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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8579110" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 47: MayJun 1994part 1/565 pages. The mysterious masked assassins tend to wear lighter shades in Zakhara than Kara-Tur, but there's still plenty of them and the tactics are the same. Any tricks are fair game when there's a target that you need to stealthily kill. How tricky will they be for the PC's to foil? Time to roll for surprise again and hope their backstab damage isn't enough to take me out in one go.Editorial: The editorial this time points out that their adventures are 50% regular writers, and 50% all new people we've never seen before and may well never see again. They're not a closed shop, so don't be intimidated into not sending your adventures in. Slow month when it comes to submissions? Even if it's not I guess they do need to repeat the message every now and then, particularly as they've been running for a while and the number of regulars is increasing. Nothing much new here except the synopses of the specific adventures, which I don't feel the need to analyse because I'll get to the full thing soon enough. Letters: First letter complains there's too much roleplaying and not enough adventuring going on these days. People are spending hours shopping and letting the character die because "it's what they would do". Maybe the balance needs to start swinging back the other way again. Or you just need to find a new group, because they're obviously having fun playing like that. A good dramatic death just adds to the story.  Second is from regular writer Paul Culotta, who wants to keep prefab adventures in here and advice on how to make your own in Dragon. It's worked so far, so why mess with a working formula?Third reminds us of the importance of plotless location based adventures, both as an easy way to start new gamers off, and as a semi-blank slate where you can add your own personalities and politics onto the inhabitants. You can get a lot more reusability out of them than you can linear story based adventures.Fourth points out that the temple in Goblin Fever is bigger on the outside than the inside. While that's not uncommon with magical buildings, you may want to shrink it down for a more realistically grounded campaign. Fifth praises Train of Events for being willing to push at their technological comfort zone. Not every adventure needs to pass the approval of grognards who only run gritty low magic "realistic" medieval games. Sixth continues in the same vein, pointing out that said idea of medieval realism isn't even accurate - there are plenty of examples of interesting and surprisingly advanced technology from other real world eras and locations, and a fantasy world doesn't need to have developed the same things in the same order. Save the rigid tech trees for videogames. Seven points out that nearly every attractive woman in a TSR adventure is either a monster in disguise or about to send you on a life-threatening quest. (or both, quite frequently) Could they mix it up a bit so the players aren't instantly in paranoia mode every time you mention one. It's not helpful whether you want to encourage chivalrous behaviour or full equal rights.Eighth is on the conservative end, and wants fewer monsters from supplements, simpler plots and no psionics at all. Sounds a bit boring to me, but another reminder that they need to cater to the basic end of their fanbase as well. Ninth reminds us that no adventure turns out as expected once it hits the players, so honing your improvisation skills is crucial for a DM, particularly in ones that are written linearly and don't have much setting to provide a safety net when they make an unexpected choice. Finally, a long letter on the value of going to the library and doing supplemental research. A little descriptive detail goes a long way in making things seem more real. Even more important to make the effort today, when the internet makes research so much easier, and people are correspondingly more likely to spot basic sloppy factual errors.</blockquote>

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