D&D General Favourite adventures from Dungeon Magazine

[el-remmen]

• "Roarwater Caves" (Dungeon #15) - I ran this back in 2E days and more recently early on in a 5E campaign.
• "Tallow's Deep" (Dungeon #18) - Classic, that we still talk about and I hope to run again soon.
• "The School of Nekros" (Dungeon #27) - I renamed this one "River of the Dead"
• "Through the Night" (Dungeon #27) - a sidetrek I ran through as a player and then ran as a DM in a recent 5E campaign
• "Beyond the Glittering Veil" (Dungeon #31) - Designed to introduce 2E Psionics, I adapted the site of it for an adventure I ran for my "Out of the Frying Pan" campaign
• "The Wayward Wood" (Dungeon #32) - Another one I adapted to 5E and was a hit
• "Is There An Elf in the House?" (Dungeon #32) - ran it back in 2E days (written by Professor Dungeon Master of You Tube fame)
• "Isle of the Abbey" (Dungeon #34) - you might know it from Ghosts of Saltmarsh - and it is the most maligned of those included in that book, but adapted to include the specific of your setting, it is a great one.
• "The Whale" (Dungeon #35) - Another great sidetrek, I have run it twice. It was meant for the Viking sourcebook, but easily adapted to any typical D&D setting
• "A Wizard's Fate" (Dungeon #37) - I ran this in 2E days and didn't like it much, but adapted it to 5E and have run it several times since and love it (written by Chris Perkins)
• "Things that Go Bump in the Night" (Dungeon #38) - Literally running this for my current online group
• "Song of the Fens" (Dungeon #40) - Ran it back in 2E days and again in 5E to great delight!
• "A Hot Day in L'Trel" (Dungeon #44) - Ran this in 3E - a great adventure that is not about fighting monsters.
• "Rudwilla's Stew" (Dungeon #45) - Ran this in 3E
• "Janx's Jinx" (Dungeon #56) - Ran this both for "Out of the Frying Pan" (3E) and a more current 5E game
• "Bullywug's Gambit" (Dungeon #140) - Part of the "Savage Tide" adventure path, but I ran it on its own for "Second Son of a Second Son" (3E)

 

[jian]

I also rather liked The Matchmakers in issue 7, which is quite atypical - it’s basically a Romeo and Juliet story with little magic or fantasy (the bad guy has a ring of mind shielding to prevent PCs from blowing the plot early, but that’s about it).

I think I ran into it in an anthology of early Dungeon adventures (I think Kaermor is in there too).

 

[jian]

Found this (almost) exhaustive review from over a decade ago. What do you all think?

Dungeon Magazine – Final Retrospective | tenfootpole.org

tenfootpole.org

 

[RealAlHazred]

Found this (almost) exhaustive review from over a decade ago. What do you all think?

Dungeon Magazine – Final Retrospective | tenfootpole.org

tenfootpole.org

I just came here to post the link to Bryce's Dungeon reviews. I generally agree with his criticisms, though they are harsh -- I have to fight my nostalgia sometimes; it helps when I show an old adventure I liked to a younger gamer and use their perspective to anchor my own.

My favorites from back in the day were actually in Dragon magazine. The following came to mind:

• "Barnacus: City in Peril" (Dragon #80 (Dec 1983), 1e, 18 levels (4-8 lvl 1-5), 12pp) is a great sandbox location that I reused several times. The plot isn't bad, though only one of the Dragon villains really gets a lot of detail. If I ran it today, I'd probably try to fill out the "Snake Pit" (the group of bad guys) with a few more interesting characters. I think it's a great introductory adventure.
• "Can Seapoint Be Saved?" (Dragon #75 (Jul 1983), 1e, 33 levels (4-8 lvl 4-7), 8pp) is a fun seagoing adventure. I used Barnacus for Seapoint, and tied the pirates of this module to the villains of that one. Great fun, and I ran it in RuneQuest 3rd edition, so it got really crazy in there. This module was rereleased as "North of Narborel" (Dungeon #49, 2e, 25 [28] levels (4-6 lvl 4-7), 14pp) but I didn't care for the choices made in expanding it.
• "Citadel by the Sea" (Dragon #78 (Oct 1983), 1e, (4-8 lvl 1-3), 15pp) has great antagonists, and a neat low-level "artifact".

 

[el-remmen]

I also rather liked The Matchmakers in issue 7, which is quite atypical - it’s basically a Romeo and Juliet story with little magic or fantasy (the bad guy has a ring of mind shielding to prevent PCs from blowing the plot early, but that’s about it).

I think I ran into it in an anthology of early Dungeon adventures (I think Kaermor is in there too).

Ha! I offered this one to two different groups (in-game) in 5E games and neither took the bait!

Found this (almost) exhaustive review from over a decade ago. What do you all think?

Dungeon Magazine – Final Retrospective | tenfootpole.org

tenfootpole.org

I find his criticism too harsh and based on a framework of "can you run it as published?" Since I don't think that of even the best "official" modules, it is not useful criticism for me (even though, yes, I read every single post on that site for the issues I own ).

 

[el-remmen]

My favorites from back in the day were actually in Dragon magazine.

If we are including those, then I'd include "The Sword of Justice" from Dragon #92.

 

[jian]

Found this (almost) exhaustive review from over a decade ago. What do you all think?

Dungeon Magazine – Final Retrospective | tenfootpole.org

tenfootpole.org

I’ve now read many of his top ten (the ones I liked the sound of, anyway), and here are my thoughts:

• The Spottle Parlour: It’s a nice idea, a bit like an Elmore Leonard story in fantasy form. I particularly like the priest who’s here to win money for his temple repairs (he should have a cardboard thermometer and a sign saying “Only 5192 gp to go! Please give generously!! Thank you!!!”). Pity it ends in a basic fight.
• The Ruins of Nol-Daer: It’s fine. There’s nothing particularly sensible or logical about the frankly random selection of monsters cohabiting the dungeon.
• Mightier than the Sword: A historical murder mystery, not unlike The Matchmakers. It’s cool and funny and whimsical, but it doesn’t need to be D&D, it’s just nice that it is.
• Dovedale: The opposite of the above, a folkloric children’s book story (at least until the PCs murder all the goblins, I guess) but equally whimsical and cool.
• Peer Amid the Waters: Also fine, but there’s very much an option for the PCs to end up trapped very far from home, which is a bit of an issue,
• Shut-in: Another historical murder mystery, but more Driving Miss Daisy than you might expect. It’s pretty good.

 

[Lanefan]

I’ve now read many of his top ten (the ones I liked the sound of, anyway), and here are my thoughts:

The Ruins of Nol-Daer: It’s fine. There’s nothing particularly sensible or logical about the frankly random selection of monsters cohabiting the dungeon.

Sometimes that can be a feature rather than a bug, even more so if you-as-DM have a rational explanation (whether the players ever learn it or not) for how-why they all ended up being there.

 

[jian]

Sometimes that can be a feature rather than a bug, even more so if you-as-DM have a rational explanation (whether the players ever learn it or not) for how-why they all ended up being there.

Yeah, I don’t really mind as a player or DM either, it’s just that Bryce really sold this as a feature in his review, and I don’t see it. I mean yes, there’s an explanation for every monster there (except maybe the doppelgängers) but it’s not particularly logical or sensible.

 

[Lanefan]

Yeah, I don’t really mind as a player or DM either, it’s just that Bryce really sold this as a feature in his review, and I don’t see it. I mean yes, there’s an explanation for every monster there (except maybe the doppelgängers) but it’s not particularly logical or sensible.

I wrote and ran an adventure once where I intentionally leaned hard into the old bad-design stereotype of "how did this great big monster ever fit through the human-size door to this room, and what's it been eating to stay alive since it got here?". Underlying rationale: a cursed item in the dungeon (actually, the same item the PCs are sent there to find) is every now and then summoning completely random monsters into different places in the complex and putting them in stasis until something disturbs them. And someone opening the door to the room the monster is in is enough disturbance to wake it up.....