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.
January 2005 - "Throne of Iuz" - John Simcoe
February 2005 - "Tomb of Aknar Ratella" - Jack Flynn
March 2005 - "The Obsidian Eye" - Nicolas Logue & Brendan Victorson
April 2005 - "The Styes" - Richard Pett, but Fiend's Embrace makes it close.
May 2005 - "Final Resting Place" - Michael Kortes
June 2005 - "Quicksilver Hourglass" - Anson Caralya
July 2005 - "The Whispering Cairn" - Erik Mona, but "Chamber of Antiquites" comes close.
August 2005 - "Seekers of the Silver Forge" - Tim Hitchcock
September 2005 - I abstain for reasons of modesty ~ ;)
October 2005 - "The Hall of Harsh Reflections" - Jason Bulmahn
November 2005 - "Shut-In" - F. Wesley Schneider & James L. Sutter
Decebmer 2005 - "Murder in Oakbridge" - Uri Kurlianchik
That said there are a few months where I have trouble deciding between different flavors of good, and then there are months I am not terrible excited by any module and it turns in to a question of what stuck in my memory.
Oddly enough, I wasn't inspired by any of the 3-part-adventures (except perhaps the Istivin cycle). That's a bit scary since I'm working on one now.
GGG
Don't forget Downer!
Good idea, I'll compile my own list when I get home and can get a look at the issues. Maybe you should set a time-limit? Like.. in 1 week we find out who won each month, and then we vote for the overall winner of 2005?
January 2005 - Box of Flumph
February 2005 - Tomb of Aknar Ratalla
March 2005 - Forsaken Arch
April 2005 - Fiend's Embrace
May 2005 - Fiendish Footprints
June 2005 - Crypt of Crimson Stars
July 2005 - Whispering Cairn
August 2005 - The Three Faces of Evil
September 2005 - Blood of Malar
October 2005 - Don't have the issue :(
November 2005 - Shut In
December 2005 - Murder in Oakbridge
That said there are a few months where I have trouble deciding between different flavors of good, and then there are months I am not terrible excited by any module and it turns in to a question of what stuck in my memory.
GGG
Why break it down by month at all?? some months are better than others IMO so what about Top 5 or 10 of the year--
since i can't follow instructions, here's my Fave 8 (chrono):Forsaken Arch
The Styes
Final Resting Place
Seekers of the Silver Forge
The Whispering Cairn
Encounter at Blackwall
Clockwork Fortress
The Menagerie
Why break it down by month at all?? some months are better than others IMO so what about Top 5 or 10 of the year--
since i can't follow instructions, here's my Fave 8 (chrono):Forsaken Arch
The Styes
Final Resting Place
Seekers of the Silver Forge
The Whispering Cairn
Encounter at Blackwall
Clockwork Fortress
The Menagerie
I like the way you think!
;)
GGG
Tammeraut's Fate was 2004.. else I'd bet all my dice that it would have received votes already.
I'm not particularly keen on the Styes, mostly because I'm a bit tired of the evil cult worship thing that dominates the pages of Dungeon nowadays (alongside Dungeon Crawls of course). In addition, I'm not too fond on underwater battles. That being said, I think I can use most of it as a mystery adventure.
I haven't actually played Tammeraut's Fate yet (but if I don't kill my players for a couple of levels) I will. I reckon it is among the 5 best adventures I've ever read in Dungeon Magazine, alongside Umbra, the Whispering Cairn, the Jigsaw Man and ... well the last spot is undecided as of yet :)
Best 2005 Adventures, by month:
January: Shadows of the Abyss
February: Tomb of Aknar Ratalla
March: The Obsidian Eye
April: Fiend's Embrace
May: Root of Evil
June: The Amarantha Agenda
July: The Whispering Cairn
August: Pit of the Fire Lord
September: The Clockwork Fortress
October: The Hall of Harsh Reflections
November: The Champion's Belt
December: Murder in Oakbridge (A Gathering of Winds as a close second)
All IMO, of course...
Clearly Dryder and Trellian are men/women (sorry, the online names don't reveal much) of taste and distinction. Your kind words are much appreciated on behalf of TF.
No, no. Clearly Great Green God is a man of taste and distinction!
OK, I'm not going to be voting for every month either, as some weren't as strong as others. In all I'd say it's been a great year!
118 - Throne of Iuz
120 - The Forsaken Arch
121 - The Styes
124 - The Whispering Cairn (+Diamond Lake)
128 - Shut In
128 - The Champion's Belt
I think The Styes and The Champion's Belt are two of the best adventure's I can remember reading in Dungeon, although I haven't played either yet. I haven't read the latest issue all the way through, so I can't really say about that one.
~Qualidar~
Since the thread has moved away from the "by month" format here are the ones that stood out for me (in no particular order John).
"Throne of Iuz" - John Simcoe
"Tomb of Aknar Ratella" - Jack Flynn
"The Obsidian Eye" - Nicolas Logue & Brendan Victorson
"The Styes" - Richard Pett
"Fiend's Embrace" - Steve Greer
"Final Resting Place" - Michael Kortes
"Quicksilver Hourglass" - Anson Caralya
"The Whispering Cairn" - Erik Mona
"Chamber of Antiquites" - Robert J. Kuntz
"Murder in Oakbridge" - Uri Kurlianchik
GGG
My three favorite were "The Clockwork Fortess", "The Styes" and "The Quicksilver Hourglass". The first is set near Blackmoor and has all sorts of funky mechanical features, the second is just well written, plus I love krakens, and the third is just a great epic level adventure (as opposed to the previous epic effort by Dungeon). "Murder at Oakbridge" and "Champions Belt" are close behind, but didn't quite make the top three.
By the way, thanks for the two people who picked my adventures. Personally, I think I've got even better adventures in the works, and hopefully one of them will make everyones list as one of the top adventures of 2006. Of course, with all this stiff competition from other authors like Uri, Anson, and the rest I might just be in for a bit of a fight!
Clearly Dryder and Trellian are men/women (sorry, the online names don't reveal much) of taste and distinction. Your kind words are much appreciated on behalf of TF.
As for the rest of you, I don't know why everyone's all worked up over that hackwork called the Styes. It's terrible! Okay it's so, so if you're one of those sickos into undead and worms and things like that...(realizes timing of that last comment and decides to shut up until the next adventure path starts to avoid any angry mobs)
Incidentally it was January of 2004.
We need rules for this game to keep the actual authours of varous works from...err...'participating' by...err...'encouraging' the voters to see things their way.
Good idea, I'll compile my own list when I get home and can get a look at the issues. Maybe you should set a time-limit? Like.. in 1 week we find out who won each month, and then we vote for the overall winner of 2005?
Give it a little more time...like the end of January - the December issue has not even shown up yet in my neck of the woods and I want a chance to read them all before putting forward my favourites.
We need rules for this game to keep the actual authours of varous works from...err...'participating' by...err...'encouraging' the voters to see things their way.Clearly Dryder and Trellian are men/women (sorry, the online names don't reveal much) of taste and distinction. Your kind words are much appreciated on behalf of TF.
As for the rest of you, I don't know why everyone's all worked up over that hackwork called the Styes. It's terrible! Okay it's so, so if you're one of those sickos into undead and worms and things like that...(realizes timing of that last comment and decides to shut up until the next adventure path starts to avoid any angry mobs)
Incidentally it was January of 2004.
Don't worry Jeremy, the closer issue #131 gets, the more desperate he becomes...
Rich
Well we probably should have haggled out the rules before we began to post as this has no real ryme or reason.
Some one above mentioned the idea of doing this as a kind of top 10 which I think is a good format as it avoids one having to pick between two great adventures that happen to appear in the same issue.
This individual then choose eight adventures - an unusual number choice but it got me thinking. If you play every week the eight adventures is about what you would probably manage in a years worth of playing. Ten is likely to high while one would hope we manage more then six (though in truth anyone doing every second week games will be lucky to manage six full adventures).
So then from the perspective of being able to run my players through any eight adventures from the last year over the next year which ones would I take? This was tougher then I thought and I originally had about a 15 adventure short list but I decided I was only taking eight coming in and some of the ones on the short list had to be cut.
So here is what I would put my players through over the course of a year.
Dungeon Magazine Best of 2005
(In my opinion)
Blood of Malar
Chamber of Antiquites
Champions Belt, The
Dungeon of the Crypt
Forsaken Arch
Murder in Oakbridge
Salvage Operation
Whispering Cairn
Ahhh!!! Everyone's chaotic neutral tendencies have made it difficult to tabulate any type of score (my lawful neutral brain is hurting, I can prove that I'm LN, well at least according to some sort of poll I once took on the Internet). Sucummbing to the taint of chaos, everyone post what they like....
Ahhh!!! Everyone's chaotic neutral tendencies have made it difficult to tabulate any type of score (my lawful neutral brain is hurting, I can prove that I'm LN, well at least according to some sort of poll I once took on the Internet). Sucummbing to the taint of chaos, everyone post what they like....
Well we could just count how many times an adventure was mentioned...but I generally agree with you - if this were a statistical experiment to find out what everyones favourite adventures were I would throw the data away as compromised to the point of being useless.
The Clockwork Fortress, definitely hands-down.
The Menagerie
The Styes
I can't comment on the AoW modules as I'm playing in that campaign and haven't read them.
Root of Evil(thanks to this i was able to finally destroy the city of silverymoon. Thanks Dungeon Staff!)
Hilarious! Why didn't I think of that? Yoink!
Lets not confine it by month..top 10 of the year:
1. Chamber of Antquities
2. Whispering Cairn
3. The Fireplace Level
4. Fiends Embrace
5. Gathering of Winds
6. Clockwork fortress
7. The styes
8. Seekers of the silver forge
9. Wraith of the abyss
10.Shadow of the abyss
Yes, I am greyhawk biased.
My top 8 (which is about the top 20%) in chronological order:
1. Box of Flumph
2. Tomb of Aknar Ratalla
3. The Styes
4. Final Resting Place
5. The Whispering Cairn
6. Menagerie
7. Clockwork Fortress
8. Champion's Belt
In general, looking over the responses:
Dungeon readers seem to enjoy adventures that provide unique elements or situations (Clockwork Fortress, Sliver Forge, Menagerie) a mixture of combat, role-playing interaction and cool traps (Tomb of Aknar Ratalla, Whispering Cairn, Final Resting Place), and mystery investigations (Box of Flumph, Shut-In, The Styes, Murder in Oakbridge). Keep these coming Erik and James and Jeremy!
Also readers like adventures that are well grounded in a specific campaign given setting, be it Greyhawk, FR, or Eberron (Fiend's Embrace, Twisted Run, Maure Castle, though it is interesting given how popular the first was that Chambers of Antiquities hasn't appeared here much).
Adventures that haven't appeared much in this thread were mostly straight dungeon crawls with mostly combat encounters without a truly unique or interesting 'hook' (Secret of the Archwood, Unfamiliar Ground, Pit of the Fire Lord).
My top 8 (which is about the top 20%) in chronological order:
1. Box of Flumph
2. Tomb of Aknar Ratalla
3. The Styes
4. Final Resting Place
5. The Whispering Cairn
6. Menagerie
7. Clockwork Fortress
8. Champion's Belt
Hey Yoav, do you happen to live in Israel? If you do, could you please reply to urikson@gmail.com?
Thanks!
Hey Yoav, do you happen to live in Israel? If you do, could you please reply to urikson@gmail.com?
Thanks!
No, I live in Manhattan, sorry.
Shut in was good, when i finally decided to read it. i tend to stay away from eberron adventures. It's funny that people have said Throne of Iuz. i didn't find that adventure appealing at all because of the main villain. an awakened giant toad? not so much. However, the Temple of Demogorgon was great, from the maps to the main bad guys. Whispering cairn was okay, but i tend to stay away from the AP adventures so i just glanced through it for the maps and stat blocks. fiends embrace was great, simply because i'm old school and the mention of Iggwilv and Grazzt was cool. Secrets of the Archwood was cool too. The styes, not so much because of the whole water element and my players don't like aquatic adventures.
anyway, that's my 2 francs
Ahhh, now I know I am shamefully behind on my reading. I just finished Thirds of Purloined Vellum. But I'm catching up, I promise!
Cheers
Llowellen