Shroomy's page

I think that the staff should just keep an eye on how many monsters they have in total and when they get enough they ought to put out a monster compendium. I'm sure a lot of us would snap that up.

I do believe that WoTC would probably veto that idea, since they would probably want many of those classic monsters for their own books.

I just realized that Issue #129 was the December 2005 issue, so I think its time for a Best of 2005 thread. I was thinking we could each post a list of our favorite adventure from each issue. Maybe when we are finished we could compile a master list revealing what the readers of Dungeon think weas the best adventure of 2005.

To start things out, here is my list:

January 2005 - "Box of Flumph" - Tim Hitchcock

February 2005 - "Wrath of the Abyss" - Greg Vaughn

March 2005 - "The Obsidian Eye" - Nicolas Logue & Brendan Victorson

April 2005 - "The Styes" - Richard Pett

May 2005 - "Final Resting Place" - Michael Kortes

June 2005 - "Salvage Operation" - Mike Mearls

July 2005 - "The Whispering Cairn" - Erik Mona

August 2005 - "Seekers of the Silver Forge" - Tim Hitchcock

September 2005 - "The Clockwork Fortress" - Wolfgang Bauer

October 2005 - "The Hive" - Phillip Larwood

November 2005 - "Shut-In" - F. Wesley Schneider & James L. Sutter

Decebmer 2005 - "Murder in Oakbridge" - Uri Kurlianchik

Here's to a great 2006.

Shroomy wrote:

I'm still waiting on four submissions from the last batch. I have one in for the next round, maybe two if I get motivated this weekend.

Get on it, Shroomy. Those ideas and mini-movies are playing through yer head anyway...might as well get them down on paper (hmmmm not paper, exactly.)

Get them into a Word .doc and send them in.

Two things are conspiring against me, one I'm very finicky about my ideas; if often start with a cool idea or image, play around with it, write a couple of notes, get distracted, come back to it later, etc., etc. I could probably churn out one a month if it wasn't for the fact I'm so busy, oh well. Still looking for closure on the first four I sent in. Hopefully, we will hear soon. All I want for Christmas is my rejections, lol.

I'm still waiting on four submissions from the last batch. I have one in for the next round, maybe two if I get motivated this weekend.

I think we are seeing a lot of pre-#50 adventures in the list because the majority of the posters in this thread are in there 20s, 30s, and 40s, meaning those issues fell squarely in their adolescence, teenage years, and early twenties. Not surprisingly, these are formative years for many people, and when making lists (regarding any subject), you regularly see stuff from ones formative years dominating those lists. Also, issues after #50 through the advent of 3e date from the mid-90s, which coincided with the eventual collapse of TSR and doldrums in the gaming hobby (I for one, left gaming for 10 years around this point).

You now see a lot of people talking about the adventure paths, and I can easily imagine that in 10 years, when making lists of our favorite Dungeon adventures, that adventures like "The Styes" will not make people's lists.

The Kopru originally appeared in the D&D game; when they converted the Known World into Mystara for 2e, they should have converted the kopru. I would check the 2e Mystara MC.

I haven't received any sort of reply on my four submissions.

Yeah, I just sent one in earlier this week. Hopefully, I will get a few more in before the next cut-off.

bump

Didn't want this one to fall into the archives again. Has anyone heard anything?

And I get a laugh out of Corlina- I was so used to elves being graceful, intelligent creatures, with a great deal of culture and education that I started snickering when i noticed her 8 INT...

I was shocked, shocked I tell you by the mention of a beautiful naked elf in the pages of Dungeon. And she's having an affair! Also the brutal killing of a young child. We are far away from the days of the TSR Code of Conduct.

Also, awesome adventure Uri!

I too thought it was ironic that after reading that letter in #129 that the ad on the opposite page was sexist.

I'm just curious about two things. One, while Sharn is a very cool and well-supported locale, are there any Eberron adventures that will be published in the near future that do not take place in Sharn (even partially)?

Also, I'm just curious about why Eberron adventures require a sidebar on how to convert them to other campaign worlds, but the FR and Greyhawk adventures do not? While I guess an argument can be made that FR and Greyhawk are traditional enough settings to not require a sidebar, the recent FR and Greyhawk adventures has contained a lot of world specific material. Again, I'm just curious.

I missed ToH back in the 1e days, and after hearing years of hoopla over it, I was very keen on reading a copy of the 3.5 upgrade. It just wasn't for me; I thought it was actually a quite boring TPK waiting to happen. I like me some logical design, plot, and interesting NPC interaaction.

Anson Caralya wrote:

... still waiting...

Hey everyone. I think you all deserve an update on this. I got about halfway through the stack when I was interrupted by a forthcoming deadline. As soon as that is reached, I will resume the reply train.

Sorry again for the slow responses.

I know you guys are very busy, and I don't want to be a pest, but I was wondering if the rest of the responses would be sent out soon?

I justed wanted to give some praise to what I consider the best adventure of issue #128, "Shut In." It has many of the qualities that I consider essential to a good Dungeon adventure: it is site-based, but open-ended; it has a good mix of intrigue, roleplaying, and combat; features interesting NPCs; a nice, creepy vibe (not all adventures have to creepy, but I appreciate a vivid atmosphere); and it is easily adaptable (I plan on using it in a future Eberron campaign, where I think it will fit perfectly). I even liked the artwork. Congratulations to F. Wesley Schneider and James Sutter.

Congratulations to everyone who got a greenlight. I'm still waiting to hear on my four submissions. Statistics may not be on my side, but I need closure!!! :)

Has anybody heard anything yet, one way or the other? Have e-mails even started to go out yet?

I have not heard anything yet.

Bringing back the froghemoth to 3.5 was actually one of my main goals when I started working on Dungeon...

If I'm not mistaken, Dungeon was also responsible for bringing back the froghemoth in 2e. IIRC it was David Howery's "The Land of Men with Tails."

One thing to remember about my list above of what we've seen enough of is that list starts NOW. There may have been (and were!) adventures in this last batch of proposals that used druds or lycanthropes or murder mysteries set in Sharn that we may have green lit. From this point onward, though... the list is active.

I knew I should have sent in my murder-solving, awakened animal druid with a lycanthrope nemesis themed adventure sooner!!!

After reading James's comments, I went back and re-read my submission queries. Thankfully, while there was a lot of backstory in all four of my queries, I did manage to describe what the PCs would actually do in the adventure. Also, no druids, no awakened animals, no lycanthropes, and no murder mysteries set in Sharn.

Btw, I haven't heard anything yet. I know that the Messageboard folks have heard back regarding their proposal, but I was wondering when the replies would be sent backs. The IT Department at work here is probably wondering why I'm checking my personal email so much. :) Thanks

Shroomy, I took a gander at what we all posted originally as well. Our semi-finished series has very little elements of the ideas we bounced around back then. I will tell you this, though. It is definitely dark and has a lot of Cthulhu elements. Its kind of reminiscent in some ways to The Thing and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, IMO.

Sounds cool. I love dark, I love Cthulhu, and I love those two movies. This must be printed.

Congratulations. Hopefully we'll see your adventure in print. I went back and reread the thread and your ideas sounded really interesting.

I was just reading through the AoW Overload today and I saw that a couple of the adventures, including the finale, do not have assigned authors. I was just wondering if you assigned any authors since the Overload was released.

Thanks for the update, it is much appreciated.

So, anybody hear anything yet? I have not.

I was wondering, I have an idea for an adventure that ultimately puts the PCs in a moral grey area. Without going into specifics (basically involves the sacrifice of one for the benefit of the many, but could be a great springboard for an ongoing campaign), how much is too much moral grey area for a Dungeon adventuer? I was wondering both from a reader and an editorial standpoint.

I have four submissions in the pile and haven't heard anything. All I can ask is be gentle....:)

So, is there any news on how the new submission meeting process is going?

Is there any word on how the new submission meeting process is going to work? I'm still waiting on four potential rejections. :)

I got my copy at the FLGS today. Looks great. I have a couple of the middle adventures as well as the finale, so I'm interested in reading the entire thing.

So this is killing me. How do some of you come up with estimates on word counts for your proposals? I sit here and fiddle around with my ideas, but I have no clue how to guess the length in words. My biggest fear with a proposal is I end up way over my estimate and have to cut out some cool stuff. My second biggest fear is that I'm way under and have to find ways to fluff up the adventure, weakening it overall.

Any tips, or do most of you just guess?

I'm terrible at estimating word count, so I actually write out a full, rough draft of my adventures before I submit a query. It may not be for everyone, but I don't mind, as I actually enjoy the writing process. Over time, I have found that I'm getting better and better at estimating roughly how many words my adventure will require.

It has also taught me some adventure design discipline; lots of templated monsters and NPCs may sound neat, but their stat blocks eat up a lot of word count, so I have to be judicious in my usage. For example, I wrote a jungle adventure for 1st level characters, so I went through the MM, MMII, MIII, and the FF and collected all of the monsters that would fit into the setting, but which had a CR of 3 or less. Then I made a conscious decision to keep only a handful of the monsters from books other than the MM. In the end, the adventure included one monster from MMII, one from FF, and one from the Oriental Adventures book; everything else was a standard monster from the MM. It cut down on a lot of space, and I was able to make my pre-set goal.

It looks like I missed the cut off by 4 days; I submitted my two adventure proposals on the 16th of June. I guess I'm waiting to after GenCon for my rejections, though I will likely have a third or fourth query in by then (like Mr. Greer, I also write out manuscripts beforehand and am currently in the middle of writing one).

Hmmm, should I be worried that James posted his tips the same day he sent me an email about my two submissions? :) I know I didn't put my names on the actual submission queries, D'oh! That won't happen again.

"First of all, this is the only true stand-alone adventure in the magazine. Although I appreciate the three adventure format, I'd like to see a little more stand-alone material. I think many DMs that use Dungeon often use occasional filler adventures, and the stand-alone adventures are easier to tie into an existing storyline than a single segment of a three part series."
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I tend to agree, though I love the AP and Campaign Arcs, having them appear in the same issue, or series of consecutive issues, seems a bit excessive, both from a DM'ing and a writer/submitter standpoint.

About a month and a half ago my friend reintroduced me to the pleasures of D&D, when he bought the new 3.5 core rulebooks. This was after a 10 year absence from the game. In fact, the last thing I bought for AD&D/D&D was Dungeon #57. Before that, I was an avid collector of the magazine, owning most of the issues between #13 and #57. Recently, when my parents visited me, I had them take the musty magazines out of my old bedroom's closet and bring them with (much to my mother's delight).

For the last two weeks, I've been enjoying all of those old adventures, reacquainting myself with several old favorites and re-evaluating authors whose work I disliked when I was much younger (sorry Willie Walsh, I didn't know what I was thinking, though I'm still a little iffy about bermuda shorts wearing lava mephits). Now I know what happened to Willie Walsh from the Issue 37 thread, and Christopher Perkins is still an active writer for Dungeon, but does anyone know what happened to some of my favorites: Peter Aberg, Paul Cullota, David Howery, Steve Kurtz, Randy Maxwell, and Ted Zuvich? They all seemed to have disappeared in the mid-90s.