I think one of the things that would impress me the most about these adventures, was that many times the designers were either high schoolers, or college kids close in age to myself. I would read these mini-modules with a mixture of admiration and envy that such quality products could be written by such young people.
At first I thought is was strange that I rarely saw anything written about them in the old school blogs, but I realized that dungeon magazine was mostly a 2e (and beyond) resource. Still though, to me, converting between 2e and 1e (or B/X for that matter) was no big deal.
I remember reading on JM's Grognardia about the lack of truly memorable 2e modules, and some-one had quite rightly pointed out that although the offically released 2e modules were mostly forgettable, Dungeon magazine was releasing some great material at the time (a sentiment I would have to agree with from what little I had read in the magazines).
The thing is though, that although the few I had were impressive as reads, I never had a chance to actually use any of them in play (only because by that time I was mostly a player, and never a DM). I guess this leaves me wondering how playable they would have been. I'd hate to here that they were like most 2e materials, interesting to read but impossible to use in play.
It depends on the type of adventures you enjoy running. It seemed to me they were largely of the "Tell a story" variety and not the more old school friendly "sandbox" location-based style open adventures. There were some well-written once, certainly, but I myself have rarely used any module as written.
ReplyDelete"I remember reading on JM's Grognardia about the lack of truly memorable 2e modules, and some-one had quite rightly pointed out that although the offically released 2e modules were mostly forgettable, Dungeon magazine was releasing some great material at the time"
ReplyDeleteThat was me that said that, actually (well, if it wasn't me personally I do say that all the time). Pretty much all the best 2E modules are from Dungeon magazine....Shards of the Day, Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, House of Cards, Kingdom of the Ghouls, etc. To me, it was really odd that there were officially published yawners like The Murky Deep or Swamplight and great stuff like the above wasn't purchased and developed as a "real" module.
I don't know what the above poster is talking about when he talks about "Tell a Story" adventures, as the entire purpose of Dungeon magazine adventures was to introduce a "generic" style adventure that could be plopped into any campaign. There are very, very few "story" type adventures and most of these are the campaign specific variety (Planescape, Dragonlance, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, etc). I've had no problem running adventures such as "Siege of Kratys Freehold" and "Nbod's Room" many times so they are far from impossible to use in play. Dungeon magazine definitely deserves a lot more kudos than it gets, it was really a useful product during the time of its publication and to this day.
I got a lot of mileage out of Dungeon, even if I was simply raiding it for maps, NPCs, names or magic items.
ReplyDeletesome of the adventures contained in "Dungeon" issues were even greater than "official" modules IMHO :)
ReplyDeleteThe OSR needs a Dungeon clone fanzine.
ReplyDelete