I was super excited for this module when I backed it on Kickstarter, immediately steering my Chultan explorers towards the titular Jungle Tomb for some old-fashioned exploration.
First and foremost, the flavor and tone of this is book are both terrific. My players loved hearing the detailed descriptions of various features within the pyramid, as well as encountering the uniquely twisted monsters that live therein.
However, they did soon become disillusioned with the adventure. They didn't mind it having an old-school feel of lethality and challenge to it, but they also felt that there was no real reward for their exploration. Each room is either empty or has a potentially grissly death in it, with precious few rewards to be found that seemed worthwhile. In some rooms, my players would latch onto a bit of the (terrific) description and try to figure out a puzzle that didn't exist. They wanted to engage with the place, but as written, they couldn't.
As the DM, I obviously knew a sizable prize awaited them at the adventure's conclusion and that a few items of note were scattered about, but I found myself inserting rewards or puzzles to give them some feedback on their thorough investigation. This isn't unusual in old school modules - Ruins of Undermountain is notorious for it - but it didn't land with my players the way I had hoped.
I'll defintiely be running it again - as I loved the tone and style - but I'll learn from my first run-through and ensure that some of the 'dead rooms' have a bit more to them.
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