{"id":3398,"date":"2017-01-07T07:06:47","date_gmt":"2017-01-07T12:06:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3398"},"modified":"2016-12-30T13:07:30","modified_gmt":"2016-12-30T18:07:30","slug":"dungeon-magazine-116","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3398","title":{"rendered":"Dungeon Magazine #116"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nPalace of the Twisted King
\nBy Phillip Larwood
\nLevel 5<\/p>\n

Three encounters in an abandoned desert waypost with five menlocks. They do hit & run tactics on the party. It\u2019s trying to create a creepy vibe, and has some decent suggestions for doing so. Some charcoal drawing, nver over a few feet high. Small bits of bone, gnawed upon. Asking for listen or spot checks. Taking a player in to another room just to tell them something innocuous, like they found a gold coin or some such. There\u2019s a dc30 spot check that needs to be made on the EXACT square of trapdoor, which is a little ludicrous. (Maybe not? I don\u2019t remember how large spot checks get at level 5 in 3e.) I\u2019m not a big fan of the hit&run stuff from the dimension door abilities \u2026 I\u2019m perhaps too damaged by adversarial DM tactics. The major problem, as always, is the length. It goes on about history and background ad nauseum. Oh, the caravans used to get their water from the well? Never would have imagined that! The effect is to hide the actually relevant details. The well has ID Moss in the side \u2026 which i buried in the middle of a long paragraph. Then there is the arbitrary crap. That loose flagstone, hidden by the DC30 spot check? It can\u2019t be removed from the top. It\u2019s not locked or anything. It just can\u2019t be removed. What? Seriously? Again, this raises the Suspension of Disbelief issue, which, when in an obstacle, raises the spectre of the adversarial DM. There\u2019s some german film, Funny Games, where one of the asshats, torturing a couple in their home, is killed. His buddy shouts \u201cNo!\u201d and then rewinds the film and does something so it won\u2019t happen. Bad DM! But, anyway, there IS some nice advice given about creepiness, although pacing could use a few words also. I just wish it weren\u2019t buried by the immense amount of irrelevant text. In spite of the advice, I just don\u2019t think this one has enough going for it to make it worth it.<\/p>\n

Death of Lashmire
\nPsionic Heavy
\nBy Tim Hitchcock
\nLevel 12<\/p>\n

Bob the psionic is in his lair when it\u2019s attacked by some Gith looking to get a silver sword back. The party stumbles in for some lame pretext. There\u2019s no point. It\u2019s like watching a movie. I guess you could help one side or another. But why? ALso, some Gith attack and enslave you if you surrender\/talk to them when they ask you to. What\u2019s the odds the SECOND group of Gith, the ones who WILL negotiate, will be met with anything but a fireball?<\/p>\n

Asylum
\nBy Christopher Perkins
\nLevel 19<\/p>\n

Adventure Path! The last one, thank god. The party travels to hell to kill the demon prince you controlled the cagewrights. There\u2019s really not much content here. Undead beholder attacks. You go to hell. Find a trading city (which is the most boring place on any plane, ever) and find a hag citadel who knows where the demon prince is. The hag is a little interesting. The demon prince stronghold is a prison. It\u2019s just ten or eleven rooms stuffed with monsters to fight and various gimps, like tar slime on the floors, no teleport or stone shape on the walls, etc. For some inexplicable reason you get a deva to go along with you at the start. Worst. Reason.Ever. to give up your deva-hood and fall? Helping the party in a Chris Perkins adventure.<\/p>\n

This issue published their \u201cexperts\u201d take on the 30 best adventures. Here\u2019s my thoughts on their choices, all from my (failing) memory …<\/p>\n

30. Ghost Tower of Inverness
\nA nice tourny dungeon, but little to offer otherwise. Cook slams it as \u201ccliche\u2019d\u201d Fuck you. I like the classics. They are classics for a reason.<\/p>\n

29. The Assassin\u2019s Knot
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

28. The Lost City
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this \u2026 EXCEPT, it\u2019s got an adventurers \u201cquick pack\u201d reference sheet in it. I photocopy the FUCK out of it. It\u2019s one of my standard handouts at tables, both home and when running at a con. \u201cPick a character and a backpack A, B, or C and let\u2019s GO!\u201d<\/p>\n

27. The Sinister Secret of Slatmarsh
\nI shall admit to having fond memories of this Scooby Doo adventure. I might do back and review this one day to see if my memory, which tells me its terse and full of classic stuff, is correct.<\/p>\n

26. City of Skulls
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

25. Dragons of Despair
\nAll I remember liking the isometric map and being absolutely and totally confused about the beginning of this. In retrospect, I wonder if I didn\u2019t understand you were supposed to use the pregens?<\/p>\n

24. City of the Spider Queen
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

23. Forgotten Temple of Tharizdun
\nI recall this as being VERY minimally keyed. Two adventures, really, or three if you count the wilderness. I always felt like there was something special to this but I never discovered what it was.<\/p>\n

22. The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth
\nMonster Zoo, shoving as much shit together as possible. A guilty pleasure.<\/p>\n

21. Dark Tower
\nI like Dark Tower. I like Thracia more.<\/p>\n

20. Scourge of the Slave Lords
\nI remember this as super linear and you starting as slaves, escaping? Both of which could be ok for a con\/tourny game \u2026 but not otherwise. Make the SuperAdventure changes that?<\/p>\n

19. Against the Cult of the Reptile God
\nI LUV the village in this; it\u2019s a lot of fun to run if the everyone is hyperbolic. I recall also the dungeon being nothing special, except for the wet dungeon atmosphere?<\/p>\n

18. The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan
\nLinear tourny dungeon is linear tourney dungeon? I\u2019m not sure why these keep making the Best Of lists. They serve a very small niche.<\/p>\n

17. Ruins of the Undermountain
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

16. Isle of Dread
\nAbsurd amounts of content. You could set a large amount of your campaign here, if you were good enough to get past the repetitive parts.<\/p>\n

15. Castle Amber
\nThe teleporter\/realms end of this never clicked with me. The entre things needs a bit of buffing up to set the mood correctly for encounters.<\/p>\n

14. Dead Gods
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

13. Dwellers of the Forbidden City
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

12. Forge of Fury
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this. But I do have a hard time believing a 3e adventure is good. It was debut adventure also, wasn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n

11. Gates of Firestorm Peak.
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

10. Return to the Tomb of Horrors
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

9. White Plume Mountain
\nLook, I like tourney\/con games. But the 30 best?<\/p>\n

8. Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
\nI seem to recall owning this. I don\u2019t seem to recall getting in to it?<\/p>\n

7. Keep on the Borderlands
\nTerse, thy name is B2. All the best and worst from Gygax. Fond memories, and a decent DM can do things with it.<\/p>\n

6. Desert of Desolation
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

5. Expedition to the FUCKING KICK ASS BARRIER PEAKS BITCHES!!!!<\/p>\n

4. Temple of Elemental Evil
\nDon\u2019t know notin bout this.<\/p>\n

3. Tomb of Horror
\nFuck you and die. The world would be a better place if this had never been published. It has generated a culture of adversarial DM\u2019ing.<\/p>\n

2. Ravenloft
\nI just finished Curse of Strahd, and don\u2019t recall much from the original. <\/p>\n

1.GDQ\/Queen of Spiders
\nUh \u2026 No. I think GDQ is a mess, with two exceptions. 1) G1 is one of the finest modules ever written. 2) I love the wanderers tables in all of the D modules; Freaky Deaky shit right there! <\/p>\n

Of those thirty the only one I\u2019m sure of is G1. It can still hang with the best of today. I\u2019d love to include Barrier Peaks, but I question if my love of it is just nostalgia. Dark Tower MIGHT be able to hang, as could Thracia. Both would be strong Also Rans if they didn\u2019t make my Top 30 list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Palace of the Twisted King By Phillip Larwood Level 5 Three encounters in an abandoned desert waypost with five menlocks. They do hit & run tactics on the party. It\u2019s trying to create a creepy vibe, and has some decent … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3397,"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-3398","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\/12\/d116.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398","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=3398"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3399,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3398\/revisions\/3399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}