Ye Olde Inn

I have always loved Quest 10 Castle of Mystery. I guess it is just different than the other Quests in the starter set and it has made an everlasting mark in my mind through the years. I just wanted to see what everyone else thinks of the quest, the good the bad and the ugly. Don't forget to vote.

More than a few people on here despise that quest. I like it because it is a good way to split up the team. And can lead to hilarious outcomes.

See my thread on this http://forum.yeoldeinn.com/viewtopic.php?f=161&t=2864

This has been one of the least favorite quest of my family.

they cleared all the rooms easy enough, but got stuck with dice rolls for ages to get out again.

Yeah, getting out is kind of a drag, but I love it because it takes the dungeon questing in a different direction.

The good:
* It makes a strong statement for the unlimited craziness you can do simply with quest notes. This is a very important point!
* If nothing else it sure plays a lot different than most other quests.
* It lets the party experience to be alone.

The bad:
* The whole rolling dice and looking up where to go is a little tedious. This is a minor offence.
* Getting out can be a chore.
* The wizard can get unlucky and meet the chaos warrior alone.

The ugly:
* The entire premise of the quest is bullshit! Venture into a dangerous magical castle to search for some myth?
* If someone is greedy enough to try to carry the gold he is at danger - AND the gold turns out to be fake! Come on!
* The last point makes it a very boring quest to replay. You've discovered Ollar's goldmine; you may take... I DON'T CARE!
(You can sort of argue that it's really a quest for the Ring of Return if you play the NA version)

The quest itself has its perks, but IF it pulls too long like molten cheese, then the group is fraggled.
But the mechanic makes for some very interesting possibilities. For example, you can sprinkle the coincidences into any quest you like and build a quest in such a way that the heroes are coincidentally seperated.

I like the castle of mystery a lot. It is so different from the usual game play that it really provides an extra portion of fun.
Then, it is like a modern film with two major plot points. The first when they find out that they get beamed around, the second when they see it is fool's gold.

It has three little problems you can easily avoid: the wizard may jump two times instead of one time, and if he discards a spell before, then he can reroll both his jump rolls. That way you avoid the wizard vs the two chaos warrior problem.

The molten cheese problem is solved, I think, by saying that the quest is over when all monsters are dead. By that you have two quest exits, one by really leaving and one by killing. That should do it.

And finally, you may allow the heroes to find 50 real gold coins among the 5000 fools gold coins.

I really like that quest!

I have never run the quest as it would really piss my players off no end. Just not worth the discord at the table for me to feel comfortable running such a dungeon.

If I have 5000GP in a dungeon and it is fake, the first thing they would assume is that the fake gold is a dodge for the real treasure somewhere in the dungeon.
I'd have them soon plotting to take the building apart brick by brick if needed.
When I ran the AD&D classic Tomb of Horrors after I took a few heads...the party left, then returned with a construction company of Dwarves, a few hundred religious pilgrims and a handful of highly skilled mercenaries.
They "tore the mountain down, and brought it to the town and raised a cathedral to the gods in praise. Can I get an Amen?".
I got a handful of out of the box thinkers who can get obsessed with ease.
5000 fake gold would be just such a thing.

You have to know your players and choose the dungeons wisely. If a dungeon would not fit well with your players, then move on to greener pastures.

This was one of the first Quests I tried to run as the Evil Wizard player, some 10 years ago when I was an immature high school student. I made the one mistake you should never ever do with this Quest: during a side conversation about the gold mine about halfway through the Quest, I accidentally let slip that it wasn't real gold. Needless to say, the Quest ended soon afterwards. Fortunately, the Heroes at my table were my siblings and cousins, with whom I seldom play the same game more than twice (because we only see each other around the holidays).

I always liked the idea of the Quest, though. It's a very different experience from most of the others in the base set - rather than slay monsters, your objective is to get filthy stinking rich! If you count the victory condition as "bring at least one sack of gold from the mine to the entrance", it's also possible to complete it without slaying a single monster (first Hero gets an 8 going through the portal, then a 2 or 12 to return - a 0.8% chance). And finally, it's the only Quest that plays exactly the same whether you use a static board or a modular board.