Monte reviews Dungeon

[barsoomcore]

I prefer "protagonists" myself.

Huh. I like "unsuspecting victims".

 

[BryonD]

I agree w Monte re over-use of the word Hero, it's very annoying.

Ehhh.....

To me, this is a case of a very good rule of thumb be misapplied to a specific case.

This adventure is written in such a way that assumes the characters ARE heroes. Monte even points that out as another "problem". I found it amusing that, to me, these two points make the concerns with each other go away.

I am completely against assuming that D&D characters SHOULD be heroes. Which is why I agree with the general point.

But I also hate to think that you can't have some adventures out there with heroic characters specifically in mind.

Because the protagonists in the adventure, as written, ARE heroes, there is nothing wrong with calling them heroes. If you want to play a game where the characters are not heroes you need to either not run this module in this campaign or adapt the module. And if you are changing the plot and/or mechanics of a module, then how the PCs are referred to in the original text should be far and away insignificant.

 

[romp]

Wil Save?

was it just me or did anyone else think that this column blew chunks?

I quit reading it about midway through when Wil had a heart attack because his son-in-law touched his dice. I just thought that it was too much, "oooohhh, life is so ggggrrrreeaaattt. I am a geek..... oooohhh." blech!

I hope the next ones improve. I had hoped this was a good column because I generally like Wil when he was on TechTV.

 

[mearls]

Monte feels very strongly about the "hero" thing. I can show you the stump where my left pinkie finger used to be at GenCon, if you want to see how serious he is about it.

Ah, I'm kidding. Monte's more the toe-cutting type.

The stat block issue is an interesting one. You really can save a lot of space if you cut out ones that are merely recycled Monster Manual stats. In a 32 page module, you could save 2 or 3 pages of space just by using shorthand stat blocks. That's about an extra 10% of encounters, background, or whatever. I find that I don't really use stat blocks - they're too cluttered, and I like to copy the monster stats on to index cards before running an adventure anyway.

It's definitely a tough issue, because I can see why people like having them in the text.

 

[EricNoah]

The thing about stat blocks is ... I need to be able to write all over my critter and NPC stats. AC and hp and saving throws and ability scores can change pretty rapidly during combat, and I just like to be able to scratch out the old AC and write in the new value when necessary. I'm not gonna mark up my MM and I just don't want the hastle of a bunch of post-it notes etc. Plus if I have a mixed encounter with 2 or more types of monsters, I don't want to have to flip back and forth between two sets of stats.

 

[Piratecat]

Ahh well.. if the worst thing said by Monte Cook about my adventure is assuming the PCs are "heroes".. I guess I can roll with that

Jason Bulmahn
Author of Mad God's Key

Jason, I got to run one of your Living Greyhawk adventures at GenCon a few years back. . . the one where "the voice" is first acquired. I was blown away by how good it was, and by how well the room art worked. I'm glad to see you in Dungeon.

 

[mearls]

Jason, I got to run one of your Living Greyhawk adventures at GenCon a few years back. . . the one where "the voice" is first acquired. I was blown away by how good it was, and by how well the room art worked. I'm glad to see you in Dungeon.

Jason wrote those mods?!? Oh man, I was so happy I play a CN halfling rogue when I went through that one.

About the stat blocks - I'm pretty much in the same boat as Eric. I've been toying with doing a web enhancement for the next Malhavoc product that has lots of stat blocks or monsters in it. I was thinking of doing an HTML file with the creature's stats arranged in an easy to reference way. That way, you could cut, paste, and modify the layout to fit your needs, and print out one sheet for each encounter. That doesn't help people who lack 'net access or don't want to print stuff out, but it might be a good web enhancement for those who do. The entire stat block issue is one I've been thinking about a lot lately.

 

[Steel_Wind]

The thing about stat blocks is ... I need to be able to write all over my critter and NPC stats. AC and hp and saving throws and ability scores can change pretty rapidly during combat, and I just like to be able to scratch out the old AC and write in the new value when necessary. I'm not gonna mark up my MM and I just don't want the hastle of a bunch of post-it notes etc. Plus if I have a mixed encounter with 2 or more types of monsters, I don't want to have to flip back and forth between two sets of stats.

Recently I scanned in a module from Dungeon and OCR'd it. Did a lot of rewriting and jigging it about, and then changed encounters all over the place to challenge the party appropriately and "work" with my theme.

When done I generated the stat blocks in e-tools and pasted them in for evey encounter. Even the few encounters I did not change, I put those stat blocks in too. Ditto for stat blocks which were repetitions of earlier stat blocks in the same mod a dozen pages earlier.

A "time saver"? Certainly not - took me a fair bit of time to do all of this. 12 hours+ or so before I had it all exactly how I wanted it. But it's now very much *my module* and does not much resemble the original it is based off of. It's a fun creative process too and I must admit being quite satisfied with the concrete results.

It's a lot easier to run now during play and every bit of info is right there at my fingertips...

So, while I do understand from a publisher's perspective how stat blocks eat up space and are to be approached as much as a foe as a friend- I also prefer them handy and not have to page flip at all.

 

[Cam Banks]

was it just me or did anyone else think that this column blew chunks?

It's just you. I'm a gamer dad and enjoyed Wil's article. I've got a lot of respect for the guy in general - seems like an appropriate column for the magazine.

Cheers,
Cam

 

[bbarrington]

It's just you. I'm a gamer dad and enjoyed Wil's article. I've got a lot of respect for the guy in general - seems like an appropriate column for the magazine.

Cheers,
Cam

I totally agree. I think Wil's article needs to be read by all mothers and wives of gamers. They might start seeing the hobby in a whole new light.