Dragon Magazine Adventures

[AlHazred]

Bryce has done a fantastic run of reviewing every Dungeon magazine scenario in a printed edition. But I never had a subscription to Dungeon; Dragon magazine was my bag, and every once in a while they'd publish a scenario. I remember some of them fondly, but there were many more I've seen mentioned online that I've never seen a review for. Anyone have any comments on any of them? Here's a list I was able to cobble together:

Title	Issue #	Edition
The Hall of Mystery	21​	OD&D
The Fell Pass	32​	AD&D
Doomkeep	34​	AD&D
The Pit of the Oracle	37​	AD&D
The Halls of Beoll-Dur	41​	AD&D
The Mansion Of Mad Professor Ludlow	42​	AD&D
The Temple of Poseidon	46​	AD&D
The Chapel of Silence	50​	AD&D
The Garden of Nefaron	53​	AD&D
Cavern Quest	54​	AD&D
The Creature of Rhyl	55​	BD&D
The Wandering Trees	57​	AD&D
Quest for the Midas Orb	61​	AD&D
Chagmat	63​	AD&D
The Assassin's Run	64​	AD&D
Fedifensor	67​	AD&D
Mechica	70​	AD&D
Forest of Doom	73​	AD&D
Can Seapoint Be Saved?	75​	AD&D
Citadel By the Sea	78​	AD&D
Barnacus: City In Peril	80​	AD&D
The Ruins of Andril	81​	AD&D
The Dancing Hut	83​	AD&D
The Twofold Talisman, Part 1: The Heart of Light	84​	AD&D
The Twofold Talisman, Part 2: The Ebon Stone	85​	AD&D
Aesirhamar	90​	AD&D
The Sword of Justice	92​	BD&D
The Gypsy Train	93​	AD&D
Into the Forgotten Realms	95​	AD&D
Nogard	96​	AD&D
The City Beyond the Gate	100​	AD&D
Valley of the Earth Mother	102​	AD&D
Betrayed!	105​	AD&D
The House In the Frozen Lands	110​	AD&D
Death of An Arch-Mage	111​	AD&D
The Chasm Bridge	131​	AD&D
Razznarock!	156​	AD&D

 

[AlHazred]

And, of course, I ask that question and then stumble across a couple of reviews. Several of the ones I remember were reviewed in this thread on the Acaeum. In it, user Badmike provides capsule reviews for "The Forest of Doom" (#73), "Barnacus: City in Peril" (#80), and "Can Seapoint Be Saved?" (#75); that last one was later expanded into "North of Narborel" in issue #49 of Dungeon magazine, which Bryce has already reviewed. I had a lot of fun with "Can Seapoint Be Saved?" back in the day, but I ran the original and it required a lot of work -- there was no development of Seapoint at all!

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I have a copy of this, 250 issues of Dragon Magazine. Can't say as I've even cracked 20% of it yet, but maybe I'll go back in and take a look around if I ever get a free moment.

 

[squeen]

Pretty nice list. I'll see what I can dig up. Thanks.

 

[Melan]

Citadel by the Sea is a very good late-era 1e module, and one of the modules which can be soloed well. The Fell Pass is a cool early AD&D dungeon that comes from outside the TSR regulars.

 

[The Heretic]

That's amusing, I added Citadel by the Sea to Bryce's ToDo list just last week. It does have a lot going for it. I've used it to start a number of campaigns.

 

[The Heretic]

It would be interesting to see Bryce review the rest of them, but I'm not that sadistic. The ones I remember are mostly garbage with all the usual problems (wall of text, too jokey, etc). Just from memory:
Barnacus: City in Peril - Sewers, eww! Generic city yuck.
The Dancing Hut - Semi-interesting high level dungeon. If you cast any divination spells whatsoever in Baba Yaga's hut you get marked by an invisible chicken mark. Woe to you if you run into her thus marked.
The Sword of Justice - This was an okay B/X module. A town uses a sword's detection powers for justice and a falsely accused elf freaks out because he knows that the sword *also* glows in the presence of elves. You have to try to find him hiding in a ruin and let him know his name has been cleared. Lost opportunities galore, alas. Maybe the party should be after him and then have him reveal the truth about the sword as a moral dilemma.
The Twofold Talisman - A Castle Greyhawkish jokey dungeon by Roger Moore. These two would be bad for Bryce's mental health.
The Gypsy Train - Not a module, more of a 'setting' or a set piece of a gypsy train. At the Game Castle in Fullerton CA this Dragon magazine was one of the last available pre-100 issues available to buy. There was a reason for that.
Into the Forgotten Realms - Semi-interested Ed Greenwood dungeon in Myth Drannor. An insane lich in an old wizard school. This also appeared in the original Forgotten Realms boxed set. Ed Greenwood is generally not a very good dungeon creator.
The House in the Frozen Lands - I liked this one a bit myself. Finnish god worshipping psionic weretigers invade a school/temple run by priests of Ptah (!!) in the frozen north. This one might be worth it, or maybe nostalgia is clouding my memories. It has a mirror of life trapping in it, which is always fun when the PCs start releasing the prisoners willy-nilly.
The Chasm Bridge - Intro to Dungeon magazine. This got re-written with 3rd edition rules in late period Dungeon magazine. Bryce already reviewed it with two thumbs down.

I've tried to read the rest of them over the years but man, the wall of text issue is TERRIBLE.

 

[bryce0lynch]

I rememerb Dancing Hut from when I actually had a Dragon subscription. It fascinated me

I've toyed with the idea of doing Dragon, and even (whats the one with Lichway?) and other magazine series. I even started looking for back issues of Dragon, but they were hard to find in a way that made it easy for me for buy. Dungeon only happened because I bought a fairly complete collection. I also felt like it was performance art, more than usual anyway. Same thing, over and over again.

There's some motivation that resides in me that thinks there are hidden gems ... and it's worth it to find them. I'm currently, each Sunday, visiting a different strip mall chinese restaurant to find the best General Tso in Indy. And I want to run a Monte Carlo simulation on scenario one from the Air Cav wargame to prove that the Russians can't win.

Anyway, a blog iis free. One of you with fewer morals should grab all of them and start a blog to review them. I'll link to them. Or you can all split them up. Someone take Dragon, someone take Pegasus, someone take (that Lichway thing. Was it english?)

 

[The Heretic]

Oh weird, I'm not seeing DangerousPuhson's reply. He must have blocked me. *sniff* I wasn't going to let you die on those glue traps, I promise! You bought the Dragon CD-ROM when you were 12?!? Sure, MAKE ME FEEL OLD.

Bryce: Doh! I guess I was assuming that you had the Dragon Magazine archive CD-ROM that DangerousPuhson has. Hmm. That sucks. I bet you can't buy PDFs of these anymore, can you? I mean, at least there aren't that many to get. Even the list above can be trimmed down a bit (The Mansion of Mad Professor Lumlow is a weird, modern day 'kids at camp' adventure, I'm not even sure what game system it was meant for).

Well. It does seem like some of these might be available online. It's not immoral to view them online so that you can do a critical review of the enclosed dungeon, right?

 

[DangerousPuhson]

Oh weird, I'm not seeing DangerousPuhson's reply. He must have blocked me. *sniff*

I deleted it because I didn't realize until afterwards that I had already made the exact same comment earlier in this thread (like, "back in July" earlier).

I'm sorry to have made you feel old... but I mean, I'm 35, so maybe you're just old? Don't lament; embrace it!

 

[The Heretic]

I'm sorry to have made you feel old... but I mean, I'm 35, so maybe you're just old? Don't lament; embrace it!

It's good to see you young whippersnappers showing an interest in OSR! Why, back when I was your age, I.....uh, what was I talking about again?

I'm very much enjoying the bonus to Wisdom for being old. It's the losses in the other stats that aren't fun.

(Also, I think I'm about Bryce's age. Maybe)

 

[The Heretic]

Anyway, a blog iis free. One of you with fewer morals should grab all of them and start a blog to review them. I'll link to them. Or you can all split them up. Someone take Dragon, someone take Pegasus, someone take (that Lichway thing. Was it english?)

I've started the Dragon magazine ones. Are you an alcoholic? If not, you are coping very well with having to review some of this crap.

 

[Osrnoob]

It looks like some of the same material was published in both Dungeon and Dragon?

 

[Beoric]

It looks like some of the same material was published in both Dungeon and Dragon?

I don't think so. If it happened, I expect it was early on in Dungeon's run, if perhaps they didn't have a decent stockpile of submissions and had to re-run something from Dragon.

I've tried to read the rest of them over the years but man, the wall of text issue is TERRIBLE.

Heh. I feel like if I ever attempted something like this, most of the reviews would be something like, "I didn't finish reading it. You can't make me."

 

[The Heretic]

It looks like some of the same material was published in both Dungeon and Dragon?

There is a little overlap, but almost everything on the list above is unique to Dragon.

Can Seaport Be Saved? was remade at least once. Maybe twice, my memory is a bit iffy. I think it got redone for 2e and 3e. Baffling. It's not that great of an adventure. Complicating things was the fact that they renamed it when they redid it.

The Crypt of Istaris was a crossover feature in one issue of Dragon <google>...#155. This isn't on the list though.

Chasm Bridge was a Dragon only preview for Dungeon Magazine. It was remade in 3.5 in one of Dungeon's (many, too numerous to count) turns toward nostalgia in the later days.

 

[Osrnoob]

For sure.

I think the dancing hut was in both too? I saw Bryce review it in the dungeon sections

 

[grodog]

I rememerb Dancing Hut from when I actually had a Dragon subscription. It fascinated me

I ran it at least twice, and rather enjoyed it BITD. I always thought that the later 2e module was a rewrite based on Moore's adventure, but apparently it's not related at all (save in name/mythology).

I've toyed with the idea of doing Dragon, and even (whats the one with Lichway?) and other magazine series. I even started looking for back issues of Dragon, but they were hard to find in a way that made it easy for me for buy. [snip]

There's some motivation that resides in me that thinks there are hidden gems ... and it's worth it to find them.

I think that's a fair assessment, and the best part about most of the Dragon modules was that many were 1st through 3rd place winners in their annual adventure writing contents, so those were generally quite good. Among my favorite Dragon adventures were:

- The Garden of Nefaron by Howard de Wied - Dragon 53
- The Wandering Trees by Michael Malone - Dragon 57
- Chagmat by Larry DiTillio - Dragon 63
- The Assassin's Run by Ed Greenwood - Dragon 64
- Can Seapoint Be Saved? by Bob Waldbauer - Dragon 75
- Citadel By the Sea by Sid Fisher - Dragon 78
- Barnacus: City In Peril by Francois Nantel - Dragon 80
- The Ruins of Andril by Ian Melluish - Dragon 81
- The Dancing Hut by Roger E. Moore - Dragon 83
- Into the Forgotten Realms by Ed Greenwood - Dragon 95

someone take (that Lichway thing. Was it english?)

Yes, White Dwarf, and you can easily snag all of the adventures because they collected the Best of them in three different collections, too. See http://www.waynesbooks.com/BestofWhiteDwarf.html for pics/details.

I think it would be cool for you to review the Dragon modules, in particular if you compared them to the Dungeon ones, Bryce.

Allan.

 

[Osrnoob]

This is a good list! Thank you

There is also JG's The Dungeoneer to consider!