Dungeon Editorial: Valley of Chaos?

[MerricB]

Editorial: Dungeon #170

Of particular note (and sounding really good) to me:

Starting with issue #171, we're launching a new series of adventures, each of which will be between one and three encounters. They will start at 1st level and climb through the heroic tier over the first few months. All of the adventures are set in and around a single, geographic feature: an immense, cave-riddled valley. If this sounds familiar, it might be because the concept was first explored in the classic Keep on the Borderlands adventure. The adventures in this series typically, but not always, have a dungeon focus. The real kicker is that the deeper one travels into the valley, the tougher the caves get. In effect, the players get to decide how hard they want their adventure to be on a given night.

We're excited about this because if you have the list of adventures at hand, all you need to do is show the ever-evolving map of the valley to the players and ask them to pick a cave. We'll be running at least two of these adventures each month for some time, until we have several caves detailed at each heroic tier level. Even if you're not using the adventures as written, you'll be able to port them easily into your own campaign. The valley is easily adaptable.

Sandboxing 4e? Cool!

Cheers!

 

[fba827]

that does sound cool - will be interesting to see how it works out*.

At the bare minimum, it sounds like a good source to mine for ideas. and at best it will do all the work for the dm (save rolling dice and listening to players tell bad jokes ). thus, this can't be a bad thing any way it gets sliced


(*of course, at the moment i am not a ddi subscriber so i won't know )

 

[darjr]

This is very cool. And about darn time.

Nice.

I think this is where the future of the subscription model lies.

Build sandboxes. Not adventure paths. It is a built in excuse to provide lots of stuff, stuff that may never get used, but should be cool to read and use when/if the PC's wonder over yonder. Not to mention it's probably a more sustainable business model, cause I might run more than a single set of parities or campaigns in a given sandbox. An adventure path could be worn out much more easily.

The pieces and parts could be moved around, re-purposed, and modified much more easily than a full adventure or even an adventure path.

Edit: to add that I don't think the path will go away. nor do I want it to. but the subscription sandbox needs more support and I think it will get it.

 

[MerricB]

This is very cool. And about darn time.

Nice.

I think this is where future of the subscription model lies.

Build sandboxes. Not adventure paths. It is a built in excuse to provide lots of stuff, stuff that may never get used, but should be cool to read and use when/if the PC's wonder over yonder. Not to mention it's probably a more sustainable business model, cause I might run more than a single set of parities or campaigns in a given sandbox. An adventure path could be worn out much more easily.

The pieces and parts could be moved around, re-purposed, and modified much more easily than a full adventure or even an adventure path.

I don't agree. I think all of those types can and should be supported. Different groups run D&D in different ways: some in sandbox designs where player choice of where to go is important, some in more DM-controlled designs which have a more tightly controlled story. Consider the GDQ series: that's not a sandbox storyline.

Keep on the Borderlands is sandbox.

Having both enriches us. Having only one? Not good.

Cheers!

 

[Jack99]

Having both enriches us. Having only one? Not good.

You are right of course, but I could do without the AP's by now

Awesome idea!

 

[darjr]

I don't agree. I think all of those types can and should be supported. Different groups run D&D in different ways: some in sandbox designs where player choice of where to go is important, some in more DM-controlled designs which have a more tightly controlled story. Consider the GDQ series: that's not a sandbox storyline.

Keep on the Borderlands is sandbox.

Having both enriches us. Having only one? Not good.

Cheers!

Sure. I didn't try to be one true wayism...

 

[MerricB]

You are right of course, but I could do without the AP's by now

I really like APs, but I think the Scales of War AP has been diminishing the value of Dungeon significantly: the individual episodes are just too big and taking up too much of the word count.

I'm glad to hear that this is changing.

I think doing a full 30-level AP in Dungeon magazine takes up a huge amount of time and space.

Cheers!

 

[Wik]

I have to agree with darjr. APs are okay, but I find they eat up too much space, and that they're a "you're in, or you're out" sort of deal. If you run them, cool, but if you don't, they're just a place to mine ideas from. Which can be cool...

...but I think if you're going to do that, it's much easier to take from something like this, where it was BUILT for quick insertion. Same thing as Dungeon Delve - you can take the adventure, and mess with it, a lot easier than taking something out of an AP.

 

[S'mon]

This sounds like a good approach. I just ordered Dungeon Delve with an eye to using it for sandboxing, similarly. My current 4e sandbox (converted Vault of Larin Karr) has been going 4 sessions and seems to be working fine.

I think 4e is actually a lot more robust and able to cope with the sandbox approach much better than you'd think from reading the 4e DMG, which advises that if you do run a sandbox (called there a mega-adventure) you constantly tweak the locales' toughness to fit current party level. It also advises that each adventure locale in the sandbox have 8-10 encounters so the PCs level each time. I think those are both poor advice, much better to have smaller locales (ca 3, or 1-5, encounters each), and tweaking them only in extremis. And there should be a noticeable threat gradient, eg in Larin Karr the Underdark beneath the valley is significantly nastier than the overground locales.

 

[Wik]

Well, not to derail things, but the few times I've "gone sandbox" in 4e, I've simply put places in the setting, and in my notes said "Lighthouse Dungeon - Level 6". If PCs want to go there, I have the basics figured out, and I stick to my guns.

Treasure, of course, was also 6th level, so if three 4th level PCs tried to tackle that area, they'd hit big rewards.

Of course, when those PCs actually DID try to tackle that dungeon, it didn't really give them big rewards. It got them kicked out of their home city when they unleashed devils upon the town.