{"id":3592,"date":"2017-05-06T07:17:52","date_gmt":"2017-05-06T11:17:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3592"},"modified":"2017-04-26T11:28:44","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T15:28:44","slug":"dungeon-magazine-133","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3592","title":{"rendered":"Dungeon Magazine #133"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nChimes at Midnight
\nBy Nicolas Logue
\nLevel 5<\/p>\n

I cannot stand this fucking adventure. It\u2019s Shadowpunky Eberron, which is not my favorite genre, but the real reason is that the design SUCKS SHIT BALLS. It starts with the usual \u2018lets build excitement with a starting combat\u2019 bullshit common to these plot shitholes. Some prisoners, being paraded, escape. I guess the party is supposed to give a shit and stop them. Or Not, and just watch. Whatever. There\u2019s some pretext about \u201cinvestigating a theft\u201d, but it ends with the villain just inviting the party to his house. There\u2019s a big sidebar that says \u201cin order to make the final two encounters of the adventure more exciting, it’s best if the party are racing against the clock \u2026\u201d Jesus fucking christ. NO ONE CARES. Rather than give us an adventure to run its just a bunch of plot bullshit. What\u2019s the massive amount of text spent on? Here\u2019s an example, a detailed account of how a trap works, that amounts to \u201cexplosion in 5 rounds\u201d:<\/p>\n

\u201cA bell hung on a cord rings when the door to the office is opened. This cord runs through the ceiling of the office to the laboratory above, and activates two separate mechanisms when moved. The first releases the deadly acidic fire gar contained in the large steel tanks in the lab. The second mechanism sets a pendulum into motion with a tindertwig attached. The pendulum slowly picks up speed over the course of the next ten rounds before striking the twig on the wall of the tower and igniting the gas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yeah, you got a brand, and can publish anything you want. It\u2019s no wonder the magazine died. Blaming this shit on \u2018electronic\u2019 is BS, it just sucked because no one gave a shit to produce a decent magazine.<\/p>\n

Ill Made Graves
\nBy Kevin Carter
\nLevel 7<\/p>\n

This nordic adventure has a nice vibe going on, right out of the gate. There\u2019s going to a funeral for a viking king, a big pyre. During it an evil dragon spirit is awakened and the party is charged with destroying its vessel, a tooth lodged in the dead kings bod, in the river of fire in the old dragons lair. This intro could be a shit fest, but it’s skilfully handed. The awakened dragon is really just a fear aura, causing chaos when there should be respect. The hooks to get the party there involve a dying, valiant exiled viking asking the party to return his helm to people, and thus stumbling on the funeral, or a country in the south sending the party as an embassy, along with a sizable funeral gift, as a sign of respect and to curry favor with the vikings. Sorry, Ice Barbarians. The entire intro makes sense, is not overblown, is still exciting and interesting. Plus, destroying the dragons spirit by transporting it to his former lair and chucking it in to lava is a nice appeal to both folklore, the embedded Tolkein, and that destroying artifacts table in the DMG. It FEELS right. The actual dragons lair is small, but has some nice elevation features. It\u2019s a short adventure, but full of flavor. Crows in the caves, the dead dragons body, the shattered remains of the dead kings magic sword \u2026 It suffers from the word bloat common to Dungeon but, if you want something G.U.D. GOOD to steak from then this is IT.<\/p>\n

Kings of the Rift
\nBy Greg A. Vaughan
\nLevel 18<\/p>\n

Another issue, another Age of Worms; installment ten of twelve. This time you\u2019re getting the phylactery of a dragon servant of Kyuss. It\u2019s hidden in a city of giants currently besieged by dragons, also trying to get the phylactery. It starts with a DC 30 lore check \u2026 or you can just ask a sage, either way the information is fed to the players. The \u201cbesieged city\u201d is handled pretty badly, even Hoard of Tiamat opening is better, and basically involves getting attacked by dragons of varying power any time you go anywhere. It ends with exploring mindlessly in rooms, killing people, and taking their stuff. Which is boring as fuck. Multiple 300+ and 400+ hit point fights. Lots of them. That\u2019s fun, right? It basically ignores, or gives the barest pretext to, the most interesting part of the adventure, the political situation and factions within the besieged city. This adventure doesn\u2019t know what it is, and it shows.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chimes at Midnight By Nicolas Logue Level 5 I cannot stand this fucking adventure. It\u2019s Shadowpunky Eberron, which is not my favorite genre, but the real reason is that the design SUCKS SHIT BALLS. It starts with the usual \u2018lets … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3591,"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-3592","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\/2017\/04\/d133.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3592","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=3592"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3592\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3593,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3592\/revisions\/3593"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3591"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}