{"id":2972,"date":"2016-04-09T07:15:03","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T11:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2972"},"modified":"2016-03-31T09:39:48","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T13:39:48","slug":"dungeon-magazine-77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2972","title":{"rendered":"Dungeon Magazine #77"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"d77\"<\/a>
\nThis issue isn\u2019t too bad. Except for the feature.<\/p>\n

Visiting Tylwyth
\nBy Scott Walley
\nAD&D
\nLevel 1<\/p>\n

Following a trail in a forest to find a missing elf. I\u2019d call this charming and playful, if conversational and an abundance of text. It pays special attention to gnomes and their ability to speak with burrowing creatures. It\u2019s quite specific in it\u2019s detail of certain object, which adds a lot to the adventure. It pays too much attention to mechanics and uses several sentences where one would do, which clogs it all up with text. Creepy carving in the forest, a nicely described elf tree home (maybe the best I\u2019ve seen), and some kobolds round out an encounter with a misanthrope. This is pretty low key but fanciful, which is how I like my folklorish adventures at first level. A powerful earthen odor with dangling roots draping an entrance? Nice! A great selection of reward items also, from folding boats to expanding 10\u2019 poles, to oversized pipes. <\/p>\n

A Feast of Flesh
\nBy Peter R. Hopkins
\nAD&D
\nLevel 3-5<\/p>\n

\u201cBuggems! No!\u201d BUGGEMS! NO!\u201d <\/p>\n

A side-trek in a small village that is being surrounded\/infested with giant burrowing beetles. This has a nice Tremors vibe going on with decent atmosphere that reminds me a lot of the scenes where they are trapped in a building, but this time it\u2019s the entire village. Four pages and PACKED with more content than usual for a side-trek. The burrows\/warren under the village are repetitive and don\u2019t live up to the content in the village. Replacing it with one of those freaky \u201cLiving Plaque\u201d adventures from Psychedelic Fantasies would be pretty cool. Very nice little map of the village and the warrens underneath. This could use a few events to liven things up in the village<\/p>\n

Wind Chill
\nBy Kevin Carter
\nAD&D
\nLevels 4-6<\/p>\n

This five page adventure is not a side-trek, but has significantly less content than the Tremors sidetrek in this issue. While camping in the snow, they party is tormented by a windigo. The abandoned campsite they discover is detailed at length, as are the four time-based events that follow. It\u2019s all the wendigo screwing with the party. I suppose it\u2019s meant to build tension, and I think it would do so pretty well. It is, essentially, an at length description of \u201csurviving the night\u201d while camped, something parties do often. \u201cA half-hour of deathly silence settles on to the forest after the last bone falls.\u201d That\u2019s pretty good. The read aloud (the previous was a DM note) isn\u2019t quite that good, but isn\u2019t bad at all. The all too frequent \u201cruined by too much DM text\u201d is rampant here, and detracts from the usefulness. <\/p>\n

Ex Keraptis Cum Amore
\nBy Andy Miller
\nAD&D
\nLevels 8-12<\/p>\n

This is another White Plume Mountain, complete with some pictures to show players. . Enchantments have been placed on the dungeon that thwart any spell that transports something from one place to another, and any spell used in any way has a 25% chance of fizzling out. Joy. I\u2019m not a fan of these; there ought to be a warning label so you know you are about to buy one. It\u2019s serviceable for what it does, accomplishing the room-after-room challenge that these things must deliver, supported by some of the player handouts. Two paragraph read-alouds required to fortell the doom and puzzle to the players, followed by two columns of text per room to describe the DM notes and advice. How it\u2019s actually possible to run something like this (specifically, digging through 2 columns of DM text) is beyond me.<\/p>\n

Stage Fright
\nBy Oliver Garbsch
\nAD&D
\nLevels 1-3<\/p>\n

Side-trek. A page of backstory. A read aloud monologue more than a column long. A baby slaad rips out of the chest of an actor on stage and runs into the basement. Kill it before it becomes a young slaad. The Tremors adventure could be better, but compared to the usual side-trek dreck, like this thing, it\u2019s magnificent.<\/p>\n

To Walk Beneath the Waves
\nBy W. Jason Peck
\nAD&D
\nLevels 3-5<\/p>\n

\u201cThe First Councilor is direct.\u201d Quotes the adventure. Unlike the adventure proper, which takes forever to go nowhere. Just a few combats in this overly long adventure under the sea to find some underwater raiders. It wants to provide a magical and wondrous adventure in a strange and alien world under the sea. All it actually does is provide boring combat after combat. As with all crappy underwater adventures, it provides the party with gear to survive. Notably though, the designer references the dilemma directly in the second paragraph of the adventure: \u201cthey should possess very few if any magical items that help them deal with the undersea element. [items are provided] and by limiting the amount of such magic the DM enhances the sense of mystery and wonder inherent to this environment.\u201d True. But the environment presented isn\u2019t magical and wonderous, it\u2019s boring and dull. And giving the party items deadens their own buy into the adventure. \u201cHey go do this mission in the magma! Don\u2019t worry, here\u2019s a 200 billion dollars worth of solid diamond stuff to survive it!\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This issue isn\u2019t too bad. Except for the feature. Visiting Tylwyth By Scott Walley AD&D Level 1 Following a trail in a forest to find a missing elf. I\u2019d call this charming and playful, if conversational and an abundance of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dungeon-magazine","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/d77.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2972"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2973,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2972\/revisions\/2973"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}