D&D General Favourite adventures from Dungeon Magazine

[jian]

A later one I quite liked also was Rivers of Blood (issue 89) which was a nice folkloric adventure set in the Kievan Rus.

This also reminds me that any adventure illustrated by Tony DiTerlizzi gets +1 star from me automatically. I’ll even give Umbra a look.

 

[RealAlHazred]

I remembered a few Dungeon adventures I used for an Eberron campaign: "The Styes," by Richard Pett from Dungeon #121 (Apr 2005), and "Murder in Oakbridge" by Uri Kurlianchik from Dungeon #129 (Dec 2005). The first one is just dripping with Lovecraftian atmosphere, but required some work to bring to the table. The second I could run pretty much as-is -- it was a nice, contained mystery.

 

[PHATsakk43]

The bulk of my favorites all come from a single issue, Dungeon #45.

An Artist's Errand by Steve Kurtz, Rudwilla's Stew by Chris Perkins, & Prism Keep by Rich Baker.

As a 14-year-old I had no idea who these people were (or would become in Mr. Perkins' case). In reality, it was 30 years later that I went back and realized who was writing the adventures that were in the magazines.

I've ran Rudwilla's Stew as a campaign opener for pretty much every campaign I've ran since 1994. The only issue I've had with it is in the final scene where the players are required to determine who poisoned the stew, it isn't very well described how to run the encounter such that the bugbear shaman is to be identified as the culprit. It requires a decent amount of dramatic exposition to play it out, as it is set up to be a solely role-play experience. I've ran it several times in 5E converting it on the fly as well. It is really well set up for the scene style play of 5E.

Prism Keep really needs a set of pre-gens so that it could be a perfect intro into 2E AD&D. It is a self-contained "dungeon" that doesn't fall into the trap of lots of other similar modules of the era of stripping the characters of their stuff and/or starting them off in a prison. If you've ever wanted to give 2E a go, Prism Keep would be my top recommendation for doing it. It's a mid-high-level adventure with a good mix of puzzles, traps, combat, and negotiation that lets both the DM and players really get the opportunity to flex the system.

 

[el-remmen]

I remembered a few Dungeon adventures I used for an Eberron campaign: "The Styes," by Richard Pett from Dungeon #121 (Apr 2005),

The Styes is republished in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I would have run it by now if it did not taken my group going on 6 years to explore the area and do the first 4 adventures in there.

 

[el-remmen]

The only issue I've had with it is in the final scene where the players are required to determine who poisoned the stew, it isn't very well described how to run the encounter such that the bugbear shaman is to be identified as the culprit. It requires a decent amount of dramatic exposition to play it out, as it is set up to be a solely role-play experience. I've ran it several times in 5E converting it on the fly as well. It is really well set up for the scene style play of 5E.

I totally dropped that part when I ran it (was just reading the part of the story hour that covered how I adapted it for my use). It is funny that I get so used to running these adventures as I have revised them long ago, that I forget what is original to it and what is what I made up - and had totally forgotten that the brew being poisoned was even a plot point! I ran it more as a conflict point in the politics of a few local factions.

 

[RealAlHazred]

The Styes is republished in Ghosts of Saltmarsh. I would have run it by now if it did not taken my group going on 6 years to explore the area and do the first 4 adventures in there.

I never got that far in my GoSM run, because Covid killed in-person gaming at the store. But I had transplanted the entire adventure to 16th century Caribbean, and I had Ideas! What a great opportunity to really up the Lovecraft references!

 

[PHATsakk43]

I totally dropped that part when I ran it (was just reading the part of the story hour that covered how I adapted it for my use). It is funny that I get so used to running these adventures as I have revised them long ago, that I forget what is original to it and what is what I made up - and had totally forgotten that the brew being poisoned was even a plot point! I ran it more as a conflict point in the politics of a few local factions.

I've used the adventure as a plot starter for factions as well.

My usual go-to is to place the adventure in Daggerdale during the Zhentish occupation. I usually lead into a basic sandbox with Doom of Daggerdale and the Sword of the Dales trilogy along with several other 1E & 2E adventures that are based in the area to work into the thing.

I usually make Rudwilla a clandestine Harper ally and Jelmark (the nominal leader of the town) basically a patsy who doesn't really have any idea what is going on. After all, giving a 1,000gp to a band of randos to haul some stew from a witch to a bugbear tribe is a pretty steep reward. I've also modified the bugbears--or at least Bruggh the leader--into a semi alliance with the Harpers against the Zhents. Basically, his tribe can raid Zhentish caravans and have a nominal "peace" with the human village. The Zhents are kept at bay and Bruggh's tribe doesn't realize they are on the 'good' side of things.

I've taken it into some fairly gonzo places, having Bruggh being a veteran of the Second Inhuman Wars crashing his spelljammer on Toril and taking over a groundling bugbear tribe.