Chatty’s Review: Monte Cook’s Dungeon a Day

The Capsule Review

Monte Cook’s Dungeon-a-Day subscription-based website presents a fully playable OGL 3.5 Megadungeon being progressively built by publishing a new encounter area each day.

The concept of the adventure module is brought to a whole new level through the power of Hyper-linking, high quality art and pictures of gorgeous 3D models of dungeon rooms.

The website also features a hyperlinked glossary, full color maps, blog posts about the dungeons’ design and a vibrant Forum where subscribers are hard at work converting the dungeon to other versions of d20 RPGs such as Pathfinder and D&D 4e.

If you are a fan of Megadungeons and the 3.5 ruleset, this is a high quality product that you will appreciate.  The subscription model may be a barrier to entry, especially for those who don’t play d20 3.5, but Monte delivers something well worth the expense.

You can subscribe here or see a free sample here (Area 1 to 6 are available as a preview).

Chatty’s more detailed review

I have a confession to make.  I’ve long been a fan of Monte Cook’s work.  From the moment I read the D&D 3.0 Dungeon Master Guide, I was sold to the man’s style and vision about D&D.

I bought many of his 3.x adventures and DMed most of them.  When he started Malhavoc Press I bought his Book of Eldritch Might (and other) source books.  I was an active participant on his forum and  bought  (with my friend Math) a copy of the 700 pages+ Ptolus campaign Setting.  Through Malhavoc Press I discovered new ways of playing d20 including  Mike Mealrs’ Iron Heroes (since then sold to Fiery Dragon)

Heck, I have been enough of a fan to have exchanged a few emails with him and found that he’s a great guy.

When Monte ‘tried’ to retire from RPGs and decided that Malhavoc Press would not support D&D 4e, I was sad but wished him best of luck in his new projects.

Of course, he didn’t retire for long and managed to publish two more source books for  3.5 (The books of Experimental Might  Tome 1 and 2) before unveiling his latest project: Dungeon-a-Day.

What it is…

Dungeon-a-Day is a subscription-based website that progressively publishes a Megadungeon adventure for use with the d20 3.5 rules (or as we non-publishers are allowed to call it: D&D 3.5).  Every day, a new area of the current dungeon level is published.

I must say that I was very curious about this project.  First because I too have Megadungeons on the mind.  Secondly because Monte is trying out a completely new business model.  He’s basically asking people to give him money on a regular basis to have access to an adventure that’s not even completely available.

So I decided to give the site a whirl and I subscribed to a Quarterly membership cost.  There are various levels of membership, going from 10$ monthly to about 8$ a month for yearly subscriptions.

First Impressions

When you first log on as a subscriber, you get the introductory page that presents you the website and walks you through the site’s features so you can orient yourself.  DMs are invited to read about the design assumptions behind the Megadungeon (called Dragon’s Delve) and to dive right into the background of the dungeon, the rumors about it  and some info on the surrounding  regions of the dungeon.

At  the bottom of each page of the website is a box with links to the most recent entries related to the page you are on.

The first thing that struck me as I was clicking here and there was how everything seemed to have been designed to make surfing the site a pleasant experience.  The art is great and on par with similar Malhavoc publication.  The Maps, by Ed Bourelle, are both simple and aesthetically pleasing.

Most of all, I was struck at how easy it was to navigate everywhere and get lost (in the good sense) in the very rich content of the site.  As of the first week of April 2009 , 34 of the 38 areas of the first level of the dungeons were completed and posted and going through them all requires a significant time investment.

I know that Monte has long wanted to find a way of breaking out of the limitations of a printed adventure. I felt that every major project he attempted pushed forward the ‘tech’ behind adventure writing.  Ptolus was, in my opinion, one of the best printed RPG products not only for the quality of it’s content, but mainly because of it’s extensive cross-referencing in the sidebars of everypage and extensive index.

I feel that Dungeon-a-Day pushes those boundaries once again by making great use of hyperlinks to bring everything together in a cohesive whole. For instance, if you look at the map of level one (which I think is available to non-subs) and you want to jump to area 1, you just need to click it and you’re there.

All in all, a great navigating experience.  If only I had a Kindle to surf it, I could read it in my backyard!

The website also houses a fully-featured forum for subscribers.  In it you find various areas focusing on specific levels of the dungeons, the surrounding regions as well as discussion boards for DM tips, member-created material and fan-driven conversions to other systems like D&D 4e and the Pathfinder roleplaying game.

The Actual Dungeon

Each encounter area is fully fleshed out with summary of the encounter, a description of the Sight and Sounds of the area, the actual read-aloud room description, and full description of all elements needed to run the encounter.  Traps are detailed, skill checks DC and results are spelled out and monsters are described with either full stats or with links to the appropriate entries of the hypertext d20 SRD website.

An interesting feature is that many rooms have a ‘revisit’ section where DMs have additional elements to play with when his PCs return to the room later in the adventure.   The ones I’ve seen were often descriptions of other adventurers passing through and leaving behind clues (or corpses) of their passage.

Finally, each area has a color photograph of it built using Dwarven Forge 3D dungeon models, adding an extra visualization tool to the DM regardless if he/she plans to use the 3D tiles.

Navigating Issue

The only little annoying issue I found with the website is that it sometimes ‘kicks you out’ when you surf from one page to the next, forcing you to re-log to the website.  Nothing major but enough to break the otherwise seamless experience of exploring such a rich dungeon environment.

Final Verdict

Even though I subscribed to the site with the expectation that I would see quality 3.5 material that would nevertheless fail to interest me, I must say that I was proven wrong.  While reading each entry, I couldn’t stop myself from trying to convert encounter areas to D&D 4e on the fly.

Dungeon-a-Day is the perfect kind of subscriptions for would-be dungeon designers that love to have a daily fix of megadungeon goodness. I’m sure to enjoy the next three months and I just may pursue my subscription afterwards.

Want to learn more about Dungeon A Day? Read on…

• Atomic Array: Episode 020: Dungeon A Day
• Game Cryer: Dungeon A Day Review
• Musing of the Chatty DM: Chatty’s Review
• Emerson’s Bookshelf: Monte Cook Groks Right
• RPG Bomb: IRC Chat on April 14th

Drop by Dungeon A Day today!

Image Credit: Copyright Monte J. Cook 2009