[Let's read] Dungeon magazine from the beginning... [Archive]

(un)reason

04-09-2008, 03:08 PM

I applaud your efforts and I look forward to following this thread.
I have advice for anyone else that may be considering such a move... please do not include a poll.
First: I don't think the poll really accomplishes much of anything when compared with how useful the thread will be as it nears completion. A poll is nice for a short and fluffy thread, but for a thread like this that could be very useful, it really detracts from the overall content.
Second: The poll takes up valuable real-estate on every single page of the thread. If the poll is long and the thread goes on for several pages, this just means a lot of useless scrolling for the readers.

Allow me to explain the reasoning behind my choice to include a poll with my thread. The reasons I included a poll were twofold. Firstly, it was to give me an idea of what people wanted to see most in my reviews, and thus allow me to tune my reviewing correspondingly. Secondly, it was to allow me to know how many discrete people had viewed and developed an active interest in the thread. In a thread like this, there are of course going to be many repeat views, so having an idea how many actual people are reading is handy for posterity. Thirdly... Wait a minute, I'll start again

The reasons I included a poll were threefold. Firstly, it was to give me an idea of what people wanted to see most in my reviews, and thus allow me to tune my reviewing correspondingly. Secondly, it was to allow me to know how many discrete people had viewed and developed an active interest in the thread. In a thread like this, there are of course going to be many repeat views, so having an idea how many actual people are reading is handy for posterity. Thirdly, it helps me set the tone of the thread straight away in a roundabout fashion by controlling the way my options are phrased. Fourthly.... Wait, I'll start again.

The reasons I included a poll were fourfold. Firstly, it was to give me an idea of what people wanted to see most in my reviews, and thus allow me to tune my reviewing correspondingly. Secondly, it was to allow me to know how many discrete people had viewed and developed an active interest in the thread. In a thread like this, there are of course going to be many repeat views, so having an idea how many actual people are reading is handy for posterity. Thirdly, it helps me set the tone of the thread straight away in a roundabout fashion by controlling the way my options are phrased. Fourthly, I just like including polls and gathering statistical data. It pleases me to have solid numbers for opinions, progressions and demographics, as its something I can analyse and interpret in a rigorous fashion. Fifthly..... Wait, I'll start again.

The reasons I included a poll were fivefold. Firstly, it was to give me an idea of what people wanted to see most in my reviews, and thus allow me to tune my reviewing correspondingly. Secondly, it was to allow me to know how many discrete people had viewed and developed an active interest in the thread. In a thread like this, there are of course going to be many repeat views, so having an idea how many actual people are reading is handy for posterity. Thirdly, it helps me set the tone of the thread straight away in a roundabout fashion by controlling the way my options are phrased. Fourthly, I just like including polls and gathering statistical data. It pleases me to have solid numbers for opinions, progressions and demographics, as its something I can analyse and interpret in a rigorous fashion. Fifthly, a multiple choice poll to stephenls is like a red rag to a bull, so I made it like that because I knew he'd click every option just for the fun of it. Its a running gag. :cool: Sixthy...... there is no sixthly. Please don't hurt me.

hida_jiremi

04-09-2008, 10:52 PM

Well, I'm getting started early, so let's crack this bad lad open and see what's inside.

Dungeon Magazine, Issue 1
No date listed on the cover, 64 pages with a cover price of $3.75. The year is 1986, and at this point the publication is bi-monthly.

Cover Art: A pretty decent (for the era) depiction of an attacking red dragon surrounded by its hoard. This is meant to be Flame, the dragon villain of the adventure "Into the Flames." Art by Keith Parkinson.

Issue Quote: "Sorry! I don’t want any adventures, thank you. Not today." -Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien
(Dungeon Magazine traditionally includes a fantasy-themed quote in the table of contents area each issue.)

Notes: The editor for the starting run of Dungeon is Roger E. Moore - not the actor, but rather an alumnus of my college, the University of Kentucky. His editorial discusses his introduction to D&D through a friend named Sheila Wise, a fellow student at UK, including an amusing anecdote about using beans for miniatures. He also talks about the magazine's intention to "offer as broad a spectrum of material as possible." We'll see.

Letters: People suggesting names for the new magazine (including "Wyrm"), and at least one guy complaining that he doesn't want a new magazine since he wants that material to stay in Dragon. One guy ecstatic about the idea. Someone suggests that future issues review the adventures from past issues, to which Moore responds that it would be prohibitive in space and outside their scope.

Interior Art: Black and white art from the AD&D 1E era. Not especially bad examples thereof, but hardly epic fantasy art.

Adventures

"The Dark Tower of Calibar": AD&D, 4-8 characters of 4th-7th level. Ah. yeah, remember that old-school level spread. A reminder of how falling damage is calculated at the beginning of the module, and a reference to the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide having revised falling rules. This adventure was derived from a tournament module, and it shows. The adventure jumps almost immediately into the opening text, without much explanation for the DM about what's going on. Even the section that is for the DM mostly just explains that the encounters are really deadly.
Basic premise is that the city of Stoutwall has had the throne usurped by a wizard named Calibar. The prince escaped through luck, lost almost everything he had through bad luck, and has now returned, old enough to claim the crown. Unfortunately, it's been stolen by a vampire, and the PCs are hired to take it back from the creature... who has taken refuge in Calibar's old, pre-conquest tower.

"Assault on Eddistone Point": AD&D, 3-5 characters of 1st-3rd level. Unlike later issues of Dungeon, adventures aren't in level order throughout the magazine. I'm not actually sure what method they're using to determine what order the adventures are in (if there is one). Advice that a ranger, cleric, and dwarf would be helpful in the level and intro text.
A lot more intro flavor text in this adventure. Background for the region the adventure is set in mostly, including talk about a series of wars that rocked the region until a bunch of druids came in and enforced the peace, starting an organization of rangers to uphold the treaty. Communication in the region is done with signal mirrors, and a magic-user has recently been hired to replace the existing system with continual light spells inside shuttered boxes. The magic-user and her party have now vanished en route, and the local mayor has hired the PCs to find them all. He can't involve the druids or rangers for... certain reasons.

"Grakhirt's Lair": AD&D, 4-8 characters of 1st-3rd level. I didn't recognize the monsters in the splash art for this adventure until I was reading the text. Norkers! The adventure is about freaking norkers! There's also a note in the opening text that the flinds in this adventure have had their alignments modified to be chaotic evil, like their gnoll cousins, rather than their usual alignment.
A small town is having serious problems with raids by norkers (*snigger*). The local militia organized to defend themselves, but they were so outnumbered that the norkers wound up demolishing them and killing a quarter of the town's population. After the battle, everyone was curious how a bunch of normally chaotic creatures could have become so organized. (No joke!) A druidess has come bearing news that the norkers have organized under a powerful and charismatic leader named Grakhirt, and that if he were eliminated, the norkers would most likely scatter to the winds.
I find it kind of interesting that druids play a major part in the backstory of two out of the three adventures I've looked at so far. Is that indicative of the times, I wonder?

"The Elven Home": Basic D&D, 1-4 characters of 1st-3rd level. The adventure starts as the party is traveling off-road through forested hills in the early afternoon. Essentially, this is the first side trek, a short adventure that can be plopped down in the middle of travel to break up the monotony. If I remember correctly, there are going to be a lot of these "adventure happens while on the way to somewhere else" adventures.
Basically, the PCs stumble across a huge tree in the wilderness with a small stream flowing out from its roots and smoke coming from somewhere near it. Gas bubbles up out of the water that gets you high if you breathe it. The smoke is coming out of a hole in the ground that leads to some exploration. Short and kind of pointless, but still nifty.

"Into the Fire": AD&D, 6-10 characters of 6th-10th level. Holy crap, that's a big recommended party! Also, this is the iconic "first adventure from Dungeon Magazine." They keep coming back to it over the years, including two (?) sequel adventures. The intro text says that you can alter names to fit your game, but the adventure assumes a small kingdom with a mountainous western border. Spoilers ahead. (Included to show how convoluted the whole thing is.)
In the backstory, a young prince was sent overseas many years ago, but his ship was ambushed by pirates and the prince was sold into slavery. His silver medallion of office was taken by a red dragon named Flame after the dragon later destroyed the pirates. Fifteen years later, some knights disturb Flame, all get eaten but one, and the survivor steals the silver necklace during his escape. The dragon can't hunt the knight immediately because of a powerful blizzard, figures he'll die in it and the necklace will be okay until the snow dies down.
The knight finds a gnome (!) community and entrusts them with a sacred duty before he dies from his wounds and exposure: return his body and the necklace to a nearby fort. The necklace is returned to the king, who enlists a band of adventurers to discover how it got into the mountains and what threat might be lurking on the kingdom's western border. The knight was delirious by the time of his death and could only tell the gnomes something about "fire and flames," rather than what the problem actually was. The king's instructions also make it pretty clear that he hopes his son is still alive for the party to find. This begins a trek into the wilderness.

"Guardians of the Tomb": AD&D, 2-6 characters of 3rd-5th level. Geez, how many adventures are in this issue anyway? This is another short one that takes place at an abandoned shrine to a god of thieves. It can be dropped into an ongoing game or adventure, possibly as the PCs are traveling to somewhere else. Not really much to this one: small shrine in the middle of a swamp with some stuff in it. Not really inspiring or even that memorable.

Whew. One down, 149 to go!

Jeremy Puckett

Skiorht

04-09-2008, 11:08 PM

"The Elven Home": Basic D&D, 1-4 characters of 1st-3rd level. The adventure starts as the party is traveling off-road through forested hills in the early afternoon. Essentially, this is the first side trek, a short adventure that can be plopped down in the middle of travel to break up the monotony. If I remember correctly, there are going to be a lot of these "adventure happens while on the way to somewhere else" adventures.

These short adventures were my favourites back then. Many of the larger scenarios had too much backstory to fit our campaign, but small encounters were really good.

hida_jiremi

04-10-2008, 12:22 AM

And another one in quick succession!

Dungeon Magazine, Issue 2
November/December 1986. So the previous issue is probably September/October. Still 64 pages.

Cover Art: A much more complicated piece than the last one. A crew of pirates are looking toward shore at a village built into a mountainside that is currently erupting into a volcano. The female captain has a low-cut blouse, 80s hair, and no pants. Kinda hawt, in a cheesy sort of way. You can definitely tell the era from this one. Art by Clyde Caldwell.

Issue Quote: "Quests may not be simply abandoned; prophecies may not be left to rot like unpicked fruit; unicorns may go unrescued for a time, but not forever." -Prince Lir, The Last Unicorn, Peter S. Beagle

Notes: Roger is now the editor for both Dungeon and Dragon Magazines, and Robin Jenkins is assistant editor for both magazines. There were apparently some mistakes in issue 1, which are corrected in the letters column. They're planning on doing more Basic D&D modules by public demand, and are looking for more short, quickly-played adventures.

Letters: A few suggestions on what to name the Letters column; Moore is going to keep it simply "Letters" for now, though (much) later it becomes "Prison Mail." Questions about submissions for adventures, art and maps, including payment. Reminders to send a self-addressed stamped envelope. Addressing concerns about international readership, mentioning that the first issue wasn't available outside of Canada and America.

Errors from Issue 1: Two map labels were left off Dungeon Level 1, page 9 ("Dark Tower of Calibar"). The orcs in areas 30 and 32 have 1 HD; the orcs in area 32 can be on either side of the bridge. In "Grakhirt's Lair," the magical fountain is in room 26 (not room 22), and the mud-men are in room 25 (not room 21). An author's biographical sketch was dropped by accident.

Adventures

"The Titan's Dream": AD&D, 2-8 characters of 5th-9th level. Recommends that characters should be flexible in their problem-solving. They discuss scaling the adventure, since the puzzles are more important than the monsters in this module.
The princess of Greamarie, a small island nation, is to marry the son of the Doge of Falaigrea in order to end hostilities between their two countries. Unfortunately, the doge's son is cruel and arrogant, and the king loves his daughter, making him loathe to consent to the marriage. To solve the problem, the king hire adventurers to consult with a titan named Andromicus, who is supposed to have oracular powers. The party arrives on the titan's island to find him asleep on his throne. Right after they arrive, a grey mist picks up and draws the party to elsewhere. The adventure itself is pretty nonlinear. There are a bunch of "acts" to complete, but they can be done in pretty much any order.

"In the Dwarven King's Court": AD&D, 3-6 characters of 3rd-5th level. The art for this one makes dwarven nobles look pretty much like Saxons. The party is recommended to be friendly toward dwarves and predominantly good-aligned.
The adventure is set in a small dwarven kingdom ruled by married monarchs who have long sought to avoid war in otherwise dangerous times. Another dwarven kingdom neighboring this one has started to become aggressive in attempts to open new markets, but it hasn't turned violent yet. The peaceful monarch proposes a treaty between the two nations, but many don't trust the aggressive nation, since they're comprised mostly of hill dwarves. Racism ahoy! The two have exchanged gifts, including a jeweled sword presented to the peaceful king.
The adventure begins when the sword is stolen the day before the treaty signing. Showing up without it would be a grave insult, so adventurers are needed to investigate and suss out where it's disappeared to. Actually a pretty intriguing, multi-layered investigation adventure with a surprise ending.

"Caermor": AD&D, 4-8 characters of 2nd-4th level. A small farming village named Caermor is situated in some rocky highlands, like Scotland. Some short discussion of local flavor, like the dourness of the natives and its community alignment. Some talk that the inhabitants have dwarven blood, and the natives worship an obscure storm god. The town is in some sort of trouble, but they're too stubborn to ask outsiders for help, and the few adventurers that have already come to Caermor have not returned.
The village's trouble started about seven weeks back, with missing sheep, then dead sheep, then mutilated sheep, then cows and property damage. Four weeks ago, the first human victim was claimed, and now there is a strict sunset curfew in place. The townsfolk blame a wandering artist who moved into town some time back, since his local sweetheart was one of the first human victims, but when they went to accuse him, he was missing.
The adventure doesn't have a hook, as such. It mostly just assumes that the PCs show up in Caermor, figure out that something is wrong in town, and decide to take care of it without being asked. I guess PCs in this era were real busybodies. XD

"The Keep at Koralgesh": Basic D&D, 6-8 characters of 1st-3rd level. Again, kind of a large party recommendation, though this one admits that the adventure is kind of tough and that most of the party be above 1st level. Some commentary on using narration to describe monsters and attacks instead of just the mechanics. Interesting to look back at an era where that was necessary to mention.
The flavor text opens with the story of Koralgesh, a semi-legendary keep built into the side of a mountain on the coasts of the Western Sea. The keep was attacked by a pirate fleet at the height of their most holy festival, slaughtering every inhabitant of the city. When the last citizen had fallen, the mountain erupted in rage and the ensuing volcano swallowed up the keep and the pirates that had killed its people.
The adventure starts in a small town where the local dwarven blacksmith is the son of the royal blacksmith of Koralgesh. He claims to know where the lost keep is, and that it is still filled with amazing treasures. He agrees to tell the PCs where the keep is if they agree to bring him his father's hammer in return. Overall, a pretty standard "some guy knows the location of a great treasure" adventure. Some of the obscure monsters have a pronunciation guide with them, which is neat.

Overall: The adventures in this issue seem a lot more detailed, both in backstory and in terms of encounter complexity. A lot of improvement in just one issue. Or maybe they just refined exactly what it is they wanted, or had a better pool to draw from after their first issue.

Jeremy Puckett

brianm

04-10-2008, 02:06 AM

MonsterMash

04-11-2008, 12:55 AM

This is really useful. Best of luck in getting it done.

Skiorht

04-11-2008, 01:07 AM

The large parties may be due to some folks using the hirelings and henchmen rules for D&D and AD&D. We didn't use them much in my groups, but I've since learned that some groups never went anywhere without a team of henchmen in tow.

Ayup. Hirelings and henchmen were an expected part of many older adventures. It's funny how the rules never really suggested that you should hire these people, but if you read between the lines, their inclusion was assumed. It was also fairly common to run two PCs for every player to cover all the niches. In our games the cleric was almost always a secondary PC.

Skiorht

04-11-2008, 01:10 AM

"In the Dwarven King's Court": AD&D, 3-6 characters of 3rd-5th level. The art for this one makes dwarven nobles look pretty much like Saxons. The party is recommended to be friendly toward dwarves and predominantly good-aligned.
The adventure is set in a small dwarven kingdom ruled by married monarchs who have long sought to avoid war in otherwise dangerous times. Another dwarven kingdom neighboring this one has started to become aggressive in attempts to open new markets, but it hasn't turned violent yet. The peaceful monarch proposes a treaty between the two nations, but many don't trust the aggressive nation, since they're comprised mostly of hill dwarves. Racism ahoy! The two have exchanged gifts, including a jeweled sword presented to the peaceful king.
The adventure begins when the sword is stolen the day before the treaty signing. Showing up without it would be a grave insult, so adventurers are needed to investigate and suss out where it's disappeared to. Actually a pretty intriguing, multi-layered investigation adventure with a surprise ending.

I remember running this one. It was certainly one of the better adventures of its day. The only problem was that it made some assuptions about Dwarven culture that weren't necessarily true in many campaigns. Still, we had a good time with this one.

InfernalTeddy

04-12-2008, 04:55 AM

Another interesting thread to watch :)

Chade

04-12-2008, 11:17 AM

Wait till you get to the Willie Walsh adventures. Don't know whatever happened to him, but he was a great adventure writer.

Redfeild

04-12-2008, 11:49 AM

So far, so good.
I loved Dungeon. For the price of a magazine you got around five adventures to play with.
I wish you would not skip Pollyhedron though I am probably the only guy in all the world that liked Pollyhedron better than Dungeon. I thought it was a great atempt at showing what D&D 3.0 could do. There was a cool Delta Green adventure that was a great read. It made me check out the D20 Call of Cthulhu.

pspahn

04-12-2008, 03:39 PM

Sweet! Only 55 more issues to go until you start getting to mine. :)

Pete

hida_jiremi

04-12-2008, 09:39 PM

I'd like to take a minute to thank everyone for the encouragement so far. I only hope that I can keep up with the project. Without further ado...

Dungeon Magazine, Issue 3
January/February 1987, 64 pages

Cover Art: A kind of epic-looking piece with this huge bearded wizard guy in the sky over a burning/exploding city. He's holding a book with a glowing omega symbol on the cover, and energy is streaming from it to shatter the city (which looks vaguely Greek). In the foreground, a small group of people is fleeing the city, including a hollow-eyed woman with a baby, a blood-spattered youth, and a soldier, who is looking up at the asshole smiting them.

Issue Quote: "...go from here eastwards and pass the fields we know, till you see the lands that clearly pertain to faery; and cross their boundary..." -The Lord of Erl, The King of Elfland's Daughter, Lord Dunsany

Notes: Roger complains that they've fallen behind on their evaluation of module submissions, but that they've reviewed a lot of them. He mentions that nobody seems to like illusionists, since in submitted modules they always seem to be evil. Crazy wizards also seem to be really common, as well as generic evil hordes. "One would not expect all bandit gangs to look alike," he says, "or even all orc tribes, but many have a distressing sameness about them, as if they were clipped straight from the Monster Manual." Right there with you, Rog.

Letters: More questions about submissions and guidelines. Roger mentions that it might be a good idea holding off on sending in modules for the next six months or so, since they're pretty flooded right now. A note that there are no dungeon modules for chaotic or neutral-alignment characters, to which the response is that many published adventures can be used as-is if the motivations of the characters are made selfish instead of noble. Some worries expressed about players picking up the magazine and reading it before the DM. Yeah, that was a problem sometimes.

Adventures

"Falcon's Peak": AD&D, 5-8 characters of 1st-3rd level. Party should include a thief and an experience cleric; a ranger would help. The notes advise use of stealth and silvered or magical weapons. The background includes a century-old fortress called Falcon's Peak, built by a fairly unoriginal brigand named Lord Falcon. The surrounding kingdoms finally got fed up with him, and destroyed his brigands after a two-day battle, but didn't find Falcon, his family, or his treasure. Surviving brigands claimed that Falcon and his family killed themselves after hiding the treasure.
The PCs have been attracted to Falcon's Peak by rumors of the lost wealth. Pretty simple, really. A very standard "dungeon-crawl for treasure" adventure notable only for the couple of groan-worthy puns in the adventure text.

"Blood on the Snow": AD&D, 3-7 characters of 3rd-7th level. Fighters, rangers, and barbarians are very helpful, as well as secondary skills that have to do with wilderness stuff. This is an investigation adventure, with the PCs becoming undercover agents. This is one of the earlier time-based adventures, with events happening on a timeline if the PCs don't intervene to change it.
As the name might suggest, the adventure takes place in the arctic north, in late winter. Part of the backstory includes hunting seals for their fur near a merchant town called Winterwolf. The locals used to fight the merchants, but they eventually came to a profitable agreement. Now, both sides are harassed by bandits who steal the furs from them. Their coordination is so good that the local guildmaster believes that there's a traitor in the hunting parties. The PCs are hired to accompany the hunting party, ostensibly as replacements for dead and injured hunters, but really to root out the traitor. Kind of cool stuff.

"The Deadly Sea": AD&D, 4-8 characters of 4th-7th level. An underwater adventure! These were always annoying to players! This one advises the use of magic to aid undersea survival, marine skills, and the ability to open locks. The adventure begins at a generic seaport devised by the DM.
The adventure opens with the PCs hearing a story from an old sailor about a cleric who loved the sea and built a fortress in the side of a 300-foot-high cliff to overlook it. He married an aquatic elf and had two children with her; his wife went to look for magical treasures for their spellcasting daughter, but disappeared on one such trip, kidnapped by tritons. She died in their captivity, and the cleric assembled an invasion of the triton kingdom in revenge. He and his children got help from a storm giant, who drove the tritons from their home, leaving it empty. In the midst of the chaos, pirates invaded the area and conquered the cleric's fastness, killed most of his followers, and used it as a base to loot the triton city.
The fisherman liked the cleric and his family, usually selling his catch to them, and he would really like the PCs to help him find out if they're still alive. He doesn't offer a reward or anything; he just sort of assumes they'll do it out of the goodness of their hearts. This adventure could just as easily be set on land for as little as it takes advantage of being underwater. A weak hook, and a pretty uninspiring adventure overall. I also wonder how this sailor knew so much about the situation...

"The Book With No End": AD&D, 6-8 characters of 8th-12th level. A magic-user is required. Apparently, according to the notes, the author was tired of characters getting "nice" magic items and specifically wrote this adventure to punish greedy PCs. I guess this was back far enough that the "evil artifact" adventure was a new idea.
The PCs are contacted for hiring by a mage who wants them to search for a magic item he's been researching. (Note: When they meet him, his robes constantly swirl in a magical breeze. How do we get that?! An early example of the "a wizard did it" handwave that I freaking hate.) He's obsessed with magical books, and has nearly all of them except for The Book With No End. He's pretty blithe about the fact that the last wizard to own the damn thing accidentally turned a jungle into a desert. Regardless, he's found the old wizard's home and wants the PCs to trek through the desert to it and recover the book. Is there some reason that he can't just teleport there with them?
Their boss instructs them not to use the Book, and then sends them off. There's lots of backstory for the DM that the PCs will probably never find out unless they don't toddle off like they're told and instead spend a few weeks researching the Book. The tower of the old mage (named Magus... sweet jeebus) is a fairly standard puzzle/trap dungeon. It even has rhyming puzzles and a chessboard trap. Very hackneyed from the modern eye. Not a bad dungeon, overall, but full of the sort of things that make you wonder if Intelligence is really a wizard's best stat.

Generally speaking, this issue is full of fairly generic and unoriginal stuff. Even the one different adventure in it is kind of slow and has a weak ending. Not a classic issue.

Jeremy Puckett

DJorgensen

04-12-2008, 11:13 PM

damn, seeing as I just bought the first 110 issues of White Dwarf at auction, maybe I should start a thread like this for that magazine, covering the first 93 issues. :D

(un)reason

04-13-2008, 01:59 AM

(Note: When they meet him, his robes constantly swirl in a magical breeze. How do we get that?! An early example of the "a wizard did it" handwave that I freaking hate.) Its the inclusion of little touches like this in a non-fiaty manner that are why I love Arcana Evolved so much.

damn, seeing as I just bought the first 110 issues of White Dwarf at auction, maybe I should start a thread like this for that magazine, covering the first 93 issues. :D

Go for it. ( I'd already put a note to that effect in my review of issue 9 of Dragon, which is from the same date that WD started) (damn you for mentioning this before I posted that up) The more the merrier, or at least the less we feel like we're undergoing an an endless slog with no reward or support. :cool: Plus OGO hasn't seen a really epic thread since interest in Urban Dead died down a couple of years ago.

Singing Smurf

04-13-2008, 05:12 AM

Excellent thread - SUB-scribed!

-S.

DJorgensen

04-13-2008, 08:52 AM

Go for it. ( I'd already put a note to that effect in my review of issue 9 of Dragon, which is from the same date that WD started) (damn you for mentioning this before I posted that up) The more the merrier, or at least the less we feel like we're undergoing an an endless slog with no reward or support. :cool: Plus OGO hasn't seen a really epic thread since interest in Urban Dead died down a couple of years ago.

The first 93 issues were the "D&D years," which is why I mentioned stopping at that point; 93 was the last issue with a D&D article, 100 was the issue it converted to house organ. So my thread wouldn't go in OGO.

(un)reason

04-13-2008, 09:50 AM

The first 93 issues were the "D&D years," which is why I mentioned stopping at that point; 93 was the last issue with a D&D article, 100 was the issue it converted to house organ. So my thread wouldn't go in OGO.

Ahh, that makes sense.

hida_jiremi

04-14-2008, 02:17 AM

Dungeon Magazine, Issue 4
March/April 1987, 64 pages

Cover Art: A big lout with tusks (according to the art notes, a half-ogre) is getting ready to pummel a shorter guy with pointed ears and a beard (probably a gnome) in what seems to be a tavern. This is the weakest cover art they've had so far; it just isn't very good at all.

Issue Quote: "No road is ever old." -Kender saying, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
I'd like to note that I think it's a little tacky to have an opening quote from one of your company's own products, putting it in the same category as the classics that have been used so far. But whatever.

Notes: Editorial this issue is from Barbara Young, the assistant editor of Dungeon, instead of from Roger. She opens up saying that her first assignment was to read through more modules in two weeks than she did in the two years she spent as a games editor. She grouses that too many of the submissions are too complex or not written in an interesting style; they're looking for simpler adventures than stand-alone modules. She includes a short list of "turn-offs" for module writing and design. She mentions that her tone might seem harsh - and she's right. Even if all of her suggestions are right on the money, the way she expresses them makes the staff of Dungeon sound like complete assholes. At least they're caught up on the backlog now.

Letters: A note about a mistake in "Falcon's Peak." Questions about purchasing back issues. A complaint that subscription issues show up damaged, and a response that essentially comes down to "sorry, but too bad." A letter noting that a good DM can convert just about any module he gets to suit his campaign. Questions about using rules from non-core D&D books in module submissions. (Nice to see some things haven't changed.) A request that the magazine not publish adventures for Asian settings; the response is that they aren't planning to right now, but they might someday.

Adventures

"Kingdom in the Swamp": AD&D, 6th to 9th level characters; no number of PCs specified. The adventure opens with a halfling thief locally known as a nuisance claiming that he recently returned from a trip to the southern jungles. Most locals know that he left with a bunch of adventurers a few months ago and came back without them, and they think he robbed them and ran off. Box text of the halfling telling his story to the PCs.
Apparently their native guide got bitten by a poisonous snake, and they got invited back to his village after saving his life. The halfling can't help being a thief and sneaks into the tribe's sacred shrine to steal their gold idol. The village priest catches him, and his party has to flee without any supplies. When they got to a nearby swamp, the natives gave up pursuit. In the swamp, they find the decrepit castle of an eccentric gentleman who lets them spend the night, where they are promptly attacked by a giant bat who turns into the gentleman. He's a vampire! The halfling wants the party to go back to the castle with him and either save his remaining friends or avenge them.

"Escape from the Tower of Midnight": AD&D, 2-5 thieves of 2nd-4th level. This is interesting in that it's the first "one class only" adventure. The PCs are all assumed to be imprisoned at the start of the adventure without much of any equipment. The backstory given to the PCs is that the local region is being torn apart by a guild war between two thieves' guilds. Any thief not part of a guild is hunted down and killed by the other one; independent thieves are killed by both.
After gathering in a tavern, a guardsman drafts everyone in it to fight a warehouse fire; the warehouse in question is the headquarters of the PC thieves' gang. Going to investigate, the PCs are all captured by the rival guild and taken to its HQ, where it's explained that they'll all be put to death in two days, "in accordance with tradition." What a shitty tradition; shouldn't they just kill their enemies? The PCs are given some basic equipment by a turncoat in their ranks and left to their own devices to escape.

"Fluffy Goes to Heck": AD&D, 4-6 characters of 3rd-5th level. This is intended to be a silly adventure, and they include six silly pregen PCs for use. The backstory includes a vegetable god named Succotash, a rotten shipment of rutabagas that offends his followers, and the sending of expendably heroes (the PCs) to investigate the problem. Arriving at the town that produces the cult's veggies, the area is gloomy and uninhabited except for a stranger with an alignment of Grumpy Good. It only gets more bizarre and ludicrous from there. Surprisingly, this adventure is actually quite funny, kind of in the same vein as the modules from the parody collection Castle Greyhawk.

"Trouble at Grog's": AD&D, 1st-level characters. Half-orcs and half-ogres would be pretty welcome in this one, it notes. This is a pretty hefty adventure, taking up a good third of the issue. The adventure is set in a small town called Dagger Rock, where a half-ogre named Grog has decided to settle down and build an inn. It has good food, hospitality, and low prices, and it doesn't discriminate. At first, the townsfolk liked the place; now, there's a local crime wave and the villagers think that Grog or his patrons might be responsible.
The PCs are new heroes in town, just starting out, and it's assumed that they're spending a good deal of time at Grog's, taking advantage of the low prices and looking for work. The adventure really begins when the party is woken up on the first night of the adventure timeline by a fire in the inn. The next day, assuming the PCs helped put out the fire, Grog asks them to help figure out who's been harassing his business and giving his customers a bad rep. Anyone who's played this sort of adventure before will probably figure out the "mystery" about five minutes into it.
They do a pretty thorough reprint of necessary half-ogre stats from Dragon #73. There's also some discussion of half-breed society and the racism against them. They also mention comeliness as it relates to half-ogres. Ah, comeliness! What a horrible idea you were!

Overall, the adventure in this issue are much better than the last one, even if the art is weaker. As a note: at this point, halflings still had hairy feet.

Jeremy Puckett

Crazy Jerome

04-14-2008, 06:58 AM

Wait till you get to the Willie Walsh adventures. Don't know whatever happened to him, but he was a great adventure writer.

Seconded. I think the peak of the magazine is over the time his 12 adventures appeared. It wasn't just Walsh, as there were some other people writing as well, but Walsh was sort of the mascot of the era. :)

hida_jiremi

04-17-2008, 10:52 PM

Dungeon Magazine, Issue 5
May/June 1987, 64 pages

Cover Art: A cloaked wizardy-looking guy is shielding his face from a wind that's playing merry hob with his library. Behind him is a big black cloud with an evil face formed in it, and in front of him two pageboys in blue smocks are running away. For some reason, a kobold in a tabard is also present, running away.

Issue Quote: "What matters it how far we go? his scaly friend replied / There is another shore, you know, upon the other side." -The Mock Turtle, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Notes: The editor's column once again starts off with Roger talking about how flooded they are with modules, for both AD&D and D&D Basic/Expert. Chances for acceptance with a submitted adventure are very slim, and they recommend waiting at least six months before contacting them to ask about it. (That's pretty much going to be the way of things from here on out, as I recall.) Barbara continues with a question about what books they expect DMs to have successfully run Dungeon modules. (Not everyone can be expected to have all six game books, she says!) Talks a little about the interactivity of the magazine, since it's meant to be used and not just read. Though they do try to make them fun to read as well, for the small portion of the non-DM populace reading the magazine. A little bit about adapting adventures, or even just bits and pieces thereof, to your own game.

Letters: A subscriber writes in hoping for more Basic D&D modules. The reply is that only around 10 percent of the adventures they receive are D&D module for any level. A few letters indicating that people want more short adventures and less long ones. A note that in "Falcon's Peak," there's a fight that will almost assuredly level-drain the beejesus out of the participants, and that a mage in the adventure has ludicrously stupid tactics. A complaint that one of the traps in "Book With No End" is basically instant-death. A lot of discussion that basically comes down to "PCs are really clever, and your adventures don't do enough to account for that." A question about subscription rates. A worry that Dungeon might wind up printing adventures that aren't D&D or AD&D; no worries there, they say.

Adventures

"The Rotting Willow": AD&D, 4-6 characters of 7th-9th level. Low to moderate magic access is recommended. Another adventure intended to be dropped in while the PCs are traveling from one place to another. It takes place in a village called Rotting Willow. Gee, that doesn't sound suspicious or creepy at all. Plot basically is "The PCs are in a troubled village that doesn't want to talk about their problems or ask for help." Didn't we do this one already?

"Lady of the Lake": AD&D, 4-8 characters of 1st level. A cleric, magic-user and ranger would be ideal for the party. The adventure is intended to be the kick-start for a new campaign, and it assumes that all of the PCs are new adventurers just getting their start in the world. The characters are traveling to find adventure when adventure finds them. I guess there are only so many hooks you can use for modules.
The PCs find a pretty girl lying next to the road, bleeding to death, with a bruise on her neck where someone tore a necklace or other piece of jewelry off her. She begs the characters to take her to someplace called Orb Lake. If they try to heal her, none of their mundane attempts work, and magic only closes the immediate wounds but leaves her close to death. An escort quest.

"The Stolen Power": AD&D, 4-6 characters of 1st-3rd level. Lawful Good characters are recommended for this adventure; some notes that clerics of several specific gods also have a vested interest in this one. The adventure starts in Highwater, a large fishing town on the shores of a large freshwater sea. The local clerics have been plagued by thefts, and last night a particularly valuable magic item (a book of infinite spells) was stolen from them. They have one clue: the name "Hadonis" scrawled on a dropped scrap of paper. Divinations have determined that the scrap is a real clue and not a false lead; why couldn't they use that for the investigation? The robbed temple hires the heroes to make the dangerous wilderness trek to find the thief and recover the book.

"The Kappa of Pachee Bridge": AD&D, 3-5 characters of 2nd-5th level. An Oriental Adventures module! The issue after they said they probably wouldn't do any of these for a while! The heroes are passing through Pachee (!) when the frantic villagers beg them for help. Finally, a group of villagers who are willing to ask adventurers to help them instead of hiding their troubles dramatically.
Apparently, a local kappa (named "The Boy of the Bridge") has started stealing children, which he hasn't done in decades. Five children are missing, as well as an older man and a traveling merchant who was expected days ago. The villagers claim that it can't be killed by swords, and that it's very ancient and full of evil knowledge. Many years ago, the kappa was helped by the headman's father, and it gave him a magic bowl that turned any food placed in it to become the finest quality; the kappa has loaned it to them several times, and they've always given it back, so the kappa isn't always bad. Interestingly, it seems that the missing children really are dead.

"The Trouble With Mylvin Wimbly": Basic D&D, 6-10 characters of 1st-3rd level. The party is preferred to have at least one halfling. Yet another adventure that starts on the way between two places. The party jumps right into the adventure when they find a halfling digging through their stuff one night while camping in the woods. The opening of the adventure is extremely scripted, enough so that it feels awkward and railroady. The halfling gets away with something so valuable that the party has to chase after him to get it back. Heavy-handed use of alignment is a big deal in this adventure too. Was it that important basic in Basic?

"The Eyes of Evil": AD&D, 5-8 characters of 10th level or higher. At least one paladin should be included, and the party should own several powerful magic items. While stopping in a random town, the party is approached by a middle-aged elf who wants to hire them to rescue his village from a pack of manticores and a large gang of bandits. A local cleric's auguries have determined that some greater evil dwells in the caves they're using as a lair. He can't offer much, since his village is poor, but he hopes that the PCs will help for a small reward and the friendship of an entire town. Overall, a pretty uninspiring and generic adventure.

"Hirward's Task": AD&D, 5-8 characters of 4th-8th level. This one is a little different, since it recommends that a mostly neutral party would be best for the adventure. Improvised encounters in "empty" parts of the dungeon are also suggested. While stopping in a small village, the party is approached by a wizard who knows them by reputation and is looking for some help. Earlier in the day, he had a serious accident in his lab and was driven out by an elemental he summoned. He can't deal with it himself because his spells are mostly expended, and his spellbook is in his lab. He needs some adventurers to enter his complex and dispatch the elemental for him.
This adventure is interesting in that the PCs are traveling in a "dungeon" that was built by their direct employer. He doesn't want his home looted, his servants killed, or his possessions damaged, and he wants them to sign a contract to that end. It's rare to have a dungeon where the "kill anything that moves" rule is suspended, so this one is notable if only for that. The only stupid thing in the intro is that there's a random chance that the wizard follows the PCs; I wouldn't think that should be something determined by random chance.

Overall, another mixed bag this issue. Two really good adventures, one pretty bad one, and the rest sort of mediocre. This quality control will be an issue for quite some time to come.

Jeremy Puckett

DJorgensen

04-17-2008, 11:29 PM

Dungeon Magazine, Issue 4
March/April 1987, 64 pages

Notes: Editorial this issue is from Barbara Young, the assistant editor of Dungeon, instead of from Roger. She opens up saying that her first assignment was to read through more modules in two weeks than she did in the two years she spent as a games editor. She grouses that too many of the submissions are too complex or not written in an interesting style; they're looking for simpler adventures than stand-alone modules. She includes a short list of "turn-offs" for module writing and design. She mentions that her tone might seem harsh - and she's right. Even if all of her suggestions are right on the money, the way she expresses them makes the staff of Dungeon sound like complete assholes. At least they're caught up on the backlog now.

I would love to see a sampling of what got rejected for publication. They got dozens of submissions for each issue, makes you wonder if there were some other nuggets of gold they could have culled.

Letters: A request that the magazine not publish adventures for Asian settings; the response is that they aren't planning to right now, but they might someday.

This is of importance because....

Dungeon Magazine, Issue 5
May/June 1987, 64 pages

Adventures
"The Kappa of Pachee Bridge": AD&D, 3-5 characters of 2nd-5th level. An Oriental Adventures module! The issue after they said they probably wouldn't do any of these for a while! The heroes are passing through Pachee (!) when the frantic villagers beg them for help. Finally, a group of villagers who are willing to ask adventurers to help them instead of hiding their troubles dramatically.
Apparently, a local kappa (named "The Boy of the Bridge") has started stealing children, which he hasn't done in decades. Five children are missing, as well as an older man and a traveling merchant who was expected days ago. The villagers claim that it can't be killed by swords, and that it's very ancient and full of evil knowledge. Many years ago, the kappa was helped by the headman's father, and it gave him a magic bowl that turned any food placed in it to become the finest quality; the kappa has loaned it to them several times, and they've always given it back, so the kappa isn't always bad. Interestingly, it seems that the missing children really are dead.

What was it they said in the previous issue's letters page? Changed their minds right quick, didn't they? :D

an_idol_mind

04-18-2008, 04:51 AM

(Not everyone can be expected to have all six game books, she says!)

Things like this are a huge reminder of how small the game used to be. The foreward to the 2nd edition stated that having a whole dozen hardcovers for the AD&D game was a problem that helped lead to the new edition. Nowadays, the game easily gets that number of hardcovers in a matter of months. No wonder the lifespan of each edition seems to be shrinking.

A worry that Dungeon might wind up printing adventures that aren't D&D or AD&D; no worries there, they say.

Much to my chagrin, that's a policy they'd waffle on in the future. I ended up putting together a Marvel Super Heroes adventure that got accepted by them in the 90s only to get tossed out when they decided to stop doing non-D&D modules...again.

"The Trouble With Mylvin Wimbly": <snip> Heavy-handed use of alignment is a big deal in this adventure too. Was it that important basic in Basic?

Alignment was a recurring problem in many of the basic games I remember, largely because it was poorly defined. Chaotic was often presented as evil, but was defined as being more individualistic rather than outright bad. I usually got around the alignments by just playing neutral characters.

bobrunnicles

04-20-2008, 06:56 PM

Another excellent 'blast from the past' thread subbed to :)

(un)reason

04-26-2008, 10:33 PM

Bump-bump boopy wump. Come on. You only have to post at half the rate I do, and you'll still beat me to the finish. We can do this. Just breathe with me now. In, out, in, out, in, out, shake it all about, and Go! ;)

hida_jiremi

04-26-2008, 11:17 PM

:p

I'm only going at half the rate intentionally! So that you don't look bad... Yeah, that's the ticket.

Jeremy Puckett

Hybban

04-29-2008, 08:25 AM

That is an excellent thread. We didn't have the chance to heve Dungeon directly in France (at least not when you live far from nice Hobby shops) and it's good to know about it.

Keep up the good work!

Hyb'

Erik Mona

04-30-2008, 02:25 PM

What a great thread. I can't wait until you hit #103, which is when I joined the staff! Lots of great stuff between where you're at now and then, though.

I have one request. Could you start including author names in your synopses? Once the James Jacobs, Willie Walsh, Chris Perkins, etc. adventures start showing up, I think it will be interesting to track patterns.

--Erik Mona
Editor-in-Chief
Dungeon #103–138

dm_punks

04-30-2008, 11:52 PM

I have one request. Could you start including author names in your synopses? Once the James Jacobs, Willie Walsh, Chris Perkins, etc. adventures start showing up, I think it will be interesting to track patterns.

I also think it would be interesting to include the authors' names as well. :)

Please continue with the reading! :(

hida_jiremi

05-05-2008, 09:06 PM

Sorry I haven't kept up with this recently, but between finals week and my laptop's power supply dying, I haven't really had a moment. A friend was kind enough to loan me their power supply long enough for me to get online and take care of some things, and my new one should be in by Wednesday or Thursday. Hopefully, I'll be able to get in two or three issues of reviews this week, since school is over and I'm between jobs.

Thanks to Eric Mona for the kind words, and I'll do my best to include author names from now on. When I start back up, I'll also go back and add them to the previous reviews. Thanks also to everyone else for their positive feedback!

Jeremy Puckett

bobrunnicles

05-05-2008, 10:56 PM

No worries, dude - any thread like this needs to take breather from time to time if only so you don't get burned out - which would be a shame as I'm really enjoying this thread :)

Quillion

06-26-2008, 10:06 PM

puts his vote in and subscribes to thread.

Kapten

06-27-2008, 01:48 AM

(Note: When they meet him, his robes constantly swirl in a magical breeze. How do we get that?! An early example of the "a wizard did it" handwave that I freaking hate.) I have always been of the school that if an effect doesn't have an effect on the rules, the PC can have it. Constantly swirling robes is one of them. YMMV, ofc.

hida_jiremi

06-27-2008, 01:55 AM

I have always been of the school that if an effect doesn't have an effect on the rules, the PC can have it. Constantly swirling robes is one of them. YMMV, ofc.

Hey, if you allow your PCs to do it too, that's fine. I just despise the hand-wave that lets NPCs do "neato kewl" things that PCs would love to be able to do, but can't, even though there's no legitimate reason that would prevent a PC from picking up what is obviously an acquired skill. (This is one of the reasons I don't like 4th Edition, but I digress...)

Jeremy Puckett

Kapten

06-27-2008, 02:00 AM

Hey, if you allow your PCs to do it too, that's fine. I just despise the hand-wave that lets NPCs do "neato kewl" things that PCs would love to be able to do, but can't, even though there's no legitimate reason that would prevent a PC from picking up what is obviously an acquired skill. (This is one of the reasons I don't like 4th Edition, but I digress...)

Jeremy Puckett
OK, then I agree. I think it's mostly a DM-problem in that case, though. I can't see any reason why a PC mage couldn't, for example, light his pipe by snapping his fingers even if there aren't rules for it. The only time there is a reason to put down your foot is when a player is trying to exploit something like this.

hida_jiremi

06-27-2008, 02:27 AM

Dungeon Magazine, Issue 6
July/August 1987, 64 pages

Cover Art: A band of turtle-men dressed in pseudo-Aztec garb chase a pair of male adventurers and a woman from the wreck of a ship. In the foreground, one of the adventurers has out a short sword and is dragging a dusky-skinned woman by the wrist. The look on her face makes it unclear whether she's angry that he's kidnapping her, or angry that her party-mate is dragging her; she's armed, so it's hard to say. Behind her, the other adventurer stands to face the turtle-men, wielding a shield and javelin.

Issue Quote: "But do you really mean, Sir," said Peter, "that there would be other worlds - all over the place, just around the corner - like that?"
"Nothing is more probable," said the Professor, taking off his spectacles and beginning to polish them, while he muttered to himself, "I wonder what they *do* teach them at these schools."
-Peter and the Professor, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," C.S. Lewis

Notes: Roger talks about how much he likes fiddling with modules and converting them to make them work in other campaign worlds. He discusses running Bunnies and Burrows, Call of Cthulhu, and how to drop AD&D characters into other worlds for a fun little romp. I have to admit that I love mash-ups myself, so the editorial is a fun one for me.

Letters: There's only one letter in this issue, and the staff makes note that Dungeon doesn't generate nearly the level of communication that Dragon does. They do ask for more letters to let them know what they're doing right and wrong, since they're going to be starting the second year of their magazine soon.

Adventures

"After the Storm" by Nick Kopsinis and Patrick Goshtigian: AD&D, 8th-10th level. This adventure is an underwater exploration mission to recover treasure from a wrecked ship in a cove ruled by a wereshark. The whole thing seems pretty pedestrian today, but for the time it must have been pretty unique. This adventure does use the trope of "some other adventurers went out before us and haven't come back... so the treasure must still be there!" It makes me think of the Futurama episode with the space bees: "The only thing that last crew did better than us was suck and die!"

"White Death" by Randy Maxwell: AD&D, 4th-7th level. An arctic adventure in which the PCs decide to take up the bounty on a local white dragon that's been terrorizing the region. If the previous one seems pedestrian in retrospect, I can't imagine that this adventure ever seemed original.

"Bristanam's Cairn" by John Nephew: AD&D, 8th-12th level. The PCs are traveling through the wilderness when they find an old cairn with a cottage built near it. They try to find shelter from a storm in the cottage and are taken in by its inhabitant, a hermit with a mysterious past who inexplicably own an amulet of proof against detection and location (apparently entirely so that PCs can't read his mind and get the plot of the adventure without him telling it to them). There's also a curse that can't be removed with PC magic in this adventure, making it fall into the category of "severe handwaving" in my book.

"House of the Brothers" by Mark R. Shipley: AD&D, 6th-10th level. This adventure is set in the Yeomanry region of Greyhawk, but it's generic enough that it can be moved without too much trouble. Again, the heroes are traveling through the wilderness when they run into trouble. Does anyone ever actually reach their destination in the D&D milieu? There's no real hook in this one, beyond "We've never been here before, and this all looks mighty suspicious, so we should investigate."

"Forbidden Mountain" by Larry Church: AD&D, 4th-7th level. This adventure is the real treasure of this issue. Forbidden Mountain starts off as a typical dungeon-crawl but rapidly devolves into a huge mind-screw as the PCs enter what might be the first non-Euclidean dungeon in D&D history. The whole place is designed to destroy mapping attempts, and it largely succeeds. The hideously distorted geometry turns what would have been a pretty normal dungeon into a very memorable one.

"Tortles of the Purple Sage, Part 1" by Merle and Jackie Rasmussen: D&D Expert-Level, 4th-10th level. The name of this adventure is a joke, so bonus points for anyone who can identify the source. The adventure takes place in the Known World of the D&D game, though it adds a new region to the world. The turtle-men from the cover are apparently called "tortles," an ancient reptilian race, and the PCs are hired by one to lead his people back to their ancestral lands, which were lost to them centuries ago. This adventure is something of a classic in D&D-dom, and I can see why. The plot is layered, intricate, and fairly epic in scope, especially for a D&D adventure.

A mixed bag in this issue. A few really mediocre adventures, and two for the history books. We're still a long way off from Dungeon's best years, but you can see the quality beginning to come through in this one.

Hey, look, I'm posting again! ^_^

Jeremy Puckett

Skiorht

06-27-2008, 04:01 AM

"Tortles of the Purple Sage, Part 1" by Merle and Jackie Rasmussen: D&D Expert-Level, 4th-10th level. The name of this adventure is a joke, so bonus points for anyone who can identify the source.

The title is of course a pun on the Thieves' World story "Spiders of the Purple Mage" by Philip José Farmer. The adventure isn't half bad, either. Some of the best and most epic adventures in the early years of Dungeon were for BECMI D&D. The massive and potenially setting-shaking adventure "Of Nests and Nations" is one that we'll hit soon enough.

hida_jiremi

06-27-2008, 04:05 AM

The title is of course a pun on the Thieves' World story "Spiders of the Purple Mage" by Philip José Farmer. The adventure isn't half bad, either. Some of the best and most epic adventures in the early years of Dungeon were for BECMI D&D. The massive and potenially setting-shaking adventure "Of Nests and Nations" is one that we'll hit soon enough.

BZZZT! WRONG! But only technically. "Spiders of the Purple Mage" is also a pun title, referring back to an even older source. No cookie for you! XD

Jeremy Puckett

Mr Teufel

06-27-2008, 06:09 AM

bobrunnicles

06-27-2008, 08:53 AM

Hey, look, I'm posting again! ^_^

It's a wonderful thing :)

hida_jiremi

06-27-2008, 01:54 PM

Riders of the Purple Wage (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riders_of_the_Purple_Wage#Influences), also by Phillip José Farmer.

Again, no! The original source is Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage, an epic 1912 Western, which was oddly influential on Farmer.

Jeremy Puckett

Quillion

06-27-2008, 02:03 PM

Less Purple saging more Dungeon Raving! :)

I must say I really do like this especially from an adventure writing point of view.

This is something I really look forward to reading.

Quillion

07-12-2008, 09:08 AM

poke

Quillion

09-11-2008, 03:55 PM

So I am going ot pick up where the thread left off

Issue #7 Volume II, Number 1 (September/October 1987)

Cover: Paul Jacques
A circus inside the big top two elephants ridden by women (fairies or costumes?) clowns, a barbaric elf with an axe, and a detailed audience.
I really enjoyed the detail in Paul Jacques put into the circus audience; I always seem to enjoy a fantasy circus.
Picking the Nit: I did not enjoy the appearance of the elephant’s head and ears I felt they were overly small. In addition, the tusks unnatural shape, being almost fang-like instead of a rounded tusk, broke my suspension of disbelief.

Quote “A mile won’t wait to be walked, and the road won’t nap until my foot is upon it. “
Broco the Dwarf, Greyfax Griwald, Niel Hancock

Publisher: Mike Cook
Editor Roger E. Moore
Associate Editor Barbara G. Young

Letter from the Editor by Barbara G Young
You can now get dungeon in you hobby shop rather than subscription only, check your mailing wrapper to see if your subscription expires, get a two issue subscription extension for each friend you get to sign up for a Dungeon subscription, there is a “plea for more letters from readers….Editors get lonely, too…”

Letters
A plea for support for STAR FRONTIERS AND BOOT HILL reminds me of other pleas of support that DUNGEON always turned away. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if a d20 magazine had spun off from Dungeon and Dragon magazines but I guess, we have Pathfinder and Kobold Quarterly now.

A PC assassin who wants evil PC driven adventures “…it is not DUNGEON Adventures’ policy to publish modules that promote the cause of evil” But they give more than a PC answer as to why “…often disruptive to a campaign and does not foster cooperation…”

NIGHTSHADE
AD&D adventure, 1-4 characters of levels 1-3
Written by: Nigel D. Findley
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek
Cartography by Diesel
City or Town, temperate
5 pages

Description: The characters are sent to pick up a "medicine" concocted by the wizard Nightshade.

Interesting that Nigel recommends that this “scenario is probably more enjoyable if the PCs are new to town, poor and ill-equipped.” Sounds like I moved to town for a new job that falls through.

The Hook here is nice in that it is a take it or leave it, a person walks up offers you more money than the simple errand he wants you to run should ever be paid for. The players have the choice of simply walking away from the adventure.

The background for this boils down boy meets girl, boy is a scoundrel, girl falls in love with scoundrel, girl wants to announce love to the world, Overprotective father with power, “Should he find out that Olias has despoiled his daughter, he would probably react by making life very difficult for Olias” (See Assassin’s Guild). Therefore, Olias gets the wizard Nightshade to create an amnesia potion. (A powerful extract of Obliviax).

Oh but it gets worse one Nightshade is not a nice fellow so Olias cannot meet with him again, also The Father has enemies who want the word to get out, and are going to let the little girl tell the tale, so they are going to put a stop to all this.

The two assassins are neat in that one will run away and the other is too stupid to run away. Spotting the gnome following them is a random encounter. There is also the Black Cloaked figure color coded for your convenience. Extra Planner abode, A symbol of Stunning (remember 1st- 3rd level) if you try to steal from the trophy room. A practical use for a fool’s gold, sleep and silence spells (there are nights I wish I had one), A reason for potions of delusions to exist, a place to hide when summoning the devil goes, A Mad mage who can still cast spells why is that madness never robs them of this ability?

Path of Least Resistance: players a choice and a penalty for not following the adventures suggested path.

Another small bit I really liked was three paragraphs spent talking about what happens upon a successful completion of the adventure.

One lovely piece of advice you would rarely see in the detailed rules environment of modern D&D “Temper all die rolls with good judgment.”

TORTLES OF THE PURPLE SAGE - PART 2
D&D adventure (Known World/Mystara), 2-8 characters of levels 4-10
Written by: Merle and Jackie Rasmussen
Artwork by: Jim Holloway
Cartography by Diesel
Coastal/Steppe/Ruins, tropical to temperate
18 pages

Description: This adventure details the Richland Trading Post, a community and fortress on the edge of the wilderness, and three lost ruins in the Great Northway.

Nice Known World/Mystara Detail, some wandering monster love, Weird name “Lawful Brotherhood Cleric Outpost” A time table for the outpost which is basically worship, eat, worship work, eat, worship, and worship some more. They even tell you, which spell you, must prepare at what level.

There is no adventure here folks other than “What's over the next hill?”, which is not bad; it just did not engage me enough to read this in detail.

MATCHMAKERS, THE
AD&D adventure, 3-6 characters of levels 1-3
Written by: Patricia Nead Elrod
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek,
Cartography by Diesel
Town or City, temperate
11 pages

Where are there now? Anyone know what happened to Valerie Valusek? I have always been amazed by her work, levels better than most artists today IMHO.

Description: A sly nobleman asks the party to help him unite his friend, Richard Savelle, with his true love, the beautiful Elissa Holbin.

I really like the opening for this adventure as it starts In Media Res with one against many and the one calling for the PCs aid. I loved this adventure as it feel like Romeo and Juliet except the predictable unreliable narrator has something more sinister in mind. It has a neat kidnapping twist in that the party can seize the wrong girl.

Oh and can things go wrong. I would just use a different twist that the one Patrica Nead Elrod chose as in the modern age this has been overdone, heck even back then it was overdone.

Of great note: The best thing about this adventure is that it is a Sandbox adventure; It simply presents a problem and the setting it occurs in to the PCs and requires them to figure it out, it assumes the players and the GM can handle it I cannot express how much I enjoyed this.

SAMURAI STEEL
AD&D GREYHAWK adventure, 4-8 characters of levels 3-5
Written by: Daniel Salas
Artwork by: Jim Holloway
Cartography by Diesel
Village/Forest, temperate to sub-tropical
11 pages

Description: A loyal samurai fears that his lord, Daimyo Shimada Oda, may have fallen under the spell of his concubine, Korihana.

The Hook is another stab at In Media Res; though the reason for going to the place this happens is a hand-wave event, it could have been stronger. It was interesting to see an Oriental Adventures Samurai drama make it DUNGEON, it is a bit overdone with coincidences, and sloppy intrigue, other than that it is a good adventure with a strong mix of event and location based adventure.

Bonus: One of the nice additions though was a NPC who asks for the party’s aid in assisting his lord as he is set to commit ritual suicide at his lord’s command today.

JINGLING MORDO CIRCUS, THE*
AD&D adventure, 6-10 characters of levels 10+
Written by: Vic Broquard
Artwork by: Paul Jaquays
Cartography by Diesel
City or Rural, temperate
16 pages

Description: The circus has come to town, and people are vanishing.
I do not like this “…the use of mind-reading spells and divinatory equipment by PCs could complicate the DMs’ job greatly…the DM should prepare notes on information that could be gained in these events.” I do not run prewritten modules to create more work for myself. In addition, if you are going to write an adventure for a game you should use the mechanics of the game, do not ignore them or allow common spells or items to break the adventure. Your writing an adventure for the game; not rewriting the game for your adventure. To make me even more psycho Vic Broquard goes along and has the Big Bad using divination, grrrr….

This could have been a great adventure, getting out of the dungeon, it makes wonderful uses of illusion and polymorph spells, you could even loot influences from modern day kidnapping for profit operations, to make the adventure even more menacing. I really liked the idea of the PCs successfully completing the adventure and taking over running the circus, to bad Vic Broquard thought “Divination is a problem” was a good adventure design strategy, but at least he told you.

CONCLUSIONS
The Matchmakers gets my gold on this one, as I think a modern update of its tropes will make for a great adventure.

Samari Steel would have ranked much higher if not for its sloppy intrigue that make the master spies and assassians look like keystone cops.

Updating the circus would be hard as polymoprhing is the modern age is as muddled as the adventures idea on divination.

es alas the purple sage just could not hold my intrest because there was no adventure.

I think I will take a stab at a modern update to The Matchmakers on my blog.

Number 8 next week.

(un)reason

09-11-2008, 06:31 PM

So I am going ot pick up where the thread left off.
Interesting. I was wondering if someone else would be brave enough to take up this thread again. (incidentaly, I'll take the time to say I love your AE work. It's a great setting and it's good to see people keeping it alive. ) Good luck.

Quillion

09-16-2008, 09:57 AM

I'll take the time to say I love your AE work.

Thank you, I appreciate all the support I get from the community.

Part of the idea behind doing this was a self-tutorial on adventure writing, seeing how it evolved. I am hoping it will make our Rituals of Choice Adventure path that much better.

Though really I cannot say enough about the Open Design project and the Kobold's Guide to Adventure Writing (along with Wolfgang's online articles.

I am hoping the power is on back home by thursday so that I can update this (I am in Southwestern Ohio, Hurricane winds in Ohio, I mean really the DM was just being a bit ridiculous, it suspened my disbelief.

Quillion

09-18-2008, 03:00 PM

This time around, I have added links to the pen-paper.net database so you can learn more about who these folks became. So you do not become a tool like me and not know who P.N. Elrod is even though you have read a couple of her books.

I will do a detailed review of one adventure, based on the first posted suggestion.

Issue #8 Volume II, Number 2 (November/December 1987)

Cover: Kevin Davies (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3227)

This cover depicts a climactic oriental themed battle with a blue flaming demon, and red flaming tigers over jutting blue flames coming from a rent in the earth. Opposing them are the adventures two samurai, a ninja and a wujen (?).
Picking the Nit: Overall I like this piece it has some weaknesses the trail of red seeds/flowers don’t really have the beauty one would hope for, and the samurai in the foreground, one of his scabbards becomes transparent once it passes under his arm also the Wujen could pass a non oriental wizard.

Quote: “For to adventure is the lust of Youth; and to leave Safety is the natural waywardness of the spirit; and who shall reprove or regret; for it were sorrowful that this Spirit of Man should cease “ The Thoughts of X, The Night Land, William Hope Hodgeson

Publisher: Mike Cook
Editor: Roger E. Moore
Associate Editor: Barbara G. Young
Cartographer: David S. "Diesel" LaForce (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=510)

Letter from the Editor by Barbara G Young.
Barbara makes a request for the submission of interesting quotes from Dungeon magazine readers (since Roger Moore stuck her with providing them from now on). The lament that when you become a reader for work your reading for pleasure is often eliminated (I can relate to this), The Dungeon staff is joining Compu-Serve to answer questions about 2e.

“I haven’t quite figured out hot to do what I want in Compu-Serve, so if you come upon me in the depths of the Computer, please be kind. I’m probably lost.”

Letters
First letter is from Roy Maceachern who is tired of people’s lack of creativity in customizing adventures to make them the game they want to play, It really makes me think of the Edition War of today and it has a Gem of a quote.

“If you can’t change that, then it’s time to give up role-playing games and take up checkers, where the rules remain constant. Don’t Criticize-improvise!”
Roy MacEacheron commenting on AD&D vs. D&D Expert rules set.

The second letter is a throw away letter; good job, keep it up, love the art

MOUNTAIN SANCTUARY
AD&D adventure, 3-6 characters of levels 1-3
Written by: John Nephew (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=220)
Artwork by: C. Bradford Gorby http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3021
Mountains, temperate to sub-arctic
6 pages
Description: In this short sequel to "Grakhirt's Lair" (Issue #1), the heroes explore the sanctuary of an illusionist hoping to find answers to his disappearance.
I like this mini-adventure, it has a very interesting and organic feel to its use of monsters defending their lair, they don’t just wait for folks to get to the 10' by10' room. The monsters here are proactive in dealing with trespassers; it is nice to see it in the early issues. In the modern age of fast level advancement it does seem odd to have a 1-3rd as a sequel, ah nostalgia how you tempt me.
The only flaw I could find here is a useless back-story that has no game based relevance on the adventure. You could apparently know everything about the back-story and it would provide not in game advantage.

FOR A LADY'S HONOR
AD&D adventure, 3-6 thieves of levels 4-7
Written by: Estes R. Hammons
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=931) (and still my favorite DUNGEON Artist
Town or City, temperate
8 pages

Description: The PC thieves are hired by the Guildmaster of Ansbach to retrieve a lady's garter."

I love that a woman’s garter is the Mcguffin, not something you see in a game where the rod of twenty-seven parts is the norm.

Something you would never see in a modern adventure
“…only thieves should participate in this adventure, multiclassed characters may be used, but their primary focus should be directed toward their thieving abilities….”

In the modern age of gaming you could easily make this adventure open to a stealthy, urban based group of classes, Urban Ranger, Urban Druid, swashbucklers, scouts, clerics with access to the trickery domain, mages and warlocks with a focus on subtle spells and magic could still perform quite well.

I think the joy I find in this adventure is summed up in the conclusion

…(those) who simply plan to attack and raid….would meet considerable opposition…face punishment from the city and their (thieves) guild, as well as survivors of their raid, citizens’ defense groups, etc. Experience …should be awarded for creativity and ingenuity.

IN DEFENSE OF THE LAW
AD&D adventure 6-8 characters of levels 7-10
Written by: Carl Sargent
Artwork by: C. Bradford Gorby
Hills/subterranean, any climate
17 pages
Description: To save the town of Ranaan, characters must delve into deep catacombs and protect the magical orb of law.

Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral PCs are recommended for this adventure this is due to its adventure hook, the adventure is a law vs. chaos triangular conflict, it recommends using Unearthed Arcana (the original) and the Fiend Folio (also the original).
This bit of read aloud text made me stop and go what?
“…and a group of lawful-good adventurers enter the catacombs…” These days I do not think using an in-game term as part of box text would get past the editor unless you playing Order of the Stick.

This is a very dynamic event/location based adventure, playing heavily on the tropes of Law Vs. Chaos. It would have been an awseome adventure if it would still not have been Good VS. Evil as well why could the opposing force not have been Chaotic good rather than Chaotic evil, still a solid adventure.

WOUNDED WORM, THE
AD&D adventure, 4-10 characters of levels 4-8
Written by: Thomas M. Kane (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=219)
Artwork by: Mark Nelson (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=492)
Coastal/Undersea, temperate
11 pages
Description: Sparock Peninsula is threatened by a maimed red dragon.

The wounded worm motivational hook is very week "Go kill the dragon and hate greed as the only motivation for the party, for a heroic fantasy adventure game. Plus you going to beat up a cripple the dragon has done not but have its wings cut off and its back legs withered. It really is too bad as this is a very interesting area, with a large number of unique encounters. Not to mention you can completely fail in the adventure and not have a TPK

This adventure also makes great use of the Red Dragon's Charm Persona special ability. There are also interesting uses of Npcs and monsterous challenges, such as a Fog Gaint and a allied black dragon. The best use is probably the fact that the red dragon's lair is underwater, really throwing off the type of dragon you expect to encounter, and making for a unique climax.

FLOWERS OF FLAME, THE*
AD&D GREYHAWK adventure, 4-8 characters of levels 5-8
Written by: Jay Batista (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3071)
Artwork by: Kevin Davies
Mountains, temperate to sub-arctic
18 pages
Description: Compelled by duty and loyalty, the characters partake in a quest to find the fabled flowers of flame, rumored to be located in a beautiful valley paradise.

This is an interesting adventure with a great conclusion (5 paragraphs), deep intrigue both earthly and heavenly. I do wonder though if the DM would end up having more fun than the players have. As the DM is the only one who will really know what is going on, even once the adventure is over.

Hope you enjoyed

lionrampant

09-18-2008, 06:00 PM

Review For a Lady's Honor, if you please.

Gen. Lee

09-19-2008, 12:01 PM

New to this thread, glad to see it. About 3 years ago, I had the pleasure of reading a friend's collection of Dungeons (near-complete) and picking out ones I wanted to buy. That was an awesome couple of months! I ended up getting about half, and have outlines sketched for 3+ campaigns with common-themed adventures.

Oh, and "For a lady's honor" was one of the ones I liked, and hope to incorporate in a rogue- or swashbuckler- or espionage-themed campaign.

Quillion

09-19-2008, 01:00 PM

Introduction:
For a Lady's Honor is designed to give 3-6 thieves of levels 4-7 the opportunity to practice their unique skills in a setting conducive to the art of thievery. While only thieves should participate in this adventure, multiclassed characters may be used, but their primary focus should be directed toward their thieving abilities. It is recommended that at least one of the adventurers have some spell-casting ability (a thief/magic-use r or a thief/cleric, or both).

Stealth, secrecy, and cleverness are valued above force and bloodshed in this module; a successful venture would find the mission accomplished without the
loss of a single life . This adventure is designed to be played in a single session
and can therefore be used between ongoing campaigns, or by changing the name of Ansbach and relevant NPCs if necessary to fit the current campaign

One thing this does not tell you is that each member of the group belongs to a thievies guild of city at the start of the adventure, and that it is required by the hook. Sandbox designers will scream railroad, but I like this as the adventure gives you full opportunity to ignore the “job” and go your own way, suffering the consequences. Sandbox DMs this is an urban adventure for you.

I can’t think of another published adventure that only allows for one character class, in the modern age of d20 this may be due to the greater flexibility of the skill system. If you plan on running a d20 version (3.x or 4e) I would telling your players to design a band that works for the thieves guild emphasizing subtle skills and spells, leading more toward actions that overcomes obstacles rather than combat. Being a 3.X DM I would encourage my players to have at least one rogue, For the warrior trope an urban ranger. For the mage trope a sorcerer heavy in enchantment charm, divination, alteration and illusion. For the priest trope I would recommend the domain of trickery. The lack of combat could easily allow you bypass the standard priest and warrior trope.

Adventure Background

This is neat, the adventure background is a read aloud box text (I would recommend turning this into a player handout as its six paragraphs of text and long paragraphs at that). This means there is very little in the way of useless background!

The background given in clandestine meeting where the party is summoned by the guildmaster and given very little information about the job, they are told they will learn more visiting a their client-contact, and are given a pass phrase.

I can see this being great fun for a GM, if you give them the hand out and then take it away once they leave the meeting with the guild master, then you pull an army of darkness when they meet the contact “I got your damn words O.K.” I also enjoyed the secrecy and guesswork in the minds of the players, but the guild is played straight, they perform illegal and immoral work for profit.

Default Setting

“The city of Ansbach is a medium-sized inland town with a population of several thousand. Sitting astride the crossroads of two major trade highways in the region, it is a market center with a high volume of caravan traffic and intense competition among local businesses”

This is a city of commerce; it has a governor-general, a high clergy, and a council of 12 elected by district officials. It is also a city of intrigue and subtle guild wars and thieves guild is no exception to the laws and wars of commerce. This seems very easy to adapt to any major city of commerce, from Freeport, Waterdeep, Ptolus, Greyhawk, Zobeck, or many others too numerous to list.

Its interesting in that there is no city map provided, rather travel distances are provided, I think in the modern age we love beautiful cartography a bit too much not to have included a map of the city, yet this proves that you don’t need to provide and it can simply be done through DM free-style.

Contacting the Client
This is an interesting encounter as the DM is encouraged to give the Players the layout of the bar, they are told they are familiar with this rough and tumble place. The contact phrase requires that they all have ordered an especially potent liqueur that mere mortals cannot help but get drunk on if the player gets bored and drinks from it.

Personally I see a great prop here by putting a mug of thier favorite tasty beverage in front of the player. If the player drinks it is ruled the character has had some of the liquid, leave it sit there and run the rest of the encounters.

As I said earlier this is a sandbox DM’s dream. For exakmple no preplanned events in the tavern, just an encouragement for the DM to have random encounters. Now I am not a big random encounter kind of guy, I tend to pick from the encounter tables what I think makes sense, what I like about this adventure there are CUSTOMIZED random encounters, and even a customized pursuit table, if the PCs are running from trouble. .

So have a few random encounters in the bar, and I have a feeling at some point a player will be on the way to drinking his beverage.

Then the evil GM in you can enforce the effects of the potent liquor upon the player character, I would use the rules from EN Publishing’s Tournaments, Fairs, & Taverns as it is easy to use this to simulate the cumulative nature of the drink the adventure presents.

Eventually the contact arrives! By using the encounters, your keeping the players on their toes and now have your fun by making the players get the pass phrase just right, if they don’t then the guildmaster is going to be quite put out. I can just see it now “It was definitely an N word.”

The job is summed up fairly well in these two sentences.

"Very simply, it is necessary to recover the item (the garter) from the councilman's possession and return it quietly to Lady Miranda. This must be done with extreme care and haste, for the councilman is now attempting to force his attentions upon the lady under the threat of exposing her former imprudent love affair should the blackmailer 's odious overtures be rejected. Stealth and a minimum of violence are necessary to avoid attracting the attention of the city
authorities. “

Her husband is not someone the party wants angry at them either!

Now the party must learn about the The Villain Haster Brunt, where he has the garter stored and how to relieve him of said property. How the PCs go about this is left up to them there is no preplanned successful path in the adventure just the information on the villain, his daily habits, and the layout of his home.

The random encounters range from a group of pilgrims who try to convert the PCs; to running into the Haster Brunt and his bodyguards. Of them all I like a doppelganger who acts as the temptress trying offering them a more profitable independent job as a distraction.

Next week before my thursday update I will go over the Villain and his abode.

Quillion

09-25-2008, 12:54 PM

Just an FYI

I live in Southwestern Ohio and due to the windstorm there I had been without power from sunday the 14th untill today.

I have been doing some updating from work after hours but right now I have other priorities that must take precedance over the review thread. So I will be skipping the update this week.

I apologize for those who were looking forward to it.

Thank you

Quillion

10-02-2008, 10:22 PM

I have done something a bit different here providing a link to the cover image rather than describing it.

Issue #9 Volume II, Number 3 (January/February 1988)

Cover: “The cloud castle of the Arch-mage looms high above the jungle. To get inside, however, our intrepid adventures must first get past Ezoran’s demon. Valerie Valusek’s first color cover illustrates a pivotal scene in “The Plight of Cirria””

Link to Cover Image: (http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee138/qwillion/Dungeon9.jpg)

I have said it before I will say it again Valerie Valusek is my favorite Dungeon artist, please someone tell me where is Valerie Valusek now!

Quote: “unless something goes terribly wrong we’ll have you back about five minutes before you left, so there’ll be time to spare and nobody'll ever need to know you were gone at all….And if something goes terribly wrong it won’t matter whether we ever get back at all” Mrs. Watsit, A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engle

Publisher: Mike Cook (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2271)
Editor: Barbara G. Young (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=1055)
Associate Editor: Roger E. Moore (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=411)
Cartographer: David S. "Diesel" LaForce (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=510)

Letter from the Editor by Barbara G Young.
This month Barbara and Roger change hats as Editor and Associate editor, she says jokingly

“..if you have any words of praise for this issue, send them to me. All complaints, however, will be passed along to the rest of the guys.”

They state to keep sending letters as they read every single one, and to keep sending quotes.

It makes me think back to the age before email and message board and that your only feedback from fans snail mail.

There is a nice P.S.

“Welcome to the world, Tasha Joan Hickman. May all your dragons be good ones."

Letters

A nice comment about hooks that is still true today

“Monetary wealth is the most predominate motivation in DUNGEON adventures. Emotional religious and heroic motivations are constantly overlooked. “- Robin Kaczmarczyk

Another letter questions using other sourcebooks and settings for DUNGEON adventures and new 2nd edition.

I found this quote to be interesting.

“We don’t even expect everybody to rush right out and buy the game’s second edition (although we hope you will). There will be a transition….”

This makes me think of myself as a customer of Wizard’s of the Coast. I read about 3rd edition in my magazine, I transitioned form 2nd to 3rd I did not transition over to 4th and I think this is exactly the reason why, there was not print magazine that I subscribed too. It gets even worse I am the DM of my group and none of my players have transitioned over to 4th Edition. It makes me wonder how many other groups are in the same boat as me.

On a personal note: I now get Kobold Quarterly and Pathfinder who are the spiritual successors of the print magazines IMHO. When and if I find the time maybe I will do a review of Kobold Quarterly.

There is some talk about city adventures and a shout out to Polyhedron’s “the living city”; two complaints about the assigned levels being out of whack with the challenges presented in the game. “….this erratic evaluation is worse that useless.” - David Carl Argall

Corey S. Kammer has a letter in this issue about what a good adventure includes that could have been an article unto itself.

LURKERS IN THE LIBRARY, THE
AD&D adventure, 3-5 characters of levels 1-3
Written by: Patricia Nead Elrod (P. N. Elrod) (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3223)
Artwork by: Larry Dixon (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=31)
Town or City, temperate
6 pages
Description: Orcs have broken into the library at Ferrantio, and it is up to the heroes to solve the problem.

A nice touch is staying away from the "everyone but barbarians are literate" trope of modern D&D is “…this area has been in a cultural slump. Books are still rare, and technical knowledge is valued. New covers attract the attention and interest of the locals…”

The central Idea here is very non-standard the local community has been secluded form the world in their white-tower university and have grown weak by focusing entirely on academic pursuits and ignoring all forms of military defense.

The town recruits the PCs because there is literally no one else with their skill set.

This adventure starts a bit slow and depends on getting the PCs to go visit the library, so I really recommend this if your players have decided to go visit a library as once you have them there it becomes a In media Res.

The adventure itself is interesting in creating a summoned tentacle monster in the library feel when in reality it is a few orcs with a whip.
In the modern age, you could easily scale this adventure with leveled orcs so that it would be suitable for any level.

CRYPT OF ISTARIS, THE
AD&D adventure, 6-8 characters of levels 3-5
Written by: Richard Fichera (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3224)
Artwork by: C. Bradford Gorby (http://www.geeb-o-rama.com/)
Subterranean, temperate
14 pages
Description: The characters must remove the magically-infused remains of a dead wizard and his medallion from a crypt.

This was a tournament module at GATEWAY 85 game convention, it is a neat idea that all tournament PCs should worship the Finnish deities described in Legends &Lore; in standard play it is not necessary. So much time is spent on world building new settings you do not see the real world used as often.
This adventure caters to the Action player and the Thinking player, the Role-players may feel a bit left out, but they will be happy as long as the other characters will talk to them 

This is something you do not see very often a story with a time limit! Here the town is simply being held for ransom, if the ransom is not paid on time the town is destroyed.

To say the premise of this adventure is convoluted is to be kind. After reading the full page (3 columns) of backstory, and I got to the point where a good priest says of some evil priests “they do not lie I have cast spells myself and know they speak the truth.” I thought to myself, I would not believe this story if I had not verified it with my own magic spells.

I would much rather have seen this as a non-tournament game and done it as a sandbox, put the “bomb” under the city, have the bad people demand a ransom. If the PCs call, your bluff blow up the city. If you do not like bombs, steal from George R. R. Martin and put large vault of alchemist’s fire down there.
It does have one very evocative encounter Room 32 the waterfalls bridge with two waterfalls, and troglodytes on the bridge. I am going to loot this for my next underground encounter. Diesel really went all out on the maps here, good stuff for Black and white maps.
[
B]DJINNI'S RING, THE[/B]
D&D Solo adventure, level 3 elf character
Written by: Vince Garcia (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2317)
Artwork by: Daniel R. Horne (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2270) website (http://www.geocities.com/danielrhorne/)

City/Desert, arid
11 pages
Description: In DUNGEON's first solo adventure, Moonstone the elf must free a djinni trapped inside a magical ring.

This is a strange beast, hell I did not know such a thing existed. A SOLO adventure I am not talking one on one I am talking solo, go into your mom’s basement and play with yourself kind of adventure. RPGs are social games, and their most appeal aspect is the social one, even video games have learned this lesson with MMOs.

This is probably a precursor to Choose-your-own-adventure novels, the writing is not bad so it was good for a read, but as a game, it feels odd to me, not something, I would want to play. In addition, its mechanics make me feel like I am playing Yatzee by myself.

GOLDEN BOWL OF ASHU H'SAN, THE
AD&D GREYHAWK adventure, 3-5 characters of levels 2-4
Written by: Rick Swan (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2063)

Artwork by: Richard Bennett (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3225)
Town/Hills/Marsh, temperate to sub-tropical
9 pages
Description: A mysterious blight plagues the village of Ashu H'San. Characters must solve a dispute among nature spirits to cure the draught.
The set up for this oriental adventure is very nice with no useless back-story, monsters come and settle in sacred field and destroy some shrines to build houses, residing spirits get mad and cause a drought.
The motivation of this adventure is great one you lord cares about these people, but he also knows that he could end up with a revolt on his hands if he does not fix it. You can quickly see why Rick Swan did so much work for TSR, (I remember he was editor for Inquest magazine as well).
The adventure is about the journey to the Sacred Site and a premonition that anyone who goes there faces great danger!
This adventure reminds me of why Kara-Tur was so much cooler than Oriental Adventures ever was.
Where are they Now? Rick Swan, anyone, anyone?

GHOSTSHIP GAMBIT, THE
D&D adventure, 4-6 characters of levels 3-6
Written by: Randy Maxwell
Artwork by: Wanda Lybarger
Coastal/Seaborne, temperate
6 pages
Description: The characters hear rumors of a ghostship plaguing the port city of Koll.

The hook to this is a job poster, makes for a nice handout but it feels lame to me, the poster is not that interesting as it is not a compelling read

What it does have is solid haunted ship feel, along with being a powerful sandbox without the crutch of random encounters. It also plays on PCs ready acceptance of supernatural explanations and has a very good twist.

PLIGHT OF CIRRIA, THE*
AD&D adventure, 6-10 characters of levels 8-12
Written by: Grant and David Bouncher
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek
Forest or Jungle/Clouds, tropical to temperate
14 pages
Description: Ezoran the arch-mage has kidnapped a cloud dragon's mate. Heroes are hired to free the dragon from the wizard's cloud fortress.
This I am going to do a detailed review of, as the opening line

First we have is useless backstory , it does not get to anything of actual use in the adventure until the 4th paragraph, we find out that the Arch-mage has captured a cloud castle from a giant all in the quest for the magic to create one. He fails so we get three more paragraphs of useless backstory kidnaps a cloud dragon so that he can learn the secret that is hidden from him.

Note: I know we all love Smaug the Dragon but that is a children’s book and your do not get that in the Lord of the Rings. Silly names in adventures are just that silly. The Cloud Giant Chief is name Imperious and the Cloud Dragon is named Cumulus, I am not 6 years old please use serious names if you want me to take your

This adventure just kept getting on my nerves though; a four-year-old dragon is not “weak and helpless.” The dragon can leave them long enough to hire adventures (another stranger offers you gold hook)

Then I get a landmark map with pictures instead of words as a puzzle and only random encounters on the journey; sigh.

The is however a kick ass picture of a mist dragon at a waterfall, it’s too bad the writer wastes this encounter on “cannot tell them anything useful”

I am done its 1am and life is too short for craptastic adventures.

The first person to Pick one I will do a more indepth review of for your reading pleasure.

hida_jiremi

10-03-2008, 01:28 AM

I just wanted to stop back in and thank Steve for picking up the mantle on this one. Between my professional work and school work, I just haven't had the time for this. Still, if he's amenable, I'd like to come back and occasionally post new reviews myself when I have the time. I love Dungeon, and genuinely want to expose people to the glories of its pages.

Jeremy Puckett

lionrampant

10-03-2008, 06:01 AM

DJINNI'S RING, THE
D&D Solo adventure, level 3 elf character
Written by: Vince Garcia (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2317)
Artwork by: Daniel R. Horne (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2270) website (http://www.geocities.com/danielrhorne/)

City/Desert, arid
11 pages
Description: In DUNGEON's first solo adventure, Moonstone the elf must free a djinni trapped inside a magical ring.

This is a strange beast, hell I did not know such a thing existed. A SOLO adventure I am not talking one on one I am talking solo, go into your mom’s basement and play with yourself kind of adventure. RPGs are social games, and their most appeal aspect is the social one, even video games have learned this lesson with MMOs.

This is probably a precursor to Choose-your-own-adventure novels, the writing is not bad so it was good for a read, but as a game, it feels odd to me, not something, I would want to play. In addition, its mechanics make me feel like I am playing Yatzee by myself.
Actually, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books came out in the very early '80s, and by this time the gamebook craze was on its way out the door. I know TSR also published a handful of stand-alone solo adventures for D&D, because I own a couple of them. And there was the Endless Quest gamebook series that TSR did. And the Catacombs solo adventure line.

Sleeper

10-03-2008, 07:50 AM

Actually, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books came out in the very early '80s, and by this time the gamebook craze was on its way out the door. I know TSR also published a handful of stand-alone solo adventures for D&D, because I own a couple of them. And there was the Endless Quest gamebook series that TSR did. And the Catacombs solo adventure line.
Tunnels & Trolls was practically founded on the solo adventure, and it's 13(!) years old at this point.

Quillion

10-03-2008, 02:06 PM

You learn something new everyday. Still feals weird to me but I was like 11 years old at this time so I am not supprised I did not know this, I did not get to play DND until I was 15.

castiglione

10-03-2008, 06:23 PM

Tunnels & Trolls was practically founded on the solo adventure, and it's 13(!) years old at this point.

To clarify the point of the author of the post...at the time that Dungeon issue was published, T & T was 13 years old (and the first T & T solitaire - supposedly written for some guy in Alaska somewhere, presumably far from other people - was published shortly thereafter). T & T is now almost 33 years old.

Quillion

10-09-2008, 04:49 PM

Doing this one in parts (sorry Rite Publishing is just busy, busy, busy. )

Part I of III

Issue #10 Volume II, Number 4 (March/April 1988)

Cover:

Link to Cover Image: (http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t231/hieroglyphsbooks/Dungeon%20Mags/Dungeon10.jpg)

“The Arch-Mage Azurax Welcomes you to his fortress in Daniel Horne’s cover painting for “Threshold of Evil.” If the wizard really wants to live forever shouldn’t he give up smoking?”
I really love this cover its bright and dark all that the same time, Daniel Horne outdid himself here, the layers of light. I wish he could have used something other than a rapier borrowed from Inigo Montoya but you are stuck with the author’s choice on that one I bet.
Picking the Nit: The light source is on the left of the page that means the first facing monster's right arm should have been cast in shadow on the inside, but it is not.

Publisher: Mike Cook (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2271)
Editor: Barbara G. Young (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=1055)
Associate Editor: Roger E. Moore (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=411)
Cartographer: David S. "Diesel" LaForce (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=510)

Letter from the Editor by Barbara G Young.
A defense for why there are more AD&D adventures than D&D adventures in Dungeon magazines, it is because all the good writers are writing AD&D, because that is what people are playing. I am sure this says something about 3E vs. 4E but here is a nice statement for those who support a 3.X OGL Companies.
“…but if there are enough D&D game players out there to support a product line and write letters wanting more, won’t some of you please send me your adventures?”

Quote
“Notwithstanding the beauty of this country of Faerie, in which we are, there is much that is wrong in it. If there are great splendors, there are corresponding horrors; heights and depths, beautiful women and awful fiends; noble men and weaklings. All a man has to do, is to better what he can” A nameless knight, Phantastes, George MacDonald

"All a man has to do, is to better what he can" Nice I will have to remember that quote thank you Mr. Macdonald.

Letters

A Complaint about having solo adventures in D&D (I have to agree with that one).
And Three letters for it. (Well a thousand lemming’s can’t be wrong heheheheh)
An errata clarification about a wizard getting the hit points of his familiar when he is within 12’ (I knew familiars were good for something).

the letters were much cooler last issue :)

SHRINE OF ILSIDAHUR, THE
AD&D GREYHAWK adventure, 4-6 characters of levels 3-6
Written by: John Nephew (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=220)
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek where is she now? (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/242663-what-ever-happened-valerie-valusek.html#post4502261)
Jungle, tropical to sub-tropical
6 pages
Description: Heroes search for treasure in a remote jungle shrine dedicated to a forgotten demon lord.

This adventure has a good narrative hook, its sad that the motivation is not quite greed, turns the PCs onto the Trope of treasure hunter, and has a good feel of Indian Jones.

However, wow does it make up for it with its concise back-story, bravo, Mr. Nephew, bravo.

Demon lord rules land, demon lord is banished; only ritual from mcguffin book can bring him back.

That is the only way you could make it more concise, and that would be too simple even for me.

Sandboxer’s will be happy as the random encounter table appears here.

I really like the amenable evil caretaker, who will tell the players where the shrine is; because no one ever comes back alive, he thinks of them as sacrifices to the demon lord and helps them on their way.

You can also see hints of playtest in this as the results of charm spells are spelled out, a nice touch; too many adventures do not think about how the use of spells and abilities change the nature of the game.

This is a nice dungeon crawl though a temple, though the challenges are all stock with no creativity taken to their use. I could have easily have seen a minor illusion such as change self being used by a demon to appear as the Demon Lord that would really have made the players eyes bug out.

Quillion

10-10-2008, 02:53 PM

Part II of II

ARTISAN'S TOMB, THE
Oriental Adventure adventure, 3-6 characters of level 3-5
Written by: Matthew Maaske
Artwork by: Richard Bennett (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3225)
Any wilderness, temperate to sub-tropical
3 pages

Description: To free the spirit of a dead artisan, the characters must seek out and destroy the vase which contains his earthly remains.

The lead in to the adventure is a great change, no plying the party with gold, simply appealing to the honor and goodwill of the party, I think was the true strength of the OA the game was idealistic. Honor Before Reason!

It does have one glaring flaw “Of course, the DM should do his best to subtly influence the PCS to help Jutzuka, as this is the grounds for the adventure.” There is only one hook and if it fails there is no game, to paraphrase the DM of the Rings Webcoming DM “You find some tracks” Player1 “What kind?” Player2 “Railroad!”

Here is another gem that I thought was a wonderful change from the standard “dungeon” construction background, and a wonderful example of useful backstory.
“When the nobleman who was to marry the woman whom the Jutzuka (the artisan) loved leared of the tragedy of the artisan’s death, he ordered the construction of an expensive tomb on his own lands.”

It has a solid conclusion, though it could have had a few more consequences, this really feels like a very early example of John Four’s 5-room dungeon technique before it was a popular technique.

THEY ALSO SERVE...
AD&D adventure, 2-4 thieves of levels 5-7
Written by: Robert Kelk (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3236)
Artwork by: Larry Dixon (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=31) HOMEPAGE (http://gryphonking.aelfhame.net/)
Town or City, temperate
10 pages

Description: The PCs are hired to retrieve a royal patent stolen by the thieves of Kingstown if they fail: Civil war

I think the premise for this game is awesome if the PCs fail, you can place a whole civil war at their feet.! WHAM!

Originally, a tournament game this serves as a great mission impossible spy mission with only 72 hours until civil war breaks out, it has a generally strong lead in, though the time limit seems a bit artificial (remember tournament game). You could easily run this without thieves, and run it with a stealth party.

It is interesting the the Guild Thieves Hall is a open to the public, and is a legitimate organization in the town of the kingdom and is kept in place by the local Duke who finds them useful.

Amusing Npc Quotes
“Patriotism won’t buy bread”
“That’s Leftenant, not Lootenant!

This is where random encounters break down, if your running a fast paced rail road, you have sites and events you don’t want truly random encounters as it will just breaks the pace (IMHO)

If you are unethical enough to steal the patent (arguably they stole it first), why not just forge the patent until you get the real one? What would have been a nice twist would have been that the original is actually a forgery. However, maybe I am just reading too much George R. R. Martin lately and wanted a bitter sweet ending not a happy one.

If you are in the capital why can’t you just pay for a teleport spell even if it is just one way it cuts the travel time by 24 hour of forced march?

If you wan a mission impossible that can get a campaign going in a momentous direction, an inventive DM could go far with this as a baseline.

MONSTERQUEST
AD&D adventure, humanoid characters of levels 1-3
Written by: Vince Garcia (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2317)
Artwork by: Jim Holloway (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=875) WEBSITE (http://www.jimhollowayart.com/index.html)
Mountains/hills, temperate
11 pages

Description: DUNGEON's first adventure for humanoid PCs has the characters searching for a magical drinking horn sought after by a local orc chieftain.

Maybe it’s because my ideas of what a good adventure design is are too modern (Go Kobold Quarterly's (http://www.koboldquarterly.com/)Kobold’s Guide to Game Design(by wulfgang baur, jeff grub and edn greenwood). Yet this adventure I did not want to read past the first two pages, it starts off being a running add for a new class and a new product
Along with telling you the character, you have to play.

As my friend Bradford says, there is too much good stuff out there to spend your time reviewing crap, so I will stop here on this one. .

Ralph Dula

10-10-2008, 03:46 PM

QuoteYou can also see hints of playtest in this as the results of charm spells are spelled out, a nice touch; too many adventures do not think about how the use of spells and abilities change the nature of the game.

QFT. Despite gaming for decades, I only got into Dungeon as 3.5 was coming to an end. I can think of at least two adventures from that time I keep hearing praise for time after time, yet by using spells characters of the suggested play level would have one would be completed in about 5 minutes and the use of level-appropriate magic in the other would allow characters to skip about half the encounters in it.

If this thread gets to the last few years of Dungeon I'm hoping to contribute write-ups of those issues.

Quillion

10-21-2008, 12:26 PM

As always work on RiP [Rite Publishing] had to be alocated the time I would normally allocate to this, yet with a number of things working out very well, I was able to get back to playing around with this and this next adventure makes it all worth it.

SECRETS OF THE TOWERS
AD&D adventure, for characters of levels 1+
Written by: Larry Church (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3233)
Artwork by: Roger Raupp (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=1013) WEBSITE (http://www.wokendreams.com/index.html)
Any wilderness, any climate
9 pages

Description: The characters explore a tower and discover that it holds a magical portal leading to other similar towers scattered throughout the world.

This is a nice series of sidequests

It has a interesting reversal on giving out lore as it does not tell you what to tell the players but rather what not to tell them

“Give them whatever clues you feel appropriate, with the following restrictions. “

An attempt is made to make the history these towers modular but it ends up failing and being utterly generic with a very week statement about the towers falling out of use and being forgotten 2,000 years ago It would be like forgetting a fleet of 767’s on the middle of the runway tarmac. This breaks my suspension of disbelief in the fantasy of the towers. I could see it being a secret and those who knew the secret dying, ala that was hidden in area 51 in a secret underground bunker and everyone who knew about it is dead. Heck even with elves your only two generations removed from the fastest form of travel in the world, you know I still know what the pony express is, or what a sailing ship is, we still sail the US Constitution in this country.

The shapes of the towers are a nice change to pentagons, no round or square towers. Yet why is it no one ever installs railings on stairs? Hehehe.

I do like the set up for most of these encounters though some are close on random encounters (which are not my cup of tea, as they are just filler and don’t serve either the players or the dm story goals, and I like stories).

The two maps are a very nice touch (one with numbers that correspond to rooms and one that just has runes, also not all the portals are two way or even work). This gives a very good reason to the explore the towers. The towers themselves are really a powerful base of operations if you know what the towers do, more so because it is fully modular where you locate the towers in your world. So if you locate the towers in remote but strategic locations they can become essential a place many factions would want to control. I can see making the map a bit crazier by making the direction you pass through the portal no correspond to the location of the tower in your world, (example you travel through the southern portal and end up at a tower actually located in the north.

Overall, this is just a great setting piece and side quest that can easily be placed in any campaign. I am stealing this for my own game.

lionrampant

10-21-2008, 12:58 PM

Interesting. Maybe the instructions on how to use the towers got lost, but not knowledge of the towers themselves. Maybe using the towers too much causes mutations or insanity. Or maybe using the towers too much draws attention of planar creatures that are... unfriendly.

Quillion

10-21-2008, 03:41 PM

My idea (since I am an Arcana Evolved Diamond Throne fanboy) is to have it be part of the City of Serathis (Ruins of Intrigue), a city that was taken out of all written record and memory by the powerful magic of its builders that has recently reterned . The "Builders" mysteriously all disappeared (that's the public version, read and find out). I am putting this in an area within that city that is appropriatlly called the Forest of Towers.

I am going to expand the size of the towers so that they were built for large or huge creatures.

As a military asset the towers are just way too cool as a luxury item you turn a single tower into a castle with multiple exotic locals in the summer go north in the winter go to the beach.

Gen. Lee

10-21-2008, 08:16 PM

I'm a big fan of Space:1889, and I still have dreams of hiding the towers on a Mars that has Ancient relics scattered here and there for Intrepid Explorers (tm) to find.

Arasaka

01-27-2009, 12:28 AM

A hopeful *bump*.

I've been looking through the old Dungeon magazines myself to see if there's anything worth adapting to the game's current incarnation. I have to admit that so far, apart from two or three adventures, there's bugger-all I'd consider running.

A big thanks to the reviewers - it would have been a hard slog through 95% of the 10 issues looked at so far.

EDIT: agree with the love for Valerie Valusek's art. Her stuff and "VV" signature is as memorable to me as Clyda Caldwell's and Elmore's from when I started D&D with the Basic Red Box in '86.

(un)reason

07-16-2009, 05:49 AM

I've just realised that I've now caught up with this thread chronologically. So I guess this is one last bump, sending out a call for someone to pick this up again. This is your last chance to try and keep pace with me. Which at my current rate, you only need to do 3 magazines a month to manage. Come on. Surely someone is mad enough to try it?

hida_jiremi

07-16-2009, 05:50 AM

Actually, I'm planning on picking this one back up again, starting this weekend. So... yay? ^_^

Jeremy Puckett

PS: Been a hell of a year...

Pukako

08-20-2009, 03:29 AM

Cool, sort of - have actually been playing a heap of old Dungeon adventures in the couple of months this thread has taken to move, so was thinking of putting a few of these up here, but I'll try to pay attention and chip in where I can.

Looking forward for the weekend....

WillieW

09-27-2009, 11:29 AM

Wait till you get to the Willie Walsh adventures.You did already in Issue #2. (In the Court of the Dwarven King) Tee- Hee! :) Good thread. Hope it keeps up.

Quillion

09-27-2009, 11:35 AM

Actually I am planning to start this back up again after Oct 13th, the day job has changed and I will be caught up with all current Rite Publishing projects , and I will be get back from vacation on the 14th.

I really enjoyed doing this, its just customers had to come before my hobby :)

WillieW

09-27-2009, 02:50 PM

http://www.clicksmilies.com/s1106/grinser/grinning-smiley-004.gif

Quillion

09-28-2009, 12:52 AM

OK, starting up again though there will not be another till after OCT 13th

Part I

Issue #11 Volume II, Number 5 (May/June 1988)

Cover:

Link to Cover Image: (http://www.pen-paper.net/images/rpgmags/dun011.jpg)

Quote:
“All Chaos breaks loose when Vladizier destorys his magical sphere in "Wards of Witching Ways” artist Roger Raupp captures the eccentric warlock in this month's cover painting"
Nice cover, i really enjoy Vladizier's facial expression, Roger Raupp aka Rudy Didier Rauben, his website is HERE (http://www.wokendreams.com/index.html), and there is a neat interview that talks a bit about the golden age of TSR over HERE (http://www.alterati.com/blog/?p=1054#more-1054)

Note that this is a painting, no digital art here, ah the good old days when there was an original :)

Publisher: Mike Cook
Editor: Barbara G. Young
Associate Editor: Roger E. Moore
Cartographer: David S. "Diesel" LaForce

Letter from the Editor by Barbara G Young.
A discussion about Roger and Barbara getting alot of shapeshifter submissions at the same time, along with a discussion of the collective unconciousness of society.

“Before we could read the rulebooks, we all role-played other games -Cops and Robbers, King of the Hill, or own versions of television programs.”

“Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of our imagination is incalculable” Psychological Types, Carl Jung

So when you play with fantasy, dream big.

Letters

Mark Shipley (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3232) who designed Issue #6's "House of the Brothers" makes a nice point about suggested character levels, "Instead of considering only the level of your players, you should also consider the relative skill of your players." A good point as this affects both playtesting and the customer experience.

A bit of rules corrections that cements the fact that proofreading customers are here to stay. (thank goodness) Also another letter has some additional info from an author of the adventure "The Shrine of Ilsidahur" (#9), [the days before web enhancements] along with a bit about submission guidelines (do I need a publishing agent? a serious question at the time, lol),

A letter touting the AD&D game over the D&D game and his home conversions of D&D adventures, edition wars alive and well in 1988.

DARK CONVENTICLE, THE
AD&D adventure, 4-6 characters of levels 8-12
Written by: Richard Emerich (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=7026)
Artwork by: Jim Holloway (http://www.jimhollowayart.com/)
Forest/subterranean, temperate
17 pages
Description: Zenobia, a merchant's daughter, has been kidnapped by an evil cult lurking in the Secauk Forest.

This adventure is written with moral, treasure and a curiosity hook, but has a wealth npc asking you to get his daughter who then rides back to town? I just can't see anyman not going out with you, after his own daughter but the encounter hook is well written if not overly compelling in places.

I do like the author's take on the cult being very real world, Isolation along with kidnapping and brainwashing its members you could really play it up as a moral challenge that everyone of the people you fight is a victim, rather than a demon worshiping ego maniac.

The choice of making the merchant's daughter a sacrifice, I think today I would see about making the players deal with a Stockholm syndrome.

It does have a very nice two prong option of stealth attack and frontal assult (there are literally hundreds of cultists).

Its a nice sandbox dungeon crawl, its real ability is to add the threat of diseases only those immune to disease are not in danger here as there can be two or three potential diseases in any encounter, one encounter that really got me was the room with 100 rot grubs under a single cultists control.

I really like this adventure and it inspires me on how you can make cults cooler.

More Next time so keep gaming.

Quillion

10-22-2009, 01:30 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #11 Part II

WOODEN MOUSE, THE
AD&D adventure, for one thief PC of level 5-8
Written by: Roger Smith (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=7027)
Artwork by: Paul Jaquays (http://www.jaquays.com/)
Town or City, temperate
14 pages
Description: A single thief PC must undergo a dangerous test to gain admittance into the local thieves guild.

This is one of those adventures that has not aged well, 60+ encounters for one PC thief? No expectation that a mid level thief might have a ring of invisibility? No hook for if the PC thief decides not to accept a job to steal a "valuable" magic item from the local thieves guild?

The set up is nice, as your employer is really the head of the guild in disguise deciding to run a Xanatos Gambit by testing your skills and testing his security at the same time.

The test idea is then torpedoed as several npcs are told to expect someone, which I would ignore if I was running this.

There are some interesting traps like invisible oozes covering passageways with a magic pass word that opens the door so you don't' touch the ooze. Yet after that security is horrible they don't even use the dogs they have. The dire rats do a better job of guarding the place.

If I was the guildmaster I would have the head of security guarding a 10' by 10' room with a chest in it.

With some work you could easily use the map, and the change how security is handled and set this up as a sandbox for a group of PCs to run a heist or mission impossible.

Thumbs down on this adventure,

Pukako

11-22-2009, 01:41 AM

Right then. No movement here for a little while, so I hope I'm not stepping on anyone's toes if I attempt to carry this on in some for or another.

Anyway, here goes....

Review of Dungeon Magazine #11 Part III

DARK HEART OF ULOM, THE
AD&D adventure, for 6-8 of levels 5-8, which is 40-48 levels.
Written by: Mark Keavney
Artwork by: Patricia Breeding-Black
Forest, Dark and Twisted
10 pages
Description: A good aligned party goes to cleanse an evil wood that even the Archdruid fears.

Well, a location based adventure, with eight locations/events experienced linearly, a mechanic for measuring 'awakenedness' of the ancient evil mind, and several detailed encounter tables based on this level of wakedness. Also several 'traps' and dreams to scare the players with.

Setup involves the Archdruid telling you a history of a feuding druid and sorcerer, where after a few raids by the mage, the druids constructed a magical animated oak with a group mind throughout the forest. Mage summoned a son of Tiamat, and although the druids killed it, the blood soaked into the oak's roots, making it incredibly evil. Now, just pour this potion around the tree's roots - it'll be easy. Archdruid does not tell you that he'd failed to do this several months ago, but given the list of spells that don't work in the woods, that's not surprising (anything vaguely druidic).

Strangely enough, he only offers a reward if asked. And there's very little loot in the forest. So little, that the adventure recommends giving extra Exp to make up for it.

So the party finds out that no-one knows much about the woods, except it's evil and haunted, but several nearby villagers will sell them a boat or canoes so they can row up the river to the heart of the woods. Going on foot is almost lethal

Basically, every animal and plant in the wood is part of the group mind, and although 'it' is sleeping now, any fires, burning, killing of plants or animals, or speaking to flora or fauna wakes it slowly. So cultivate a Blair Witch terror, inflict the horrific scripted dreams on the players, and ramp up the tension through nasty traps and encounters as they approach the centre with the oak.

Trouble is that they do kill things in the encounters, and this could lead to them awakening the forest, inflicting more encounters, spiralling out of control into carnage. Whether the players work out that softly does it will make the biggest difference to their likely success. The number of locations that are slain armies, slain druids, ruined keeps, etc. may suggest something to observant PCs.

One aspect I like is the repercussions if the party succeed - evil monsters fighting each other in the suddenly neutral wood scare the locals, who may blame the players...

Now, if I use this, I will be converting it to a house-ruled version of Dragon Warriors, so I'm not too concerned with exact monsters or AD&D mechanics. I liked the situation and the non-combat premise of the adventure. It could be dropped in any campaign, but it will need a bit of work and some foreshadowing would be good, as I think a wood this evil should invoke a little more care amongst local communities.

Worth a look if you want to try invoking a little terror in the woods feeling, although if the players don't get the hints, and carry on talking to plants, clearing undergrowth and killing random encounters, this could get nasty and frustrating quickly.

I'd give it a go, with a few modifications, as it's got character and makes a difference from the combat heavy adventures.

Quillion

11-22-2009, 01:50 AM

No toes being stepped on here as Rite Publishing is keeping me busy. If i get time to get back in it I will give you a heads up to find out where I should start again.

Reading your review, I do find the lack of rewards other than XP disturbing, seems like the group mind could be a powerful ally, repository of ancient knowledge, and even know where all the buried and lost treasures would be in the woods, not to mention any valuable rare fauna or animals.

Makes me sad they were not more creative with their idea of what rewards are, it does not always have to be Gold and Jewels (though it might know where good deposits of minerals are?)

Now back to working on Magic Items 101

Update might I suggest a link for the artist (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3811)

Pukako

12-02-2009, 11:26 PM

And here I was hoping WillieW would do this one...

Oh, well...

Review of Dungeon Magazine #11 Part IV

WARDS OF WITCHING WAYS
AD&D tournament scenario, for 4-8 of levels 3-5, which is 20 or so levels.
Written by: Christopher Zarathustra
Artwork by: Roger Raupp (http://www.pen-paper.net/artgallery/Roger_Raupp/)
Their game could mean your lives.
18 pages
Description: Party is shipwrecked in dark island tower and must survive and escape, or kill everyone, or something...

Yay. A tournament scenario. Which means there is the official scored adventure, with set times and effects for most traps, and a messier freeform one... Either way, there's something a little confused here.

Setup: Massive storm. Shipwreck. Washed ashore on a small rocky island with a single gothic castle. Perhaps you can find shelter, or even a boat to escape back to shore after the storm passes.

There's a bit of backstory to the castle, with an evil dwarven hermit, and some pirates that went mad, and now an elderly warlock, Vladizier (CE), and his old friend, an alchemist named Nastisha (LE), along with a collection of charmed norkers, homonculi, scarecrows and a servant, Bulghvus. (I didn't know that CE people were allowed to have friends)

So these mages agree on a game with the party - V tries to stop them reaching the tower he is in, using anything from subtle misdirection to direct injuries. N, on the other hand, can use vague rhyming couplets to help the party.

It's a good tower, with dungeons, cellars, various guardians and monsters, and various traps set up by V using any of his minions. Overlain on that are a series of scripted events, where V tricks, traps or assaults the party, and then N tries to help them, very indirectly for the most part. For example, V sends an invisible B to give them poisoned wine, and then later N sends B (invisible again) to give them a healing potion. These events could play quite well, or the party could kill everything.

Where it falls apart is after the party reaches V's tower. Rather than ending on a high note, as the game is explained and the party are sent home, an all-mighty battle ensues where V (& possible N) are slain or flee.

There's another level to the castle to go after this, and stirges, harpies, spirits of slain pirates and other monsters to battle, which seems a bit anti climatic.

There is treasure, and future adventure ideas, but nowhere is there a boat or a way for shipwrecked PC's to exit the island, which makes the whole setup a little redundant. Only other quibble is that the only reason a thief and cleric are required is so that the thief can walk into a cunning thief-only trap, and the cleric can deal with the undead in the trap.

Solid castle setting, nice sequence of events, but could get confusing very quickly, and needs a reason not to try to kill everyone. Could work well if V is just an eccentric old warlock rather than a homicidal maniac, and becomes a contact for the party.

That's the end of Vol 11. At some stage in the future someone will start of Vol 12, which, judging by its cover, has a Willie Walsh adventure in there somewhere.

Quillion

12-03-2009, 08:48 AM

Nice review,

Though the whole V and N bit was a bit annoying as I did not know if it was just lazy naming on the adventures part or a decision of the reviewer.

Pukako

12-06-2009, 10:49 PM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #12 Part I

LIGHT OF LOST SOULS
AD&D game scenario, for 3-6 of levels 2-4, which is 12 levels total. Party to be well equipped, with a silver/magic weapon but no exorcise spells for any Clerics, which suggests that undead entities will be a key plot point.
Written by: Nigel D. Findley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Findley)
Artwork by: Bob Giadrosich (http://www.popthought.com/display_gallery.asp?GalID=18)
8 pages

Description: While travelling north along the shore, late in the afternoon, the party sees a ruined lighthouse, just as the storm arrives, so they hide in a shallow cave... enter ghost, stage left.

A short little location adventure, on a site of deep tragedy, right on the 50th anniversary of aforementioned tragedy.

Setup: There's an abandoned village (Ravenglass), a silted harbour, and the ruined lighthouse. In earlier days, the lighthouse was important keeping ships off the rocks at the head of the bay in stormy conditions. As per normal in AD&D, the lighthouse keeper became lonely and drank far too much, leading the pirate smuggler ship, the Barracuda to wreck itself on the rocks one stormy night as he lay in a drunken stupor.

Even though it was a pirate ship, the keeper (Danelon) was fired, and died a drunken, broken madman at the exact spot the PCs find themselves.

So Danelon resurfaces as a haunt, possesses a PC, and runs off into the storm to start a fire in the ruined beacon room of the tower. If he sits there all night with the fire, he is finally laid to rest. That's the reason for the 'no exorcism' requirement, as if stopped, he resurfaces on the next anniversary. Not that the party will hang around on the mud flats for that long, methinks...

To add some excitement to watching a ghost start a small fire, the now undead crew of the Barracuda have finally dug their way out of the buried ship (35 years to dig 60 feet, apparently).

So seven huecuvas (http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=9352489&postcount=657) (even though they are pirates, not clerics) surface, trying to burn the haunt, and the body it occupies, to gain their revenge.

They use their polymorph self abilities to appear as the pirates they once were. There is a three point plan for how they act, and as they are a little powerful for low level PCs, there could be a bit of strategy and hiding (except for the one whose character has been possessed). And although Danelon vanishes at dawn, the undead don't. Play up the gothic horror of it, possibly based on Pirates of the Caribbean-like undead.

Treasure is 625 gp in several pieces of jewellery, and possibly some departing spirit telling them the story, as they won't pick it up themselves from being possessed then attacked.

Also a random encounter table if the party hangs around for two long - odds are they'll be mobbed by ravens (link back to the town's name - nice).

No long term campaign effects, unless they don't kill all the huecuvas, who become a bit of a pest, plaguing the rare wanderers through the bay.

Not bad for a single session - a little random, though, but can be linked with other concepts, such as pirates, easily enough, if desired. Family wanting their ancestor laid to rest, reclaiming the medallion of the pirate lord...

Pukako

12-06-2009, 11:47 PM

Nice review,

Though the whole V and N bit was a bit annoying as I did not know if it was just lazy naming on the adventures part or a decision of the reviewer.

Yeah, sorry - all me. I'm not endlessly rewriting names made up to be difficult, and especially not if it's not clear how they are pronounced.

And if there is a bit of clever interplay between several NPCs, their names will probably be abbreviated into single letters or monosyllables to save me getting RSI.

Quillion

12-06-2009, 11:50 PM

Copy, paste; write it once on a word doc and then never again.

Pukako

12-07-2009, 12:45 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #12 Part II

TOC & LETTERS

Right then - should have done this first.

Barbara G. Young, Editor, expresses pride and surprise that this is the second anniversary of Dungeon, and anyone who can write a very, very good adventure has a shot at being published, especially anyone who can do a half decent D&D scenario, as they are running short of them. Also plugs the 1988 GEN CON, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Quote from 'Bored of the Rings', which I've never been tempted to read, and am still not.

Letters - focuses on likes and dislikes from writers. Three want longer adventures, one wants shorter, one bemoaning being the DM, and the last criticising the review in Dragon Magazine.

SCEPTRE OF THE UNDERWORLD

Written by: James A. Jacobs (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=1814)
Artwork by: Richard Bennett

14 pages, 127 entries

Description: Yes, it's an AD&D solo adventure, with a pregenerated 12th level fighter named Jas Daystar (you can use your own character, if of a similar level and equipment).

Brief rundown of the rules - most things will attack on sight, THACO works like this, keep track of the numbered entries...

Jas is wakened by a large black raven dropping a clearly enchanted ring on his bed. Being a fighter with an Intelligence of 12, he puts it on, and is transported to Alaznist, Arch-Mage of the city of Hallain. Alaznist needs him to recover the eponymous Sceptre from a long deserted evil temple. If he refuses, the adventure ends straight away; if not, he fights a reasonable collection of evil temple inhabiting monsters, culminating with the demon at the end.

I haven't played it, and haven't mapped out the dungeon, but it's clearly a smallish dungeon crawl where there is either a monster, a trap or a clue in each room.

Interestingly, upon claiming the Sceptre, Alaznist gives Jas 900 PP and five emeralds, each worth 1000 GP, and then reveals himself to be .... a DROW!!! And he whispers, as he whisks Jas back to his bedroom, treasure close behind, 'If I ever need you again, I'll call'...

Said Sceptre is described, but it's powers are left up to the reader to fill in - take from the DMG, pages 162-4, with a goodly range of powers. Very CE.

Despite the uselessness of the actual adventure, unless you want a solo adventure, or are prepared to map out the dungeon, it is a great campaign hook - mysterious drow (or other) Arch-mage with unknown plans that pays very well. You could use the framing to send the party into any dungeon you want, to recover the sceptre for a mysterious employer. And the sceptre is a pretty nasty evil artefact, with all the excitement that involves...

So quite a bit of good stuff buried in here and easily useful if you have a spare dungeon crawl you want to run the party through.

Morningkill

12-07-2009, 12:57 AM

Copy, paste; write it once on a word doc and then never again.

Use ArsClip (http://www.joejoesoft.com/cms/showpage.php?cid=97) and have them both available from an quick shortcut..

Thanks for this thread. I like it a lot.

Pukako

12-08-2009, 12:35 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #12 Part III

DUNGEON ADVENTURES INDEX

Two, yes, two pages with the adventures from 1-12 in alphabetical order. They definitely are celebrating the 2nd year, uncertain of the future...

AT THE SPOTTLE PARLOUR

Written by: Rick Swan (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2063)
Artwork by: Michael Wright

9 pages

Some games aren't played for fun.

Description: Adventures like this made me think, as a child, that basic D&D was slightly unbalanced.

Anyway, 1-3 characters of level 2-4, which means low-level thrills. A fighter would be handy. Set in a wooded area just north of the title city in GAZ3 - Principalities of Glantri, in the D&D Known World.

Wandering aimlessly through a forest, the party is invited into a legendary high stakes Spottle game by a fat dwarf.

Bradbert Niss, famous thief and runner of legendary Spottle games, and his henchdwarf, Brufred Shabbin, are the minds behind this, and a fair slab of backstory is given. Basically, Niss won against a Hobgoblin last night, who threatened to kill him unless provided with slaves.

The party are to be the slaves, but first, Spottle. Three other players are already in the mountainside chamber that is the Spottle Parlour - none of them great heroes. A low level Cleric charged with collecting funds and failing miserably, a Lizard Man, and a teenage Wereboar related to the D'Ambreville family from X2 Castle Amber. (Bit of cunning product placement there.)

While Niss explains the rules, the Cleric steals a magical key from Niss's Bag of Holding (this is important later). Spottle involves 2 six-sided dice, and a Spottle Toad, that can be stroked before the game, but not during. The game is sort of like blackjack played with dice, with the Toad occasionally eating a die in play. New dice must be bought for 1 cp each if the old ones are eaten.

Charts are given for 10 rounds of play, with various humorous or entertaining antics from the assorted selection of players, giving an active DM the chance to really ham it up. Niss becomes more and more frantic in trying to keep the players there, and hands out various gems at times. The NPCs bicker and in round 8, fight, with Wild Boars appearing.

Best quote - If all the PCs are killed by the boars, the adventure comes to abrupt end

Then, on round 10, Lord Guzz arrives with his elite guards, and a thoul. From what I understand of D&D combat, the party is on a hiding to nothing unless someone notices the key being palmed earlier, which activates the Iron Living Statue that occupies part of the room, and can balance things out nicely.

Mass combat ensues, with an option for the party to escape, rewards if they win with NPCs still alive, and even what to do if all the NPCs are dead, so I think the DM has to run a combat with about half a dozen extras on the party's side.

Treasure is reasonable, with an option of an open invitation to the real Spottle games, which may lead to intrigue and further adventure as they rub shoulders with the powers of the realm...

Also a section on troubleshooting (nice) and variants on Spottle, including three-dice versions.

A very random, but well written adventure that, even with the odd setup, isn't that bad, and Spottle might even catch on...

Pukako

12-11-2009, 04:22 PM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #12 Part IV

INTRIGUE IN THE DEPTHS

Written by: Michael Lach (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3704) & Rocco Pisto (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=12040)
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/242663-what-ever-happened-valerie-valusek.html)

14 pages

Stopping an undersea war wasn't in your contract.

Description: Both a tournament scenario (Gen Con 18 final round) and set underwater, I wasn't really looking forward to this, but I'm pleasantly surprised.

Anyway, 6-8 characters of level 4-7, which is a lot of players by today's standards, and would complicate things quite a bit. The intro states that a balanced party with a few fighters would be helpful, but then goes on to say that the emphasis should be on role-playing and not fighting, probably just to spite min-maxers.

Rather than wandering the wilds aimlessly, or going to a destination they will never reach, this time the players are staying in the city of Mishral, dominated by the Mage's Guild. The party, being famous, are summoned to meet with the Guild, who are all flustered because of the upcoming Wizard's Moot. Turns out that the aquatic elves are not delivering on their end of the trading contract - delivering spell components, all of which are aquatic, in exchange for corrosion resistant metal goods (and no doubt unbalancing the underwater power structure). The last two shipments have not arrived, and someone needs to have a look and either solve the problem, or possibly get a refund. Be courteous, don't stare at their pointy ears, and don't mention the war...

Redundant quoteThe DM should encourage the party to accept this offer

It also stresses that everyone should ham up the roleplaying, adopt funny voices, etc to get the most out of this adventure.

Now, the main issue with underwater adventures is that PC's are horribly disadvantaged with movement, fighting and spell books and scrolls, and will be horribly killed by creatures native to the depths. So you either don't go there, or you give them some magic to handwave away all the problems. Here, the Guild lends each of them a magic ring that handwaves away most of the problem, at least related to movement and breathing, but anyone who relies on a spellbook is out of luck.

They are offered 5000 GP each, and combined with the treasure of the legitimate targets down there, there's a lot of coin there for the taking.

There's a nice structure to the adventure, despite the slight railroading. Turns out the local merman tribe are being rather antagonistic, and are preparing for war against the elves, as their chieftain has been enslaved by a saltwater aboleth. The elves have forgotten about the spell component shipments and are preparing their own defences. On top of this, the merman chieftain's son vanished at the same time the last Elven delegation left the merman village, and they think the elves have him, when in fact he's been abducted by Sea Trolls.

So the PC's have to meet the elves, travel to the merman village, be captured, be freed by a friendly sirine, seek the merman prince, assist an elven patrol being assaulted by Scrags (one of whom has a badly written ransom note in it's pocket), return the prince to the mermen, cast dispel magic on the Chieftain, and then join the mermen in an assault on the aboleth's caves.

The enslavement spell used is a new, more powerful variant, and the saltwater aboleth is a new monster, being more powerful than the freshwater variety, and could easily enslave a PC or two during the assault, just for fun.

The adventure does mention language problems, and refers the DM to pages of the DMG, Unearthed Arcana, The Wilderness Survival Guide and U3 - The Final Enemy, for the complete selection of underwater rules (which is probably why most people don't bother).

Concluding the adventure gives some good ideas for carrying on underwater, although the Guild will want their rings back at some point - the Dragon Turtle returns, Sahuagin raiding/settling parties and a pilgrimage through marine Hobgoblin lands are all suggested. And if back on land, the Wizard's Moot will cause all sorts of political and magical fun, including the arrival of the Black Necromancer of the North, with his undead retinue (I'm stealing this idea for my sandbox)

One thing that struck me is that this adventure could be taken and set anywhere - I'm imagining a border kingdom in the snowy, forested north, with the Baron requiring someone to check out the forest elves, who are preparing for battle with the local dwarves, whose heir has been stolen by trolls, and whose Thane has been enslaved by a Dragon or something. Change the monsters appropriately and this would work well.

A bit of foray into railroaded adventures with complicated situational rules, but a good storyline and rolepalying opportunities make this definitely useable.

Pukako

12-16-2009, 12:05 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #12 Part V

HUDDLE FARM

Written by: Willie Walsh (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3210)
Artwork by: Linda Medley (http://www.shiningsilence.com/medley/)
Cartography by: Diesel (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=510)
15 pages

A family feud - with green cows?

Description: The titular adventure of this issue, Willie Walsh appears with a charming little plot, huge amounts of gentle roleplaying, and I don't think any swords will be drawn, let along used.

Anyway, beginning characters are suitable, as any experienced will have issues with the lack of killing.

I'd like to take this moment to express my problem with D&D halflings/hobbits. I have never seen any situation where they cannot be replaced with humans, except for adventures where their height is a major plot point, and that doesn't sound like a fun adventure. Their personalities are usually much better developed than any mere human peasants, even though they are interchangeable in almost all circumstances. Assigning these personalities to said human farmers makes them seem more realistic than the usual stock hick country peasant most writers use.

That said, I can get on with the adventure, that, if you haven't worked it out by now, is in the Hobbit village of Boda.

Various pranks are being played on the Huddles, a family of Hobbits with very well developed personalities, motivations and secrets - is this related to their feud with the nearby Sutton family?

Said pranks include the green cows, damaged crops, a barn burnt down, and burglary. Due to the seriousness of this, the Huddle menfolk, led by Tolman Huddle, have recruited the green-behind-the-ears party to investigate. From the Mouldering Cheese Inn (I love that name). Because of his desire not to lose face if the investigation fails, Tolman sneaks the party into the village in a (rather small) hay-cart, and impresses on them that they must not be seen by any other Hobbit families. Combine this with a housewife that will not let any dirt into her house (cloaks, boots, armour, weapons, backpacks...) and it makes things very restricted for a party that's used to rolling up anywhere in the same road worn armour.

There are a number of complicated explanations for the various problems, many of them related to other Hobbits, or a resident dwarf who is rather fond of beer. Once these are sorted out, the players can deduce the real cause of the problems. Or they can look at the picture on the front of this Magazine...

The detail is wonderful for a published adventure, and there is a definite Irish slant here, with a gentle and humorous charm. The description of Huddle Hill, the residence of the Huddle family, takes up 8 1/2 pages of the adventure. Most published adventures don't spent that even on major sites!

I can't say much about how it would run, as the adventure depends mostly on the DMs skill in managing the different bits of information and the interactions between the PCs and the various Huddles, and others.

The added social pressure of keeping things quiet and not being seen by others is a good feature that could be used a lot more, to prevent the PCs being above social niceties, and more aware of the community they are protecting.

Enjoyable to read, and maybe fun to run, but it would require a good DM to bring things to life, and make it funny and enjoyable rather than silly farce. Because when the 'villains' main attack in making someone's pants fall down, you're treading a fine line.

Pukako

01-09-2010, 03:56 PM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #13 Part I

RUINS OF NOL=DAER

Written by: HL McCleskey
Artwork by: Richard Bennett
Cartography by: HL McCleskey
17 pages

Abandoned and forgotten ruins never are

Description: Firstly, this is one of the few Dungeon Magazines I have with a few pages missing, so I can't really give a complete summary here. Instead, I've used the pages I have and a few discussions on the web to piece something together.

6-8 characters of levels 5-8,which is around 40-50 total levels - recommended is a minimum of two fighters, a thief, one or more magic users, a cleric of 7th level+, and several PCs with infravision and the ability to see invisible. Reasonably prescriptive...

The adventure is set for the moment in Greyhawk (hex J4-104, to be precise), and it has a large helping of monsters from the FF.

Nol-Daer is a ruined castle with a bad reputation, and bandits, dwarven miners and livestock have all gone missing nearby recently. There are a number of hooks for the party to get them into the castle, from chasing orcs nearby, to being employed by sliver mine owners to find the dwarves, to being hired by local farmers to track down their missing cow. Rumours tell of bloodhawks and gargoyles.

The background to this adventure takes up over a page, but briefly an enchantress had a blasphemous fling with a conjured demon and 11 months later, a cute little cambion was born, with the improbable name of MacDaer. He's ferreted away to a layer of the Abyss for 100 years where he learns suitable skills, but now he needs his mother's spellbooks. Back in Greyhawk, a wandering orcish army sacked the castle 50 years ago, and luckily managed to seal some pet Black Dragons in a collapsed cavern.

A hermit and his sons who bring livestock to the dragons in return for gold have been replaced by dopplegangers, and the cambion has an uneasy truce with the dragons, who are still trapped, He is using the the captured dwarves to dig tunnels searching for the spellbook.

So here's a collection of different monsters with the PCs delving into the middle. Looks and sounds like a classic dungeon crawl, with jermliane, rats and dopplegangers near the entrance, spiders and yellow musk zombies further in, undead and random demons on the second level, and the cambion, his retinue, and the dragons on the third level.

The DM will need to play the various groups of inhabitants well, in a coordinated manner. This (http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=3081) is a discussion about play issues from almost 7 years ago, but first hand experience is always good.

Can't really judge it as any more or less than a dungeon crawl with interesting adversaries. Two things did stand out. With one exception, no traps, so that aspect of dungeon crawling is out. Also, a hidden secret room contains a berbalang with no bearing on the plot - it exists only so the players can gain a magic ring with strange somewhat chaotic powers, which itself has absolutely no connection with the rest of the adventure.

GOING ONCE... GOING TWICE

Written by: Patricia Nead Elrod (http://www.vampwriter.com/)
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=931)
5 pages

Auction fever can empty anyone's pouch of coins

Description: Vampire detective writers have to start somewhere, and Pat announces that her first two novels have been accepted, with a third requested...

Anyway, no vampires here, but a short event based scenario to separate players from their cash if their DM has realised that they have been overly generous.

Story here is that Demetrius the Good has grown embarrassingly rich doing good deeds for local nobility, but now that his once remote keep has been swallowed by rampart subdivision, he is retiring to a distant monastery. So he's organised a major auction of his surplus goods at Green Feather Associates Auction House.

A few well detailed NPCs, with Demetrius, and the halfling manager of Green Feather Associates and his (adopted) half-orc daughter.

24 either good quality or low level 'useful' magical items with recommended prices and a simplistic biding system. As shown by a painting on sale, this could be used to introduce plot maguffins; swords with maps hidden in the pommel; ancient signet rings, etc.

I don't actually see this as an 'adventure', just sort of an event, and it will not be to every campaign's taste - depends on your balance of tweeness and grimdark, but there are possibilities to adapt this to whatever you're comfortable with. Hooded acolytes of the temples bidding under an ancient and arcane system for the bones of slain heroes; Lords and nobles bargaining for the right to oust the goblins from the Deephaven Mines...

Pukako

01-24-2010, 12:19 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #13 Part II

THE MOOR-TOMB MAP

Written by: Jon Bailey
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=931)

17 pages

In this dungeon, adventurers are the treasure

Description: A fairly meaty adventure for your 17 pages, this manages to combine a legendary mage, a semi-dungeon crawl with somewhat over-the-top traps, and a bandit gang that seems to control the town and some of the dungeon.

4-6 characters of levels 2-4,which is around 12-16 total levels, and remarkably unprescriptive in terms of required party make up, although I can let slip that rangers would be useful in the moor part of the adventure

The adventure almost seems like the two threads (tomb & bandits) are not convincingly woven together,

Foreshadow the famous lost tomb of the mage Dalvan Meir, whose experiments with immortality were famed throughout the land. Also slip the rather nice map on the title page into a treasure hoard the party finds. Or hand wave all that, give them a photocopy and explain to them why they are in the 'sleepy little hamlet' named Moorwall (although there is no wall anywhere near the town).

Large backstory explaining that a previous party found a tower (the Keyhole to the Tomb of Dalvan Meir) during a flight from lizardmen and then betrayal by bandits. The party are assumed to have gained the map they sent to a friend via a courier that was slain.

After finding the tomb, the bandits decided not to explore it, except for a strange collection of caves beside it that form nice living quarters.

The town of Moorwall is positively overrun with bandits, bandit wannabes, bandit allies, and unsuspecting villagers. NPCs are either 0 or 5th level. The inn's chef is a 5th level assassin, so no complaining about the stew. The town, especially the inn, is well detailed, with the inn taking up two pages. I guess the party are expected to do something there, but as the bandits are well hidden, I'm not sure what.

The moors are the Willowmoors, with realistic hazards, and a smart party will realise that going off the path on their map will result in the GM being allowed to throw a large list of dangers their way. Doing the expected, which is hiring the guides recommended by the innkeeper, will result in an ambush; not too sure why if the party look strong enough, but it's a reasonable fight, with special rules for the slippery bridge.

Next, onto a safe, not trapped, harmless abandoned house. If the party refuse to sleep in it, you're probably going a bit hard on the traps and surprises. A few carnivorous plants, some snakes, then the obelisk, which reveals the tomb location in an interesting way, with suitably vague riddles inscribed on it. These may be useful later.

The tomb involves crossing a piranha infested lake, a trapped door with a payment system (slightly odd), a trapped room with various masks, that one of the riddles may help with, and solving that lets the party into the rest of the tomb. Not solving it results in the party being captured by the bandits that have found a secret passage...

The short tomb romp includes an acid pool, a stone guardian, a ghast and the result of the mage's cunning plan to transfer his spirit to an improved body going wrong. So he's not actually much of a challenge.

And then there's the almost separate quarters of the bandits, which is a little separate from the rest of the adventure, but does lead to a large battle at the end. And the bandit chieftain does have some interesting ways of escaping at the end.

Not bad, although the bandits do seem to be the main threat and are not quite well developed enough to be good competition or a valid threat in the tomb. Maybe plant a bandit NPC in the party (henchman?), or give them some better tactics.

Quillion

01-25-2010, 02:07 AM

Keep up the good work :)

Pukako

01-30-2010, 07:42 PM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #13 Part III

THE TREASURE VAULT OF KASIL

Written by: Patrick G. Goshtigian (http://wiki.acaeum.com/wiki/Category:Patrick_Goshtigian) & Nick Kopsinis (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=3230)
Artwork by: Bob Giodrosich (http://www.sharayahpress.com/)

6 pages

Great riches and sudden death, free for the taking

Description: A fairly straightforward site based adventure, with 6 locations and 9 potentially fatal traps. I think that the authors may have had a copy of S1 close to their word processor, as although it isn't as brutal as TTOH, most of the traps are undetectable, and have a combination of potentially fatal, slightly gonzo, components.

3-5 characters of levels 5-7,which is a bit of a pain, as it's hard to roll up a new mid-level PC when your previous one has been shocked, turned to stone, dumped in a pit and then dissolved in acid. A larger party of lower levels, or a single character of higher level may be appropriate too, but all will be challenged. Henchmen that you're not particularly attached too would be useful, too.

I made reference in the adventure above to parties so on-edge that they would not sleep in a simple abandoned cottage in a swamp. Those parties would be useful here, and I agree with the authors notes about the futility of brute force.

Anyhow; The Ancient Kingdom of Grenthorn fell centuries ago, and memory of it has faded into history. Except for the knowledge that the Royal Treasures of the Kasil family were never recovered from their special mountaintop vault, although many have failed. There are magical keys that allow access and disarm some of the more violent traps, but they are assumed lost and have no bearing on the adventure as written. The conclusion notes that a quest to locate all the keys could be a good adventure. And one McGuffin is the same as any other in the grand scheme of things...

The Vault is in a small set of ruins, with no specific encounters set, although checking 3 times a day on the DMG is recommended, and the surrounding lands are rife with thieves, bandits and charlatans, due to the rumoured treasures.

The Vault entrance is from a raised platform, with stone gargoyles with glowing emerald eyes that attract predators at night, cause sleep in those exposed to the light, and are cursed if someone steals them. Good stuff, but a sadistic GM could cause a lot of damage with this combo.

Onto getting into the Vaults. Five potential entrances, four of them trapped;

We have one with a razor-lined shaft, dripping poison, a glassteel barrier, a permanent illusion, a false wall, a spring loaded trap, and a spiked floor. Another has a fire-breathing gargoyle (the non-animate type) and a pit trap. One more has a path down into a pool of 'weak' acid (that still seems very damaging despite this weakness) and a crystal ooze.

Even the Vault's entrance has a floor with a 90% chance of triggering a pressure pad that may turn you to stone, then dump you in a pit. Acid optional. If that is avoided, picking the lock gives a powerful electric shock that may cause you to be paralysed and fall on the trapped floor, with a 95% chance of triggering the events previously mentioned.

And once in the vault, the treasure is in smallish denominations, requiring multiple trips through the entrance, and is trapped by various magical and gonzo effects, including bits of prismatic spheres, immediate insanity, 'ceiling falls, everyone dies', instant freezing and subsequent melting, and the odd false wall.

Did I mention that every spell that would assist with entry doesn't work?

You can play this as brutally as written, provided your players enjoy potential fatalities, have plenty of cannon fodder and work in some way that gives them a chance of surviving the traps (good teamwork and planning). Make it a long term goal that they can come back to when feeling suicidal, and make sure that there is evidence of other rogues, peasants and adventuring parties trying to break in as well.

Probably the hardest part is that the somewhat fatal and over-the top trap effects right from the start, so ensure that any party attempting this show the necessary care and attention.

Lord Shark

01-30-2010, 10:32 PM

AT THE SPOTTLE PARLOUR

Written by: Rick Swan (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2063)
Artwork by: Michael Wright

I *tried* to run this for my group once, but they were suspicious when the dwarf approached them and just hurried away, leaving me to vamp the rest of the session. Grumble.

Pukako

02-01-2010, 09:24 PM

I *tried* to run this for my group once, but they were suspicious when the dwarf approached them and just hurried away, leaving me to vamp the rest of the session. Grumble.

Hmmm... Have they had dwarf issues in the past? Next time, try a wanton hussy or something less threatening...

Good luck running it, as it is one of the most bizarre adventures I've reviewed (so far).

MadWritter

02-02-2010, 12:32 AM

I *tried* to run this for my group once, but they were suspicious when the dwarf approached them and just hurried away, leaving me to vamp the rest of the session. Grumble.

That's odd way of using the word, "vamp". To me, that means vampire or some kind of monster that acts like one. Can use another word in to explain what you mean by "vamp?"

(un)reason

02-02-2010, 01:34 AM

That's odd way of using the word, "vamp". To me, that means vampire or some kind of monster that acts like one. Can use another word in to explain what you mean by "vamp?"

It's a musical term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vamp_(music)#Vamp Essentially it means looping the material you have and improvising around it for an extended period.

Pukako

02-05-2010, 03:31 PM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #13 Part IV

OF NESTS AND NATIONS

Written by: Randy Maxwell (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2321)
Artwork by: Paul Jaquays (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=587)

17 and a half pages

Arson, rioting, sabotage, murder - and no suspects

Description: This D&D adventure is for 3-5 mighty heroes of levels 8-12 in the Mystera setting, set in Specularium (GAZ1 is recommended for background and NPCs). A manageable group size.

As the by-line suggests, lots of murder, arson, random killings, etc in Specularium . but with all known power groups being hit the same. Understandably, there is public unrest, riots and militia groups taking to the streets. All high level heroes & friends are called in by the Duke, who gives an inspirational speech that calls on them to find the culprits by any means, although later on we find that this doesn't seem to include burning down taverns, even with good reason.

It is suggested that the PCs be caught in a riot or two, but as this would involve each player rolling d100 EIGHT times to see if they are trampled, arrested, attacked, etc (5% chance of each), I'd suggest making it a 40%-PC level chance of one of these randomly happening, to avoid dice rolling fatigue.

The first half of the adventure as written gives the background of incidents in detail, and informs us that the instigators are Hivebrood, who seem awfully overpowered in an urban setting. As the Hivemind's have the ability to acquire and pass on the capabilities of any creature they have eaten, when one finds and eats a lone, unconscious 20th level MU, it gains all the magical powers of the MU, along with the ability to read its spellbooks. Somehow, this has also allowed it to think independently, and come up with a very abstract plan to produce instability in human cities. Assisted by the memories of all the people the Hive has eaten over the years, a large collection of magical items from the colony's trash heap and the spells Polymorph, Permanence, Invisible Stalker, and Delayed Fireball, a handful of Hiveminds have descended on the city, charming the staff of a nondescript inn and setting up a base there. From here, they send out the Stalkers with Delayed Fireballs, who start fires and murder people.

What's the chance of finding a lone, unconscious 20th level magic user, anyway?

On to the adventure; Once the PCs have been addressed by the Duke, they can start looking. This brings me to the main problem with this adventure. Every possible avenue to trace an attack back to the Hiveminds is instantly snuffed out. There's a rumour table, but as all the rumours are false, that's more annoying than helpful.

As the players have no hope of finding the Hiveminds, at least for the main part of the adventure, they will spend their time battling the effects of the attacks - such as a fire in a warehouse containing rare and strange animals captured from distant islands (giant scorpion, sabre-toothed tigers, giant tuatara lizard, etc) that they will have to fight and subdue before they eat too much of the population.

A mysterious note claiming that if the players bring 5000 gp to a deserted farm house, they will be given the names of those responsible. Needless to say, it's a trap, and a nasty, annoying one - 21 thugs, all with multiple vials of sleep gas and poisoned crossbow quarrels, who will steal ALL the possessions of the PCs if they are captured. The players shouldn't fall for this, but as there are no other clues, they really have to.

A murdered wizard with a cryptic text that mentions the inn where the Hiveminds are holed up, but this can be easily explained away by the staff, and the players have no way of acting on it

A giant amoeba, summoned just next to the inn! But the adventure clearly states that if the players have the idea of tracing it back to where it came from, based on times and locations of attacks, the DM should mark their name with random dots, as it changes direction so often.

If a PC is a magic user, then there's a good chance they will be taken into custody for 13-24 hours at one point.

In fact, the only clue that may suggest anything useful to the PCs is a footless zombie on the harbour bottom (it makes some sense in the adventure). But if they ask the wrong questions, then they get nowhere, and after 4 rounds, crocodiles attack them anyway.

There's also an optional encounter with a nasty, almost unnoticeable cursed coin, which is not particularly fair on any of the PCs.

And if the PCs are not able to solve the mystery, then it is suggested that any of the raft of NPCs in GAZ1 give them leads, or even solve it themselves.

It's a good idea (alien bugs infiltrating a city) that could work, but the almost complete lack of any realistic clues or leads may make this adventure a lesson in frustration, as the PCs can't do anything useful.

To salvage it, insert a few clues; let them trace a hooded priest that was near an attack, to find out he's a disguised thief, but can tell them that he saw an overlooked beggar nearby, who can link the attack with the inn. Give them some clues if they show some initiative (such as plotting amoeba attacks) and don't automatically shut down every avenue of investigation.

Oh, yes, and the picture from the cover of the magazine is what happens if anyone corners the Hivemind ringleader. As it's a 20th level MU/12th level fighter, with thief and cleric abilities, this probably won't be much fun either.

Not my favourite, too frustrating, and with twinked monsters. There must be some reason why magic users can't terrorise cities with a few fireball and invisibility spells, and that's been completely ignored here.

Capellan

02-06-2010, 12:37 PM

Hivebrood are awesome. Sad that they didn't get a showcase you would have enjoyed.

Good to see you keeping this going.

Pukako

02-07-2010, 11:33 PM

Hivebrood are awesome. Sad that they didn't get a showcase you would have enjoyed.

I wouldn't have minded them, if they had been Hivebrood (or any similar alien-type insects) as Hivebrood, rather than sneaking around a city metaphorically wearing a trench coat and false moustache (actually polymorph and permanence, but you know what I mean)

Thanks for the encouragement. :)

Pukako

02-08-2010, 12:48 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #14 Part I

Magazine #14. Almost 10% through... Might have to pick up the pace, but assessing half a dozen often wildly differing adventures per issue makes my head hurt.

Anyway...

MASQUERAIDER

Written by: Randy Maxwell (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=2321)
Artwork by: Tom (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=491) Baxa (http://www.baxaart.com/home.htm)

10 pages

The hunter becomes the hunted

Description: Here we go, headlong into full-flavoured Forgotten Realms territory. Which includes more red herrings, incidental encounters, and possible follow up adventures than you can shake a wizard's staff at.

4-6 PCs of levels 2-5, with no preferences stated, although I'd suggest someone who can track, as the adventure does involve tracking something. Possibly a locomotive, though.:D

Set in Cormyr, DM and players should read the relevant bits from Cyclopedia of the Realms, and although you are invited to put it in your own campaign world, there are so many links to other published Realms products that it's hard to separate it out.

Anyway, the players are in Tyrluk, or a similar town, and the Crier reads out the evening news. This would be bizarre in any campaign I've ever run, but this is the Realms... various small, poor paying jobs that have already been completed (if they ask) and one offer of mysterious bravery and high adventure. So the party follow up this open offer by visiting a drunken sergeant and prying information out of him by buying him ale. Nice bit of forced role-playing, but a little annoying for all parties.

Anyway, something is killing ponies, chickens, a cow or two, cabbage merchants and possibly some local farmer's sons, on the High Horn Road. Although it's the ponies that are the important factor. The PCs are directed to the Crossroads Inn, and the hunters huddled in there, after being informed of what appears to be an excessive bounty of 6,400 gp and 10 'choice ponies'.

Onto the Inn, where locals will either ply the locals with more ale, or just bribe a professional bounty hunter, to discover that there have been sightings of, and attacks by, a giant scorpion, an owlbear and a brown bear. All of the tracks lead to a Haunted Valley! Why they assume it's the same monster is beyond me - presented with the same information, I'd assume a mad druid was holed up in the valley, and sic some adventurers on him or her.

The reality is that it is actually a Protein Polymorph. WTF? Page 73, Fiend Folio. Sort of like a pimped mimic, that can disguise itself as everything from a party of adventures to random animals to background scenery. There's a table of this one's favourite forms at the back of the adventure to help, but I'd just wing it to give the Polymorph a fighting chance.

From the inn, there are railroad tracks leading through set encounters - pony guards (peaceful), snakes (not), giant ticks, a dead horse, tracks, and more tracks, that lead to the Haunted Valley that the inn patrons discussed. A good party would skip these and head straight to the valley first.

Which happens to contain a cave that is both the lair of the Protein Polymorph and the place of imprisonment of a banished abishai (red) that is encased in a solid crystal, and amuses itself by animating zombies and disliking the Polymorph.

So the abishai can still use telepathic and charm powers, and tries to get the party to free him, although they will have been attacked by a menagerie of animal zombies to get to him, and any worthy adventurers must know not to free demonic things imprisoned in crystals (Incidentally, the zombie dogs have collars marking them as property of the Myth Drannor Naturalists Guild.)

Also, there has been mention of the Knaves of Clubs, a small adventuring group (part of a larger group in Arabel) that took the job, asked around at the inn, and one of which is found dead in the caves. A good attempt, but the back story and details of the organisation in Arabel are given in the description of Room C of the cave system, which is also annoying.

Should they avoid being slain by the devil, the Protein Polymorph will be in its cave, and will attempt to sneak past the party, then double back and torment them. Given it can change into ANYTHING it wants to this should be easy for it, and a real challenge to the party. I approve.

And if they slay the monster and drag it back to their starting town, they are shortchanged - despite the total of the bounty being 6,400 gp (and ponies), the conclusion only awards them 1,200 gp, and that is made up of food and supplies, rather than coin. I'm not too sure if this is meant to impress the rural nature of the setting on the party, but it is annoying.

At the end of the adventure, there are three possible continuations, depending on if they found the devil, if they both found and released the devil, or if they head to Myth Drannor to redeem the collars of the undead doggies (into to 'Hall of the Beast Tamers' module from the Sourcebook of the Realms, although this lead is given in the description of Room C as well). There's also the Knaves of Clubs, that may want their banner back, or may become rivals of the party.

The roleplaying aspects here are good, even if by-the-numbers and the DM has to fill in large gaps. The Knaves are good, but a little underused, as all the party find is one rotting body.

The main disappointments are the linear nature of the events, the 'shapechanging monster in the Haunted Valley' signpost, and the mistake in the bounty - which is right? That at the start or in the conclusion? Is 1000 or 6000 gp appropriate for AD&D players? I have no idea.... What about the ponies? And why is most of the background given in the description of Room C? That's very annoying. Put it in the DMs bit at the front.

The devil enclosed in crystal is a good touch, even if it distracts the party completely from their original bounty. An interesting trick to pull on a party... And the adventure does fully realise the slightly claustrophobic feel of the Realms setting, with NPCs around every corner.

Definitely worth looking into if you enjoy 2nd edition AD&D Forgotten Realms...

Pukako

02-10-2010, 12:26 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #14 Part II

A QUESTION OF BALANCE

Written by: Nigel D. Findley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigel_Findley)
Artwork by: Jim Holloway (http://www.jimhollowayart.com/)

5 pages

It pays to call ahead before you travel

Description: The second adventure in this issue is another jaunt into the Forgotten Realms, this time with a combination of a silly premise and brutal high level environmental challenges.

4-6 PCs of levels 8-12, with all classes, races and alignments welcomed, although if I was evil, or even neutral chaotic, it would be a very short adventure. But notice that we are at the pointy end of AD&D play, as characters as these levels can do some damage.

Anyway, Havenmere is the name of a small town and an adjacent lake, that can be in Sembia, or Cormyr, or anywhere, basically provided they are near Thunder Gap in the Thunder Peaks. The town is normal AD&D - poor crops from the harsh, infertile soil with a local strain of hardy, bad-tempered sheep (and presumably locals, too). No reason for anyone to visit it, so it's assumed the players are lost.

They experience a strange, sudden and violent thunderstorm that melts away after it has soaked and chilled the party. As they walk into the village, they interrupt a lynching, or at least a burning at the stake, as the locals have captured a demon! The players have to metagame here, as the 'demon' is an insurance salesman from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, and is dressed accordingly. The adventure assumes that the party will convince the farmers that they shouldn't light the fire, and will use magic to communicate with the demon Simon Weems. Frankly, an evil or even neutral party would be perfectly justified in watching the burning, as the farmer's reasoning (his tie is obviously a hangman's noose, so he's a death spirit of some type!) is quite convincing.

A note to the DM here - let the players think it's a comic adventure. They'll regret it later...

So if they save Simon and start communicating, he is useless for all intents and purposes. As is proper in the Realms, a friendly NPC surfaces to point the party in the right direction and tell them what they must do. In this case, it's a 0-level old man who was a wizard's bottle washer and lab assistant in his younger years. Therefore, he can brief the party on the concept of 'spontaneous gates', and inform them that there was another being summoned by the storm (the farmers will confirm this - the other figure headed straight for the mountains). To send Simon back, these two figures must be brought into proximity.

Another note - only use the NPC if the players don't come up with this theory themselves. Obvious, really... Vector balances...

So the party, with an insurance salesman from Wisconsin, follow the trail of ruined crops and shredded, burnt sheep carcasses to a rugged chasm leading into the mountains. Cue a series of dexterity tests to avoid falling damage (lichen as slippery as banana peels), and a 10% chance per round of abrasion damage if you fly. And when they reach the other demon, things get interesting.

This guy is like the archetypal goon from 1960s pulp fantasy literature. Grey skin with a metallic sheen, wickedly curved claws, small head and acidic sweat. It looks like a goblin crossed with a very large gorilla. Full marks for introducing a bit of gonzo into the Realms; AC -2; 14 HD; 3 attacks (2-12 +4 (x2) & 1-10); regeneration; 70% MR; vast number of immunities; and many spell-like powers at 25th level effect usable twice a turn, once a day, or at will.

My guess is that this would be a major fight, even for a team of 10th level PCs. There is advice on how to use the Goon here to best effect. And it's not a demon, but an evil, twisted life form from another plane, and it likes the look of this place. In other words, it doesn't want to go home.

It chooses a ledge to make a stand, uses it's powers to maximum effects and should be pretty tough, unless Simon is brought to within 10 feet of the Goon. If this happens, another bout of sudden and violent thunderstorms, and both vanish back to their home planes. But only if they're both still alive. Should this happen, each character has to roll under dexterity on 4d6 or fall for 20d6 damage. That sucks.

And that's the adventure. No rewards from the dirt poor farmers, and, thinking about it, no real assurances that the two travellers went back to their home planes - they just vanished...

So an interesting hook, but one that requires certain actions from the players, and some application of metagame knowledge, some standard Realms tropes, and then a vicious fight against both the mountain and the Goon that could do some serious damage. No real foreshadowing of the intensity of events, unless you count the sheep carcasses.

Shouldn't 10th level characters be saving the world, running domains, or leading armies? Why would they be lost in the back end of nowhere?

Still, you have to suspend disbelief at times in the Realms, so it's plausible.

Anyway, that's two FR adventures in a row, and I've got a Willie Walsh one next, then some living puppets... Don't expect any serious dungeon crawling for a while...

.

Alcamtar

02-10-2010, 12:56 PM

This thread is a treasure trove of ideas for GM brainstorming...!

I love the detailed description of and commentary on each adventure. It's always good to hear other people's thoughts about what works, doesn't work, what's cool and what's just plain stoopid.

IMO, don't worry about spoilers because I don't have access to these issues anyway. (Besides if you don't want to be spoiled you should know enough not to read this thread!) Anyway after reading several hundred adventure descriptions the details are all going to flow together.

Great idea. I'm avidly following this... :D

Pukako

02-12-2010, 12:05 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #14 Part II

Thanks Alcamtar. I think these reviews have moved more to analysis and my own personal views on what works and what doesn't, rather than straight reviews, and I hope others add in their thoughts and ideas.

Anyway...

STRANDED ON THE BARON'S ISLAND

Written by: Willie Walsh (http://williewalsh.blogspot.com/search/label/Dungeons%20and%20Dragons)
Artwork by: Valerie Valusek (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=931)

17 pages

Not even the furniture is quite what it seems

Description: I wonder where the by-lines come from. They often highlight either blindingly obvious aspects of the adventure, or obscure and minor parts.

Anyway, it's another eclectic and completely different offering from Mr Walsh. This is a very different style and pace to the previous two Realms jaunts, though perhaps the closeness has made the differences stand out a little more.

This is a variation of the Pygmalion, one of George Bernard Shaw's more enduring works, and if anyone else was of an age to study it in 5th form English, you will understand the slightly unsettled feeling I'm getting now.

Backstory first, which, interestingly, unless the players do rather well uncovering clues and secrets, they may never find out. There are two friendly Aristocrats, both mayors of towns in small, rural, feudal Cambium State. One, Whitefriar, was an adventurer in his younger years, but has retired and taken up his hereditary baronship. But as a result of this younger independence, he has curious social ideas. One of these is that all men are basically the same, and wealth and education are the only things separating the richest duke from the meanest peasant. His friend, Brigholsom, was horrified by this concept, and disagrees.

So in order to settle this disagreement, they have 5,000 gp riding on a bet; Whitefriar has sellected (kidnapped) a poor peasant, given him intense training and an education, and installed him as a Baron from a distant land, and owner of the island (we'll get to the island later). A party with distinguished guests is held on the island, and if none of them spot the former peasant as not a real Baron, then Whitefriar wins. This bet is done fairly, and no cheating, unfair play, or anything else will occur unless the players decide to do so.

Incidentally, the peasant/baron has very very good stats - three 18s, 17, 14, 11. I don't really know how this affects the social theorising, but a baron with all 9s would be different, I bet.

So the PCs are ditched from a ship stranded on rocks in a storm. The ship manages to work itself free, but the party are in a rowboat just off a small island with a brightly lit mansion visible. They will get wet and cold making their way there, but will be welcomed in, and treated as an uncertain factor in the gathering of the rich, curious and dangerous at the mansion.

And, to complicate things, the storm has isolated the island for three days, and the theft of the famous Southbourne Jewels from a guest shortly after the PCs arrive puts everyone on edge.

The adventure is a place based encounter, with a functional map of the mansion and good, short, detailed descriptions of Baron Ruga and his twelve guests. These guests are classic archetypes of British Cinema - taken from both the Agatha Christie and the Carry On films. We have the Retired Army Officer, eccentric and slightly senile; the widowed heiress to a diamond fortune; an unmarried heiress to a shaky fortune, seeking a rich husband; spoiled twin daughters of a famous judge (Olsen twins, anyone?); an unscrupulous dwarven merchant with a secret (the portrait demonstrates Valerie's standing in the 'Do Dwarven Women Have Beards' debate); a socially mobile undertaker with his unwilling wife; and a famous lawyer who is secretly an infamous jewel thief known as the 'Black Hand'.

A wonderful cast that will require very good acting by the DM, and provide meaningful roleplay interaction to PCs that will most probably be completely unsuited to. Somehow I don't think 4th Ed does this sort of adventure too well.

The tone of the adventure can be summed up by the mysterious furniture. The hallway contains a mimic that pretends to be an antique chair, and its best friend is a doppleganger. They both sneak around, stealing food and playing tricks on the inhabitants. Playing shapeshifting monsters that have been the cause of numerous dungeon deaths as the humour factor? Welcome to Willie's World, and its whimsical nature.

The setting is detailed, and complete. The DM has to make the characters come alive, play them, make up random encounter tables (the author warns against this, on account of the strange combinations that could result, but I say each guest is strange enough to have a good reason for turning up in any area at any time of day or night), and run the jewel theft, movements of the thieves, and the PCs interactions with said thieves and everyone (and thing) else, and also mind the details of the initial bet. Quite a workload, and I can't imagine an Eldritch Warlock or Conan-like barbarian fitting in here.

This setting looks like a later age converted to AD&D, and if you have a 20s or 30s pulp campaign, or perhaps need a COC adventure that doesn't involve everyone going made and being eaten by nameless spawn, then it might be worth a closer look.

Pukako

02-19-2010, 01:15 AM

Review of Dungeon Magazine #14 Part III

I consider this review payback for all the muppets episodes I watched on youtube over Christmas...

MASTER OF PUPPETS

Written by: Carl Sargent (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sargent)
Artwork by: Janet Aulisio (http://www.pen-paper.net/rpgdb.php?op=showcreator&creatorid=229)

8 pages

The best allies are those you build yourself

Description: Why not titled PUPPETMASTER? Or is that just a little silly? Anyway, completely different from Mr Walsh's jewel heist, this adventure has a balanced (at least one thief, cleric & magic user) party of 5-7 PCs of levels 6-8 (around the 40 total level mark) chasing a Player's Handbook monk with an evil puppet making book.

The monk is very clearly a Player's Handbook monk, not an Oriental Adventures imitation, and we find out later, a high level magic user too. But firstly, the set-up;

A young, lawful-good, honest, humble, etc, etc, monk approaches the PCs in a generic town, and invites them to meet his master, Aarhius, and discuss a mission. Polite, and better than some adventure introductions. The master is tall, silver haired, 77 years old, and the master of a distant community of monks. To cut a long story short, Qhyjanoth (officially the worst NPC name so far), a powerful monk and traitor to the afore-mentioned community, has stolen a book that must be recovered within three days. Qhyjanoth should be captured to face justice for his crimes, but if you must kill him, so be it. 14,000 gp in gems for the return of the book, and the capture or execution of Qhyjanoth, within four days. Not too sure why four rather than the three given before, but players can't really use hit and run tactics for this assault.

Anyway, Aarhius has chased Qhyjanoth to a lair below a ruined shrine set a little way out of town. Horses are provided, and the first encounter is the trapdoor down to the lair.

A locked trapdoor, ogre guards that could be alerted, trapped clothing in the closet and a magically trapped hallway all occur before the first puppet encounter.

Steampunk ventriloquist puppets, by their description, armed with a floppy hat and a wand.

'The puppets attack by throwing their hats' Okay.... And up to six extra hats appear in their hands when the last is thrown. The hats, if they land on a player's head, require a save v spells, or the player is randomly blinded, confused, collapses laughing, or attacks their own party for 2-5 rounds. The hats disappear immediately if resisted or when the effect expires. The wands strike for 2-12 electrical damage, but once again, are only usable by the puppets.

Next, a corridor that has so many unavoidable magical warning effects that Qhyjanoth will be warned of the intrusion, a room with Stun Puppets (large bronze fists - stun for 2-7 rounds on a natural 19 - 20 attack roll), and a library from where Qhyjanoth has been observing the party. He will assault them with various disabling spells, and if reduced to 15 HP, will dimension door to the last room at the end of the dungeon, or merely take down one PC then flee.

At this point, I must mention that the lair is quite a good dungeon example, as it has living spaces for the evil doer - a lounge, a bedroom, a storage room filled with junk - and all with random lootables - 650 gp worth of bronze and brass ingots? Mind you, as a qualified geologist, I must object to 1200 gp of zircons...

Back to the chase - a bare chamber with a hole in the floor (perfect for thief climb skills). Also a lethal poison gas - saving means you die in 3d4+3 rounds rather than immediately.

The next level immediately results in zombies, and an annoying ventriloquist's puppet (now evilly sentient, as most of them probably are) that saves as a 16th level magic user, and can drum to cause confusion.

Next, snakes, spears, and a 'Chamber of Confusion'. Fun and games with sticky diagonal screens, 100 screaming magic mouths, Qhyjanoth making another semi-last stand, but basically throws spells at the PCs, summons a pair of minotaurs and flees again.

A nasty trapped door that sticks to the PC, and draws them into a pit of acid. Fortunately, the acid dissolves the glue...

More traps, this time fire, then a lair that wouldn't be out of place for Austin Powers, with a hole in the ceiling up to the last room. Qhyjanoth is waiting at the top with his bag of tricks, and will drop a goat and a bull on anyone climbing up. If you ever wanted to know the damage caused by being stuck by a falling goat, it's 3-12, but the dropper has to roll for attack at -2.

Then Qhyjanoth fires up his anti-magic shell, drops down the hole and tries to murder the party with his bare hands.

So whether the party win or not ,they are met by the untrusting monks with a dozen mounted monks, recruited locally, for a last ditch assault if the PCs are unsuccessful. If the players are still fighting on the third day, a Pit Fiend arrives for the book.

Anyway, at the end we get Qhyjanoth's stats - 11th level monk/14th level magic user. That explains why he is rather long lasting in the adventure and a royal pain.

Interesting, rather annoying adversaries, a short themed dungeon, and a backstory. It all hangs together, provided the party can deal with all the traps, magic and Qhyjanoth. No real 'wow' factor, but a decent, solid, vanilla adventure.