DunegonADay.com - worth the money?

[Dryder]

I am tempted to try it out, especially with the Paizo offer.
But I would like to hear from someone, who already subscribed to DungeonADay, how it is, if the handouts are cool, the maps, and all the stuff?!

[DitheringFool]

oh heck yes it's worth the money!!!

Ed Bourelle is doing all the maps (he did all the work in Ptolus plus countless other great products (inc a lot of Necromancer games)).

Monte is writing it.

Jason Bulmahn has a monthly Pathfinder conversion article.

If you subscribe, it's like you are exploring the dungeon (the city and the near by places of interest) since every weekday you get another room. You read it's details, imagine how the encounter would play out, get excited over the treasure, marvel over the mysteries, and start to piece together the various hints and clues to construct the tangled history. Then you get a little more the next day!

The first thing I do everyday is go to Dungeon A Day.

There are no days that have an empty room.

Every encounter (including the random encounters) are unique and memorable!

If you sign up during the special, you're talking about $0.32 a day!

What else can I tell you?

[Chris Mortika]

There are handouts, but they're not much to write home about.

There are maps, but the main ones print oddly. There are a lot of illustrations about how you can build the maps with Dwarven Forge sets.

The selling points, for me, include a someone who really knows what he's doing, showing us step-by-step how to build a fun, exciting, intriguing mega-dungeon, b cool little ideas here and there that I can steal, and c a terrific backstory that comes to light very gradually. We get to experience the dungeon one room at a time, just as players would, so we get a sense about how the secrets of the place unfold.

[mattdroz]

Alas, I was force to unsubscribe due to financial obligations (electricity, water, food, etc.)

But I went very reluctantly, since there was something new almost everyday!

[Matthew Morris]

I've gotten horribly behind...

But 1) The info is still there, from room one onwards so I can get caught up. 2) I can (and have) been copying the entire thing into a word doc for ease of reference and to practice my MSWord-fu

Also 3) Even ifyou never plan to inflict the entire thing on a party, lots of stuff to steal and use in other dungeons.

[Cormac]

Matthew Morris wrote:

2) I can (and have) been copying the entire thing into a word doc for ease of reference and to practice my MSWord-fu

You know there is already Level 1 combined PDF available free for yearly subscribers ...?

[DitheringFool]

Cormac wrote:

Matthew Morris wrote:

2) I can (and have) been copying the entire thing into a word doc for ease of reference and to practice my MSWord-fu

You know there is already Level 1 combined PDF available free for yearly subscribers ...?

why yes I do and I would add that it is amazing! It is worth every penny of $5 - getting it for free seems too good.

[Black Tom]

Chris Mortika wrote:

The selling points, for me, include a someone who really knows what he's doing, showing us step-by-step how to build a fun, exciting, intriguing mega-dungeon, b cool little ideas here and there that I can steal, and c a terrific backstory that comes to light very gradually. We get to experience the dungeon one room at a time, just as players would, so we get a sense about how the secrets of the place unfold.

For me, the major selling point (except that it's fun to read) is b. I'm not overly impressed with the mega-dungeon as such, even though it looks quite playable and even fun. Some of the rooms and most of the backstory come off as a bit 'meh' to me. But now and then there appear veritable little gems (encounters, magic items, traps and whatnot) that I'd love to steal for any campaign.

All in all it's definitely worth the money.

[Matthew Morris]

Cormac wrote:

Matthew Morris wrote:

2) I can (and have) been copying the entire thing into a word doc for ease of reference and to practice my MSWord-fu

You know there is already Level 1 combined PDF available free for yearly subscribers ...?

No, no I didn't.

Thank you :-) (yes I'm a yearly subscriber)

[Krazz the Wanderer]

Dryder wrote:

I am tempted to try it out, especially with the Paizo offer.

What exactly is the Paizo offer???

[Dryder]

Krazz the Wanderer wrote:

Dryder wrote:

I am tempted to try it out, especially with the Paizo offer.

What exactly is the Paizo offer???

See the Paizo blog from a few days past. In that blog theres a link to "dad.com". During subscription you have to write Paizo into a special offer field, and you get dad free for 7 days, thereafter for $84/year.

[Tarlane]

Add my voice to saying that its definitely worth it.

Its a great site with a lot of resources for you, a lot of nice little innovations and info in the blogs as well as the encounters.

The forum is also a really nice little community, its still somewhat small but the members do a lot of great things and add some nice modifications whether converting the dungeon to different game systems or altering maps to give them different looks or make them printable.

If you haven't yet, you might want to take a look at the first few rooms. I want to say that its the first 6 rooms and the map of the first floor are available to those who haven't paid, as well as a couple of blog posts(the assumptions he makes when designing the dungeon, ect).

[Dryder]

Strange!
I just was over there, trying to subscribe, but as soon as I had to log into Paypal, I was asked to add an account to my paypal - which I already have, of course. Well, I did it anyway, but it says, "this account is already associated with your Paypal account" and than it sends me back into a loop.
I don't have my credit card info stored with paypal, maybe that's the problem. Anyone in the know, if I can pay for DAD with paypal AND credit card info only?

[Monte Cook]

Dryder, I replied to you via email, and I hope that answers your question. If there's any other issues, just let me know.

Thanks for your interest, and to the rest of you, thanks for the kind words.

[Matthew Morris]

Just downloaded. I'm so happy!

[Rezdave]

I am underwhelmed. Granted, I'm not a big fan of Mega-dungeons and I prefer maps created with clear architectural, ergonomic and design principals. I lean much more to free-form RP than Room-Clearing, which is basically what MDs are all about.

Details below:

Spoiler:

I don't care for the site layout and navigation, though I suppose its focus on "Recent Articles" is appropriate to its intended purpose and long-term audience.

However, as a new subscriber/user I found it difficult to quickly and easily get an overview of the whole thing, backstory, etc. Background info seems spread too many places. Again, this is probably due to its serialized nature, but I'm finding it hard to get up-to-speed quickly and easily, so I'm not really getting "hooked" into the over-arching backstory that I know exists.

I'm also finding a lot of technical problems with the linking. Many links pop new windows rather than moving forward in the open browser, and attempts to Tab links seems to want me to log in again for each page, which then doesn't seem to work. I'm getting a lot of "page not found" in links to maps. Incidentally, using a new MacBook with Safari 4.0.1

If everything were working correctly, then it would have the benefit of low and hi-res map options, as well as non-labeled maps and even "player-safe" maps (I've Photoshopped out more secret doors over my years as a DM than most dwarves have ever built). These are nice touches, as well as the multitude of Player Handouts. The goal of providing an immersive Player experience is taken seriously, which will be a benefit to DMs that enjoy providing such goodies to their group.

I did find the Level 1 compiled PDF, which is helpful (I assume the other levels remain unfinished), but unfortunately the PDF lacks a complete master map. As heavily linked as the site is, I expected a heavily linked PDF with a hot-spotted level map to each page/room/encounter so you could easily run it from a computer without having to scroll pages, so this lack of functionality was a disappointing surprise.

Overall, I'm sure it's great for some people, but not for me. I have a feeling that on Day 6 I'll cancel my trial subscription and probably never touch the stuff again.

FWIW,

Rez