Dungeon 185 - Bark at the Moon: Dungeons biggest adventure

[Aegeri]

Bark at the Moon Part 1 is out. I've been reading it for a while since it came out and my overall verdict is it seems really solid. Unfortunately, it is crippled by dungeon tile maps. This tempers my joy at the well written adventure, by torpedoing it right in the side with incredibly crap-tacular dungeon tile maps.

I don't know if I should be immensely disappointed or not.

 

[Jhaelen]

Unfortunately, it is crippled by dungeon tile maps. This tempers my joy at the well written adventure, by torpedoing it right in the side with incredibly crap-tacular dungeon tile maps.

I don't know if I should be immensely disappointed or not.

Sounds like you've not been one of the voices clamouring that official adventures should support Dungeon Tiles

I actually like it if adventure modules use them. If anything it will give the adventure designers hints how to improve the Dungeon Tiles so they're more usable and useful.

 

[Riley]

I like cartography by cartographers.

 

[renau1g]

+1 for the adventure, -1 for the maps... still one of the better ones lately in Dungeon. I'll still take this over a delve any day of the week.

 

[ki11erDM]

yea... I understand wanting to synergize products and trying to make sure stuff is compatible with your new mapping tool… but I really don’t like the idea of tiles.

 

[Obryn]

I like cartography by cartographers.

Ditto, with a caveat - cartography should be pretty easy to replicate on a larger scale. (Trollhaunt Warrens - I'm looking at you!)

-O

 

[hutchback]

I gotta admit, I am happy they are utilizing the tiles.

 

[Superking]

I love dungeon tiles. As a DM, I generally prep the combat encounter prior to encounters on foam boards with tacky putty. Nothing worse then saying Roll initiative! and getting all fired up for a combat, only to wait 2-3 minutes for me to draw a map. Sort of looses the steam. If I prep the map earlier (drawing on battlemap), then they know something is coming.

So what I do is keep them on foam boards at my side and bring them out when the time is right.

Other might not be fans of the tiles, but I love it when they link them to the products. Also I find the PC's tend to interact more with the terrain feature including traps. Muhahhha....

 

[Stoat]

I concur with the OP. I don't like WotC's focus on using Dungeon Tiles in its adventures. I understand it. I don't like it.

1. I miss having a large-scale area map. I want to have a clear picture of how the various encounter areas fit together, and I want to be able to react when the PC's move off in an unexpected direction.

2. Dungeon Tiles sometimes make bad encounter maps. Consider the map of encounter 2 on page 16 of the adventure. Six enemies, five PC's and a 15x11 map with two big buildings on it. There isn't enough room for everybody to maneuver. In previous adventures, WotC's reliance on Dungeon Tiles has resulted in outdoor maps where the enemies are holed up in a structure on one edge of the map, leaving the PC's only one avenue of approach.

3. Because WotC has a relatively small number of tiles to use and reuse, its maps have started looking the same. This is much more a problem with interior maps, where (for example) the same 10' square pit shows up over and over again.

4. Use of tiles leads to ugly maps. Consider the map on page 8 of the adventure. Part of the forest is delineated with weird, unnaturally sharp lines, because that's how the tiles are printed.

5. This may be purely personal, but I don't like the blue-green stone color that WotC uses for most of its interior tiles.

 

[hutchback]

Here the author speaks to his decision to use tiles instead of new maps (halfway into the article):
Tree of Woe