Xaxaxe wrote:While my Dragon collection is pretty strong, I have a pretty thin Dungeon collection. And by "thin," I mean "virtually non-existent."
I'd like to have some fun with Dungeon and maybe collect the "best" adventures first. Does anyone have any thoughts and/or favorite adventures they remember (and an issue number would be helpful, if possible)?
I'm also going to use the "30 Greatest" article from Dungeon #116 as a starting point. It listed 10 of the top Dungeon adventures.
Thanks in advance.
LOVE love love Dungeon Magazine. Absolute best value for the money in RPGs; for about $4 (in the old days) you got 3-4 better than average adventures, some superior to anything TSR was putting out at the time. All the best 2nd ed adventures are pretty much in Dungeon magazine.
I use these quite a bit even now; in the day, when I had no time to write anything myself, I used pretty much every adventure in each issue from about #1-#20 or so. Here are some of my personal favorites, only up to Issue #81 (after which began 3rd ed):
TOP TEN (In no particular order):
1. Mud Sorceror's Tomb (Dungeon #37): The best adventure ever printed for Dungeon magazine, one of the best 2nd ed adventures ever published, and probably superior to about 90% of the adventures put out by TSR during 2nd ed era (1987-1999).
IMO, this tops Tomb of Horrors for plot line, traps, tricks, background, everything. Just do yourself a favor and get this issue, plus #37 has two other good adventures, Serpent in the Sands and A Wizard's Fate. I've never run MS tomb; I'd love to someday.
2. Siege of Kraty's Freehold (Dungeon #33): A great adventure where low level characters have to defend a fortress from an orc horde. I've run this multiple times; it's gotten great response every time. A great campaign beginner that can answer that question "Why is a druid, two dwarven fighters, an elven mage and a Cleric of War doing hanging around together? " (I.E., is a good reason for beginning characters to be introduced to each other.
3. House of Cards (Dungeon #19): Great use of a Deck of Many Things; they are used as traps on doors in an assassin's hideout. Very cool and imaginative high level adventure. I've run this once, it worked out really well. The same Dungeon mag has "By the Wayside" and "A Serpent's Tooth", both above average adventures
4. Shards of the Day (Dungeon #60): So old school it's not even funny, it could easily be slipped into an underground hex of the D-series if you are running these, or any underdark campaign. Adventurers must deal with a bunch of fun mini adventures vs Drow, Kuo Toans, undead and more to find different piece of a magical sword. Has some cool game tiles to represent the different sections of the area.
5. David Howery's Jungle Adventures: Elephant's Graveyard (Dungeon #15); The Leopard Men (Dungeon #22); Land of Men With Tails (Dungeon #56). All three of these are essential if you are running a jungle campaign (as I was/am). These take some tweaking to make them campaign specific to your world, but they are all well worth the effort. All have good plots and often underused creatures.
6. Mertylmane's Road (Dungeon #76) : Great arctic/northern adventure where the PC's guard a caravan and do battle with a Frost giantess sorceress and an assasin; good plot, villains and locale.
7. The Forgotten Man (Dungeon #75) : A very good balance between roleplaying and combat. Spoiler alert: a deadly villain has lost his memory and become a good man; forces intervene to turn him back into a villain, so the PCs must invade a castle (very cool map) to rescue him, defeat the bad guy, and make sure the "villain" stays a good guy.
8. Thunder Under Needlespire (Dungeon #25): A great adventure for those high level characters who are bored taking on traditional foes; here is an underground monstrosity even the Mind Flayers are scared of! Plus, you get to battle Illithids, Drow, etc, the usual underdark baddies, as well as the Uber-monster.
9. North of Narborel (Dungeon #49): I always love the Dragon contest winning adventure "Can Seapoint be Saved?" in Dragon #75; this update to second edition is just as fun, and a little better as the plot and characters have been given an overhaul. The adventure is simple yet fun (pirates and mage leader have charmed a Dragon Turtle to sink ships which they then loot), always leads to a very exciting combat in the pirate caves (at least it has everytime I've run the adventure!).
10. Kingdom of the Ghouls (Dungeon #70); After Mud Sorcerer's Tomb, the second best adventure ever run in Dungeon magazine. Wolfgang Baur wrote this epic (30 pages I think) adventure that really deserved a boxed set of it's own. It would have made a great underdark campaign is is superior to a lot of "officially" published box sets from the time period. The plot is great: A powerful new type of ghoul is overunning the underdark in well-disciplined armies, led by powerful ghoul spellcasters and a necromancer queen. The PC's must raise an underground army and find the homeland of the ghouls for one gigantic badass battle. Lots of minor encounters and battles with lots of interesting underdark foes; tons of cool roleplaying opportunities as the players can try to get allies like Drow to work with Dwarves and Gnomes against a common foe; the atmosphere is very H.P. Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith like, the foes are truly horrible and powerful, the adventure is epic in scope. Highly recommended. I WILL run this someday as a campaign, I swear it...
I could very easily list another 20 or so favorite adventures, but I'm tired now...
BTW, just read through Jay Hafner's Dungeon mag description link posted above, and while informative, there were a ton of mistakes and ommissions. If anyone knows him, is it worth emailing him to give him a list of corrections?
Mike B.