{"id":3740,"date":"2017-07-29T07:16:09","date_gmt":"2017-07-29T11:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3740"},"modified":"2017-07-21T09:07:34","modified_gmt":"2017-07-21T13:07:34","slug":"dungeon-magazine-145","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3740","title":{"rendered":"Dungeon Magazine #145"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nFive more fucking issues. I grow weary of tolerating this shit.<\/p>\n

The Distraction
\nBy Tim Hitchcock
\nLevel 3<\/p>\n

This is an excellent example of shitty-ass modern D&D adventure design \u2026 uh, where \u2018modern\u2019 is defined as \u20182007.\u2019 A wilderness outpost is about to be attacked by a gnoll army. The party is tasked with getting behind them and disrupting their cattle to delay them until reinforcements arrive. When I read the synopsis I thought \u2018Great! Cool sandbox!\u2019 and then I recalled it was Dungeon and surmised it was probably a linear adventure full of set-piece encounters. Just follow the line of set pieces and arrive at the inevitable destination. The DM tells a story, \u201cand then, and then, there\u2019s this ettercap that stalks the trails and he\u2019s wiped out a fortress and then and then \u2026\u201d I loathe this. The story belongs to the players. It\u2019s too bad, because outposts in the badlands, heading em off at the pass, a haunted forest ala Blair Witch \u2026 it\u2019s got great theme ideas that just get crushed by linear shit-fest. WHich is then combined with MONSTROUS amounts of text. We get a paragraph describing a tattoo on the back of the hands of some of the soldiers WHICH HAS NO IMPACT ON THE ADVENTURE. The map uses a cursive font, ensuring it\u2019s fucking hard to read. I mean, you don\u2019t need it, it\u2019s just a linear adventure after all. The haunted forest actually has twig blights in it. \u201cUp ahead, a dark shape resolves into the gutted body of a gnoll, crucified within the thorny branches of a large tree, its cocked head leers down with empty eye sockets.\u201d That\u2019s the entirety of our haunted forest. It\u2019s not a great description AND its not enough to do a haunted forest justice. This alone could be expanded upon to create a fab adventure. In fact, the entire idea needs to be harvested and reworked in to a longer sandbox. The concept here is good \u2026 if you can stomach the linearity and have a highlighter and are willing to work hard to run someone else’s adventure.<\/p>\n

Vile Addiction
\nBy (five fucking different authors? Seriously?)
\nLevel 8<\/p>\n

Part one of a three part adventure path \u201cSeeds of Seehan.\u201d Spriggan drug dealers, says the introduction. Fucking Eberron, sez me. But no, it\u2019s Greyhawk, I think. And it has sewers. I can\u2019t do it. I can\u2019t review another sewer adventure. Oh world, I have failed thee. My only charge and I have failed. I just can\u2019t. Pretext to get you in to the sewers and then SEWER DUNGEON. The map does appear to have pools and bridges, so at least there are some tactical options. In the sewers. Spriggan drug dealers in greyhawk sewers. Tonally, D&D is dead.<\/p>\n

City of Broken Idols
\nBy Tito Leati
\nLevel 13<\/p>\n

Part whatever of the Savage Tide adventure path.Six pages. It takes SIX. FUCKING. PAGES. To describe a friendly village with nothing going on in it except some disguised monsters attack. SIX. FUCKING. PAGES. An empty village with some couatl\u2019s vomiting exposition only takes a single page, for Tarvinsts sake. I\u2019m not even sure why anyone bothers, the fucking island in the middle of the lake is going to be where everyones attention is, for good reason. It has the 40 room near-linear crawl that has you fighting demogorgon at the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five more fucking issues. I grow weary of tolerating this shit. The Distraction By Tim Hitchcock Level 3 This is an excellent example of shitty-ass modern D&D adventure design \u2026 uh, where \u2018modern\u2019 is defined as \u20182007.\u2019 A wilderness outpost … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3739,"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-3740","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\/07\/d145.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740","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=3740"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3741,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3740\/revisions\/3741"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}