JG 76 The Dragon Crown Review - Old School Role Playing

The Dragon Crown is a Judges Guild adventure for Original Dungeons and Dragons. It was published in 1979 and is written by Michael Mayeau. This adventure was written as a tournament module and was specifically prepared for use at Pacificon 1978.

This is a very short adventure. From cover to cover it is 16 pages. This includes the map and covers. The actual text of the adventure is only two pages long. Other things included are pre-generated characters, point scoring details and specific rules and guidelines for conducting the adventure and tournament.

The adventurers are mercenaries. They have been hired to stop an invading army. This mission has failed. While running for their lives….. they stumble upon a cave to hide in. And they discover something far worse than the enemy army. This is the cave of a dragon. A huge red one. With a mate. But rather than roasting the adventurers alive or eating them for dinner he offers them a deal. Return in four hours with a golden crown that was stolen from it and they can live….and even has a portion of the vast hoard of treasure owned by the dragons. Otherwise they get eaten. He casts a spell upon them to ensure that they will not just run away.

The crown was stolen by Kobolds and they are not far away. The adventurers must go fetch it back in a short amount of time.

What I like about The Dragon Crown

It is short. Very short. The encounters are short and to the point. The background and set up are short. The whole thing cover to cover is sixteen pages. With only two real pages of encounters.

What I do not like about The Dragon Crown

It is, perhaps, too short. The encounters are kind of boring too. There is not much creativity in this adventure. Most of the numbered encounters are just a list of a few monsters in a room. There are few tricks, puzzles or role playing encounters in this one. For a tournament module there are few real ways that a player or group could set themselves up as being better than their competitors.

I really do not like tournament or contest dungeons much anyway. They tend to write these things in ways that players at your kitchen table would not actually play them. At least none of the players or groups that I have ever played with. This one, however, is not quite like that. There is plenty to fight here for low level adventurers.

The value of the crown is insane. Low level adventurers could just take the crown with them and have more money than kings or gods.

Few of the monsters have any relation to each other. There is little reason for them to live in the same dungeon together without constantly fighting each other. As there are few rooms other than monster encounter rooms it is highly unlikely that they would not be totally aware of each other.

Would I recommend this adventure to others?

Probably not. It could be used by a low level group as a one shot dungeon as long as the value of the crown (and it’s magical properties) were dropped considerably.

Would I run this adventure with my own group?

No. I would not. I love a lot of the old Judges Guild adventurers but not this one. It is pretty lame. Two pages of encounters with little relationship to each other and no creativity at all. There are no real puzzles complications that would interest my players.

If you enjoyed this review then perhaps you will enjoy these articles:

Please follow and like us: