The other night our regular DM was out of town so we had some friends over to play my homebrew game instead of type VI D&D. I decided to run Operation Unfathomable. I backed the kickstarter and have the preview pdf (I actually went in for the combo OU and Odious Uplands which I think is going to take awhile). I did an hour or so of prep, making bullet points of some of the early descriptions, printing out the intro, the map and Oothu the henchman's stats. Giving them the list of items to choose. It all started well. Having the illustrations to show was great. But the play itself devolved into a routine of, "Well, we just go forward again." They ignored side-passages, slew the Mind Bats, and encountered a segmented giant who confiscated the Battle Axe of Spell Cleaving. Finally they spoke to a Null Priest about the party being held for the Worm Sultan.
I certainly didn't have the whole thing in my head as well as I would have liked and working from a PDF didn't help, but I think there was also a bit a situation where the gonzo-ness was layered on so thick the players weren't sure how to react. I meant to run a dungeon crawl, but it ended up feeling a bit like the Tomb of Annihilation jungle crawl we've been playing, where it's hard to feel like you are making a meaningful decision because each one leads you so far astray.
I can see Operation Unfathomable working as a really fun romp with the right group of people, it has amazing potential, but I think I would have done better in this case to offer a more traditional style dungeon like Barrowmaze or some such.
I wonder what other peoples' experiences have been like with Operation Unfathomable. Has anyone else besides the creator DM'd it yet?
Thanks for this! I worry about the gonzo aspect of this as well as anomalous subsurface environment, not so much for the themes or silliness, but people feeling that it's pointless or that they're not getting anywhere.
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