Merric's Erratically Updated Reviews of old D&D adventures
TerraDave
5ever, or until 2024
What is the purpose of a campaign setting? What is the purpose of Greyhawk...
If it is to give you all sorts of little details and hooks, then it was so so. A framework for your game, pretty good. A massively comprehensive compendium, no.
But if Greyhawk is really about strange pulpy adventures and the almost nihilist adventurers that go on them, then the box set is a start, but could go much farther. For that Greyhawk, you need to look at the adventures and the original Dragon magazine descriptions of the gods (which I just realized reading this where broken up and lost some art on the way to the box set) and some of the other Dragon articles. And you want a product that probably doesn't fit with what is expected from a conventional setting. Maybe thats the problem, as it was "the" setting.
Oerth Mother? When are you going to run into her? Important NPCs? More important then the PCs? How 'bout Grazz't, or Zagyg or Iuz. Someone nicer? The higher level (former) character of another player. Don't have that? They might be in the classic module you are running, if you look for them.
but I agree, the maps are nice.
For those Dragonlance fans out there (and possibly haters as well...)
DL2: Dragons of Flame
Possibly the low point of the series for railroading...
Cheers!
DL2: Dragons of Flame
Possibly the low point of the series for railroading...
Cheers!
the Jester
Legend
Good review. I remember being quite disgruntled with how closely the module followed the book (or vice-verse, depending on how you look at it). DL2 was when I stopped buying modules without checking out reviews or asking people what they thought of them. Thank God, too- the DL modules came out about the time most modules started to stink IIRC.
You're quite right in your recollection. 1983 and before was the Golden Age of adventure modules. Post 1983 is when the decline begins - and it hits pretty hard (e.g. Quagmire). This isn't to say there aren't gems, but there's a lot more bad ones to wade through.
Cheers!
Olgar Shiverstone
Legend
Great review. Sadly I feel the DL series gives "adventure paths a bad name. There are some great dungeons in there -- we really enjoyed the ones in DL1, DL2, and the floating rock tomb in DL4(?) ... but the rails in the rest of the adventures were far too obvious.
Prince Atom
Explorer
I read the first DLC book and I immediately wanted to run DL3.
DL4 kind of left me cold. I was expecting more encounters.
DL4 kind of left me cold. I was expecting more encounters.
I have never read or played this module.
From your review, it sounded like the first half is not an adventure at all but mere narration, by the GM, of events that occur to the PCs? Is that right?
If so, then it sounds maybe less like railroading in the classic sense of negating player agency, and more like a poorly done attempt to frame the PCs into the interesting situation that (per your review) constitutes the second half of the adventure.
Similar Threads
