Keith the Thief wrote:What can you tell me about The Ruins of the Undermountain?

eBay sellers appear to want $40-50.

Is this a reasonable price?

And also, is it fun?  What's it like?
I think megadungeons are just the bee's knees.
So if any of you have some thoughts on the dungeon that'd be just too cool for school.
Would my 12-yo son like it?
Would he think it's beast?

(Trying out new slang for the holidays.)

I once had a campaign that ran for almost three years, included a couple dozen players in all, and I used only just Volo's Guide To Waterdeep, City System Box, and the Undermountain Boxed set. You can easily get $50 or more play from the set. Definitely worth it.

Avoid Ruins II, it's not by Greenwood and it sucks.

The three modules were later add-ons, interesting but not at all required for play (neither is the later Skullport supplement). Let your own imagination fill in the blanks.

Mike B.

I'll echo several others here and say that "Ruins of Undermountain" is easily one of the best 2E boxed sets produced by TSR.  Get that and the aforementioned City System box and you've got five years' worth of campaign material straight out of the boxes, and double that if you put the time into expanding and fleshing out all the gray areas Greenwood left for the rest of us to customize.

Best of all, it's half the size, one-quarter the price, and ten times the content of "The World's Largest Dungeon".  One-stop shopping at its best.

Grodog's post got me thinking, so I did some checking of my own.

Dragon magazine posted quite a bit of Undermountain-related materials in the aftermath of the boxed set.

Issue 167 starts it all with Greenwood's own hints for using Undermountain for your own campaign.

Issue 172 gives us a three-page "Seeing the Sights in Skullport" article, which goes into greater depth about that other wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Issue 176 contains a Greenwood-penned expansion/update to Undermountain entitled, "If You Need Help--Ask The Drow!"  It's got a map and some new story ideas for Eilistraee's Promenade, which is the large ruined city a bit north and east from Skullport.

Issue 227 picks up the thread again with "Report From Undermountain", yet another update to help GMs take into account how the dungeon has changed in-game in the years since the set's original publication.  Plenty of rumors, half-truths, story and adventure hooks and NPCs to dump on a group of players who think they know the place inside and out.

Lastly, while it's not exactly related to the dungeon, the article "Aurora's Undermountain Sale" from issue 239 contains ideas for a lot of gear that a party of adventurers could profit from using if they decide to go spelunking down there.

Happy reading!

It also has a very nice dedication on the title page.

(Full disclosure: I'm the "Titan of Titan" mentioned in Ed's dedication.)