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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 9129997" data-attributes="member: 27780">Dungeon Issue 85: Mar/Apr 2001part 6/6Natural Selection: Usually druids and rangers get along quite well despite their alignment differences. (which are both much looser now anyway after the edition change. ) But you can still run into differences of opinion over where exactly the balance between nature and civilisation lies, particularly when some are born and raised in the wild and others only learn how to survive in it later, plus like any animal there’s old-fashioned territoriality if you have too many in one place. This time it’s the rangers of Urnst and the druids of the Celadon forest that have fallen out due to complicated political reasons and the PC’s are going to have to settle things. They’re hired by the Lord Chamberlain to find out what’s happened at Dedermont’s Keep and rescue any surviving Pathwardens. Turns out it’s all the people at the top’s fault. The Rangers themselves didn’t want to do this, and were actually making an effort to humanely relocate the monsters they were supposed to kill using stasis beads. But no good deed goes unpunished, the druids set the monsters free inside the keep, captured the head ranger inside one of his own beads and are going to sacrifice him on the night of the new moon. It’s not all bad though, the kobolds now living in the keep hate being under the thumb of the trolls and will betray them at the drop of a hat if they think you’re not going to just kill them as well. Another one where who the good and bad guys are is intentionally blurred and it’s a lot easier if you’re willing to talk to people and settle your differences rather than just trying to kill everything, with the XP rewards the same whether you solve encounters by beating them or making friends. It also makes a big deal about many of the druids being humanoids, which always made a lot of sense as a skillset for them, yet was one of the most racially exclusive classes in previous editions, creating a setup where it was all humans (and the odd half-elf) unilaterally deciding for the rest of the world what the proper balance of nature should be. It definitely feels like it was written to exploit the worldbuilding possibilities the new system offers and would work quite differently if you tried to backconvert it. That’s the kind of thing I like to see so I strongly approve of this adventure.Dungeon adventures index Issues 73-84: Another 12 issues, another 62 adventures, which means it’s time to do a bit of statistics. This time, the trend is definitely towards fewer but longer adventures per issue, since the average page count is also up by a substantial margin. It’s good to see things go back the other way after the long slow downward drift of the 90’s. An excellent issue overall, with most of the adventures purposefully doing things that would have been impossible or much harder in the old edition and even the one that doesn’t being pretty entertaining. It looks like Dungeon is following a similar pattern to Dragon, with the first few issues of the new edition being fresh and exciting above and beyond the call of duty after years of things gradually becoming increasingly repetitive. Let’s see if they keep it up for the same duration. (which will seem all the shorter with the schedule still bimonthly.)</blockquote>

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