SJ Reviews: The Dungeon Adventures

In my quest to support the delusion that folks care what I've produced a
series of quick and dirty reviews of all the Spelljammer products. I
hope these will be useful to newcomers and those without all of the
products.

Rating System:
*= Mediocre, poorly written product with little usefulness.
**= A bad product for several reasons with one or two useful aspects.
***= An average product with some good and some bad points.
****= An above average product with few bad points.
*****= An excellent product with few if any bad points. An essential SJ product.

The 'SJ' Dungeon Magazine Articles:

Dungeon #21 "Jammin'"
by James M. Ward (c)1990
Rating:****
"A rotting ship holds the secrets of all the universe, but its crew wants you only for the 'fuel' you carry."

An excellent little adventure that plays up Spelljammer's strength of
'mobile dungeons'.  Obviously written to provide the PCs with an
introduction to Spelljamming, it accomplishes that goal well.  The
'ecology' of the ship is a bit off, and the colored skeletons should
have been explained in some way, but otherwise a very nice introductory
adventure.

Dungeon #28 "Visitors from above"
by Shonn Everett (c)1991
Rating:****
"A star falls from above and terror follows in its wake."

This is a Forgotten Realms/Spelljammer cross-over adventure.  It
provides some interesting information about a dwarven clan in the Tears
of Selune, and another nice method of introducing PCs to Spelljammer.
The plot is tight and all the NPCs have realistic plans and reactions.
The Whitebeard dwarves are a particularly nice touch, a model for
Spelljammer/groundling interaction.  We even get alternative galleon
deckplans and stats for their 'mining ships'  I do wish we had some
details on their Citadel, however!

Dungeon #36 "The Sea of Sorrow"
by Steve Kurtz  (C)1992
Rating:*****
"The wildspace monster is deadly, but its lair is the real killer."

One of the best adventures written for Dungeon, period.  In fact, one of
the best adventures TSR ever produced in any format, module or magazine.
Not only do we get a historical mystery, a truly imposing antagonist,
and a concise, tight plot, we also get an entire sphere, its history
detailed, AND the 'Arcane Inner Flow'.  This should be the model for all
sphere and adventure design in Spelljammer.  It does more in its few
pages than Astromundi Cluser and Legend of the Spelljammer do in full
boxed sets.

Dungeon #39 "Flowfire"
by Steve Kurtz (c)1992
Rating:***
"In the phlogiston, everyone can hear you scream (and you'll scream a lot!)."

This collection of mini-adventures is nice for GMs, because Spelljammer
really requires many 'wandering encounters' to maintain the proper feel.
The real stand-out is the Ivory Knight and his pirate vessel, but
everything in this collection is useful.

Dungeon #41 "Mammoth Problems"
by Lawrence Kapture (c)1993
Rating:****
"The elves thought they'd destroyed it forever, but this problem's too big to go away."

Another 'mobile dungeon' this nice little adventure uses one of my
favorite ships, the Mammoth, and some really well done historical
plotting.  But its flexibility is key.  With literally no changes a GM
can plop this down anywhere and keep his players busy for several
sessions.  Every Spelljammer GM should have this if only to have
something ready if a game unexpectedly breaks out. Great stuff.

Dungeon #45 "An Artist's Errand"
by Steve Kurtz (c)1994
Rating:*****
"The reigar believe that Art is everything, and this reigar will do
everything to retrieve her stolen property."

Another in Dungeon's tradition of fine Spelljammer adventures.
Excellent, evocative NPCs, a tight plot, plus the introduction of drow
into space.  And we finally get deckplans for the Damselfly.  Its set in
the same sphere as "The Sea of Sorrow", and adds more detail to that
sphere as well as more detail to Realmspace!

Dungeon #63 "Gnome Droppings"
by Christopher Perkins (c)1997
Rating:***
"Out-of-this-world adventure."

This adventure details the dealings of some spelljamming gnomes with a
group of groundlings as they hunt for some lost autognomes.  It takes
place entirely ground-side, but would be a decent introduction to
Spelljammer.

Dungeon #71 "Wildspawn"
by Paul Culotta (c)1998
Rating:***
"No one returns from Revular's Island, and for good reason."

Though the focus of this adventure is spelljamming Syllix, it breaks
several spelljamming rules.  Most importantly, the Syllix Island should
not be capable of flight, it's far too large (it would be far larger
than the Spelljammer!).  Though technically set on a planet, this
adventure would actually work better placed in space.  In either
context, it's a good adventure with a bit of tweaking.