el-remmen
Moderator Emeritus
This thread was lost in the great crash of '06.
Fortunately, however, I found the word doc I had written it up in saved on my machine, so I can re-post after the discussion in this thread went in the direction of Dungeon Adventures - and how I feel that the very best adventures for 2E were none of the normal packaged modules - but what was found in the pages of that magazine (oh how I miss the clean black and white maps
).
Anyway, below are my thoughts and reviews of Dungeon Issue #31 - please feel free to add your own if you are familiar with it.
Warning: There are possible spoilers. . .
------------------------------------
Seeing the thread about the latest issue of Dungeon I thought it'd be cool to create a thread/review/overview about an issue of Dungeon from the distant past and see what it had to offer by means of a little overview/review of the issue.
I only ask that any of the regular players in my D&D games not read this as I plan to use some of these adventures (or major portion of them) at some future date.
Dungeon #31 (from Sept/Oct 1991) had four adventures in it.
They were:
Beyond the Glittering Veil (by Steven Kurtz)- meant for characters of levels 3rd thru 6th. It was meant to be an introduction to the 2E Psionics rules. Much of the beginning of the adventure is dedicated to going over the basic Psionics rules and allowing the PCs that take part in the adventure to have a chance of developing Psionic wild talents. Yeah, I know this is the kind of "unbalanced" stuff from 2E that a lot of 3E proponents like to harp on - but there is nothing keeping a creative GM from coming up with some kind of template-driven version of the wild-talents (and thus take this new burst of power into account for the rest of the campaign) and/or make the abilities temporary. Also, the psionic dimension of the adventure is easily removed - As the adventure takes place mostly on a demi-plane, the gates to it could easily be magical, rather than psionic, and the emphasis could be on the discovery of a forgotten ancient civilization (who the psionicists who built the ancient stone marker gateways in the adventure are revealed to be) that had a profound effect on the development of the world.
The basic premise of the adventure is to investigate the origins of strange “travel stones” that seem to be gating in shadows ever since a local wizard disappeared through the portal. During the course of the adventure the PCs can discover the means to disable to gate and keep the people who live near the travel stone safe from the shadows.
I ran this adventure near the end of my "Out of the Frying Pan" 3.xE campaign - and took out all the psionic stuff and even the adventure hook - while I have incorporated the idea of an ancient psionicist civilization in my setting, I have not found 3E psionics rules I like - so I handwaved any of the psionic effects of the site of the adventure that were central to it, and the rest I explained by later powerful magic-using types who discovered the place and have used it to different ends over the eons.
In the end, the version I ran is a bit of a departure from the original module, because I used the site and its trappings to provide the PCs with crucial information about the over-arching campaign plot and downplayed any danger of the portal.
Telar in Norbia (by Willie Walsh - one of my all-time favorite Dungeon adventure authors) This desert/Egyptian flavored "generic" adventure was meant for characters level 6th thru 8th. Your typical 'save the princess' has the added twist of having political implications for two local tribes - but is hindered by the discovery of an ancient evil city once lost beneath the sands - where minions of Set and the servants previous priests of the serpent god still seek to expand their evil influence.
For those who can't use the desert locale, I think this adventure could easily be changed to have the city ruins be hidden in especially thick jungle, or beneath a rock-slide in the mountains, or snow and ice in an artic environment - and Set is not so integral a part that it could not be changed for some other dark power - the other travelers who have been captures and transformed into Minions of Set in the adventure could easily be made into "fiendish" version of themselves, undead or some kind of Beast people who are thralls to the dark power. The 2E stats for Minions of Set are included in the adventure, but you could also make them Yuan-ti, if that works for your setting. Also, the two desert “tribes” could be made into noble houses, or even competing merchants.
While I said before that Willie Walsh is my favorite Dungeon adventure author, I think this one is not one of his strongest. I do plan to use the basic set up in a future Aquerra campaign - but will be changing the desert locales and some of the encounters.
There are two things about this adventure that would never fly in 3E.
One is the dubious set-up of the efreeti main villain as nigh unkillable by means of a loophole in a handful of wishes its former master made. However, it does create the Rat Bastardly situation where the PCs have to negotiate with a daemon to learn that the destruction of a certain amulet will banish the efreeti, but it will also possibly allow this old evil wizard to potentially get a new body to inhabit out of the deal. I think with some clever re-thinking a creative DM can still pull this off (at least I know I will try).
The other is that the attempt to save the princess is almost a guaranteed failure - as by the time the PCs arrive she has already been transformed into one of the evil minions and only very powerful magic (i.e. wish) will change her back. I know some people would see this as not fun. But personally, I like the idea of following through with the politics of failure. And anyway, the scope and goal of the adventure change as more of it becomes revealed, saving the princess is important, but so is destroying this recently uncovered evil.
A Local Legend (by Greg Rick and Brad Schell) This adventure was meant for 1st or 2nd level characters. I have never run it, but my co-DM in an 2E Aquerra campaign did many years ago, now and he and the players quite enjoyed it. What I like about it is that it has a little-used 1E Fiend Folio monster as its central foe and really develops an adventure around its ecology and habits. It is a rather short and sweet adventure - and can easily be tweaked to be an introductory adventure for PCs who all come from the same village or set of villages - using the superstitions that have risen around the cyclical killings the PCs investigate in the course of the adventure as part of the backstory for the campaign.
Bane of the Shadowborn (by William W. Connors) This is a Ravenloft adventure for characters of levels 6th thru 9th). The adventure does present guidelines for using it without access the Ravenloft boxed set, basically converting the site of the adventure into any kind of nearly inescapable cursed realm.
The adventure also assumes that one of the PCs is the descendant of the cursed paladin in the adventure's backstory. I guess it would be easy to just handwave this and say it is some forgotten ancestor - or, a DM that plans ahead could have subverted elements of a PCs backstory to fit the scenario - or even have fed him plot hooks to incorporate (something I do a lot of) when a player asks for ideas of the kind of thing to include in a character background.
This really a "high-stakes" adventure, because there are no real degrees of failure as presented - either the PCs succeed in breaking the curse, or they are trapped in the cursed domain forever. This could definitely be a campaign killer if not handled properly. I know some DMs don't like that - but personally I like for the level of risk in a campaign to be high. The problem is the adventure hook is as railroady as it gets (the PCs fall asleep and wake up in Ravenloft) and I prefer involvement in a "high stakes" adventure to be a choice made by the PCs not by random fate.
Personally, if I were running this adventure I would change the set up so one (or more) of the PCs inherits the estate the adventure takes place in, with dire warnings of the curse upon it, and how those who have entered have not returned, and how it has been long abandoned. Even allowing them to delay investigating until a higher level if they really wanted.
The adventure also uses some creatures not from the core material of the time.
While a monster from the Ravenloft boxed set might be predictable (there are 2 of them), there is also a creature unique to the Forgotten Realms (Living Web). The adventure does, however, do its best to present brief overviews of theses creatures so the encounters can be run without access to the specific books. I think it is also interesting that it includes a monster from a 1st edition source (even making the reference to the MM2) with only a brief overview. This is definitely something that would never happen with 3E. I guess back then it was assumed that 2E DMs had access to 1E books.
Much like Telar in Norbia, this adventure features a very difficult (basically unbeatable) main foe that requires the PCs to solve a puzzle of sorts in order to get it into a form where they might destroy it or drive it off in order to break the curse and become freed. I think if I ran it, I would make the solving of the multi-piece puzzle (finding four elemental keys) the means of breaking the curse without having to fight the big villain and then use the villain (an intelligent artifact level sword) as a recurring character to be destroyed later when the party is more powerful and in the meantime use vengeance as a motivation for more adventures down the line.
-------------------------------
Anyway, overall this wasn't the strongest issue of Dungeon from the time, but still one I have gotten decent use of out of (having run adventures related to the civilization mentioned in "Beyond the Glittering Veil" for years before ever running that adventure) and one I still plan to use two adventures from in my next D&D campaign.
Fortunately, however, I found the word doc I had written it up in saved on my machine, so I can re-post after the discussion in this thread went in the direction of Dungeon Adventures - and how I feel that the very best adventures for 2E were none of the normal packaged modules - but what was found in the pages of that magazine (oh how I miss the clean black and white maps
).Anyway, below are my thoughts and reviews of Dungeon Issue #31 - please feel free to add your own if you are familiar with it.
Warning: There are possible spoilers. . .
------------------------------------
Seeing the thread about the latest issue of Dungeon I thought it'd be cool to create a thread/review/overview about an issue of Dungeon from the distant past and see what it had to offer by means of a little overview/review of the issue.
I only ask that any of the regular players in my D&D games not read this as I plan to use some of these adventures (or major portion of them) at some future date.
Dungeon #31 (from Sept/Oct 1991) had four adventures in it.
They were:
Beyond the Glittering Veil (by Steven Kurtz)- meant for characters of levels 3rd thru 6th. It was meant to be an introduction to the 2E Psionics rules. Much of the beginning of the adventure is dedicated to going over the basic Psionics rules and allowing the PCs that take part in the adventure to have a chance of developing Psionic wild talents. Yeah, I know this is the kind of "unbalanced" stuff from 2E that a lot of 3E proponents like to harp on - but there is nothing keeping a creative GM from coming up with some kind of template-driven version of the wild-talents (and thus take this new burst of power into account for the rest of the campaign) and/or make the abilities temporary. Also, the psionic dimension of the adventure is easily removed - As the adventure takes place mostly on a demi-plane, the gates to it could easily be magical, rather than psionic, and the emphasis could be on the discovery of a forgotten ancient civilization (who the psionicists who built the ancient stone marker gateways in the adventure are revealed to be) that had a profound effect on the development of the world.
The basic premise of the adventure is to investigate the origins of strange “travel stones” that seem to be gating in shadows ever since a local wizard disappeared through the portal. During the course of the adventure the PCs can discover the means to disable to gate and keep the people who live near the travel stone safe from the shadows.
I ran this adventure near the end of my "Out of the Frying Pan" 3.xE campaign - and took out all the psionic stuff and even the adventure hook - while I have incorporated the idea of an ancient psionicist civilization in my setting, I have not found 3E psionics rules I like - so I handwaved any of the psionic effects of the site of the adventure that were central to it, and the rest I explained by later powerful magic-using types who discovered the place and have used it to different ends over the eons.
In the end, the version I ran is a bit of a departure from the original module, because I used the site and its trappings to provide the PCs with crucial information about the over-arching campaign plot and downplayed any danger of the portal.
Telar in Norbia (by Willie Walsh - one of my all-time favorite Dungeon adventure authors) This desert/Egyptian flavored "generic" adventure was meant for characters level 6th thru 8th. Your typical 'save the princess' has the added twist of having political implications for two local tribes - but is hindered by the discovery of an ancient evil city once lost beneath the sands - where minions of Set and the servants previous priests of the serpent god still seek to expand their evil influence.
For those who can't use the desert locale, I think this adventure could easily be changed to have the city ruins be hidden in especially thick jungle, or beneath a rock-slide in the mountains, or snow and ice in an artic environment - and Set is not so integral a part that it could not be changed for some other dark power - the other travelers who have been captures and transformed into Minions of Set in the adventure could easily be made into "fiendish" version of themselves, undead or some kind of Beast people who are thralls to the dark power. The 2E stats for Minions of Set are included in the adventure, but you could also make them Yuan-ti, if that works for your setting. Also, the two desert “tribes” could be made into noble houses, or even competing merchants.
While I said before that Willie Walsh is my favorite Dungeon adventure author, I think this one is not one of his strongest. I do plan to use the basic set up in a future Aquerra campaign - but will be changing the desert locales and some of the encounters.
There are two things about this adventure that would never fly in 3E.
One is the dubious set-up of the efreeti main villain as nigh unkillable by means of a loophole in a handful of wishes its former master made. However, it does create the Rat Bastardly situation where the PCs have to negotiate with a daemon to learn that the destruction of a certain amulet will banish the efreeti, but it will also possibly allow this old evil wizard to potentially get a new body to inhabit out of the deal. I think with some clever re-thinking a creative DM can still pull this off (at least I know I will try).
The other is that the attempt to save the princess is almost a guaranteed failure - as by the time the PCs arrive she has already been transformed into one of the evil minions and only very powerful magic (i.e. wish) will change her back. I know some people would see this as not fun. But personally, I like the idea of following through with the politics of failure. And anyway, the scope and goal of the adventure change as more of it becomes revealed, saving the princess is important, but so is destroying this recently uncovered evil.
A Local Legend (by Greg Rick and Brad Schell) This adventure was meant for 1st or 2nd level characters. I have never run it, but my co-DM in an 2E Aquerra campaign did many years ago, now and he and the players quite enjoyed it. What I like about it is that it has a little-used 1E Fiend Folio monster as its central foe and really develops an adventure around its ecology and habits. It is a rather short and sweet adventure - and can easily be tweaked to be an introductory adventure for PCs who all come from the same village or set of villages - using the superstitions that have risen around the cyclical killings the PCs investigate in the course of the adventure as part of the backstory for the campaign.
Bane of the Shadowborn (by William W. Connors) This is a Ravenloft adventure for characters of levels 6th thru 9th). The adventure does present guidelines for using it without access the Ravenloft boxed set, basically converting the site of the adventure into any kind of nearly inescapable cursed realm.
The adventure also assumes that one of the PCs is the descendant of the cursed paladin in the adventure's backstory. I guess it would be easy to just handwave this and say it is some forgotten ancestor - or, a DM that plans ahead could have subverted elements of a PCs backstory to fit the scenario - or even have fed him plot hooks to incorporate (something I do a lot of) when a player asks for ideas of the kind of thing to include in a character background.
This really a "high-stakes" adventure, because there are no real degrees of failure as presented - either the PCs succeed in breaking the curse, or they are trapped in the cursed domain forever. This could definitely be a campaign killer if not handled properly. I know some DMs don't like that - but personally I like for the level of risk in a campaign to be high. The problem is the adventure hook is as railroady as it gets (the PCs fall asleep and wake up in Ravenloft) and I prefer involvement in a "high stakes" adventure to be a choice made by the PCs not by random fate.
Personally, if I were running this adventure I would change the set up so one (or more) of the PCs inherits the estate the adventure takes place in, with dire warnings of the curse upon it, and how those who have entered have not returned, and how it has been long abandoned. Even allowing them to delay investigating until a higher level if they really wanted.
The adventure also uses some creatures not from the core material of the time.
While a monster from the Ravenloft boxed set might be predictable (there are 2 of them), there is also a creature unique to the Forgotten Realms (Living Web). The adventure does, however, do its best to present brief overviews of theses creatures so the encounters can be run without access to the specific books. I think it is also interesting that it includes a monster from a 1st edition source (even making the reference to the MM2) with only a brief overview. This is definitely something that would never happen with 3E. I guess back then it was assumed that 2E DMs had access to 1E books.
Much like Telar in Norbia, this adventure features a very difficult (basically unbeatable) main foe that requires the PCs to solve a puzzle of sorts in order to get it into a form where they might destroy it or drive it off in order to break the curse and become freed. I think if I ran it, I would make the solving of the multi-piece puzzle (finding four elemental keys) the means of breaking the curse without having to fight the big villain and then use the villain (an intelligent artifact level sword) as a recurring character to be destroyed later when the party is more powerful and in the meantime use vengeance as a motivation for more adventures down the line.
-------------------------------
Anyway, overall this wasn't the strongest issue of Dungeon from the time, but still one I have gotten decent use of out of (having run adventures related to the civilization mentioned in "Beyond the Glittering Veil" for years before ever running that adventure) and one I still plan to use two adventures from in my next D&D campaign.
