Dungeons and Dragons gamers have been well-served with ready to play campaigns in recent years. A number of excellent campaigns, well-resourced and transferable to players’ own home created games, have been released, and ‘Dungeons & Dragons Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen’ is up there with the best of them.
One problem that many campaigns have when bought ‘off the shelf’ is the introduction, where the adventurers are introduced to the over-arcing narrative of the adventure and their place in it. This often involves interaction with Non-Playing Characters (NPCs), which can sometimes seem forced and awkward. Players sometimes have to be strongly influenced by Dungeon Masters into doing what needs to be done so that the game can progress as planned.
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Thankfully, the need to gently force players in the right direction is unnecessary with this encounter. Players should be able to find that things progress and flow naturally without the Dungeon Master having to make too many suggestions along the way.
Once players have reached the main part of the adventure, then things should really go well. One of the main strengths of this series of encounters is its use of Drow NPCs. While some players may have thought that encounters with the same creatures time after time may have been tedious, this was rarely the case.
The encounter showcases how a skillful Dungeon Master really can make the Drow work well, with each Drow having different skills and threats to pose to characters. Tedium was never an issue with the Drow, simply because of the great variety there is within this type of monster.
All in all, ‘Dungeons & Dragons Encounters: Web of the Spider Queen’ is highly recommended. Moderate to veteran gamers should really get a lot out of it and learn a lot about how to effectively role play their characters in a series of challenging and interesting scenarios.
