Bloodsand Arena vs Marauders of the Dune Sea - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Bloodsand Arena vs Marauders of the Dune Sea

Post/Author/DateTime Post
#1
avendesora
Sep 26, 2010 20:21:49 I'm going to run a Dark Sun adventure to get my party in the Dark Sun mood before we start a full DS campaign. Is one of the two published adventures better than the other? I was going to pick up Marauders of the Dune Sea but it got pretty awful reviews on Amazon. Thanks for the help.
#2
Nyarlathotep
Sep 26, 2010 21:55:03 I haven't played or even seen Bloodsand Arena but Marauders of the Dune Sea isn't very good. At best, its a generic dungeon crawl with some Dark Sun elements pasted on. It's would be just about my last choice to get my group "In a Dark Sun mood", as it doesn't capture said mood well at all. Even the little adventure in the DSCC would be better than Marauders for your purposes.

In last month's Dungeon there was a 1st level adventure called The Vault of Darom Madar, that seems to capture the mood rather well.
#3
Pennarin
Sep 26, 2010 22:34:48 I own Bloodsand, it is quite good, which Marauders is not.
#4
baronspam
Sep 26, 2010 23:54:49 Marauders, as much as I wanted to get behind it, was not very good. Its a series of wilderness encounters, followed by a series of dungeon encounters, followed by a skill challenge if anyone is still awake. Nothing is really wrong with the encounters themselves (although nothing is particularly brilliant about them either) but the story that holds them together is blander than butter on white bread. NPCs want PCs to find magical Mcguffin in dungeon becuase. . . they do, ok, they just do. Its very linear, and very forgetable. I don't really know anything about Bloodsand, but I have heard its a bit better, but I can't really give you any details.
#5
vellitrax
Sep 27, 2010 7:26:40 I am currently running MoTDS, and like some of you guys i also found it very "Railroady", so what i did as GM, was embellish, change, and did my own thing with it, i focus alot more on PC roleplay and character development. so the guys at the moment are still learning to bond as a group while in a dungeon, my main campaign takes over when this one finishes, but depending on what the PC's decide to do with effect where i take them in my campaign. IT ALL DOWN TO THE GM TO MAKE THE STORY THEIR OWN!!! plz dont forget that.
#6
Nyarlathotep
Sep 27, 2010 8:54:11 Any adventure can be good given enough effort by the DM to modify it. However, there comes a point when you may as well have made something up yourself. Since a lot of people buy published adventures because they are too pressed for time to spend that time or too new to the game to know what needs to be done, it's a shame when an adventure comes out as poorly as Marauders did.
#7
beej_silver
Sep 27, 2010 9:25:35 I don't really have access to Bloodand Arena, but yeah, I think the general opinion on Marauders is that it sucks. But since most of the people who posted here are Insiders, I would like to point out the Vault of Darom Madar in Dungeon 181. I haven't read through it myself, but my online acquaintance Neuroglyph seems to have a high opinion of it. Check out his review of the Vault of Darom Madar. XD
#8
baronspam
Sep 27, 2010 10:09:26
I am currently running MoTDS, and like some of you guys i also found it very "Railroady", so what i did as GM, was embellish, change, and did my own thing with it, i focus alot more on PC roleplay and character development. so the guys at the moment are still learning to bond as a group while in a dungeon, my main campaign takes over when this one finishes, but depending on what the PC's decide to do with effect where i take them in my campaign. IT ALL DOWN TO THE GM TO MAKE THE STORY THEIR OWN!!! plz dont forget that.

I agree with this to an extent. The individual encounters in the adventure are not that bad. You could certainly repurpose them or rewrite the frame storey, but making 4th ed encounters is the easy part. I would much rather have an product with a really great story and some encounters than need some tweaking than a product with weak story and balanced encounters. Ideally, yes, you would want both the encounters and the story to be good if you paid money for it, but if you have to fix something fixing the encounters is not too hard. If you are making up a story from scratch its not that much more work (at least for me) to just write the whole thing.
#9
Kye_Tyrad
Sep 27, 2010 11:33:00 I have Bloodsand Arena and it is a very good low-level adventure that brings in the stereotypical flavor of elven merchants! It is set in Tyr and brings the group to Alturuk, but could very easily be adapted to bring the group from one city or village to another....or even out in the middle of nowhere!
#10
nosan2
Sep 27, 2010 17:05:27 If you can get access to it, I find the old 2e intro module "Freedom" to be a better introduction to Dark Sun. Bloodsand Arena is better and comes with pre-gen characters, which can be good for a pre-campaign one-shot to get things rolling.
#11
lord_rock
Sep 28, 2010 0:13:50 Ran through about half of Marauders on sunday. For a module it is not horrible but it is not a good introduction to darksun outside of it being desert based. I had to add a lot of fluff and still didnt feel like I did it justice.

Encounters were solid. Didnt let my players rest from the 3rd encounter on and they are starting to feel challenged. There are a ton of ways for the DM to use tactics that will make the fight much much harder or ways to let the PC's have an easy go at it.

If you're used to altering modules to fit needs this will be servicable but not a good introduction to darksun at all.
#12
tentagil
Sep 28, 2010 17:21:30 Bloodsnad arena is pretty decent as a starting point, I'm using a modified version of the first part of it it to get my group to level two, its a bridge between two arcs of my own design. And then I plan on using the second part to bridge the next two parts of the campaign with some amping up since I figure my guys will be level three half-way to four by then.

The arena foldout map it comes with it worth it on its own. I know I'll be using that alot.
#13
imcgarty
Oct 03, 2010 19:09:38
I am currently running MoTDS, and like some of you guys i also found it very "Railroady", so what i did as GM, was embellish, change, and did my own thing with it, i focus alot more on PC roleplay and character development. so the guys at the moment are still learning to bond as a group while in a dungeon, my main campaign takes over when this one finishes, but depending on what the PC's decide to do with effect where i take them in my campaign. IT ALL DOWN TO THE GM TO MAKE THE STORY THEIR OWN!!! plz dont forget that.

I agree with this. It introduces a nice plot hook and item and has 'unfinished' dungeon rooms that you can fill in as you see fit. Other than that it is pretty linear but still introduces some DS creatures and environmental issues.
#14
godspeace21
Oct 06, 2010 11:37:57 So my group started doing Dark Sun last night with me as DM. If Marauders of the Dune Sea sucks so bad, do you have any 2nd level suggestions I can run in its stead? I was hoping to run the adventure out of DSCS, expound upon it a little to have them reach 2nd level, then do MotDS before attempting something on my own...
#15
wizardofwor
Oct 08, 2010 10:51:12 I agree Vault of Darom Madar is pretty decent. It also has quite a few things to expand out of after it is completed.
#16
mad_typist
Oct 12, 2010 8:11:33 Bloodsand Arena is a nice introduction to the setting, particularly if you treat it like a throwaway adventure. I also agree that the arena map alone is worth its weight in gold.

Vault of Darom Madar is excellent and has a lot of juicy plot points that would be fun to expand upon. Marauders is fine - like others have said it's a dungeon delve and very railroady, but you could always just poach the encounters out and make your own storyline.

You might want to consider checking out some of the Chaos Scar modules. They have some interesting adventures that can easily be reskinned to fit the Dark Sun setting. I had planned to convert most of them over for my own Dark Sun campaign.

Here are three (with flavor text!) that might be a nice fit:

“A Chance Encounter” is a single combat encounter for a group of five 1st-level characters set in the Chaos Scar. The adventurers find a wagon sinking into a hole despite the best efforts of the horse struggling to pull it free. Yellow-robed attendants fight to raise the wagon , but its slide and the horse’s screams suggest their efforts are futile. When the heroes lend a hand, they find that their good intentions are met with cold steel, bitter curses, and a wild three-way fight. Can be found in Dungeon #174

“Sliver’s Call” is a short adventure for five 2nd-level characters that takes part in the Chaos Scar, near the King’s Wall. The characters become entwined in the rivalry of a pair of arcane scholars searching for a long-lost treasure. Both rivals are under the influence of psionic commands from a sliver of the Chaos Meteor that compel them to uncover it. Can be found in Dungeon #174

“The Hammer Falls” is a short adventure for five 2nd-level characters that takes place in the Chaos Scar. The characters enter an abandoned metalworking refinery under the control of a clan of duergar who have given their souls to infernal forces in exchange for power. Inside, the duergar work tirelessly to uncover the secrets within a river of lava corrupted by a shard from the meteorite. Can be found in Dungeon #179
#17
slashdevnull
Oct 13, 2010 20:43:45 I recently purchased the PDF of Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters (enginepublishing.com). Spotted all kinds of ideas in there that looked like they'd work well in Dark Sun. I also snagged some old DS modules for the original setting on eBay, and am looking forward to eventually running some of those.

But first, I'll probably run my players through Bloodsand as a "throwaway" adventure. It's a really good intro to DS. I purchased MotDS, but will maybe only use it for an encounter or two, rolled into another game.
#18
mhuggies
Oct 15, 2010 7:03:58 Well speaking from the point of someone who has run a bit of both of these so far. I can tell you that Bloodsand is a pretty good intro to Dark Sun, but it doesnt go into a lot of details. On the other hand Marauders is a 2nd level adventure and assumes you have played other adventures prior to starting that one so dont think it was designed to be an introduction. As far as my group is concerned they had played the adventure in the back of the campaign book, followed by a modified version of the first adventure in Bloodsand Arena prior to starting Marauders. In the defense of Marauders we have had a lot of fun roleplaying (yes I used the word) in this adventure as it begins in Tyr and we spent a good bit of time leading up to the actual excursion into the desert. Thus far I have to say Marauders has been great fun and well worth its cost. Anywho just my two cents.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 avendesora Sep 26, 2010 20:21:49	I'm going to run a Dark Sun adventure to get my party in the Dark Sun mood before we start a full DS campaign. Is one of the two published adventures better than the other? I was going to pick up Marauders of the Dune Sea but it got pretty awful reviews on Amazon. Thanks for the help.
#2 Nyarlathotep Sep 26, 2010 21:55:03	I haven't played or even seen Bloodsand Arena but Marauders of the Dune Sea isn't very good. At best, its a generic dungeon crawl with some Dark Sun elements pasted on. It's would be just about my last choice to get my group "In a Dark Sun mood", as it doesn't capture said mood well at all. Even the little adventure in the DSCC would be better than Marauders for your purposes. In last month's Dungeon there was a 1st level adventure called The Vault of Darom Madar, that seems to capture the mood rather well.
#3 Pennarin Sep 26, 2010 22:34:48	I own Bloodsand, it is quite good, which Marauders is not.
#4 baronspam Sep 26, 2010 23:54:49	Marauders, as much as I wanted to get behind it, was not very good. Its a series of wilderness encounters, followed by a series of dungeon encounters, followed by a skill challenge if anyone is still awake. Nothing is really wrong with the encounters themselves (although nothing is particularly brilliant about them either) but the story that holds them together is blander than butter on white bread. NPCs want PCs to find magical Mcguffin in dungeon becuase. . . they do, ok, they just do. Its very linear, and very forgetable. I don't really know anything about Bloodsand, but I have heard its a bit better, but I can't really give you any details.
#5 vellitrax Sep 27, 2010 7:26:40	I am currently running MoTDS, and like some of you guys i also found it very "Railroady", so what i did as GM, was embellish, change, and did my own thing with it, i focus alot more on PC roleplay and character development. so the guys at the moment are still learning to bond as a group while in a dungeon, my main campaign takes over when this one finishes, but depending on what the PC's decide to do with effect where i take them in my campaign. IT ALL DOWN TO THE GM TO MAKE THE STORY THEIR OWN!!! plz dont forget that.
#6 Nyarlathotep Sep 27, 2010 8:54:11	Any adventure can be good given enough effort by the DM to modify it. However, there comes a point when you may as well have made something up yourself. Since a lot of people buy published adventures because they are too pressed for time to spend that time or too new to the game to know what needs to be done, it's a shame when an adventure comes out as poorly as Marauders did.
#7 beej_silver Sep 27, 2010 9:25:35	I don't really have access to Bloodand Arena, but yeah, I think the general opinion on Marauders is that it sucks. But since most of the people who posted here are Insiders, I would like to point out the Vault of Darom Madar in Dungeon 181. I haven't read through it myself, but my online acquaintance Neuroglyph seems to have a high opinion of it. Check out his review of the Vault of Darom Madar. XD
#8 baronspam Sep 27, 2010 10:09:26	I am currently running MoTDS, and like some of you guys i also found it very "Railroady", so what i did as GM, was embellish, change, and did my own thing with it, i focus alot more on PC roleplay and character development. so the guys at the moment are still learning to bond as a group while in a dungeon, my main campaign takes over when this one finishes, but depending on what the PC's decide to do with effect where i take them in my campaign. IT ALL DOWN TO THE GM TO MAKE THE STORY THEIR OWN!!! plz dont forget that. I agree with this to an extent. The individual encounters in the adventure are not that bad. You could certainly repurpose them or rewrite the frame storey, but making 4th ed encounters is the easy part. I would much rather have an product with a really great story and some encounters than need some tweaking than a product with weak story and balanced encounters. Ideally, yes, you would want both the encounters and the story to be good if you paid money for it, but if you have to fix something fixing the encounters is not too hard. If you are making up a story from scratch its not that much more work (at least for me) to just write the whole thing.
#9 Kye_Tyrad Sep 27, 2010 11:33:00	I have Bloodsand Arena and it is a very good low-level adventure that brings in the stereotypical flavor of elven merchants! It is set in Tyr and brings the group to Alturuk, but could very easily be adapted to bring the group from one city or village to another....or even out in the middle of nowhere!
#10 nosan2 Sep 27, 2010 17:05:27	If you can get access to it, I find the old 2e intro module "Freedom" to be a better introduction to Dark Sun. Bloodsand Arena is better and comes with pre-gen characters, which can be good for a pre-campaign one-shot to get things rolling.
#11 lord_rock Sep 28, 2010 0:13:50	Ran through about half of Marauders on sunday. For a module it is not horrible but it is not a good introduction to darksun outside of it being desert based. I had to add a lot of fluff and still didnt feel like I did it justice. Encounters were solid. Didnt let my players rest from the 3rd encounter on and they are starting to feel challenged. There are a ton of ways for the DM to use tactics that will make the fight much much harder or ways to let the PC's have an easy go at it. If you're used to altering modules to fit needs this will be servicable but not a good introduction to darksun at all.
#12 tentagil Sep 28, 2010 17:21:30	Bloodsnad arena is pretty decent as a starting point, I'm using a modified version of the first part of it it to get my group to level two, its a bridge between two arcs of my own design. And then I plan on using the second part to bridge the next two parts of the campaign with some amping up since I figure my guys will be level three half-way to four by then. The arena foldout map it comes with it worth it on its own. I know I'll be using that alot.
#13 imcgarty Oct 03, 2010 19:09:38	I am currently running MoTDS, and like some of you guys i also found it very "Railroady", so what i did as GM, was embellish, change, and did my own thing with it, i focus alot more on PC roleplay and character development. so the guys at the moment are still learning to bond as a group while in a dungeon, my main campaign takes over when this one finishes, but depending on what the PC's decide to do with effect where i take them in my campaign. IT ALL DOWN TO THE GM TO MAKE THE STORY THEIR OWN!!! plz dont forget that. I agree with this. It introduces a nice plot hook and item and has 'unfinished' dungeon rooms that you can fill in as you see fit. Other than that it is pretty linear but still introduces some DS creatures and environmental issues.
#14 godspeace21 Oct 06, 2010 11:37:57	So my group started doing Dark Sun last night with me as DM. If Marauders of the Dune Sea sucks so bad, do you have any 2nd level suggestions I can run in its stead? I was hoping to run the adventure out of DSCS, expound upon it a little to have them reach 2nd level, then do MotDS before attempting something on my own...
#15 wizardofwor Oct 08, 2010 10:51:12	I agree Vault of Darom Madar is pretty decent. It also has quite a few things to expand out of after it is completed.
#16 mad_typist Oct 12, 2010 8:11:33	Bloodsand Arena is a nice introduction to the setting, particularly if you treat it like a throwaway adventure. I also agree that the arena map alone is worth its weight in gold. Vault of Darom Madar is excellent and has a lot of juicy plot points that would be fun to expand upon. Marauders is fine - like others have said it's a dungeon delve and very railroady, but you could always just poach the encounters out and make your own storyline. You might want to consider checking out some of the Chaos Scar modules. They have some interesting adventures that can easily be reskinned to fit the Dark Sun setting. I had planned to convert most of them over for my own Dark Sun campaign. Here are three (with flavor text!) that might be a nice fit: “A Chance Encounter” is a single combat encounter for a group of five 1st-level characters set in the Chaos Scar. The adventurers find a wagon sinking into a hole despite the best efforts of the horse struggling to pull it free. Yellow-robed attendants fight to raise the wagon , but its slide and the horse’s screams suggest their efforts are futile. When the heroes lend a hand, they find that their good intentions are met with cold steel, bitter curses, and a wild three-way fight. Can be found in Dungeon #174 “Sliver’s Call” is a short adventure for five 2nd-level characters that takes part in the Chaos Scar, near the King’s Wall. The characters become entwined in the rivalry of a pair of arcane scholars searching for a long-lost treasure. Both rivals are under the influence of psionic commands from a sliver of the Chaos Meteor that compel them to uncover it. Can be found in Dungeon #174 “The Hammer Falls” is a short adventure for five 2nd-level characters that takes place in the Chaos Scar. The characters enter an abandoned metalworking refinery under the control of a clan of duergar who have given their souls to infernal forces in exchange for power. Inside, the duergar work tirelessly to uncover the secrets within a river of lava corrupted by a shard from the meteorite. Can be found in Dungeon #179
#17 slashdevnull Oct 13, 2010 20:43:45	I recently purchased the PDF of Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters (enginepublishing.com). Spotted all kinds of ideas in there that looked like they'd work well in Dark Sun. I also snagged some old DS modules for the original setting on eBay, and am looking forward to eventually running some of those. But first, I'll probably run my players through Bloodsand as a "throwaway" adventure. It's a really good intro to DS. I purchased MotDS, but will maybe only use it for an encounter or two, rolled into another game.
#18 mhuggies Oct 15, 2010 7:03:58	Well speaking from the point of someone who has run a bit of both of these so far. I can tell you that Bloodsand is a pretty good intro to Dark Sun, but it doesnt go into a lot of details. On the other hand Marauders is a 2nd level adventure and assumes you have played other adventures prior to starting that one so dont think it was designed to be an introduction. As far as my group is concerned they had played the adventure in the back of the campaign book, followed by a modified version of the first adventure in Bloodsand Arena prior to starting Marauders. In the defense of Marauders we have had a lot of fun roleplaying (yes I used the word) in this adventure as it begins in Tyr and we spent a good bit of time leading up to the actual excursion into the desert. Thus far I have to say Marauders has been great fun and well worth its cost. Anywho just my two cents.