DUNGEON: A suggestion

[Arnwyn]

Based on several threads and letters, however, a lot of readers would prefer to be able to scribble notes in the magazine's margins

Yes, yes I would.

A "bibliophile" I am not - I think D&D books are meant to be gamed with! You should see what I do to Dragon Mags - cut out all the articles I plan on using and then throw the rest away...

My ears are always open to people with suggestions for how we might improve the magazine. Thanks for starting this thread. I hope lots of other folks will pop in with their suggestions, too.

I agree with everything Simplicity has to say, especially regarding the "Light/Sound/etc" entries - if you could, try to be more space-efficient. I also like others' suggestions regarding subscriber-only pdfs (especially the maps) on the website.

Oh - and keep the Maps of Mystery (and Global Positioning) coming! I love those. And that Hardby gazeteer was the best thing I have seen in Poly (it's easily insertable into my FR campaign). More of that would be great.

I'm one of those that don't mind longer adventures - however, I also don't mind your plans for reducing the size of adventures to fit more into the magazine. I would be most pleased, though, if you changed it up a couple of times a year (eg. mostly small ones, but a couple of issues each year has 2 larger ones). I'm all for variety!

 

[Mystery Man]

I'd like to see some "old school" adventures rather than some of these whacked out crazy shizzle that's been the trend lately. <-----old guy.

 

[diaglo]

I'd like to see some "old school" adventures rather than some of these whacked out crazy shizzle that's been the trend lately. <-----old guy.

have you been reading the stuff i send Erik M for Dungeon?

thanks for reminding me...i didn't send in this month's letter to the editors

 

[Mystery Man]

have you been reading the stuff i send Erik M for Dungeon?

thanks for reminding me...i didn't send in this month's letter to the editors

Just keep sending until the restraining order.

 

[Joshua Randall]

2) GM situation walk throughs: We've all had situations where we wondered how other GM's would respond if faced with the same things. We could have a section where GM's send in interesting game situations and the next month the best solution letters are published.

This is a great idea. Dragon already kind of covers this with Johnn Four's column, but Dungeon could get in on the act too, with more specific examples.

I would actually like to see callouts in the individual Dungeon adventures, such as: what to do if the players can't figure out where to go next (e.g., "Steelthews the blacksmith has heard of some strange goings-on in the graveyard, and if the PCs haven't questioned him yet, he'll approach them as a concerned citizen."); how to tone down the lethality of an encounter on-the-fly (e.g., "If the PCs are getting clobbered by the demons' constant blasphemy effects, you're within your rights to say that the demons prefer to tear their foes apart in melee, rather than wear them down with spell-like abilities."); whether or not you should clue the players in to overlooked items that are important to the plot (e.g., "If the PCs haven't discovered the Staff of Plot Importance by now, you might have to let one of the clerics or druids receive a clue to its location via a dream or vision."). You get the idea -- tricks the DM can use to make that particular adventure flow along.

I also second the call for more content on the website! I believe that Paizo is underusing a tremendous resource in that regard. I'd love to see maps, extra parts of the adventure that got cut, maps, side-quests that tie into the main adventure (to help the partly level up or get some needed equipment), maps, heroic and villainous organizations related to the adventure, maps, and player handouts. Oh, and I did I mention maps? Ideally at miniatures scale (1" = 5 ft.) -- the maps in Dungeon are very nice, but I cannot directly plop one on the table and use it as a battlemat.

 

[Arbiter of Wyrms]

Besides seconding everything Joshua Randall had to say, I also have a (semi-)original idea for Erik and the folks over at Dungeon. The Planescape boxed sets, Planes of Law, -Conflict, -Chaos, as well as the original boxed set, IIRC, had some bare-bones adventure ideas that were really neat. Somewhere in between a full-blown adventure and "56: Ogres kidnap the mayor's daughter." There is something to be said, I think, for a fully-fleshed out idea, sans stats. I've got the books and the monsters and the web resources - sometimes I just want the background and plot summary. It only takes a couple of pages. It's versatile, and it's easy to convert from one incarnation of the rules to another. I'd love to see more of this sort of thing in Dungeon. I'd be happier with fifty pseudo-modules like this than with the recent two or three modules per issue that we've seen lately.

 

[Wasgo]

I would actually like to see callouts in the individual Dungeon adventures, such as: what to do if the players can't figure out where to go next (e.g., "Steelthews the blacksmith has heard of some strange goings-on in the graveyard, and if the PCs haven't questioned him yet, he'll approach them as a concerned citizen."); how to tone down the lethality of an encounter on-the-fly (e.g., "If the PCs are getting clobbered by the demons' constant blasphemy effects, you're within your rights to say that the demons prefer to tear their foes apart in melee, rather than wear them down with spell-like abilities."); whether or not you should clue the players in to overlooked items that are important to the plot (e.g., "If the PCs haven't discovered the Staff of Plot Importance by now, you might have to let one of the clerics or druids receive a clue to its location via a dream or vision."). You get the idea -- tricks the DM can use to make that particular adventure flow along.

I'd actually disagree here. DMs learn to do that on their own, and taking away all their creativity is not much fun. Hardly any published adventures end up running exactly the way they're written, and trying to force the players along the path just hurts things.

 

[thundershot]

My biggest suggestion: SHORTER ADVENTURES. Long adventures are good for modules. They don't work well in a magazine, because the magazine ends up getting beat up, and the color pages get fingerprint smudges from overuse (NOT THAT COLOR IS BAD!). I'd rather have one night stand adventures, overall...


Chris (er... you know what I mean..)

 

[diaglo]

just got my subscription for Dungeon 110....

the website said it was sent back in March...23rd to be exact. so after it went on newstands i called. customer service was great and sent me a copy.

so i got the customer service copy before i got the subscription.

 

[Erik Mona]

Since we're talking about more things we'd like to see on the website, I'd like to enter my vote for pdf versions of the maps from the magazines.

PDFs of the maps and handouts for each issue will definitely be a part of the puzzle. We're currently planning to start that with issue #114, but it may take a couple issues before we've worked out the process completely.

--Erik