Dungeon adventure posted

[Nemesis Destiny]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (The Sunken Tower of the Marsh Mystic)

Found this Heroic Tier adventure on the main page, but nearly missed it; I got used to only checking the calendar.

Gave it a quick skim. Looked okay, I suppose. I like that it had some suggestions and possibilities for further uses of the dungeon after the adventure is complete. Things like ancient sunken towers really fire my DM imagination.

 

[MrMyth]

The sidebar on ways to expand it were nice. Aside from that, though... well, it's just another delve, basically. Handy for swiping encounters or the like, I suppose, but not really what I consider a full-fledged 'adventure'.

What puzzles me is that only having 3 encounters doesn't mean you can't still have a proper adventure. I suppose I'm used to RPGA modules where you will have 3-4 encounters, but spaced out in between various investigating, plot, story, etc.

Compared to those - even the worst of them - it just seems jarring to see these delves that just consist of "Go to a place on a quest hook. Walk through it and fight one encounter. Enter the next room and fight another one. Enter the last room and fight the boss. Leave."

So... yeah, decent idea, but could have used a good bit more fleshing out.

 

[Shroomy]

As far as delves go, its decent and I too liked the sidebar explaining how it can be expanded. I'm assuming that the modron article is going to take up a lot of this issues's page count, especially if they are going to cover all the base and hierarch modrons (hopefully Primus too), which is why the adventures appear to both be short, plug-and-play affairs.

 

[Riley]

Disappointing.

Is there someone out there who likes these little Delve thingies?

 

[renau1g]

Mmmm....delve-tastic. The first "map" is terrible. The water just arbitrarily ends and/or starts. I understand that the dungeon tile maps are cheaper and they hope to get people to buy companion products, but they really are awful looking and these turn me off from wanting to buy any tiles. If I want a crappy map I'll keep using my dry-erase markers.

Too many Dungeon "adventures" really are just walk through this railroad in order, three rooms/sites, kill everything in sight, take their stuff, and move on. After reading a few of the older 3e-era Dungeon magazines (as I plan to convert Age of Worms to 4e for the RL group) I really, really miss adventures. Even their dungeon-crawl ones had great, deep enemies and unique maps.

 

[Scribble]

Disappointing.

Is there someone out there who likes these little Delve thingies?

I do actually.

I like giving my players lots of options of things to do and places to go outside of whatever bigger quests they might be on. Having little "delves" all over the place works well.

I can just kind of stick them in random places in the world, and not have to pay much attention to them unless the PCs decide to explore.

Since they're generally small, and basic, I don't have to do a lot of advanced prep.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I do actually.

I like giving my players lots of options of things to do and places to go outside of whatever bigger quests they might be on. Having little "delves" all over the place works well.

I can just kind of stick them in random places in the world, and not have to pay much attention to them unless the PCs decide to explore.

Since they're generally small, and basic, I don't have to do a lot of advanced prep.

I'm seconding this.

Premade "adventures" are nice, but I seldom use them. I have my own stories and plots and adventures going on; the world I DM in is now well into its second decade, so the stories, setup, and hooks aren't what I generally need help with.

Most of the time I want drop-in encounters. Short side-treks that I can integrate with whatever plot is going. Something that can be dropped into a sandbox-style game. Stuff like this, especially where the setting is neutral enough to go anywhere, work well.

That said, I do understand the need for things more complex. If I did not have a well-detailed world to game in, and were using PoLland, for example, I would want more detail and longer adventures, like the PF adventure paths (they really are fairly decent - they just don't match the flavour of my setting).

 

[Klaus]

Disappointing.

Is there someone out there who likes these little Delve thingies?

I do, a lot.

My gaming group consists of me, my wife and another married couple, all with kids (ages 4, 6 and 9). So these short delves that I can sprinkle roleplay into fit our timetable the best, since our sessions can barely reach four hours and happen, at best, once every 6 weeks.

 

[Riastlin]

I do find delves useful. They are good for putting the finishing touches on an adventure (or rather, helping to fill out the XP allotment I want). They can also be used to bridge one adventure to the next if the XP isn't quite there yet. Finally, if you have groups (like I do) where you do get to get together very often, the short delve style is good for giving a sense of progress/accomplishment as opposed to having to spend several real world months trekking through the same dungeon.

All that being said, I think there should also be a relatively equal (if not greater) number of "true" adventures as these will be far more helpful to the average DM who just needs a full fledge adventure or even campaign.

I do understand the attraction of the delves as they are cheap and thus incur less risk should the delve totally flop, but I would love to see more true adventures along side the delves.

 

[caudor]

There is room in my collection for delves, full adventures, and super-adventures. I find I can never have too many adventures.

The adventure is the heart of the game.