Krug said:
Yeap looks really good. However....
[use mouse to highlight text - spoiler!]
.. it seemed to break one of the cardinal rules of Dungeon Adventures guidelines which was the use of children.
We actually broke two "cardinal rules" of DUNGEON Magazine adventure design with this module. [Spoilers below]
Children play an important part of the adventure, and the PCs embark on a mission to find kidnapping victims. That said, these rules were never intended to be unbreakable. We generally discourage people from using children as a plot device because too often, folks get carried away and start treating them like other NPCs. When a farmer gets killed by the bad guy, nobody blinks. But when the farmer's baby gets it, that can be a touchy area. It's easier to just say, "no children" than "no children, except . . ." and spell out all the corner cases where we'd make an exception. In this case, Chris Perkins was well aware of the uncrossable line and avoided it in a professional fashion.
As for kidnapping, we generally discourage folks from using that plot device because it's been done so often before. But, like other adventure cliches, when it's presented with some sort of twist, we're always happy to take a look. Again, Chris's insider knowledge (although I will point out that we spell this out in our writer's guidelines) allowed him to sidestep this common no-no.
I'm really happy with this module, and just as thrilled with the second. "Flood Season," by James Jacobs will appear in issue #98. After that, we'll have a three or four issue break before the next module (remember, that's now only 3–4 months) to focus on issue #100. Ted Stark is writing the third installment, which I've tentatively scheduled for issue #102.
