TSR [Let's Read] Polyhedron/Dungeon

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 87: Jul/Aug 2001



part 1/6



125 (144) pages. These headlines are getting increasingly large and tabloidish in an attempt to catch the attention of newsstand browsers, making the artwork increasingly obscured. Not that the artwork is particularly impressive, as it’s just a single static figure staring at the camera with no real backdrop or implied narrative. But since the issue itself is a massive one (and would be even bigger if I had the bonus CD, but those kind of extras are irksomely frequently missing these days) they still have plenty of opportunities to make it up to me inside. Let’s see if any of these adventures will be making my all-time classic list.



Editorial: A couple of issues ago, Chris was complaining about how exhausting it was being editor of multiple magazines at once. Looks like he finally reached his limit, because he’s scaling back his day-to-day involvement with Dungeon to focus on the Star Wars department full time. You’ll barely know he’s gone though, because he’s being replaced by the junior Chris, Mr Thomasson and he’s learnt his craft well watching his boss over the past 3 years. Then again, they said something pretty similar when Dave Gross left Dragon at about the same time, and things got noticeably more boring and less setting friendly after he left, so as usual, I feel quite justified in taking these words with a grain of salt. We shall continue to see just how closely intertwined the destinies of the magazines are and how much difference an editor makes when they’re getting the same mandates from higher up in the company.



Letters: First letter is very pleased to see Tracy Hickman finally do an adventure in here. Time travel is tough to do and it could have wound up a lot messier than it is.

There are still some mistakes in it, as the second letter points out. Remember that Krynn has multiple time travel devices, as seen in the novels and don’t get them mixed up.

Third picks apart Scarlet fever. Turns out one of those nitpicks is a misinterpretation of what the numbers are referring to, but the others are entirely valid. Don’t ever expect James Jacobs adventures to go easy on your players, and if they can’t handle it, they should learn how to git gud with their next set of characters.

Fourth would very much like to see the return of solo adventures, as 3e could do with a few of those. The editorial response is cautious, but doesn’t rule it out entirely.

Fifth is a lengthy list of the adventures they’d most like to see converted to 3e. They’ll definitely take that into account if they ever get any space between handling all the new ones needed to keep the magazine going.

Sixth praises Tracy Hickman & Thomas Harlan, but wonders if God would actually let the true cross be destroyed. This presumes a deity that is both omniscient and omnibenevolent, which raises the question of why all the other various forms of suffering in the world still exist. Ultimately, you can choose the answer in your own campaign.

Seventh wishes they did more player versions of maps. Getting them to draw their own as you describe it is really becoming a lost art these days it seems. Afraid not. They can’t expect everything handed to them on a plate even in these more lenient times.

Eighth was taken aback by the monster tokens, but after further thought can definitely see their value. It’s less hassle than painting and storing tons of minis and if you don’t have enough for a scenario you can just print some more out.

Ninth was not so keen on the tokens, or a whole load of the other changes they’ve made recently for that matter. More high level adventures and at least a few more cliche monsters would be good this early in the edition.

10th is annoyed about them removing stat blocks from standard mooks. They only have so much page count. If the art of basic looking up references is being lost along with mapmaking the next generation of gamers are a sorry crop indeed.

11th complains that the scale of the tokens is wrong for most of their maps. Yeah, that one’s a bit harder to justify. Still, you can scale things in a good desktop program so even that’s solvable with a bit of technical knowhow.

12th is pleased by the maps of Greyhawk cities they’ve released so far, but wants the rest. They’re doing their best in the LG Journal, but as we saw, they won’t manage to complete that project. Some can be found in older edition books, but many will never get fully fleshed out unless you do it yourself.

13th is annoyed about the very uneven distribution of adventures so far. How are groups supposed to get to high level like that. Some adventures for previous editions would be nice as well. Sorry, they’re sticking with the latest model, and while they would like more variety of levels, they can only publish what they get. It’ll still take quite a while for the slush pile to reach the levels it did in the 2e years.

14th is particularly pleased by Lord of the Scarlet Tide and also wonders how you become a regular artist for them. Just send a portfolio of examples (copies, not originals, for your own sake) or a website link and if they like what they see, they’ll be in touch. If you’re good at working to spec and making deadlines, your odds of repeat work go up dramatically.

15th is the more common question of how you become a writer and wonders how many submissions they’re getting at the moment. They’re averaging around 30-40 a week at the moment, which if you crunch the math means slightly less than 1 in 50 of them get all the way through to being published. Even if it is good enough, don’t be surprised if you have a year or two’s wait between it being accepted and actually appearing in the magazine, because finding the right artwork and formatting is another big pain in the ass.

16th and finally (these letter pages are long ones lately) complains that they’re doing too many site-based adventures and not enough story focussed ones. It is kinda the tagline of the edition, plus they want to avoid railroads, so their standards for accepting event based adventures are somewhat higher at the moment, but they do have some in the bag coming in future issues.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 87: Jul/Aug 2001



part 2/6



The Raiders of Galath's Roost: Once again we lead off with an adventure from an official writer of a size that they’d have pruned heavily or turned into a standalone module in the previous edition. But unlike the past few issues, there’s no epic plot to justify the size. It’s just your basic 1st level site-based dungeon crawl aimed at starting characters. Only this time, it’s Skip Williams style. Since he does not have a very good track record when it comes to adventure writing, to put it mildly, that definitely has me worried going in. Anyway, Mistledale has recently been troubled by Drow raids. Only they’re riding horses? This doesn’t make sense. Horses don’t cope well in the underdark. Are they not drow after all, but the ghosts of the bandits that once laired in Galath’s Roost? The answer turns out to be a bit scooby doo. There’s a ghost, but it’s a nice one, the Zhentarim are using the rumors of them as a cover, there’s a water mephit also pretending to be a ghost, giant ant and giant bee hives under the fort, krenshars, stirges, assassin vines, a prank playing pseudodragon and a few actual drow who are as puzzled by all this as you if you actually talk to them instead of just killing them. It’s all a bit overstuffed, in other words. If you actually do some investigating, you’ll find out that the Zhentarim have been using magical portals to appear and disappear on their raids. If you figure out the key that activates it you can head over to their hidden citadel to stop the problem for good, where you’ll face some rather more intelligent and co-ordinated threats from mostly human enemies. Even there you can’t escape the comedy though, as they have a gnome technician working for them, plus an imprisoned baby gold dragon that’ll follow you around like a lost puppy if you rescue it. (and is easily powerful enough to escape and solo the whole adventure if it had a bit more confidence in itself.) This is an overlong slog of an adventure punctuated by bad comedy that’ll result in you being overleveled for the final part if you do explore everything and beat every encounter, because it’s paced more like a 1e adventure than a 3e one. It’s still better than WG9 Gargoyles and many of the tournament adventures he picked for Polyhedron, but that’s a very low bar to clear indeed. This easily steals the prize from Tracy Hickman last issue for most annoying 3e adventure in here so far. As I’ve said before, he really should stick to saging.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 87: Jul/Aug 2001



part 3/6



The Cradle of Madness: Straight away, here’s another adventure they would never have published under the previous edition, but for much more interesting reasons. It’s time for an incest plotline, and not a “they’re step-siblings so you can use it as masturbation material guilt-free” one either. Two twins separated at birth have been chosen by Tharzidun to bear his prophet. They have matching birthmarks that made them susceptible to his whispers and both grew up thoroughly sociopathic, with a lengthy backstory of what happened in their past filling the first few pages, but things didn’t really get going until they found each other and got it on. Now she’s approaching labor and has disappeared to the temple to give birth, pretending to be kidnapped and leaving a ransom note to bilk money out of her adoptive daddy dearest. Dad decides to hire adventurers to rescue her rather than paying up and here you are. Go to the ransom site, where the cultists prove they were never bargaining in good faith by trying to kill you and take whatever loot you have. Hopefully you’ll leave one alive to interrogate, or failing that have someone with the tracking feat and can trace them back to the temple. Once you’re at the temple you have a fairly typical little dungeoncrawl, albeit one that’s easier than normal to get through via stealth or disguise rather than fighting everything, due to the mechanical effects insanity has in 3e. Due to the miracle of dramatic timing, you’ll arrive at the final chamber just as she’s about to give birth and the clerics intend to perform a ritual binding the baby permanently to Tharzidun. Hopefully you’ll manage to disrupt it one way or another and save the day.

However, there’s multiple stings in the tail of this tale. If you don’t realise that mommy was an enthusiastically consenting participant in the spawning process and kill her as well she’ll sneakily seek revenge later. If you leave the baby in her care or as an orphan without taking a personal interest in its upbringing there’s a decent chance it’ll also turn out evil and be back with further diabolical schemes as soon as it’s old enough. So this is one that definitely rewards players who are suspicious of the info the DM gives them and will engage in investigation and roleplaying rather than just going straight in the direction they’re pointed in and hacking their way through any obvious monsters they see. It has a dramatic story that gives interesting results whichever way the PC’s choose to react to it rather than railroading them into one choice and has the potential to have a significant impact on the direction of your campaign long after the adventure itself is over. it would be a well above average adventure on those grounds alone, but earns extra significance by seeing them completely depart from their usual family-friendly writing. WotC may have got rid of the Code of Conduct a few years ago now, but it’s taken a while for them to really get comfortable with the idea of pushing the boundaries. But it looks like the time has finally come to put on those nipple clamps of exquisite pain, get to meeting the prerequisites for the lichloved feat and then write it all up in the book of vile darkness for release next year. That’s one way to spice things up and keep from repeating yourself 15 years into the magazine. This is definitely one I’d delight in using with the right group.



Nodwick’s party have faced many monsters successfully, but handling childbirth proves well beyond their skills.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 87: Jul/Aug 2001



part 4/6



Glacier Season: Another massive adventure in quick succession, showing that they’re definitely using their increased page count to provide larger adventures rather than more per issue at the moment. At least this one is a high level one with a suitably epic premise though, as you’re up against an ancient white dragon and all his minions. To add to the drama, you have his angsty half-dragon son joining the team out to make amends for his father’s misdeeds, who mercifully is neither incompetent or played for comic relief. Even more pleasingly, it actually considers the range of powers they could have at this level and how they could use therm to skip big chunks of the adventure, some of which will work and some which the big bad has already considered and has a counter for. (plus if you skip the overland journey you won’t be getting any XP for the encounters there) If the enemies know you’re coming, it lists the various buffs they’ll have precast before the battle. There’s plenty of politics amongst the minions, and some can be turned against the big bad if they think you actually have a shot at winning. So this is the same basic concept as Dragon Mountain, but not so much of a slog, and actually feels like it’s been properly playtested and revised in response to the things the original players tried. It’s still no cakewalk in terms of challenge to the players or admin for the DM, but it shows you how high level 3e adventures can work if you put the effort in. This is one I’d put in the usable pile and covers a range they’re still pretty sparse in, so I can see it’s value.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 87: Jul/Aug 2001



part 5/6



Valley of the Snails: Aaron Williams is busy this month, not only doing Nodwick, but all the illustrations for this adventure as well. This sets the tone perfectly, as it’s a low level, low stakes mildly comedic one full of opportunities for embarrassing but nonfatal mishaps. While in a small village, the PC’s are asked to find a ranger that’s gone missing. You head into the woods to explore a little sandbox, the most detailed part of which is the titular valley of the snails, which does indeed have lots of poisonous snails. Not a huge threat as long as you’re wearing thick clothes and gloves, but still gross treading on them every few steps. When you find the ranger, he’s been driven mad by extra strong poison brewed by the local goblin witchdoctor and will lead you on a merry chase around the valley into various other dangers before you can catch and subdue him. (or quite possibly kill him if you don’t realise this is the guy you’re meant to rescue) Once you do get him under control and take him home, it’ll turn out that the local herbalist needs a sample of the poison to make the antidote, so you’ll have to go back to collect some if you didn’t anticipate that. Middle of the road in quality and a bit inconsequential feeling, but still a breath of fresh air after reading through a whole load of massive adventures in quick succession. The kind of little adventure you use at the start of a campaign so that when things get tougher and more serious, you really feel the change in tone. Good to see them keeping up that kind of variety.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 87: Jul/Aug 2001



part 6/6



Side Treks - The Shalm's Dark Song: Even the short adventures are experiencing a bit of inflation in the new edition, as this is nearly a full 6 pages long. Pilgrims to a nearby shrine of Obad-Hai have been failing to return lately. Has it been taken over by monsters? Someone had better do something about that. The answer could be yes or no, depending on your perspective. The current cleric in residence is a NE one who’s been sacrificing people and creating bone constructs out of their bodies. But he’s still acting entirely within the tenets of his religion so he hasn’t lost his powers or otherwise been punished by his god. To get the good ending, you’ll need to beat him and his various animal minions, but in a way that doesn’t desecrate the shrine deliberately or accidentally. (fire magic in particular is a very bad idea when the whole place is made of wood) So this is another good example of how the one step rule for clerics in 3e works, allowing neutral gods to have evil worshippers and some quite vigorous ecumenical debate about the proper way to serve their portfolio without their master interfering. Like the larger adventure involving evil druids a couple of issues ago, it’s part of an active campaign to adapt people’s minds to the new paradigm as much as it is an adventure in itself. But it’s still a pretty decent scenario in it’s own right with a collection of creatures that fit together thematically so I don’t have a problem with that.



Map of Mystery is a small segment of the underdark with multiple exits, easily placed anytime they’re on an extended expedition down there. Most of it is twisty natural cave shapes, then one bit is very obviously excavated by intelligent forces, looking like some kind of church. Given the alignment distribution of the average underdark dweller, that’s probably not good news for the PC’s.



A second issue in quick succession that demonstrates that some of their worst adventures come from official members of staff who aren’t being judged and edited as strictly as they would a freelancer. Average quality is still higher than it was 5 years ago, but they’re not going in a positive direction at the moment and I suspect the editorial change may accelerate that. Let’s see if next issue will more of a sweet dream or a beautiful nightmare.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 88: Sep/Oct 2001



part 1/6



91 (116) pages. Two issues of the same thing in a row? The amount of variety in my journey is definitely winding down after several years of sometimes haphazard skipping back and forth. The covers continue to be dominated by the headlines rather than the artwork, to the point where it feels a bit inconsequential. Still, it does mean I already have a good idea what kinds of adventures the issue will contain, it’s just a matter of finding out their quality.



Editorial: We’ve had several talks over the years on the educational benefits of playing RPG’s, merging math, creative writing and historical knowledge into one package that slides down more easily than dryly trying to do them separately by rote. But its ability to prepare you for real world life-threatening situations is not to be underestimated either. When there was an earthquake recently (not an uncommon occurrence on the west coast, but this was a big one) they stayed calm and remembered that the safest place to be is neither outside nor in, but the frame of a doorway, where the arch reinforces the structural integrity and things are least likely to fall on you. How very liminal, and a good demonstration that the best solutions are not always the most intuitive ones. That’s definitely a lesson worth keeping in mind if you’re from a more stable environment but going on holiday there. Do you feel you’ve been made braver by facing regular fictional peril? Or do you fall into the same camp as Michael Stackpole in Dragon 171, freezing up or panicking when things got all too real, because it’s not stylised the way you’re used to seeing in fiction and you could actually get hurt? Well, that could definitely inspire a bit of debate.



Letters: First letter is very pleased by the content on the bonus CD, which just makes me all the more irritated that I didn’t get to see that.

Second letter is from the writer of The Cradle of Madness and is very pleased by the way they took his words and fleshed them out with cool illustrations & maps. It’s good to see everyone was on the same page with their mental images.

Third is also very pleased by The Cradle of Madness and the general increase in amount of content per issue. They’ve really stepped up the amount of bang you’re getting for your buck. But there are still some mathematical nitpicks. Those are a lot more likely to become an issue if you don’t fix them in 3e.

Fourth is also generally complementary, but for one mathematical mistake. (a different one) Thousands of eyes will spot what one editor missed despite reading the same passage many times.

Fifth is from the editor of Pyramid magazine, also generally complementary, but would particularly like to see the return of solo adventures. Be they one-on-one or truly solo CYOA style, they give you a chance to explore your character that you might not get in a group.

Sixth has particular praise for Glacier Season. A high level adventure that has both dramatic story elements and solid mechanics? Who’ve thought it was possible? More, more, encore!

Seventh would very much like to submit some Maps of Mystery, keep up the amount of edition-agnostic content. Just include your basic standard disclosure form with it and they’ll give it a fair assessment.

Eighth is distinctly displeased by both the Dragonlance and Crusades adventures from issue 86. Who was asking for crap like that?!

Ninth is the deliberately contrasting voice, strongly in favor of seeing more Dragonlance material. Just because it’s currently out of print doesn’t mean the fanbase has gone away.

Finally, a letter in favour of including full stat blocks every time a creature appears. If they did that, it’d literally cut the average number of adventures per issue by 1, since 3e statblocks can get biiiiiiiig. They’ll stick to only doing it for new or unique customised creatures unless the pressure is truly overwhelming.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 88: Sep/Oct 2001



part 2/6



The Door from Everywhere: Roger Moore is our established name kicking things off with a massive adventure, which leaves me slightly less worried coming in than the last two issues, but still not entirely confident this made it in on it’s own merits. The fact that it’s a Forgotten Realms one revolving around recent big metaplot events increases that worry again. The king of Cormyr died in a non-raisable way in a recent novel, there’s an inexperienced regent on the throne and a whole load of threats both internal and external that have the country in a bit of a mess. The PC’s are hired to deal with bandits along the Moonsea Ride. This turns out to be a lot more complicated than expected. There’s a set of ruins with a magical portal in it and a whole bunch of factions are fighting over the prize, with things made more challenging due to the fact that magic is unstable in the vicinity. The portal leads to an ancient Netherese fortress with a whole load of other portals, only some of which are functional. (of course, you could always use the ones that currently go nowhere to further expand the adventure) Each of the other locations has it’s own challenges. Can you explore these places without dying and secure it, giving you an easy way to jaunt around the realms and accelerate trade? (a distinctly tricky ongoing challenge when new challengers could come from any portal at any time) Or will you decide it’s too dangerous and shut it all down so no-one can use it, which is the default solution the adventure expects of you, leaving Cormyr safer but stuck at the same old tech level. So this is an updating of the ancient magitech portal network idea we saw for Mystara in issue 7, and genericised in issue 10. A cool concept that definitely deserves reviving for a new generation, as it both makes for interesting adventures in itself and can make travel in future adventures a lot easier for mid-level parties. It’s not without it’s flaws though, as this is very Forgotten Realms specific and would take a lot of work to convert to another setting, plus it’s written in a style that harks back to the very worst parts of 2e, spending a good quarter of it’s pagecount on backstory and mundane setting details before the actual adventure gets going. Still very usable if you’re playing a FR campaign, but another case where this could have been both shorter and better if they’d edited it with the same strictness they do freelance submissions.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 88: Sep/Oct 2001



part 3/6



Threads of Purloined Vellum: This adventure is also set in the Forgotten Realms by default, but is a much smaller scale one that’s easy to transplant elsewhere. While wandering the streets of Amn, the PC’s stumble across a robbery. If they help to foil it, the grateful merchant offers them a job. This sucks them into a complex web of economic shenanigans as you try to find his missing subordinate and the contracts for some important business deals. Can you find all the Night Masks involved, get those contracts and carry out the sales even though some of the merchants involved don’t really want to do the deals anymore? (and may be actively working behind the scenes to prevent that from happening) This is one detective story that definitely doesn’t just spoonfeed you the answers, although some time-based events will happen to keep things moving if the players are being apathetic or wandering around stumped. A roleplaying heavy and combat-light urban one that’s definitely not for the dumb hack & slashers, this is fairly interesting both as an adventure and as a very zoomed in bit of setting expansion for a specific district of Athkatla city that you might want to visit again afterwards now you’ve got to know people there. Normally they do that formula with self-contained villages rather than cities that already exist on the map so this is a pretty cool variant on one of their common formulas that earns an extra point because it’s the first time they’ve done it since the edition change. This issue is turning out very well for the hardcore Forgotten Realms fans so far.

 

[(un)reason]

Dungeon Issue 88: Sep/Oct 2001



part 4/6



Side Treks - Make it Big: Despite the name, this adventure is even smaller and more self-contained than the last one. After passing through a small village, the PC’s are beset by a gang of hill giants. They both outnumber and outmuscle you, so fighting them head-on seems a bad idea, and say that if you don’t come with them they’ll destroy the nearby village, making running away also a bad idea unless you’re sociopathic muderhobos. They’ll set you to doing mundane chores and entertaining them until you figure out a way to deal with them that won’t get the village smashed if you simply escape, or they get bored of you and eventually let you go. The kind of short adventure idea that could turn into many sessions of play, as long as you can deal with the potential pitfalls of it being both railroady and irritatingly comedic. Looking at the credits, turns out it’s by former Polyhedron editor Jeff Quick, which explains everything. So this is another early 90’s throwback, including all the annoying bits of that era, that’s mildly less grating than it was at the time because it’s been a several year break since they last did an adventure like that, and at least it’s not just a linear sequence of half a dozen encounters, but still not something I actually have any desire to use. One to go on the interestingly bad pile for when you really want to torture your players.



Nodwick should be very worried, as Yeagar is introducing the giants to the wonders of pyramid schemes.