It also marked the appearance of the hat of disguise and deck of illusions, both which made it into Unearthed Arcana.Īs modules go, this is pretty much straighforward hack-and-slash. Violence or roleplaying can solve this puzzle, too - the violence angle is just a little dangerous even for the levels of PCs involved.Įditing Later: I forgot to add that this was the first appearance of the executioner's hood and the hangman tree, both of which later appeared in Monster Manual II. The PCs have a chance to get caught up in something odd that isn't of their own making. It's not a terrible railroad, in that it just makes the whole thing seem odd. There is one especially scripted bit - a encounter in the Palace with royalty and a trial that's going on. Playing up that oddness is encouraged and (in my experience) a good idea. There is even an in-context amusing Gygaxian admonition - "Play the King with an 18 intelligence, please!") Some of the Wonderland oddness is here, too - some foes can be fought, disengaged from, and then encountered in a friendly setting later - the past is the past in Dungeonland. The NPCs are detailed well enough that they are easy to play and the GM gets enough understanding of what they're for and what they'll do. You want the players to recognize things and use what they know, or it loses its charm, like a parody of something you'd never seen in the original. It's Wonderland gone lethal and violence is an acceptable solution, and that's the core of it. Like I said above, it's about playing on the expectations. Not the "I have 3 HP left!" kind but the "I read this book so I know the flamingos are for croquet!" kind. The module screams out for, and seems to expect, meta-gaming. That makes it possible for the players to deal with the environment with some caution (they know it's all weird) yet for it to contain all sorts of oddness. It's nonsensical but not illogical - more spurious logic than random nonsense. There are magical pools and fountains, beneficial and hostile plants, a senile arch-mage, odd distortions of space, and other things that make Dungeonland a really interesting environment. It features some interesting elements, including a miniaturized adventuring area, complete with a chance to get some tiny magic items to use in it (if you recognize the chance, that is.) You get to explore the gardens, woods, and houses of Wonderland, and deal with their now-lethal inhabitants. Or a lot of early D&D and AD&D adventures, really - a place with monsters to kill, puzzles to solve, and treasure to find. The adventure is straight-up hack-and-slash, much like G1-3 Against The Giants. But like I said, it's expectations served up with the twist being lethality. Most of it is pretty obvious, and the only real cleverness is the original concept and how appropriately lethal the encounters are. To quote the Afterword, "This module is not, by any stretch of the imagination, aimed at the player or DM who takes himself (and the game) too seriously." Mad Hatter? Throws random lethal headgear like a warped Oddjob. No Alice, but all of the beings she encounters in the Lewis Carroll story show up and attempt to inflict violence on those they encounter. It is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, only with (almost) everything being a hostile monster encounter. When it comes to expectations, you can play off them with a twist, or you can serve them straight up. In a nutshell, it's "D&D characters meet and kill characters from Alice in Wonderland. I've run EX1 but not (that I recall) EX2, but I may take a look at EX2 The Land Beyond the Magic Mirror at some point as well.įor more reviews, please see my review page.ĭungeonland is subtitled "An Adventure In A Wondrous Place For Character Levels 9-12." The introduction explains that this was original conceived of and executed as a Greyhawk Castle dungeon sub-level. I was reminded about wanting to review EX1 Dungeonland by a comment Erik Tenkar made about EX1 and EX2 on his blog.
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