The Map with No Names is a level 1-4 adventure, the first of a trilogy, set in Waterdeep during the events of Dragon Heist. As a result, the city is full of people looking for treasure. The player characters join the fun when a local barkeep gives them a cryptic treasure map that was left behind in his bar; he initially thinks it must belong to the player, but eventually realises it doesn’t. However, as he has no idea who it could belong to, the adventurers might as well take it.
In this way, the scenario begins, and soon the characters are trying to follow the map to the treasure.
The adventure describes the map’s locations in four scenes. There’s an empty house hiding a band of smugglers, a restaurant within one of the famous Walking Statues of Waterdeep, and a gang hideout in the sewers. These three locations provide the clues the characters need to find the fourth location, an art gallery. At the art gallery, the players discover the final location. Unfortunately, it’s there the adventure ends, with a big “to be continued” sign and no good closure. As I mentioned in my last review, I’m not a fan of adventures that don’t give a satisfying resolution. If it’s going to be a week or more before my players play the next part, as is often the case in most non-convention games, I want each adventure to have a conclusion.
The adventure is a mix of excellent and awful ideas. Sometimes, the ideas are both. One of the conceits of the series is that many adventurers are following maps to the final location, and it seems probable that they’re all the same map. This isn’t the first adventuring party to follow the clues, so why can they find a pair of silver daggers and a note still there? Wouldn’t the daggers have been taken by the last adventurers? If the maps are all different, then that’s a lot of effort – which seems unlikely as well in the context of the story. However, the daggers and their accompanying note “for the shopkeep” are inspired, leading to some great play in the final encounter.
It is by no means assured that the players will encounter those daggers, however, as The Map with No Names makes the initial clue sufficient to find the solution, as one of our groups did. The other clues help players less familiar with this sort of puzzle. Find the second clue, and it’s very unlikely the third is needed. This could cut down the running time significantly; something that may cause issues if you expect it to provide entertainment for a set length of time!
The adventure is intended to last two hours, with two bonus encounters adding up to two hours. I love this idea, as it allows individual DMs to tailor the adventure to their needs. Unfortunately, one of the hooks for the bonus content is very weak – the players have just overcome the smugglers, so are they going to suddenly look for the lost wedding ring of one of them? The other bonus encounter, a group of rival adventurers trying to grab the PCs’ map, works much more effectively and helps strengthen the overall story.
Map is written in the new style of the Adventurers League. There’s no boxed text, but the structure of the text is more regular and predictable, with separate sections for terrain, monsters and treasure. Unfortunately, there are times that the layout displays a slavish devotion to form over utility. In one part of Map, the text describes a hidden cache with the clue needed. Then, after several more paragraphs and headings concerning NPCs, the author mentions that in that cache there’s additional treasure as well, something it’s very easy to miss. It’s often very difficult to determine how to run encounters, and it doesn’t help when the descriptions are rather bare bones. Dungeon Masters who are comfortable improvising are likely to find this adventure to their taste. If you’d like more to work with and more structured encounters, you’re likely to be disappointed.
The adventure is presented using professional-level formatting, with art taken from Wizards properties. It’s a very attractive product, but this leads into problems if you wish to print it; it’s very ink-hungry. There are a few irritating editing mistakes; the most problematic is that the adventure states two separate Average Party Levels. It’s meant to be APL 3, but the Dungeon Master Tips state its for APL 1 – a source of a few character deaths, from my understanding.
Despite the numerous problems I have with its presentation, we still enjoyed playing the adventure. This is an adventure that you can role-play your way past most of it, and it provides a range of different situations to explore. The story underpinning the trilogy is excellent, and there are wonderful moments that can come in the adventure. I just wish it was easier to understand and run.
I found this post by searching for “tips on running The Map with No Names”. I was searching for that because (as you’ve so succinctly expressed above) this adventure is possibly the most difficult module to follow that I’ve had the displeasure to read in a long time. Poor structure, no boxed text, absence of maps, information that forces you to jump back and forth around the document. Horrible. I’m running this in 2 weeks time at a convention. I’m finding it almost impossible to read through. It’s so dense that it provokes the kind of response that a boring set of terms and conditions would. Two sentences in and my mind wanders and I surf the internet for half an hour.
Rather than running this as part of Adventurers League, I dropped it in to chapter 2 of my Dragon Heist campaign. I think my players had fun with the puzzle, and they went through the adventure with only a single combat. It is confusing to me that the bonus objectives are included at the back of the module, and I always skip them.