Customer Reviews

The Speaker in Dreams (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying Adventure, 5th Level)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I bought this adventure I was excited to get out of the dungeons and into some more complex schemes and role-playing intead of hack n' slash. After reading it through, I was a bit disapointed.. Not enough city stuff. So I had some fun with it. I took a great many liberties with the plot, encounters, NPCs.. etc.. What was shaping up to be a pretty lame adventure tunrned into three very fine sessions indeed.

I am a bit low in the creativity depertment, but once I have a basic framework, I can have a lot of fun as long as I get a good foundation. If you are like that, go ahead and buy this to get a template to work from, but don't run it word for word. Have some fun and throw a few curveballs.

If there was one bad thing to say about this adventure, it's that it was too good!

The DM has to work hard to get the full value of this module because there is so much going on at the same time. The reward is well worth the effort though, as your players will light up at the feeling of being immersed in a city where things are going on all around them whether they are looking or not.

This story-driven adventure is a nice change from an event driven dungeon where sometimes you get the feel that the monsters were "in stasis" waiting for PC's to show up and deal with them.

This adventure is full of plots, side-plots, plot-twists, rumors, and red-herrings and it is a lot of fun for the group to try and separate fact from wives tale, important from meaningless, to slowly uncover the trail that leads to what is really going on.

I have enjoyed each of the adventures in this series, except for forge. But they all share a common problem, they are just not interesting enough on thier own and need things to be added in order to fully hook the PC's.

I was very glad that this adventure didnt take place in another dungeon, at least it seemed like it didnt. Now it didnt involve any 'dungeons' it was pretty much just traveling around the city going from building to building, each were their own little mini-dungeoncrawls. In my opinion the adventure as written didnt take advantage of all the interesting things that having the adventure take place in a city affords. Also, the main villian of the whole thing made very little sense. When you read about him and his history and why he is doing what he is doing it kind of makes sense, but to the PC's who just bust down a door and see some octopus man, it makes no sense at all.

When I played this I had it take place in the PC's home town and involve thier family. When the Baron became evil it affected them even more becuase he was their uncle, when the church burned and the head preist taken captive it was more shocking becuase he was the father to one of the PC's. They werent just helping out a town they encountered in thier travels, they were saving thier own town and families from a demon invasion. This may not be right for everyone's campaign setting but is just an example of how the adventures need to be tweeked in order for them to be good.

Having read all of the previous 15 reviews I am surprised at the level of negativity for this adventure.

Firstly, I would like to address some the recurrent criticisms about this module.

1. Not all the information is present. Incorrect. Details appear in the appendix for all named characters. There are a few creatures missing, but they are easily found in the Monster Manual (which should never leave the GM's side!)

2. The plot is linear. What?!? Did people not read the adventure? This is one of the most non-linear adventures ever published for Dungeons & Dragons in all of its incarnations! Additionally, the flow-chart in the back which serves as a great re-orientation tool specifically states that the "...flowchart should not be followed rigidly." The layout and interactions between scenes has a very Shadowrunesque (from FASA fame) feel about it. Me thinks that they protest to much and whereas the weakness is in fact with the people running this adventure.

3. Why does the Evil Villian want to take over a small, inconsequential town when he really wants to conquer the world? Duh! Have to start somewhere and really, think about it...if four 5th level heroes can defeat him do you really think that the Villian was destined for World Domination? As for the Villian being weak, so is a badly made clay pot - its what the artist does with the clay that dictates whether the end result will be any good or not.

The only criticism that holds any water is the leap the story makes between defeating the Villians lackeys and then suddenly there are Demons running the town.

I got around all of these problems by simply planning my campaign in advance. I've never just 'dropped' my characters into a module, if you do, then they will naturally feel as if they are caught mid-film or something. I used 'Speaker in Dreams' as the base on which I built an entire campaign which featured material from TSR's Birthright campaign setting, the City of the Invincible Overlord boxed set, and WHFRP's Death's Dark Shadow sourcebook. The town was vibrant, alive and the PC's were devestated when NPC's that they had spent 'years' getting to know started getting murdered.

I digress. The adventure is solid, the plot is believable, the villian very, very deadly if played right. The only weakness that I found (demons mentioned above) I resolved by having that event take place first. Which is to say the Temple of Pelor was the first victim, only the townsfolk didn't know it. The Demons slowly built up their numbers and when the PC's have dealt to the last of the Villian's lower-level retainers he's forced to play the Demon card...quite simple really.

Hope that helps. Finally, if you're still having trouble revealling a plot to players, even though their characters' actions haven't dictated that they would discover certain things, then I would suggest you use the 'Cut Scene' concept explained in WotC's 'Galatic Campaign Guide' for the Star Wars game. My players loved the cut scenes; especially when they got to roleplay them out.

This module has a city in trouble from a manipulator. The problem for the DM is that if s/he just inserts this on the campaign, the players could feel like they got into the theater halfway into the movie.

In my case, I had already bought "The Sunless Citadel" and "The Forge of Fury" before starting the campaign. Comparing the towns depicted on the modules, I decided beforehand to use Brindinford (from Speaker in Dreams) as the characters' HQ. This allows me to build up the events in Speaker, so the players can feel that they are not being dropped in mid season.

Besides that, I think this module is a very good one to use as a break from too many Dungeons.

I just ran this adventure for our party. We hadn't done a city adventure before, and they found it to be a very different experience. The story was good enough, though not spectacular, and the action was varied - the party encountered a large number of different challenges.

My biggest complaint was that while preparing the adventure, I found it a bit incomplete. Specifically, there are a couple characters that aren't described in the appendix, so I had to fill in some stats on my own. It's not that this was hard work, but having bought the module, I expected it to be complete.

I suppose the reason this adventure doesn't come off as well is that I have a heard time figuring out why all these disparate elements are working together. Some are because of direct mind control and others... ?? It's a big mish-mash of monsters working together. This alone, the implausability of the enemies, is what garners the 3 stars.

That aside, the adventure is very well structured with a nice flowchart on the last page for the flow of the story. This is the first official story-based adventure (as opposed to Citidel and Forge which were site-based) and it is executed nicely.

The story-based system allows the PC's to wander more and do what they want and allows for a more dynamic setting where things seem to be happeneing all the time.

As an added bonus, Wizards has posted bonus material in PDF format on their official site that has added flavor material for running the adventure. This material isn't necessary, but it will make it easier for less experienced DM's to run the adventure effectively.

Unlike the first two D&D modules, "The Speaker in Dreams" is an event-based module, using a flow chart to guide the DM. The concept is excellent, but the module seems to be missing some essential ingredients to make it complete. I felt I would have to put in additional time to customize the module, more than merely adjusting it to my campaign world.

All of this was resolved, though, once I discovered that Wizards of the Coast was offering web support: a free download that "enhances" the module. Unfortunately, most of the information in this download is necessary to run the module, unless you're one of those great off-the-cuff DMs (and I envy you).

With the addition of the download, "The Speaker in Dreams" becomes a well-executed module that I would love to run for my players.

This is really not very good because it doesn't save you any work. That is the whole purpose of modules... DMs trade in cash for planning time. In fact, I had to do TONS of planning to make up for the holes in this plot... not to mention that the villain makes very little sense. I have never understood the desire of someone to conquer a boring, undesireable little town. What the module really boils down to is a cleverly disguised linear (thats right... linear) adventure, that clever players can suffer from. If players figure out what is going on too quickly, they can be in over their heads just as quickly. I have never had to do so much player protecting in my 10 years of DMing, not even in the Tomb of Horrors. Bottom line: you can come up with something better than this and that you UNDERSTAND, otherwise, you don't need to run games.

This adventure kept my party busy, hurting, and confused
for weeks! There are so many things going on at the same
time that the adventurers just kept running all the time...
I heartily recommend this module for DMs and parties who want
a change from dungeon crawls and wilderness treks. Most of
my players have hated "town" for years, but Speaker in Dreams
has shown them how fun it can be. And it's helped to show
me an interesting and fun way to run an adventure in "town".