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Post by geoffrey on May 8, 2013 9:16:27 GMT -6
click: www.rpgnow.com/product/114330/Dungeon-of-the-Unknown?filters=0_0_0_0&manufacturers_id=2795I've long wanted this sort of dungeon module, so I wrote it myself. It can be easily used in any D&D campaign. It has no word-walls or big blocks of text. It is basically two dungeon maps with 50 complete "pieces" (new monsters, human encounters, treasures, and weird locations--such as that illustrated on the cover) that you can place therein as you wish. Don't have the time or desire to customize it? No problem: The module includes placements for all 50 "pieces". In short, you can spend hours customizing this dungeon if you want, or you can download it and be DMing it 5 minutes later. |
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Post by kesher on May 8, 2013 14:27:16 GMT -6
"And Thou Shalt Vomit Forth Shining Platonic Solids for Eternity..."
Awesome!
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Post by kent on May 8, 2013 16:26:01 GMT -6
... It has no word-walls or big blocks of text. Prose is often the most efficient way of communicating atmosphere and new ideas. If Leiber or Smith or Vance wrote a D&D module would you turn your nose up at their "walls of text" as you call it or let's just call it "prose description"? You read well written fantasy fiction over and over and over again yet you are offended by prose in a module. Is it because you think every last module writer is inept? Most of them are, but all of them, always? There is no similarity for the purpose of description between prose in a fantasy story and a fantasy module? ...you can download it and be DMing it 5 minutes later. You have spent hours and hours each week reading fantasy stories for decades but you refuse to read descriptive prose in a module for longer than five minutes?? Because module writers are appalling, right? |
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Post by geoffrey on May 8, 2013 19:45:36 GMT -6
Prose is often the most efficient way of communicating atmosphere and new ideas. If Leiber or Smith or Vance wrote a D&D module would you turn your nose up at their "walls of text" as you call it or let's just call it "prose description"? While it's hard for me to imagine a D&D module written by any of them, I would certainly be curious about it. I imagine that I would read it and be inspired by it, but I would probably not actually use the module in a game. You read well written fantasy fiction over and over and over again yet you are offended by prose in a module. Is it because you think every last module writer is inept? Most of them are, but all of them, always? The two main points of a module for me are A) to inspire my imagination and B) to let me be lazy. Most modules require more time reading and studying them than it would take for me to make my own, thus defeating "B". Further, I find most modules to be boring to read, defeating "A". For more on this latter, see below. There is no similarity for the purpose of description between prose in a fantasy story and a fantasy module? Here is the crux of it. I enjoy fine fantasy fiction for the sheer wonder and beauty of it. Let's be both honest and charitable: No RPG product, ever, has prose that sings as does (for example) CAS's or Dunsany's stories, nor should we be surprised that this is the case. While I would love to have such a one writing modules, I think it very unlikely. For that matter, no one living writes prose fiction that I enjoy. I do not look for modules to be "good reads" with which I can put my feet up and spend a couple hours with reading from cover to cover. Rather, I look for them to be convenient tools for use in D&D, filled with inspiration for the imagination. I used to read modules for inspiration. As I grew more familiar with the fantasy greats (Dunsany, Blackwood, CAS, MacDonald, and all the rest), the modules no longer appealed to me. I had found "the good stuff", which tasted, made me unable to go back to the modules. |
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Post by Finarvyn on May 9, 2013 4:47:01 GMT -6
I think that the beauty of a prose-free module is that I get to customize it to my style and situation. One thing I dislike about modules in general is that I feel like action stops a lot while I read a paragraph aloud to my players. I'd rather "wing it" as the adventure unfolds, but maybe that's just my style.
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Post by geoffrey on May 9, 2013 8:24:24 GMT -6
I think that the beauty of a prose-free module is that I get to customize it to my style and situation. One thing I dislike about modules in general is that I feel like action stops a lot while I read a paragraph aloud to my players. I'd rather "wing it" as the adventure unfolds, but maybe that's just my style. Yes, I will often see something in a module that makes me think, "Hey! That's a neat idea." But when I see how the module develops that neat idea, I think, "I like the idea, but I don't like the execution." Thus my liking for formats such as that of Tegel Manor, Stonehell, and the one-page dungeon levels. Dungeon of the Unknown combines that terseness with the variability of B1: In Search of the Unknown. Here's how the module does it: Page 1: Title page Page 2: Credits and table of contents Page 3: Legends/rumors (20 of them) Page 4: Wander monster tables Pages 4-8: Random slime-monster generator (with 6 sample slime monsters) Pages 8-10: Treasures (12 of them) that you can place as you like in the dungeons Pages 11-14: Weird locations (12 of them) that you can place as you like. The cover illustrates one of these. Pages 15-28: New monsters (19 of them), fully illustrated. Put them where you want! Pages 29-31: Human encounters (7 of them). Place them as you like! Page 32: Brief rules for making animated taxidermic animals. On the inside covers are the two maps, with 75 rooms/areas. Each numbered area is given an evocative name (i. e., Walls of Obsidian Mirrors). Beside each room name are two blanks. In the left-hand blank is a possible treasure, weird location, monster, or human encounter. The right hand blank is left empty. This way you can run the module immediately by using the left-hand blanks, or you can customize it by using the right-hand blanks. For example: 55. Hall of Pale Hands C18 ___ (So if the referee wants to be lazy, he can assume that monster #18 [the "C" stands for "Chimeric Creature] is in room #55, or he can write something else in the right-hand blank.) On the back cover is a one-sentence background for the module and instructions for use. I hope others will like this sort of module as well as I do.  |
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Post by cadriel on May 9, 2013 9:01:38 GMT -6
Dungeon of the Unknown is pretty cool. While it's sold as a module, it's really more of a collection of stuff that can easily be put together into one. The chimeric monsters are on the same lines as the Isle of the Unknown creatures but they're easier to scale up or down for different level parties. The weird rooms are easy to throw into any dungeon, as are the humans and the clever goop monster system.
I was a bit let down by the treasure; there's not enough here for a solo PC to level at 1gp=1xp, and they're a bit thin to be honest, with no scaling mechanism as there is for the chimeric creatures and the goops. Animated Animals were a bit of a let-down in that I was hoping for another interesting chart. But on the whole I'm really happy with it and would recommend it for five bucks.
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Post by geoffrey on May 9, 2013 10:13:38 GMT -6
I was a bit let down by the treasure; there's not enough here for a solo PC to level at 1gp=1xp, and they're a bit thin to be honest, with no scaling mechanism as there is for the chimeric creatures and the goops. I've been using Kilgore's "Roll to Advance" system for gaining levels, rather than xp for treasure and defeating monsters. Thus in my games xp and the amount of treasure gained are completely independent of each other. This is particularly helpful in allowing me to run a campaign in which the PCs are at all levels kind of poor, having to count their pennies to see what they can afford on the equipment list: www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=40138Animated Animals were a bit of a let-down in that I was hoping for another interesting chart. But on the whole I'm really happy with it and would recommend it for five bucks. That's the space limitation hitting us in the face. The module was originally going to be 16 pages, then James Raggi generously doubled that. Even with the doubled page-count, I had to not put in stuff that I wished I could have put in. More stuff on the animated animals couldn't be put in, nor could the thorp (for a quick-and-easy home base) with its customized equipment list. I'm glad you feel you got your money's worth. |
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Post by geoffrey on May 9, 2013 10:18:03 GMT -6
Oh, and I forgot to mention:
A Mighty Marvel No-Prize to the first person to correctly identify where I got the crazy name for the new spell that's in the module! ;D
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Post by cadriel on May 9, 2013 11:37:59 GMT -6
I've been using Kilgore's "Roll to Advance" system for gaining levels, rather than xp for treasure and defeating monsters. Thus in my games xp and the amount of treasure gained are completely independent of each other. This is particularly helpful in allowing me to run a campaign in which the PCs are at all levels kind of poor, having to count their pennies to see what they can afford on the equipment list: www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=40138That's cool - I just think a bit more stuff (and optional values for making it worth GP) would've been useful for more referees. But it's not like it's hard to put in treasure in a module, so it's a minor complaint about a good piece. And I find that soaking PCs for various services is a good way to keep treasure bloat down. Ahh. Do you by chance have charts that you've made for the Animated Animals? Because I'd love to have something like that in the next (summer) issue of Dungeon Crawl. Definitely. I got it from the Free RPG Day Kickstarter but I've already decided that this will be one of the two I get in print. |
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Post by geoffrey on May 11, 2013 16:06:09 GMT -6
I'm afraid that the animated animal charts and the details on the thorp are all in the form of very sketchy notes. I saw relatively early in the process of writing the module that these would not fit, so I did not get them into publishable form.
People would be appalled if they saw the inchoate mess that is my campaign notes!
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elf23
Level 1 Medium
Posts: 24
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Post by elf23 on May 13, 2013 0:48:23 GMT -6
Oh, and I forgot to mention: A Mighty Marvel No-Prize to the first person to correctly identify where I got the crazy name for the new spell that's in the module! ;D I didn't know, but google tells: Gerard Manley Hopkins. Use of google is definitely worthy of a No-Prize, I feel! Were the words "all" and "in" in the spell's name deliberately reversed? |
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Post by geoffrey on May 13, 2013 9:04:51 GMT -6
Oh, and I forgot to mention: A Mighty Marvel No-Prize to the first person to correctly identify where I got the crazy name for the new spell that's in the module! ;D I didn't know, but google tells: Gerard Manley Hopkins. Use of google is definitely worthy of a No-Prize, I feel! Were the words "all" and "in" in the spell's name deliberately reversed? Here's your No-Prize! ;D The spell was indeed inspired by my favorite English-language poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). In particular, the third line of "Pied Beauty": For rose-moles in all stipple upon trout that swim;" My Penguin collection of Hopkins's poetry has the line printed exactly thus. I notice that the poem on the internet often has the "in" and the "all" reversed. I wonder which is in error. |
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elf23
Level 1 Medium
Posts: 24
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Post by elf23 on May 13, 2013 23:59:31 GMT -6
Here's your No-Prize! ;D The spell was indeed inspired by my favorite English-language poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). In particular, the third line of "Pied Beauty": For rose-moles in all stipple upon trout that swim;" My Penguin collection of Hopkins's poetry has the line printed exactly thus. I notice that the poem on the internet often has the "in" and the "all" reversed. I wonder which is in error. Huh, an interesting anomaly! Just goes to show that classic literature isn't as "set in stone" as we tend to think. Also an interesting idea for coming up with new spells, by selecting lines from favoured books or poems. Could also be done semi randomly... I just tried it. The first snippet which fell under my gaze in the German Lord of the Rings edition I'm currently reading: "anticipation, it may take a while". Sounds like a feasible spell! |
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Post by ritt on Jan 17, 2014 19:13:02 GMT -6
Did the hardcopy of this ever come out?
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Post by funkaoshi on Jan 17, 2014 20:00:46 GMT -6
Not yet. None of the modules the LotFP kickstarter this was part of have gone to print yet. (FYI they aren't going to be on sale, I think they were just for backers.)
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Post by geoffrey on Jan 21, 2014 12:54:49 GMT -6
Here's your No-Prize! ;D The spell was indeed inspired by my favorite English-language poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889). In particular, the third line of "Pied Beauty": For rose-moles in all stipple upon trout that swim;" My Penguin collection of Hopkins's poetry has the line printed exactly thus. I notice that the poem on the internet often has the "in" and the "all" reversed. I wonder which is in error. I just saw this. I've been looking for a Hopkins collection for ages. What's the Penguin collection called? Sorry for the delay in my answer. I didn't have internet in my house for a week. It is Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins, edited by W. H. Gardner. ISBN 0-14-042015-0 I understand that a very good edition of Hopkins is the one with an introduction by Charles Williams, but I have never seen a copy. |
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Post by foxroe on Jan 2, 2017 3:28:15 GMT -6
Somehow, this slipped under my radar for the last few years. So, as my first purchase of the year, I downloaded and read through Dungeon of the Unknown today and thought I would give it a quick review for anyone who hasn't gotten this yet (though most of this may be old hat for some, or at least previously covered here and elsewhere):
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