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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8722087" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 56: Nov/Dec 1995part 5/5The Land of Men With Tails: Another adventure that builds on previous ones here (and makes sure to list them so new readers know which issues to backorder), as David Howery takes us back to the Dark Continent for some african inspired exploring. A previous adventuring party hasn't returned, so the rich dad of one of them hires the PC's to investigate and hopefully rescue them. By amazing co-incidence, he's the only one of his group that's not dead yet, and you'll find the bodies of his companions if you follow the trail successfully. This leads you through mountain, swamp and several hundred miles of tropical river, facing disease, giant bugs, crocs, leopards, hippos and headhunters, until they reach the villages of the titular men with tails, who don't actually have tails, just a distinctive form of tribal dress. They definitely remember seeing the previous expedition, but warn you that following them will lead to a ruined city inhabited by evil dwarves, from which none return. You obviously won't let that stop you, and press onwards to explore the ruins, where the linearity finally lets up and there's plenty of bits to explore and weird monsters to fight before you get to the climax. Just like last adventure, it ends with you having to foil a magical ritual or face an enemy above your paygrade, as they want to sacrifice the captured adventurer to summon a giant ape and use it as a weapon of conquest. Still, the whole thing is better handled here, as even if you fail, that's still a whole other achievable adventure if you use clever tactics or run away and get help, unlike the curbstomp of 6th level characters vs a 30th level dragon. (and it's not going to break the game if one of the PC's gets hold of the ritual and uses it themselves) It's not completely rigid like the last adventure, actually has plenty of treasure (if you can figure out how to get it home) and it gives much more of a sense that you're traversing long distances through challenging terrain than the Dark Sun material, but it is still much more linear than his previous adventures in the same setting, showing that general trend continues with both staff and freelance writers. This doesn't enrage me like the previous adventure, but leaves me pretty ambivalent overall. We've definitely seen better years in here. An issue in which the short adventures are pretty pleasing, but the long ones less so, showing that large scale sandboxes are now thoroughly overtaken by more linear adventures that go from one encounter to the next and only offer any significant choices of route or action near the end. If you want branching storylines where player agency really matters you'll have to do it yourself, because they're not being very helpful at that. Maybe next year they'll listen to the people complaining in the letters pages? Nah, who am I kidding. We already know this doesn't end well for them, it's just a matter of getting through the next year and seeing how they rebuild after that. On we press then.</blockquote>

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