“Pathfinder: Dark Waters” is an adaptation of the Pathfinder role-playing game (which is a form of Dungeons and Dragons). Typically, Dynamite does an excellent job adapting story lines from other media forms into really enjoyable comics. However, with “Pathfinder: Dark Waters” they fell short.

The title is not without merit. The art is quite good, and the pages are action packed. The second half of each issue provides everything needed to play the story from the first half as a D&D adventure; this includes dungeon maps and character sheets for each character featured in the story. While this format is an innovative way to present a role-playing setting, such an approach  does not lend itself to good writing.

For those of you unfamiliar with Dungeons and Dragons, the players typically follow a preset plot and interact with various characters in that plot. This typically does not lend itself to incredibly well polished story telling, but that is made up for in the game-play experience. “Pathfinder: Dark Waters” is written like the transcripts from a D&D game and leaves very little for non-role playing readers. The dialog consists of a cascading stream of exposition focusing on introducing characters or explaining the character’s actions. Such writing would not be a problem if the comics were exclusively marketed to D&D players or were given out free with merchandise. However, if Dynamite expects readers to continue to buy this comic, they must improve the quality of writing.