How about some of the pre-Dungeon adventures that used to be published in Dragon in a compendium? There were some really good adventures in the pages of pre '86 Dragon magazine, especially after they had that dungeon design contest in 1982-83.
Converted for 3.5 of course--maybe a couple of adventures per volume? I would really love that! Chime in if you agree....
I started off my current campaign with "Citadel by the Sea" from Dragon #78.
RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16
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I could live with that--however it might not have the same replay factor as many of the other possible articles fom dragon's long run. Maybe when production schedules allow a Dungeon Compendium might be a good idea. Perhaps start with Into the Fire (Issue 1) Out of the Ashes (Issue 17) and then the new adventure with Flame.
However, since the Adventure Paths serve as the Dungeon HC line I'm not sure if this idea will really fly either.
I would however like to see more of the classics my favorites include: And Nobody Knows but You (Issue 143-I'm wearing out my copy), the article for running a game like a TV series (Issue 293), then there was an article that I've wanting to reference for ages about mysteries that I can't seem to find (I can remember a bit about interviewing suspects and using techniques like on Law and Order but that is all I remember...It's very irritating. Oh well.)
I think I'd rather see a Dragon Compendium II: Legacies of Greyhawk (or whatever title they choose).
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I agree with two of the previos posts : I would love to see old adventures converted, ESPECIALLY those in Greyhawk, and I would also love to have old Greyhawk stuff converted in 3.5.
Carl Sargent's articles, for instance (they were damn good), and very old Gygax's stuff.
Think about Greyhawk lovers, since you have a lot of them.
One of my players who has always bought only FR products, ended up in buying Atlas of Greyhawk (since I play only in Greyhawk), and he thought that Greyhawk is as much interesting as the FR, more complex than he thought, with great adventuring potential.
While I would gobble up any and all Greyhawk material as well, I think that virtually all of the early Dragon adventures were GH compatible, since by the time FR came out, Dungeon magazine was already in existence.
As far as other suggestions for Vol II and beyond go, I always enjoyed Katherine Kerr's articles from the 80's as well.
If they go with a planar sequel as hinted at in the intro and elsewhere, I'd have to say "The Nine Hells" from issues 75 and 76 would be most awesome.
What I'd really like is something along the lines of: Dragon Compendium II (or higher; I'm willing to wait) presents the Monster Manual IV (an all monster book, but maybe with some ecologies and some of those old articles that were mostly theory/fluff about things like African monsters [I remember the crunch portion of that article was called "Gaming The Dark Continent"], and something from that Halloween series that provided folklore on undead I remember installments ran in issues number 198 and 210 and provided some cool insight into what a lich or a wight is).
I'm really looking forward to seeing much of the pre-3.0 stuff converted. I have been able to find most of the back issues from #274 on, so I found the supplements from before then the most informative. But its also really helpful getting the 3.0 articles converted to 3.5 too.
Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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I have enough cool "classic" monsters to fill two or three of these books, and that's without getting into some of the lamer ones. We've suggested the idea to Wizards before, but at that point I think there was a feeling that such a product would compete with their own monster books, which is a position I certainly respect. In the meantime, we'll try to sneak new (old) monsters into just about everything we do, assuming we are able to produce further volumes. You can never have enough monsters, and Dragon has presented a lot of really interesting examples over the last 30 years.
--Erik
I guess tracking down the authors of some of those old adventures in Dragon magazine would be difficult.
Judging by the reviews of Volume One so far, extremists notwithstanding, I think peddling nostalgia by increasing the classic content might make quite a few readers happy, not just me. I appreciated the recent stuff, since I only resubscribed to Dragon last year, but since those 3.5 conversions get everyone so excited, I look forward to more of them.
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Judging by the reviews of Volume One so far, extremists notwithstanding,
Yeah, today's one-star review on this site really makes my day, let me tell you.
Future volumes, if there are any, will focus largely upon older material. I am optimistic given the sales, but we have not yet heard back from Wizards of the Coast.
--Erik
Well Erik, for what its worth, I am still planning on picking this up once my wallet heals from Christmas. It looks more promising than most of the "core" stuff coming out in the near future (not saying that I won't get, say Races of the Dragon, but I'm pretty sure I will find more of imediate use in the Dragon Compendium). May be a while before I pick up the Shackled City HC though, mainly because I don't know when I would run it.
I am still looking forward to new compilations as well, and I don't fault you for being a bit "safer" in your choice of material for the first volume. I do hope to see more FR stuff that hasn't been covered elsewhere, but I love all sorts of "generic" stuff as well as Greyhawk information.
(In fact, I always pictures FR and GH as sister campaigns rather than competing ones, but I guess not many others feel that way, lol)
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Yeah, today's one-star review on this site really makes my day, let me tell you.
One-star reviews can be blessings in disguise. They're like train wrecks - you almost have to go and take a look to see if its the product or the reviewer that went off the road. While rubbernecking, you're likely to take a look at the other reviews and get a balanced picture.
Besides, all that the one-star review boils down to is "I didn't like it because feats are dumb and 3e sucks." If the the greatest criticism of the compendium is that it has feats and is a 3e book, I would take that as a compliment.
Finally, the one-star rating seems to sum up the biggest complaint about the product - the compendium is slightly heavier on post 3e articles than pre 3e articles. That's a useful piece of information for purchasing the compendium and in no way suggests that the quality of the product is lacking.
Sebastian
Overall, I liked the Compendium. I would have made some choices differently, but probably every reader would've.I was saddened to see Tesseracts included though as I've long held that was the biggest waste of space EVER in a dragon magazine (and that's saying a lot). One request for specific content - can we do reprinting of some of the older comics like Phil & Dixie, and Fineous Fingers?
I would've liked to see this in a 3-ring binder format so I could take out all DM/GM Advice from all Compendium(s) and photocopy them for inclusion in my campaign journal.
Now if you do five of these I'm back to needing an index to remember which compendium contained that great article on World Creation, etc. Or if I just wanted those FR-specific content I could just copy those. Now it's hard to do that unless each compendium came with a CD containing the content in PDF format.
Mostly, this was just like a chance to reminisce through some favorite (and not so favorite) content of issues gone by.
Bruce
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Chief Creative Officer, Publisher
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Besides, all that the one-star review boils down to is "I didn't like it because feats are dumb and 3e sucks." If the the greatest criticism of the compendium is that it has feats and is a 3e book, I would take that as a compliment.
Don't forget that it sucked how the book had all that art.
--Erik
I would've liked to see this in a 3-ring binder format so I could take out all DM/GM Advice from all Compendium(s) and photocopy them for inclusion in my campaign journal.
Ooohh, I'm gonna have to disagree on this one, Bruce. I bought the 3 ring binder monstrous compendium stuff, thinking that it was a great idea... but I hated the room that the binders took up, the tears in the binding, and how unwieldy it was.
But maybe that was just me. :)
Yeah, the 3 ring thing seemed like a good idea, but it didn't really work out too well in the long run. Not only did the pages tear out, the rings started to warp the more you opened and closed them, but also, the initial concept, where you could organize the monsters you were going to use in your campaing, didn't work out since most monsters didn't fit in to the existing alphabetical scheme. For example, once you bought a boxed set, it was unlikely the monster on the front and the one on the back wouldn't have about fifty monsters in between them.
Plus its just too easy to loose many extra pages.
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Besides, all that the one-star review boils down to is "I didn't like it because feats are dumb and 3e sucks." If the the greatest criticism of the compendium is that it has feats and is a 3e book, I would take that as a compliment.
Don't forget that it sucked how the book had all that art.
--Erik
Erik-
Don't let the vocal few get you down. The masses are firmly behind you. I'm already set to pre-order volume 2!
I thought the art was one of the strong points of Volume I and I look forward to more in Volume II.
On the three-ring binders:
I don't know, but my favorite game company puts out everything in loose-leaf 3-ring punched format. I then put each sheet in sheet protectors and put them in a binder. I have yet to tear a page, stain a page, or lose a page.
So, I don't know why this would be any different although I did have the same problem with the monstrous compendiums, but that was before I used sheet protectors.
Bruce
Has the possiblity of an "Updates" volume been explored?
I for one would love to see a hard or softback compliation of various material such as the Oriental Adventures 3.5 update, the Darksun material published in Dragon/Dungeon, and the Spelljammer material from polyhedron (yeah I know it isnt Draogn specifically but a bear can dream!)
Incidently (not to hijack a thread) Could we maybe see some hard or softbound love for the late great Polyhedron? Please 0_0
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Chief Technical Officer
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One request for specific content - can we do reprinting of some of the older comics like Phil & Dixie, and Fineous Fingers?
Wizards doesn't usually own the rights to reprint the comics, so the odds of seing such content in a Dragon-branded compilation are really, really not good.
I know Phil & Dixie has been collected by Studio Foglio; it's for sale at:
http://studiofoglio.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code =Phil_Dixie.
-Vic.
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Personally, I'd like to see Dungeon Compendium, Vol 1 first, collecting and updating the best and/or most popular adventures published in Dungeon to date, along with any supplemental material needed to run those modules (i.e., any as-yet-unpublished-for-3.5 monsters, traps, equipment, spells, etc).
I'd very much like to see the Planes be the next compendium, if for no other reason than to see the Nine Hells articles updated.
Of course, WOTC may want all of that for Fiendish Codex II...
Personally, I kind of like the "little bit of everything" approach the more I think of it, since its more likely that you can find a few things to use in your campaign. Then again, the more I think of it, the only FR things that are likely up for grabs are "static" topics, like monsters, PrCs, perhaps "Pages from the Mages" and "Prayers from the Faithful" articles, though a lot of those spells (but definately not all) have been updated. Since FR would have been the main "theme" I was looking at, I guess I am still looking for generic.
Still, a planar theme could be a fun compendium to get.
A question here . . . not that its necissarily in the near running or anything, but the Wizard's Three articles . . . Could you still use those, or is there too much entangled between planar changes, Sovereign Press's license, and the like?
Count me in on the "Little bit of everything" side for Vol II. There's clearly A LOT of material to continue the smogasboard approach for quite sometime. Now, for focused and more specific articles I'd like to see a lot of older but updated stuff. The issue number escapes me (the issue in the 130's with the Parkinson cover illustration of the ranger riding the big lizard in the snow...awesome painting) that had a very nice climate determination system, fur trapping and trading rules etc. That issue was essential to my campaign for many years.
For focused themes, how about a low fantasy book and a high fantasy book? The really comsicly wacked stuff in the high fantasy book (the Fairy goddess from #155, I recall a good discussion on wishes in issues around the #160s as well) and the gritty based on real world stuff in the other (specific horse breeds, articles on social structures, etc. you could call it the Complete Commoner or the Book of Serfs).
-Joel
("You Got Chickens!")
Personally, I'd like to see Dungeon Compendium, Vol 1 first, collecting and updating the best and/or most popular adventures published in Dungeon to date, along with any supplemental material needed to run those modules (i.e., any as-yet-unpublished-for-3.5 monsters, traps, equipment, spells, etc).
I would second that motion. Getting some of the oldie/goldie dungeons in 3.5e format would peek my interest. It is tough to pull stats for the older monsters( some just haven't seen a conversion yet) I though plugging "Horror on the Hill" into my current campain would be a no brainer, but I have been proven wrong.
For the next one, try doing what the first ones description said it would be. Though I don't actually have it, or seen it anywhere yet, but the Table of Contents that can be viewed on the page here shows that much about what was promised was extremely misleading. EXAMPLE:
* No races were in any way updated to 3.5. Those presented were already 3.5. Though on the other hand they did deliver on some of my personal faves from issue #65 the missing chromatic dragons. I hope it's not as dissappointing as the 2e update was.
It would have been nice to see many of the races from 2nd edition translated to 3.5 examples might include--> Moldmen(3.5 would change it to Moldfolk no doubt, as they seem too eager to kowtow to gender biased hatemongers), Ravenkin, Faenil, the Lupin breed variations, Sapronemes, Zygodacts, and so on.... ;;D
For the next one, try doing what the first ones description said it would be. Though I don't actually have it, or seen it anywhere yet, but the Table of Contents that can be viewed on the page here shows that much about what was promised was extremely misleading. EXAMPLE:
* No races were in any way updated to 3.5. Those presented were already 3.5. Though on the other hand they did deliver on some of my personal faves from issue #65 the missing chromatic dragons. I hope it's not as dissappointing as the 2e update was.It would have been nice to see many of the races from 2nd edition translated to 3.5 examples might include--> Moldmen(3.5 would change it to Moldfolk no doubt, as they seem too eager to kowtow to gender biased hatemongers), Ravenkin, Faenil, the Lupin breed variations, Sapronemes, Zygodacts, and so on.... ;;D
Dude, that is just plain rude. You admit to having not bought- nor even *seen* the Vol. I book, but yet feel qualified to criticize it. What is even more pathetic about that is that you are wrong. Some of the races *were* updated to 3.5. Like the book or hate it, but at least *look* at it before complaining.
Yeah, the Lupins were updated to 3.5 and they were from the old Basic D&D set...I'm sure there were more, but I wasn't going through the book trying to find ammunition to criticize the publisher...was I happy with what I got for my $40? Yes, I was.
I also wanted more classic content but I'm very happy with Volume I--I think it's a terrific start to what will hopefully be many more volumes to come.
Yeah, the Lupins were updated to 3.5 and they were from the old Basic D&D set...I'm sure there were more, but I wasn't going through the book trying to find ammunition to criticize the publisher...was I happy with what I got for my $40? Yes, I was.
I also wanted more classic content but I'm very happy with Volume I--I think it's a terrific start to what will hopefully be many more volumes to come.
Actually, Lupins were already converted to third edition in an issue #324 or #325
I suppose that's why I was happy with Vol I, because I don't have most of the 3rd edition Dragon magazines, having only recently re-subscribed.
I think Paizo heard the call and clamor for more classic content. However, the viciousness of some of the criticism by those who expected more old school conversions is unwarranted. The criticism could be a bit more "diplomatic."
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Contributor
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If a second Compendium appears, I think it would be cool to also consider material pulled from various adventures in Dungeon. I think a lot of the stuff in Dungeon is still great even out of context and over the years it has provided many memorable critters, items, traps, spells, PrCs, and other such goodies that are every bit as good as the material in Dragon, but often never resurface outside of the adventure in which they were first published.
Actually, Lupins were already converted to third edition in an issue #324 or #325
as a PC race, yes, but not as a "monster".
as a PC race, yes, but not as a "monster".
Well that's good, because we're talking about 3.5 PC races.
If a second Compendium appears, I think it would be cool to also consider material pulled from various adventures in Dungeon. I think a lot of the stuff in Dungeon is still great even out of context and over the years it has provided many memorable critters, items, traps, spells, PrCs, and other such goodies that are every bit as good as the material in Dragon, but often never resurface outside of the adventure in which they were first published.
That's a great idea, Tim.
I think I'd rather see a Dragon Compendium II: Legacies of Greyhawk (or whatever title they choose).
I would definately buy that one.
I for one would really like to see more from the older, unupdated (pre 3.0 if you will) material. On the whole I do like the Compendium - it is one place to go to for the info I need. Which means less book carrying, and less searching through gobs of material for that article I liked.
However, in my mind it is a much better bang for my gaming buck to get some reanimated content, rather than cloned content. That being said, I realize that updating some of this stuff is no small task.
So - for volume 2 - please keep it mainly to oldr content if you can......
I for one would love to see all the bazar of the bizzare articles updated. They had some GREAT magic items in there. There was also an initative system that was cool (if unwieldy at times), and some articles on availability and costs of material components.
Has the possiblity of an "Updates" volume been explored?
I for one would love to see a hard or softback compliation of various material such as the Oriental Adventures 3.5 update, the Darksun material published in Dragon/Dungeon, and the Spelljammer material from polyhedron (yeah I know it isnt Draogn specifically but a bear can dream!)
Incidently (not to hijack a thread) Could we maybe see some hard or softbound love for the late great Polyhedron? Please 0_0
This guy's my hero! Everything he said! I would love some campaign specific OA and DS stuff. Spelljammer and any Polyhedron stuff would blow my socks off.
(You have to understand...all it took was a glance at an ad in the back of the latest Dragon mag that the compendium was coming that's gotten me on the boards posting something like three or four posts already. I'm that excited!)
I'd very much like to see the Planes be the next compendium, if for no other reason than to see the Nine Hells articles updated.
Of course, WOTC may want all of that for Fiendish Codex II...
OOH! Planes stuff! Especially anything you have on planes of other settings. Not sure what there is, but anything for the Forgotten Realms cosmology and outsiders for example--or really any other settings would be ultra-keen!
Personal thing here. Though there's been a lot of clammor for adventures and whatnot, I have to disagree--or at least recommend that old Dragon dungeon crawls be put in their own book.
I have NEVER run a dungeon crawl, and while most of the background information, races, gods, classes and other crunch (I guess, although I'm not really sure what "crunch" even means ;) ) are tremendously helpful to me--the adventures are typically very long and I never use them. I'd feel like I would be getting a lot more value from a book that didn't have the adventures in it. For me, adventures are mostly a waste of space, and I'm sure that for the dungeon crawl crowd it would be nice having all that stuff in one place rather than scattered around.
Yeah, today's one-star review on this site really makes my day, let me tell you.
Gotta get more review copies out there I tell you!
Future volumes, if there are any, will focus largely upon older material. I am optimistic given the sales, but we have not yet heard back from Wizards of the Coast.--Erik
Heck, I hope that it's all pre 3.0 material. Bring back the Sheen, Voidjammers, Ed's article to the Hells with the dukes and other bits fully statted out!
I'd love to see the article on Ruins updated for 3.5, that was always one of my favorites.
I'd love to see the article on Ruins updated for 3.5, that was always one of my favorites.
Would you mind sharing the issue # in which this article appears and provide a bit of information about that article? It has piqued my interest. :)
Sure enough. It's from issue #58 if memory serves me and it had descriptions of various buildings that you would find in ruins including random tables for them and what sort of treasures may be found there.
Another article I'd like to see is the one on magical fountains. You would drink from these (of course) and they would grant magical powers or sometimes do harm. The powers duration varied from 1 round to permanent.
Top 3 Things I would like to see in Dragon Compedium II
1) Update of the Timelord character class!!!
2) Lots more of the "miscellaneous" articles (like the stuff in the Classics and Appendices section of volume 1).
3) Minimal updates of 3.0 material. This is pretty easy to convert myself. The heavy concentration on recent material kept me from purchasing volume I. Anything above 10-15% or so would prevent me from purchasing future volumes.