Disappointed in Dungeon, at least for adventures.

[Herschel]

I generally tailor encounters to the maps at hand, either from published adventures (including game days and the map pack ones like Fane of the Drow) and the Paizo mat maps. I have all my 'paper' maps laminated for durability and it can be done pretty cheaply.

 

[Sanzuo]

Our regular group has been playing D&D for over 12 years, not as long as some of you - I know - but long enough to appreciate 3-4 different editions. We have never used published adventures, always opting for our own self-made campaigns or impromptu adventures.

We are running Scales of War and aside from a few interesting combat encounters it's boring as hell.

 

[renau1g]

Heh...so 5 of 8 first level adventures are Chaos Scar ones? then only 2 level 2 addys? and only 1 non-SOW level 4....

 

[Truename]

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.

Yes, SoW does have some good stuff in it. But what finally made me pull the plug was the lack of meaningful player choices and the constant combat grind. I mean, when the PCs

Spoiler

can get their home town razed and there's no effect in the rest of the path (Temple Between)

or when they're

Spoiler

required to take morally dubious actions (epic tier)

, there's a problem. Even Piratecat's awesome

Spoiler

political skill challenge (Bitter Glass) has no effect past the challenge itself.

What's the point?

Yeah, I can fix those problems, but it's a lot of work, and the whole reason I'm running an adventure path is so I don't have to do that work.

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.

If you replace "4e" with "WotC's adventures," I have to agree, and admittedly WotC is creating the vast majority of adventures, so it might as well be synonymous with 4e. They have some really fantastic set pieces. But I think that, at least in SoW, they've lost sight of the player consequences and roleplay that make adventures really great.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

I think the current Dungeon is a perfect example of what happens when you take what was previously an excellent stand alone product and roll it into another product "suite" (D&D Insider).

Now it's just one more thing you get with the subscription and clearly isn't a priority for the powers that be.

Before you had editors and designers who were clearly focused on Dungeon. Now you don't. It just needs to get something out once a month to meet the DDI commitment. Whether that something sucks or not isn't nearly as significant an issue because there are other things in DDI that will, in theory, keep the subscriptions up.

Personally, I think Dungeon tanked once they got rid of the magazine.

 

[catsclaw227]

I agree that there is inferior story/focus/creative quality in the adventures in DDI-Dungeon (in general - there are a couple of really nice adventures.) I wish they were more interesting and had better NPCs.

But, for this DM, the technical quality of the DDI adventures are better (encounters and set pieces, prep requirements, balance) and their electronic nature makes them exponentially more useful to me than their print counterparts.

When I was running Savage Tide and AoW for 3.5, I was begging for electronic versions, and ended up cutting/scanning/OCR my copies so that I could cut/paste elements, and use the data within DM Genie.

Because I have been using a laptop at my game since the 3.5 upgrade, when measuring up the pros and cons, I still prefer the electronic version. The adventures can be fluffed up to become more interesting, but the dead-tree versions (for me) required tedious document management to be able to use them at the table.

 

[bastrak]

I think the current Dungeon is a perfect example of what happens when you take what was previously an excellent stand alone product and roll it into another product "suite" (D&D Insider).

Now it's just one more thing you get with the subscription and clearly isn't a priority for the powers that be.

Before you had editors and designers who were clearly focused on Dungeon. Now you don't. It just needs to get something out once a month to meet the DDI commitment. Whether that something sucks or not isn't nearly as significant an issue because there are other things in DDI that will, in theory, keep the subscriptions up.

Personally, I think Dungeon tanked once they got rid of the magazine.

I agree entirely, particularly with the last sentence.

 

[KidSnide]

I think the current Dungeon is a perfect example of what happens when you take what was previously an excellent stand alone product and roll it into another product "suite" (D&D Insider).

Now it's just one more thing you get with the subscription and clearly isn't a priority for the powers that be./QUOTE]

I agree that the quality of Dungeon is quite poor, but I attribute most of that to the fact that Scales of War is both pretty bad and makes up such a large part of the magazine. As an AP, Scales of War gives the impression that not enough thought went into campaign and - instead - the authors just received a series of episodes without any guidance about how the results of those episodes can affect the next one.

I think WotC also made the particular inadvisable decision to treat each months revelation in the SoW story as a marketing event for Dungeon. This is a horrible decision. For the players, these revelations are terrible spoilers. And, for the GMs, it's stuff they should have known before they started the game.

But the non-SoW material isn't terrible. Chaos Scar material is relatively usable, and I though both Sea Reavers and Monuments of the Ancients were well thought out adventures (of very different styles).

And, as a general matter, I prefer an electronic format where I can peruse adventures without paper and only print out what I need. (Although, yes, maps that can be printed easily on 8.5x11 would be a big help.)

-KS

 

[malraux]

I think the current Dungeon is a perfect example of what happens when you take what was previously an excellent stand alone product and roll it into another product "suite" (D&D Insider).

Now it's just one more thing you get with the subscription and clearly isn't a priority for the powers that be.

I agree that the quality of Dungeon is quite poor, but I attribute most of that to the fact that Scales of War is both pretty bad and makes up such a large part of the magazine. As an AP, Scales of War gives the impression that not enough thought went into campaign and - instead - the authors just received a series of episodes without any guidance about how the results of those episodes can affect the next one.

I suspect its also that the operation went back in house. Pazio was good at producing Dungeon in part because they had a lot of practice. By implication, Dungeon should pick up a bit as the team gets experience in doing it. As my group has played through SoW, I've found that the paragon tier adventures are better than the heroic.

 

[Kelon]

Yersterday we played SoW, one fight and an a lot of roleplaying and information gathering in Overlook (or as our swordmage said: Outlook). Perhaps the dm improves the roleplaying part a lot.
I enjoyed 4th Edition so far but I really miss adventures with a lot of npc, information gathering and solving mysteries.