that word: expectation. It’s not “well, the DM might improvise”, it’s “the DM will improvise”.

The module does contain some of the patented Gygax-penned idiosyncrasies of high-level adventures that I hate, where some arbitrary decisions get made for no good reason at all. For example, teleporting in Erelhei-Cinlu simply doesn’t work. Why? Presumably because it can fuck up the adventure and make the DMs’ life miserable. Also, if the player characters start a extended fight in the Black Tower that leads to the Vault, it’s specifically written in the module that enough drow reinforcements eventually show up to make the battle hopeless, and all the player characters die (finis, according to Gary). I happen to hate stuff like this – if I’ve played a magic-user since 1st-level and have earned the right to cast a teleport spell, I want to be able to cast the spell, and not just have the module handwave its use and dismiss it. And for “well, the characters will just lose the battle” … maybe Gary knew different players than I did, but I’d never bet against the guys in my gaming group, no matter how impossible the odds. I’d rather play something like that out and wind up with the Total Party Kill than simply make assumptions.

There’s also some weird game balance issues in the adventure. For example, one encounter has the player characters facing off against zombies … considering the characters are supposed to at minimum be 10th-level at the start of the adventure, it’s a pushover fight that serves no purpose. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s the lower levels of the Fane of Lolth, which are just damn brutal, with 9th- and 10th-level drow sorceresses, warriors, and clerics loaded with powerful magic items wandering all over the place, providing some incredibly tough encounters even for a powerful adventuring party. These issues don’t very occur often during the adventure, but they do occur enough to have a DM scratching his or her head sometimes in bewilderment.

“Vault of the Drow” is actually much less of a pure adventure than it is a mini-campaign. I happen to really love the campaign aspects presented by Gary Gygax throughout the course of the module, and it’s here where “Vault” just shines. Erelhei-Cinlu is presented as a foul city filled with danger and decadence (I’m quite sure the Dreaming City of Immyr served as excellent inspiration for it), and quite a bit of the module is carefully dedicated to fleshing it out. In particular, the various drow houses and the intrigue involving those houses are developed nicely, making for a lot of excellent roleplaying opportunities. Yes … roleplaying opportunities. Like a lot of the early modules, the idea that “Vault” is simply a hackfest where all monsters are meant to be killed is something of a myth. It certainly can be played that way, but in the hands of the right DM and gaming group, it’s a fantastic adventure filled with enormous opportunities for pure roleplaying.

So … is it a good module?

I would say yes. In fact, I would venture to say it’s a great one … provided you’re a DM who likes to tinker with adventures, and who likes to improvise. But, to be honest, that’s always been my style of running adventures.

Modern modules, I think, took a cue from 3.5 and decided to explain how every last detail in an adventure could and should work. They’re largely written from the perspective of making sure a DM doesn’t ever need to improvise anything. They’re written instead with the idea that a DM certainly can improvise if he or she wants to … but that shouldn’t ever be a necessity. I certainly understand that sentiment – and can appreciate it, to some degree – but I think something gets lost when DMs don’t ever need to improvise on a large scale. Some of my better adventures came from improvising, and it’s a skill that gets better the more and more it gets used. When you never use it, you lose it as a tool in the proverbial storytelling arsenal.

Myself, I’d like to see more adventures head back in the direction of “Vault”, encouraging improvisation, and not mapping out every last bloody detail of an adventure to the nth degree. There’s no way you could write out a module like “Vault of the Drow” today in a modern style without it being some 256-page monstrosity with an additional 16 pages of maps, endless numbers of handouts, and an index from hell. It’s not a bad thing, mind you (I’d love to write that aforementioned 256-page monstrosity!), but it is different, and I’m not sure the way adventures are written in this modern style is necessarily “better” than the way modules like “Vault of the Drow” were written thirty-odd years ago.

Gary Gygax wrote a terrific, memorable module in just 28 pages.

It’s definitely worth a look, just to see a different gaming philosophy at work.

That … and drow – at least those penned by Gary Gygax – are awesomely evil.

That … and it’s just a damn good adventure.