Dungeoncraft Articles

[Markn]

What does everyone think of the current Duneoncraft articles?

IMO, with all due respect to James Wyatt, I find them only marginally useful. The articles don't contain enough information - most of the articles are ramblings/musings or of a similar nature. I find the whole column a bit on the amatuerish side - something of a "this is what I am trying in my current campaign" as opposed to "here are the successful techniques to make your game better". The articles follow a theme for only a few columns before James gets inspired or loses inspiration and changes the direction of the column.

What are your thoughts? Do you like the current Dugeoncraft articles or no? If so, why? If not, why?

 

[Zaukrie]

They are still good reading, but I think that the articles for Dungeoncraft when Paizo ran the magazine were awesomer (ha). There is something missing here. Also, I just broke up a bunch of old Dragon mags to reduce storage space and centralize certain content. Wow, there was a lot more content back in the day. Three dungeoncraft articles a month, for example.

 

[superpriest]

I agree. They are way too anecdotal. They should go in a blog, not in a published magazine.

 

[Daern]

I try not to be negative on the internets, but... this particular series always makes me sad. The dude obviously doesn't have much time to DM, and is obviously scraping for topics, and is obviously writing at the last minute stream on consciousness style. I don't mind an anecdotal blog like column, but I want to hear about awesome exciting campaigns where things are happening, not this dude who every once in a while attempts to run the campaign he wrote when he was a kid.
He DM's less often than he writes the article!
Really, I'm sure there are a ton of DMs at Wizards that could be a little more inspirational... (rant over, sorry)

 

[TerraDave]

Sigh. We are the stage of the edition cycle were we should be getting things like DM advice based on super robust well run campaings that are grappling head on with epic play or sending charecter into dark sun or gamma world, or at least something credible.

Wyatt did a great job on the DMG, but in his first series of columns, they had "best practice" but it was a real problem it was not being used in practice. Now, he is DMing, but very bloggish, and I am not sure I am want to play in this campaign. OK, maybe that is too harsh...but I agree this could be better.

 

[Markn]

Terradave,

Your comment about getting advice on Epic play is right on the money. A lot of campaigns are reaching this tier by this point and it has yet to be really addressed in any 4e product.

 

[tyrlaan]

I find them interesting, but then I find this sort of information interesting if it comes from any GM out there that's blogging about their game. I'd say referring to it as blogging is quite an accurate assessment.

To me there are certifiable nuggets of good advice and tips in the articles, but I do feel like I have to eat through a whole lot of breading to get to the meaty bits sometimes.

I'll keep reading it, but I'd much prefer if it took a page from ruling skill challenges and talked about specific things like:

• The art of monster design (a series of articles - could focus on solos, minions, standards)
• Adventure building (something like the Scenario Based design article here)
• Building and mapping out your own "nentir vale" starting zone
• The art of trap design

And other material in this vein. I'm pretty sure I've read all the Dungeoncraft articles since 4e launched and I don't think these topics have really been addressed. Sure it's interesting to see how someone takes the events of a session and weaves them into ongoing storyarcs and whatnot, but that can prove to be very situational advice. I don't want to necessarily not read what he's been writing, but I'd also like to see some "universally" useful material as well.

 

[Jack99]

A while ago, I re-read them all back to back and remember thinking:

"Hmm, Piratecat's thread on ENworld is better (as in more usefull to me as a DM) than this. Which is as someone else mentioned, kinda sad.

 

[Aegeri]

Terradave,

Your comment about getting advice on Epic play is right on the money. A lot of campaigns are reaching this tier by this point and it has yet to be really addressed in any 4e product.

I've run 2 games into epic tier now, one ending at level 28 and one will be ending within the next 3-4 weeks at level 30. Perhaps I should put up some thoughts?

Of course, some of the things I would say and advise people are now utterly irrelevant due to MM3 fixing monsters to be - this is being kind here - not absolutely useless.