New Section: Adventure Reviews by Level

[HK]

I'm not sure who's actually in charge of this sort of thing, so I thought I'd just throw this out here.

As a consumer, I'd really appreciate it if there were a section on these boards dedicated to Dungeon adventure reviews, separated by intended level.

I normally only buy Dungeon issues on a need to have basis. For example, just recently I purchased an issue from this website because I wanted an 11th level adventure. After tediously searching through several issues I finally (finally!) found an 11th level adventure. I went ahead and bought it (a pretty penny for a Dungeon Magazine, considering the shipping!). I wasn't disappointed.

However, it would have been nice to have been able to come to these boards, go to the 11th level adventure section, read all of the reviews, and purchased the one that seemed most favorable.

This might make sense on a marketing level, as well. If the threads each had a rating after the title to indicate the responses for each adventure, then the most popular would catch a reader's attention. This might introduce obscure adventures to those of us who don't happen to own every issue (like new readers/subscribers, for example).

[farewell2kings]

I think trying to hand-pick your Dungeon magazines and then only buying them when you think they contain an adventure you can use is doing yourself a disservice. So many adventures that are "not quite 11th level" would be perfect for what you are looking for, as most adventures from 8th to 14th level are usually scaled so that they can be run for an 11th level party.

When you consider shipping, you're paying nearly a third of a year's subscription for a single magazine that you hope contains an adventure you can use.

I hate to be a total Paizo corporate suck-up, but really, $40 a year for hundreds of pages of adventures, tons of maps, tons of NPC's, ideas too many to count...that's really not a lot of money considering what you get for it.

Sure, not every issue contains an adventure that you can run straight out of the box for your players...but you'll have so much stuff to go back to later on...it's really the best value in gaming.

Hell, even when I wasn't playing D&D I kept up my Dungeon subscription because I knew that someday I would play again.

Now, I have every 3rd edition Dungeon issue ever printed. I usually scan several adventures ahead of time and populate my campaign world with towns and NPC's from Dungeon adventures the PC's may (or may not) ever go through.

It saves me so much time and the players all really like it when an NPC they ran into several sessions ago all of a sudden pops up as a major player in their current adventure.

I think your approach would be unnecessarily frustrating, because even with online reviews, the "one" issue you bought for $10 with shipping still may not be "exactly" what you're looking for...but a year's worth of Dungeon magazine would give you a full campaign for two or three adventuring parties.

Reviews are very subjective anyway, so a magazine that gets a good review may not be something YOU like for YOUR campaign.

Man....I should be in advertising ;)

[Dryder]

farewell2kings wrote:

Man....I should be in advertising ;)

You are!

I am pretty sure you'll get the next two issues for free, because of this text! ;)
BUT - you're right!!!

so, do I get the next two as well for free :)

[The Golden]

farewell2kings wrote:

SNIP

When you consider shipping, you're paying nearly a third of a year's subscription for a single magazine that you hope contains an adventure you can use.

I hate to be a total Paizo corporate suck-up, but really, $40 a year for hundreds of pages of adventures, tons of maps, tons of NPC's, ideas too many to count...that's really not a lot of money considering what you get for it.

I think your approach would be unnecessarily frustrating, because even with online reviews, the "one" issue you bought for $10 with shipping still may not be "exactly" what you're looking for...but a year's worth of Dungeon magazine would give you a full campaign for two or three adventuring parties.

I'm sorry but I have to agree with HK on this. An international subscription to Dragon is more than $60 as opposed to the $40 you imply, and although still not a huge amount of money it does make commercial sense just to buy the odd magazine if you only use one or two adventures per year.

[DMFTodd]

There's always my website, The Wyrm's Hoard (www.paladinpgm.com/wyrm), which has an online, searchable database of adventures. Search it to find the level you want and then come here and search for the title of the adventure.

[Robert Head]

DMFTodd wrote:

There's always my website, The Wyrm's Hoard (www.paladinpgm.com/wyrm), which has an online, searchable database of adventures. Search it to find the level you want and then come here and search for the title of the adventure.

nice!

[The Golden]

DMFTodd wrote:

There's always my website, The Wyrm's Hoard (www.paladinpgm.com/wyrm), which has an online, searchable database of adventures. Search it to find the level you want and then come here and search for the title of the adventure.

Hahaha blatent plug, but fantastic!!

You are a legend sir. :oD

[HK]

farewell2kings,

Even if I were to subscribe, what about the dozens of back issues? That and getting a subscription doesn't help me with getting a specific level adventure. I'm not against getting a subscription, but right now it wouldn't suit my needs.

As far as running an adventure close to the level I wanted, I personally don't like to scale adventures-- one of the main reasons I run Dungeon adventures is so that I don't have to do any work. ;)

Now, as far as my request goes, I don't think "just get a subscription" would be very good customer service on their part. I just think that this wonderful tool known as a message board could be used to help inform potential customers about their products. And I'd like to be able to read what people have to say about the adventure before I threw down cash for it.

[farewell2kings]

I can certainly see your point. It's easy for me to state the position "just get a subscription" when I have five years of Dungeon magazines in my office to refer to.

Maybe individual reviews of magazine contents is something Paizo will offer on their website someday. For your sake, I hope they do.

I still think a subscription is the best value in gaming. No other sourcebook even comes close to the amount of useful material you get for $38.95. Just my opinion, but I'm pretty open minded about the "value" of content in a magazine.

You state that you don't want to do any work at all, just run the adventure straight as it is. That, even more, would seem to me a pathway to frustration if the highly reviewed adventure you purchased doesn't meet your expectations.

I'm one of those eternal knob turners who hardly ever runs an adventure exactly as it is written, because I have my own preferences. I switch monsters, move adventure locations to fit my campaign, rename NPC's, all the time.

I think that's why I'm always on the "support Paizo" side of quality arguments, because it's such an ingrained habit for me to scale adventures, change them...move them around...I find a lot of value in most of them.

[HK]

I quit tweaking my adventures because the older I get, the lazier I get. ;)

I really, really like Dungeon Magazine, don't get me wrong. About... oh, I guess 13 or 14 years ago I had quite a large collection of them, but then I hit the age when women and parties seemed a lot more fun than playing RPGs and I somehow lost all of my 2nd edition books and materials (I probably pawned them off so I could afford cheap booze and even cheaper women).

A few years ago I got back into the spirit of things, but I haven't quite yet summoned the will to go all out (me and my crew are still playing with 3.0, if that tells you how cheap we are!) And the idea of starting up a new collection of Dungeon Magazines just makes me pine over all the material I've lost (if that makes any sense).

So I can completely appreciate your position when it comes to loyalty to the magazine! I can credit quite a few nights of fun to the adventures found within its many covers...