Things I learned from reading 100 Dungeon Mag 3.x adventures

[K]

Ok, so I'm been camping something in FFXI and had the time to read through my Dungeon Magazine collection. Specifically, my 3.x mags.

Now, some of these are products of the rules, some are a product of Paizo, and some are just the consequence of assuming the DM can wing any problems he finds, but all are interesting in my mind.

Here is what I've decided:

1. Low-level adventures almost invariably suck. I mean, you could have a low level adventure where you jump through a fixed planar gate and explored a fantastic ruined city and meet exotic locals, but the vast majority of low level adventures consist of "go into the woods and fight some orcs/dire bears, because they are evil".

You see a lot of evil druids in low level. I don't know why.

2. You level like 2-4 times per adventure. To put enough encounters into a narrative to make the minimum of a narrative arc, you need to have enough fights that the XP gains force leveling several times.

This is probably a product of a combat system that takes hours to resolve battles, so the metric of leveling once every three times you meet means you get through an adventure every 4-8 times you meet.

3. NPCs like +1s. OK, so almost all the NPCs and monsters have plus items, and not items with real abilities. Now, I understand that this makes a monster harder to run as you now have even more abilities to consider, but at the end of the day it makes you wonder why you wouldn't just tweek the numbers to eliminate all the +1s and make magic items cost more and thus be worth more as treasure.

4. The villain's plot cannot be replicated by the rules in any way. Hands down, no villain plot has rules regarding it. It doesn't matter if it's a plot to cast spells on an elemental ice artifact to keep it from cooling down that part of the continent to summoning a demon horde to gaining godhood, the villain's plot always involves the DM saying "yes, it would work if he did it, but you can't. Ever."

5. Toss-away monsters require too much page space.[/i] Seriously, I think the easiest way to add word count to an adventure is to add in 2-3 new monsters (or monsters from MMs people probably won't have). Statting them out and explaining what their unique abilities do sucks page space like no one's business.

And this is for speedbump mobs like harpoon spiders.

6. Short indexes for maps is beyond their imagination. Ok, when I run an adventure, I need to know where things are and what they do.

So the maps have letters or numbers on them for lists of what's there, and what I want is a little list (a quarter of a page will do) to remind me what is where. I mean, I seriously don't need to flip for several pages if the room the PCs are going into is the Pantry (Area D5). A little list next to the map saying "D5 Pantry" under "D4 Cathedral" and before "D6 Throne Room" would speed up my life considerably since I've read the adventure and have a good idea of what's in places, but can't recall what E23 is to save my life.

7. Rarely do people plan out what happens after the adventure. Find a trap that tosses tons of iron balls at people? Awesome! But what do people do if they happen to sell those balls for GP?

What happens if the PCs decide that a underground lair connected to a well in the heart of the city is super awesome and decide to make it their own? What happens if the PCs decide that a demon-summoning sword is super neat and decide to kill evil crap with it to summon demons for Good and don't toss it into a volcano?

Heck, what further adventures could I use this map key and NPCs for?

8. Unique items abound. Not just the "plot device artifact", but there are lots of unique items added in for plot or just kicks. Sometimes it's small like alchemic items that burn cold and not hot, and sometimes it's an abusable magic technique, spell, or item that does not follow the established rules of item creation.

Sometimes it's just books. Lots and lots of books show up, and they do thing as mundane as "+5 circumstance bonus when researching demon lords" to opening access to new powers or giving unique abilities. One great book permanently gives the spell-like to cast Dream, but causes Wis damage every day for the rest of your life..... so if you are a cleric, you just do it.

9. Higher the level, the more likely to get the unique reward. Hey, want a free and permanent +2 profane bonus to your highest stat? Awesome! You just need to let the Queen of the Succubi kiss you and you get it!

Mid-level rewards tend to be things like "and if you are ever in Middlehost, Joe NPC can show you around and introduce you to people who can give you adventures."

10. No sandboxing. Almost to a fault, there is a linear progression to the plot that forces certain events(and yet no one ever writes this plot down in a little list so you remember how it is supposed to work). This means the adventure goes off the rails pretty quickly if you react incorrectly, and the statted our parts of the adventure don't lend themselves to sandbox style play in that mapset.

[Lago PARANOIA]

That's actually pretty interesting, K.

In your opinion, which are the best Dungeon adventures and why in your opinion do you think that they are the best?

[the_taken]

I've got a torrent with all that shit and more on the download. Thanks for the heads up. Now I know Dungeon^tm adventures are no better than most other published adventures.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I don't see why you're so surprised, the_taken. Dragon and Dungeon magazine content has had a reputation for a good long while that the stuff in it is mostly crap and that you need to sift through or line-item veto things to get anything good.

One of the few smart moves 4E made was trying very, very hard to make Dragon content respectable. It's about on the same level as sourcebook material now. Considering the awful reputation the magazine had going into the the edition that's nothing less than a miracle.

[Cynic]

Are there many adventures that are sandboxable?

In a way, that's the whole point of a pre-made adventure. You have plot point A,plot point B, and plot point C. TO get from A to C, you have to go through B.

You take a certain vision that the writer has for you and you get to it. I know this also goes against certain mores of RP in general but that's part of the inherent problem of pre-made adventures.

[the_taken]

I don't see why you're so surprised, the_taken. Dragon and Dungeon magazine content has had a reputation for a good long while that the stuff in it is mostly crap and that you need to sift through or line-item veto things to get anything good.

I never looked at Dungeon 'cause the players I played with would buy adventures for me to run them through (and them promptly go off the rails ). Seriously. I didn't have to look for any adventures, so I never bothered to check what was good and what wasn't.

[Doom]

Those adventures look like that because the specs for writing those adventures mandated at least 1 new monster and 1 new magic item, and they couldn't be something was clearly a reskinnning of an old monster or item.

[Koumei]

One of the Dungeon ones I really liked was a low-level murder investigation plot.

A "Doppleganger + Human, IT BREEDS TRUUUUUUUUE" from Eberron race, but with a permanent injury was the villain, and s/he killed circus people because s/he was injured by some... velociraptors?

[Psychic Robot]

I don't see why you're so surprised, the_taken. Dragon and Dungeon magazine content has had a reputation for a good long while that the stuff in it is mostly crap and that you need to sift through or line-item veto things to get anything good.

To be fair, this accurately describes the majority of content in 3e.

[Lich-Loved]

I don't see why you're so surprised, the_taken. Dragon and Dungeon magazine content has had a reputation for a good long while that the stuff in it is mostly crap and that you need to sift through or line-item veto things to get anything good.

One of the few smart moves 4E made was trying very, very hard to make Dragon content respectable. It's about on the same level as sourcebook material now. Considering the awful reputation the magazine had going into the the edition that's nothing less than a miracle.

Paizo assumed control of the magazines as a spinoff from WotC. They have only be around for a half-dozen years or so and in that time won about a dozen major awards. I could probably search their site and find out which awards and when, but really I can't be bothered at the moment. No other industry magazine has come close to their performance in so short a time.

Typical bullshit is typical.

[hogarth]

2. You level like 2-4 times per adventure. To put enough encounters into a narrative to make the minimum of a narrative arc, you need to have enough fights that the XP gains force leveling several times.

Really? I thought the standard was 2 levels for a level 1 adventure and 1 or 1.5 levels for other adventures. Did you actually do the calculation for a significant number of adventures, or were you just eyeballing it? Just curious.

[Red_Rob]

I am currently running a party through Rise of the Runelords, a campaign written by Paizo consisting of 6 adventures. The guidelines state that the party should level around 3 times per adventure. We aren't using XP so the players just level when they kill the big bads / solve the mystery. They do seem to be levelling pretty fast though, its running at an everage of around 1 level per 2 sessions at the moment.

[hogarth]

I am currently running a party through Rise of the Runelords, a campaign written by Paizo consisting of 6 adventures. The guidelines state that the party should level around 3 times per adventure.

That's not from Dungeon magazine, though. The Dungeon magazine adventure paths (Shackled City, Age of Worms, Savage Tide) were more like 20 levels over 12 adventures.

[Juton]

I've had some good times with Shackled City. It uses traps better than every other AP I've played, which heightens the paranoia of the PCs, which makes for good times.

[K]

2. You level like 2-4 times per adventure. To put enough encounters into a narrative to make the minimum of a narrative arc, you need to have enough fights that the XP gains force leveling several times.

Really? I thought the standard was 2 levels for a level 1 adventure and 1 or 1.5 levels for other adventures. Did you actually do the calculation for a significant number of adventures, or were you just eyeballing it? Just curious.

I just count up encounters, as well as other events that are XP-worthy that the adventure suggests for ad-hoc awards. You'd probably be fine if they PCs don't explore every part of the adventure, but I have never adventured with people like that.

[Username17]

Yeah, the "you will gain X levels" suggestions are based on the idea of people finding some percentage of the encounters. Personally, I usually adventure with people who go back and kill all the wolfbats in the aerie after taking out the bad guys "for the eps."

It's one of the reasons I am really over combat XP.

-Username17

[magnuskn]

Yeah, the "you will gain X levels" suggestions are based on the idea of people finding some percentage of the encounters. Personally, I usually adventure with people who go back and kill all the wolfbats in the aerie after taking out the bad guys "for the eps."

It's one of the reasons I am really over combat XP.

-Username17

Oh. So, are you Brian or B.A. ?

[Koumei]

Thankfully, I tend to game with the "Get in, get out, stop fucking about" crowd. Without the looming threat of reinforcements arriving/the world ending.

Generally because we all want to get out of the dungeon, get our reward and start living it up like kings/gangsters for a bit.

[K]

That's actually pretty interesting, K.

In your opinion, which are the best Dungeon adventures and why in your opinion do you think that they are the best?

So, I was saving this while I thought about it.

The adventures I liked the best tended to be Sandboxes of one sort or the other.

So for example, there is this great low-level adventure where you are supposed to Scooby Do in this hamlet for half the adventure and meet and greet the locals, and then head off a gnoll invasion by storming their cave lair. It has a lots of memorable NPCs, many of which are not involved in the current adventure.

Then there is this other high-level fetch quest that is part of an adventure path, and it takes place in an Abyssal location and the backstory for that spot could easily be the focus for a whole campaign.

I also liked their one Vile adventure that was used as a showcase for the Book of Vile Darkness because they took several pages to talk about the pirate town, the relevant NPCs in town, and the various backstorys. I could totally do a campaign there. (As a side-note, I also got a kick out of the fact that they took the same location and did a cut-paste into one of the adventure paths and didn't even talk about its Vileness despite it being a cut-paste. That Erik Mona is a card.)

I guess I'm of the opinion that if you are going to spend thirty pages on something, I don't need several pages describing what kinds of foodstuffs are in the panties or statting out some speedbump monster. You can totally have a memorable adventure and enough backstory to spark ideas for further adventures in thirty pages.

There's no reason why each adventure can't be a mini-campaign considering you are going to be spending enough time there to go up 2-4 levels. It's a damn sight better than giant filler-text stat blocks.

[CatharzGodfoot]

...describing what kinds of foodstuffs are in the panties...

Is that a typo?

[K]

...describing what kinds of foodstuffs are in the panties...

Is that a typo?

Yes. I blame writing at 3am rather than general perversity (at least this time).

I meant pantries. (As a side note, I don't mind a little pantry description in my adventures. I just don't need a laundry list of things I can Greyhawk. I think the most sane adventure I found said "There's 40K of stuff if you loot the whole manor, and ten mins work gets you this much of it.")

[hogarth]

2. You level like 2-4 times per adventure. To put enough encounters into a narrative to make the minimum of a narrative arc, you need to have enough fights that the XP gains force leveling several times.

Really? I thought the standard was 2 levels for a level 1 adventure and 1 or 1.5 levels for other adventures. Did you actually do the calculation for a significant number of adventures, or were you just eyeballing it? Just curious.

I just count up encounters, as well as other events that are XP-worthy that the adventure suggests for ad-hoc awards. You'd probably be fine if they PCs don't explore every part of the adventure, but I have never adventured with people like that.

I'm a little surprised, I guess, because I've read in a few threads on the Paizo boards that folks have gone through and added up all the available XP and had it come out with not much extra to spare. Certainly 4 levels sounds a bit fishy (unless it was a really big 1st level adventure like the first Shackled City installment).

For instance, in this thread someone claimed with regards to Shackled City:

As much as XP go, I only once had minor trouble keeping the group at the expected level, when I skipped a whole lot of Occipitus random encounters because I don't like encounters, which are purely random. They add nothing to the story except XP. Anyway, that's the only time, where standard out of the book XP calculation wasn't sufficient to exactly meet the prerequisites for the next chapter.

[Kaelik]

Yeah Hogarth, some guy didn't have problems keeping them on the XP track.

But you know, he also wasn't DMing for excessive completionists like K and I, so who fucking knows how it would go if his players actually did scrounge every XP possible.

[Cynic]

nothing like a bunch of carrots in the panties pantries.

[hogarth]

Yeah Hogarth, some guy didn't have problems keeping them on the XP track.

But you know, he also wasn't DMing for excessive completionists like K and I, so who fucking knows how it would go if his players actually did scrounge every XP possible.

There's one random internet guy saying he calculated that there's just enough XP in the Shackled City adventures to put the PCs where they should be, and there's another random internet guy saying the average Dungeon module has twice as much as that. I don't inherently believe either one of them, although I really don't care one way or the other, because as Frank astutely pointed out, it's stupid giving out XP based on how many monsters you kill.