Disappointed in Dungeon, at least for adventures.

[_NewbieDM_]

For what it's worth, I give my players a fullscale colored map of an encounter when it warrants it (nice set piece, meaningful encounter)

I scale the maps up right from the pdf's on photoshop, although GIMP does it as well...

Follow this link for a tutorial.

 

[Wormwood]

I can't wait for the end of Scales of War...

Preach it, brother. My group has been running this thing since its inception, rotating DMs when boredom sets in. When I'm behind the screen I find myself changing vast swaths of the adventure just to make it interesting to run.

We had a discussion about it and while we find the plot sometimes tedious and nakedly unfocused, we simply *have* to know how it ends. It's like Heroes or Voyager in that regard.

 

[HorusZA]

I also think that Dungeon holds little value to me.
I'm just not interested in endless fights, pages and pages of stats all neatly packed into some underground complex. Yes, I know, the magazine is called "Dungeon" so I shouldn't really be expecting anything else but 15 years ago its content was far more varied and imaginative.

 

[Beginning of the End]

I'm mixed on this. Cool looking maps are cool looking, but really on the DM sees that.

And why is that?

I mean, seriously. You've got digitally-created maps being digitally distributed. There is absolutely no reason these maps can't be created at a resolution which allows them to be stripped of DM-only info and printed at battlemap size.

There's no rational reason NOT to do that. It costs you virtually nothing and would generate a ton of utility for your customers.

 

[Netherstorm]

Scales of War is not perfect, and as DM you'll definitely need to roll up your sleeves and add in some details. But I've had great success with it as a whole. Overlook is awesome, Sayre is awesome, Beyond The Mottled Tower and Haven of Bitter Glass are classic, Chillreaver rules... IMO Scales has tons to offer. I mean..

Spoiler

my players are in a war against the githyanki! It's awesome.

The old Dungeon magazine had an incredible amount of "joke" adventures in it. It was really lame. I remember my players wanting to kill themselves when they found out they were fighting the "lost-a-finga" goblin tribe (who kept fingers of their victims on necklaces). This was complete with cross-eyed art by Jim Holloway, no less.

I think the new dungeon is built with the idea that you, the DM, can skim them and steal encounters that you like. Because, for better or worse, 4E is all about encounters.

 

[Trellian]

4E Dungeon sucks because all the quality writers (one or two exceptions, I'm looking at Greg Vaughn in particular) either a) works for Paizo or b) has started his own company (SKR and Logue). Sometimes a decent freelancer is hired, but most of the time I think the writers just randomly creates encounters using the Monster Builder.

It should be the other way around really. In 3,5, the stat blocks were a pain to come up with, so then I wouldn't mind Dungeon adventures with just stat blocks to pick from. Having the monster builder (and the nature of 4th ed), means that stat blocking is easy. I have yet to see to a WOTC adventure that I would give more than 4 stars (out of 6), and the best adventure out there is by far WoTBS.

 

[Scribble]

See sig. A little out-of-date because we stopped for an extended period over the holiday and did other things, but the game picks up again this weekend so I'll bring it up-to-date.

You sir, are awesome on a stick.


However, I do still feel WoTC needs to rework the dungeon archive thing so it can sort by level... It's just insane not to. It seems like such a no brainer.

 

[malraux]

And why is that?

I mean, seriously. You've got digitally-created maps being digitally distributed. There is absolutely no reason these maps can't be created at a resolution which allows them to be stripped of DM-only info and printed at battlemap size.

There's no rational reason NOT to do that. It costs you virtually nothing and would generate a ton of utility for your customers.

Umm, most DMs don't have large format printers laying around. WotC does offer the maps stripped of markings. Scaling the maps is trivial. Its a matter of printing (which in color is not particularly cheap) and then assembling the pages, as an 8x11 sheet of paper will not hold a battle anymore.

 

[catsclaw227]

Umm, most DMs don't have large format printers laying around. WotC does offer the maps stripped of markings. Scaling the maps is trivial. Its a matter of printing (which in color is not particularly cheap) and then assembling the pages, as an 8x11 sheet of paper will not hold a battle anymore.

I print them out onto 8 1/2 x 11 sheets and glue them to a 22x28 poster board. I have found that almost all sets can be fit in that, and if not, then I use another piece of poster board. This does take some time, but it's a nice diversion and the crafting is fun to cut and gluestick the pieces together onto the poster board.

When they enter the encounter and I toss out a 20x18 full color map, I get oooooohhs and aaahhhhhs from my players. That's enough reinforcement for me.

The maps do look nice printed and laid out.

 

[_NewbieDM_]

Here is a list of all the Dungeon adventures by level:



I'm not sure if a DDI acount is required to access this list, btw.