tenfootpole.org

By Davidf Ingle
Hard Marble Games
OSE
Level 1

Hidden within a dangerous swamp a disturbed priest makes his ruinous plans against his former community. Will the characters be able to find him and bring him to justice before disaster strikes Cypress Keep?

This 24 page adventure uses three and a half pages to describe a ruined temple with about fourteen rooms in it. It feels disconnected from itself, as if the designer didn’t know what the adventure was,or didn’t know how to include parts other than the main hack. Also, it has the usual problems.

I need to complain about some of the weird choices this adventure makes. They clash with the tone, the style, the expectations … and I had a relatively hard time trying to marry the various parts of the adventure. The first is the portrayal of the villain.

The local church find a orphan on the streets as a child and takes him in. He is devoted to the church and inspires the people in town. Until mental illness comes for him and he descends in to paranoia and megalomania, etc. He steals their magic holy item, the The Lamp of Paths, and hoofs it in to the jungle to some ruins where he does the usual: raises an undead army to destroy the town. The adventure goes out of its way, several times, to note that he is mentally ill. I don’t know what to do with this I’m down to hack down the baddie that is raising the dead to destroy the town. Am I down to do the same, with the same pragmatism, for a dude that is mentally ill? And he’s trying to fucking kill you. This isn’t some nuanced Cthulhu Now adventure about addiction and other complex topics. No. This is a cartoon villain. Who is that way because of mental illness. I can kill the orc babies, no problem. That’s a walk in the park compared to a discussion about intent vs impacts in the role of justice and the nature of responsibility. You want to do that in your adventure? I’m chill. You want a maniacal cackling villain raising the dead to take over the local village? I’m chill with that. You want to do BOTH at the same time? Uh … I don’t think I know what to do with that, either as a DM or as a player. You gotta pick a vibe so we can run with it. And this does NOT seem to be a piece of performance art in which we must examine our own reactions to it and how we interact with it as a commentary on how we use violence and mental illness as entertainment. It’s Tuesday night at the D&D table.

Onward! Dude stole the Lamp of Paths, a magic item from the temple and they want it back. The item is mentioned several times. You find the item in the last room, with him. The item barely gets a description and, as a magic item, nothing about it is detailed. I guess you give it back since it doesn’t do anything? It doesn’t even have a value for selling it. 

Anyway, you follow the old road out of town. It ends. There is now FOUR MILES of jungle between you and the next encounter. There are no hints. You get to wander to find it. There is a small set of encounters in the back that help get the party back on track, but, they don’t seem oriented to this part of the adventure. I have no idea how you find the place. But, also, you’ll get to enjoy that wilderness encounter table with boars and harpies and the ilk for your levels ones. Oh! Oh! It’s the swamp, so you’r ein water. There’s a disease table. It’s got like eight entries or so. Only two are described at all though. It’s like the delete button was accidentally pressed in the editor. I always wonder if I’m missing something and like the rest are in the OSE core or something. 

Once you do, you’re likely to find a goblin tribe first. With SIXTY fighting males. Sixty goblins. In the wilderness. Not even a cave hall to use as a choke point. I get it. You can run. But they are next to the place you need to go. I don’t know, you try to parlay, I guess? There’s not really anything in this adventure to help you with that except a single note that they don’t like the dude either. 

And this is weird. There is the ruined temple where dude is hanging out. Then there’s a small ruined city nearby it, a couple of miles away. Then, the adventure notes, between the two is the lair of the goblins. But, also, there’s a building there, at the lair, that was once a mercantile … with a stage? And, as for the goblin chiefs lair, there’s another building: “This 2-story structure consists of stone and was the town hall of Old Cypress Keep.” This same building is noted as having the chiefs treasure hoard. Which is never mentioned again The contradictions here … again, I’m not sure how to interpret these things. In another place, at the old temple ruins, it tells s that if we explore the ruins to the north by vessel then we can find a waterway leading to the great river that can take us back to town. But, also, how are you exploring by vessel? I don’t fucking understand this shit. And I don’t know if I’m missing something or something was accidentally deleted, ala the diseases perhaps, or if its just a mess. 

The temple exploration, proper, with dude, is made of description such as “A pungent stench fills the air of this room. This flooded area once stored ceremonial objects, fresh grains, and food” or “Numerous old crates and barrels litter the area of this flooded storage area.” Not exactly the the height of evocative writing. Weird portions are highlighted in the text, which I think is read-aloud at points, but never mentioned again in order to expand upon. At one point we’re in the main worship center, pews and the like, with an altar and a small choir stage behind it (lots of stages in this adventure?) There’s a ramp down in each corner of the stage, leading underground. One is choked with rubble and plants. We then get this line: “Dangerous passage: Hidden among the walls and

floor is a patch of yellow mould.” Given the section heading Dangerous Passage, I would think this is the ramps down? But it can’t be the rubble one? And the open one is the one the baddie uses … so it can’t have the mold? So the Dangerous Passage is the entire back part of the worship area? Is that a passage? If it is I have a another complaint to lodge with the Connections editor. 

Oh, also, in the read-aloud “Two goblin zombies scramble toward you from the back of the chamber.” Well now, that’s not really something to put in the read-aloud, is it? We don’t know how the party got here. Also, they are not zombies when the party sees them. They look like goblins, or green dudes with open wounds or something? 

The entire dungeoncrawl is completely different from the wilderness. Where the wilderness is a continual deathtrap, the dungeon crawl has a couple of zombies and some giant centipedes, culminating with the Level 4 cleric in the middle of a mental health crisis. It’s empty and boring, with not much loot at all.

Fun times!

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is the first six pages. You get to see the wanderers, the disease table, and the dudes backstory. Quite a poor preview from the the standpoint of helping you make a purchasing decisions based on the adventure, proper.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/507954/hmg-1-the-lamp-of-paths-level-1?1892600

If you’re not power gaming when you come from the bar when it closes, then what are you doing?

By Corey Ryan Walden
Self Published
Basic
Levels 1-3

A local tale whispers of a strange sorcerer who has dwelt in the cliffs and crags for centuries. During that time savage lightning has illumined the skies and valleys, seemingly at the bidding of this enigmatic figure. More recently there have been even more bizarre stories. Horses stolen by blue-skinned men for unseemly purposes — disrupting trade and traumatising travellers. You have heard these disturbing stories, whether they be founded in truth or fiction. But one question remains: will you brave the journey to the crags?

This twelve page adventure uses five pages to describe the twelve room lair of an alien who drinks horse urine. There is nothing of value here, figuratively or literally. You’d be better off going to half price and reading board books where you touch the kangaroo hair.

And so, this is what has become. All of the choices I have made in my life have led me here. You meet an old man on the path. He tells you that modern neuroscience has proved that all of our actions and decisions are merely the machinations of a predetermined universe and that our concept of free will is naught but a comforting illusion. If you agree with his hypothesis then turn to page 72. If you disagree then turn to page 72. (Actually, the cartoon in question does not use an if/then structure. Even THEY know that you should not use an if/then structure.)

What do we know about Heeter? Well … “Heeter has an unusual thirst for horse urine. When he is craving this delicacy he will charge two of his men to gather some from a nearby village, or ambush a mounted traveller. They may take the whole horse, or they may simply “milk” it.” You enjoy that. 

But, wait, somehow, in an adventure about a man who milks horses so he can drink their urine, I am getting ahead of myself. This adventure, but twelve pages long, starts with five empty pages. There is the cover. Then a white page. Them there’s another cover, the exact sam as the first except its had its transparency shifted a bit so it looked a little bit faded. Then there’s another blank page. Then there’s the title page. It has a link to the designers blog. But that’s down now. A search for him reveals nothing except a couple of puff reviews where “who is one of  the smartest and cunning young writers I’ve know” and the usual ? B+ nonsense that the fuckass online community gives to each other and, strangely, no mention of horse urine drinking. I did find one that seemed to like The Black Ruins, but, I question that reviewer’s judgement; sometimes confusing naivete as creativity. 

Back to the horse urine.There’s nothing here. This is a VERY simplistic lair. Just twelve rooms. The entrance has the usual murder hole/ambush stuff, done in a VERY simplistic manner. Almost to the point of minimalism, but then expanded upon to fill a word count. There is no interactivity, there is just stabbing things. Maybe? I guess you can ask nicely to come in and then be bored? Oh, you can watch the guy when he sleeps. The adventure makes a point of telling us that he sucks his thumb. It also makes a point of telling us that “The desk has a writing quill and inkpot. Not particularly valuable, though certainly useful.” Great. Or, how about the time the adventure tells us that “There is no known history for the object.” Uh … okI guess …? You mean like almost everything else I encounter every single day in my life? Why would it have a history? Why would I need or want to know the history? 

I added up the loot here. I think this was a B/X adventure but you’ll probably want to keep in the mind the 1e rules that you can  only advance to 1xp less than the next level. IE: you pop to the next level and then also get enough XP to put you 1xp from the next one. 747gp of value in this place babbeeeee! 

His servants attack. No one does anything but stab you. The rooms are boring, just laundry lists of mundane things in them. 

And, there’s not even any horse urine drinking in this! Dude doesn’t even offer you any! Can you believe it?! After all that horse urine milking and drinking that was going on in the prologue!   I feel ripped off. I feel ripped off by the five useless pages at hte beginning. I feel ripped off by the complete lack of anything interesting in this. As if I just put in ten basic rooms with an orc in each one and called then “kitchen” and “study” and then didn’t do anything interesting in any of them. I feel ripped off by the lack of horse urine milking and drinking that I was promised.

This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview is three pages and shows you a couple of rooms. And the horse urine milking thing.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/156584/the-cliff-lair-of-heeter?1892600

By Pail Mitchener
D101 Games
Crypts & Things/OSR
Levels 6-8

The ruins of the Unknown City stand at the edge of the Death Wind Steppe, surrounded by the foothills of the Wolf Head Mountains. They are a monument to a once mighty city. Few now know the city‘s history, and how it fell. The city‘s old name, Tetronis, now belongs to a village of simple fisherfolk standing amongst the ruins. The force behind both the old city‘s greatness and its destruction was the god Orlusz.

This 21 page adventureo details a small overland journeyo and a dungeon with about twenty roomso. Mucho Texto Bloato that all endso with stabbing thingso. 

I don’t know. I just went with it.  

Ok, ice witch chick, legacy and  heir to an empire blah blah blah, who lives in a hovel in a fishing village, hires your level eights to go raid an old temple for her. It’s full of undead. When you get to hoveltown (population … 40?) you find it’s been raided and is occupied by berserkers from the northlands. Ok, they’ve hung half the villagers from the giant oak in the middle of town (noice!) and taken the other half as slaves, marching them north. Ice witch chick is not among them. You track her down, by following tracks I hope, and she gives you a ley to get in to the dungeon. In you go. You then suffer through twenty overly long rooms full of backstory while you kill undead. You can talk to three of them, but, they probably attack also. Adventure over. 

We’ve got two sins here: backstory and hacking. The NPC that negotiates with you, to hire you is ice chicks retainer, a full 6HD in his own right.  He gets a full treasure list. “Treasure: Scroll containing the spell Charm Person (Navi knows how to use this, though he is not a magician), Bright Red Silk Jacket (worth 30 gp), Silver Rings on each finger and thumb worth 5 gp each, Leather Armour, Shortsword, Dagger, Light Crossbow and ammunition, Riding Horse, 15 gp.” Because he’s the dude that hired you? This reminds me of the 3e adventures where the local fry cooks all got full page stat blocks … just in case! In the fish village we get this description “In the village, the hall of the headman was once the focus of the community, and provided space for everyone to feast on special occasions, as well as the headman‘s private quarters. Further, guests were put up in the hall, either in private rooms, or in the feasting area itself if space and numbers did not permit.” Yup, that is a headmans hut. DO you know how I know this? The entry is labeled “Headmans hut.” Defining what something is only a way to pad shit out. Why put in  the word Elan is your just going to put next in parens (vigorous spirit or enthusiasm.) Yup, that’s what it means all right. Outside of ice chicks hut is an ice statue of a barbarian. Obviously, ice witch turned him to ice. The adventure tells us that if it’s summer then it has started melting. Then it tells us that the ice witch turned a barbarian to ice with her flesh to ice spell. Did she now? I would have never guessed. “In the old worship of Orlusz, entrances to temples were deliberately shaped this way, in order to invoke the underworld aspects of the god” I can’t say enough how that sentence just improves my D&D life. I would have run a boring and prosaic D&D adventure, but, then, that sentence, telling me backstory on the architectural details of the ancient worshipful architects just really sold the thing for my players. This shit drives me fucking crazy. I can handle an aside or so, but, when MOST of the text is padding I just wonder what the fuck was going on. Drop in a Cormac McCarthy story while you’re fucking at it. It has as much relevance to the adventure at hand. When encountering a dragon “It is a male, though this will  not be obvious to anyone not expert on dragons.” I guess we hang out in different groups online. …

And then there’s the combat. Basically each room is just combat. With undead. Got a cleric? Maybe there won’t be combat then. Let’s see … level eights auto turn up to … 5HD? With 8HD being a 50/50 chance (I’m looking at S&W.) Seems like a chill thing to me. I can’t really think of a more boring adventure for level eights than a bunch of undead, most of which are sixes or less with the big bads being seven and eight HD. *YAWN* ALso, I love that monster stats are elsewhere in the text sometimes … if this is the second time you’ve encountered the monster in the text then you’ll need to page flip to find the stats. 

It’s just reams and reams of  backstory and explanations and little more than that … with that little more being hacking. And no real treasure to boot. 

This is $11.34 at DriveThru. The preview is just the cover. Sucker. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/119970/tomb-of-the-necromancers?1892600

By Joseph Bloch
BRW Games
1e
Levels “Medium” (which is 4-6)

The Eventide Valley has always been a place of mystery for those who dwell in the surrounding lands of the Great Empire. Isolated, backwards, and content to keep to itself, the valley has always been a source of rumor and legend. You have come to this valley to discover its secrets and find yourself in the peaceful shepherding village of Argylby, which has been the victim of raids by a force known only as the Outer Ones. But is there even more going on here than you suspect?

This 27 page adventure presents a short dungeon crawl in a ten room complex with mi-go. Really just a simple hack, there is little going on here of interest, in setting or language.

Buggems, No! Buggems, No! (I wonder if I can have that put on my headstone?) This adventure starts with the party witnessing some flying fungus crabs attacking a farmhouse. After driving them off and getting to the village they are told they come from an old temple. Inside the old temple the party kills ten-ish rooms full of things. Rewarded by the villagers, they are then betrayed as the villagers try to kill them at the feast in their honor. You know, the usual. 

It takes 27 pages to detail these twelve encounters, the opening farm attack, the ten rooms and the villagers attack. 27 letter sized tiny font two column pages. Only about eleven are used for the adventure, the rest being appendix, of course, as these things are wont to do. But, still, thirteen encounters. That’s not even a one page of text, right? (To be clear, the main ten encounter dungeon takes about two pages of text.) And how can this be? 

Let’s look at the first entry for the village! “SHEPHERD. All of the shepherds’ houses in the village have the same floorplan: the ground floor is a barn where the animals are wintered and cared for, while the family lives on the second floor. This is the home of Jakub Massey (F0, 4 h.p.; AL NE), who usually takes his flocks into the Eastern Moors. He is a down-to-earth type unconcerned with larger issues of morality or cosmic wars and is married to Zofia. They have 3 children, and all are members of the Church of Shatur. He has a flock of 200 sheep and 2 dogs to help tend them (AC 7; HD 1+1; 4 h.p. each; #AT 1;DAM 1-3).” Are you not entertained?! This is the prosaic miundantiy of life, explained in great length, adding nothing to the adventure. That is not the purpose of the text in the adventure. The purpose is not to explain to me the life story and motivations and family tree of some random ass dude in the village. Or, twenty random ass homes in the villages. The purpose of the text is to assistthe DM in running an adventure. And, thusly, we ask the question “How does this text contribute to the adventure at the table?” It doesn’t. It doesn’t springboard to anything. It isn’ anything interesting. To be sure, we can toss in an aside or some colorful characters, but, in general, the text should be much more related to things that can or could happen. And that Shepherd entry does none of that. NONE of the village entries do any of that. This is nothing but trivia. A huge amount of time and effort must have been spent on this. WHich could have been MUCH better spent working on the dungeon entries. Or, something interesting in the village. Or very nearly anything else. (Dare I hope … more appendix pages?!?!) Spend your fucking effort on the fucking adventure. Jesus, it seems dumb that I have to say that. (I noet that there is an interesting entry. A local “bad” family keeps to themselves. Their enemies have a tendency to appear all over the village in many pieces. Turns out they worship their gret great great great grandfather. WHich is actually a bar-luge hiding out in their barn over many generations, content, and now kind of likes the family, in a protective sort of way. It doesn’t do anything for the adventure but is, at least, kind of neato)

The dungeon is ten rooms. They are boring. They contain backstory. “CELLAR. Formerly, this room was used in a “descent to the underworld” ritual when the shrine was active, but is currently unused by the mi-go.” Great. So … empty room? Oh, oh! How about a room with a local tinker staying in, a spy and double and triple agent? “He can be found in most places throughout the valley, leading his dog-cart full of various bric-a-brac that he sells at farms and villages, trading gossip, and performing minor repairs to metalwork with his portable metalworking setup” Seems like maybe his entry should not be in the dungeon but in the main text, yes? So you can meet him before? Shit is just thrown in anywhere and everywhere in this adventure. Anyway, go room to room and kill a few things and maybe talk to a brain cylinder. The usual de rigeur mi-go shit but with swords instead of shotguns. 

Yeah you do it! The villagers throw a feast for you and lead you in to the sacred grove, where they get rid of their weapons. You want your reward, right? THEY ATTACK! Oh no! All of the priests in the village know hold person! They are gonna sacrifice you! But you are clever adventurers, right? When you met the head priest you cast detect alignment, right? Not to worry brave DM! “A detect evil spell cast upon Hilbreth or his fellow clerics will not detect any emanations, as ordinary character alignment is insufficiently strong to be detected.” Ha! The old wound! This in spite of the text saying “Maintaining a pleasant façade at all times, even when he is bringing down a knife to sacrifice an old friend to his god, he has a beneficent smile on his face” Humph. But, then again, you can’t have a level 4-6 adventure with evil intent andbackstabby without nerfing detect alignment, can you? 

There’s nothing here. Backstory and trivia. A simple hack. No adventure in the village. None of the greater conflict between religions plays out. No intrigue or warning glances from villagers. Just backstory, trivia, and hacking.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is only three pages. It doesn’t really show you what to expect in any way.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/504009/adventure-module-e1-war-from-the-stars?1892600

By Evlyn Moreau
Self Published
Basic
Level ... 4?

The oasis is filled with cactus sprouting large yellow flowers. The water flows between a cave mouth and a sandstone crevasse.

This 42 page adventure describes about twenty locations in and around desert oasis With Shit Going Down. Creature creativity abounds with an occasional turn of a phrase that is wonderful, but it can’t sustain that and doesn’t support the situation it wants to develop.

The vibe here is Yojimbo. We’ve got this oasis with these cactus flowers. The pollen can be used to make some decent drugs. A caravan arrives in a few days to pick up a drug shipment and drop off silver and spices as payment. On one side of the oasis is a group of thieves. On the other side a wizzo who has charmed a bunch of humanoids and dressed them up as his frock coated retinue. Standoff motherfucker! Also there are cactus cultists running about. And some halflings that live in the tall purple grass, reminiscent of dark sun without so extreme a disposition. Wanderers and such, of course, and the cactus goddess and her daughter. And right in the middle a group of clueless pilgrims who have stopped off to rest on their way to somewhere else. Enter Le Parti, the fireworks going off in the gas factory. 

The monsters here are a delight. The kangaroo rats without arms that only eat the skin … living or dead. Owlbear people except instead of a bear its a cactus. Even  turning the halflings in to plains hilljacks and dandy charmed monsters and a sisterhood of filth who never wash, the other thief band vying for control. New monsters and giving a spin to the old and usual make them fresh again, and exciting to run. 

And there is a turn of the phrase here and there that is magnificent. The clueless pilgrims “knowing only prosaic and ordinary sin” get a couple of sentences to describe them and then “They’re the deadmeat teenage spring-breakers of the ancient forgotten fantasy world, this being one of those pilgrimages that ends up being a big party.” WoW! So much here! Shades of Camp Crystal Lake! Clueless fuckwits as the victims, turning up dead, hostages, fucking up shit. I love it! That one phrase just really fires the imagination. Not just “You can use them to get things going” but the deadmeat teenage spring breakers thing just overloads the brain with possabilities. This is EXACTLY the power of language and the appeal to our shared cultural understanding. A short sentence can be overloaded with context that brings so much more to the table. A perfect description leads to so much more, be it imagery in the DMs head for a well crafted adjective or adverb sentence, or like this, the appeal to the shared understanding and trope. When this thing hits it hits REALLY well.

There are a decent number of things here to complain about. “Beasts” are mentioned in a couple of places but never described … although they are stated .The pilgrims, in particular, could use a few names and quirks. The caravan doesn’t really come in to things at all, in terms of what they are expecting and what they are paying for it … it’s all abstracted. But, worst of all …

There’s no Yojimbo thing going on. If Marky got with Sharon and Sharon got Cherese then that’s something. It’s better than just saying that Marky, SHaron and Cherese are their names. But, I think, what we’re looking for here is a little bit more. We want some situations going on in just a bit more details. There is, to be sure, a “Situations” page in the book, listing everyones thing, but it’s just, I don’t know, a motivation? “Protect the cactus” or “Trade for some flowers.” And these are just repeats of the text found in the adventure keys. But, in spite of this adventure having a map with keys, it’s not a keyed adventure. Or, shouldn’t be. There is a social element here. What we want is something that is potentially explosive. Some situations going on, secret liaisons, blackmail opportunities, the ability of the party to profit, maybe a hothead and/or a lovers thing ala Mercutio. But we don’t really get any of that. We get  quirky gang that wants to sell drugs components. And another quirky gang that wants to sell drug components. THis is certainly better than them NOT being quirky. But there should be more here. SOmething things to prompt some opportunities for the party. 

I recognize there’s a spectrum here. I’m not looking for plot, but I am looking for more than minimalism (which this is not, to be clear.) I want things that, like the spring-breakers that are deadmeat, fire the imagination and make me want to do more with it. That’s the sign of a very good adventure. This is not a very good adventure, but, if all you want is a location where you can bring 90% of the action and situations then this is it. 

This is Pay What You Want at itch.io, with a suggested price of $2. 

https://evlyn.itch.io/spinetooth-oasis

By Danilo Pellegrino
Mr Pilgrim's Tomes
OSE
Level ...5? "Low Levels?" 

The swamps near Gren are infested with strange creatures preying on travellers, the hydra has begun her yearly hunt and the river woman’s daughter has vanished. Last year the neighbouring towns have all gathered together to mount an expedition inside the swamp, but none returned. With nothing more to do priests, druids and citizen have gathered a 2000 gold pieces to clean out the swamp and save the river woman’s daughter from certain death.

This 26 page adventure uses ix pages to describe fifteen rooms in a vegepygmy lair with a hydra. Nice map, but that doesn’t help much for an adventure missing the good parts and spending too much time on the bad.

The map, dungeon map that is, for this adventure starts out a little weird. There are two towers, each on a little earthen hillock, and each with two simple levels. One of the towers has a collapsed wall that makes a kind of ramp in to it. The towers are connected with a raised covered bridge, and, inside, there are a couple of not-covered bridges over a small lake that are lined with wooden stakes, leading to caves. (Where things get the boring old cave treatment again.) It’s kind of an interesting start for the complex, and has the air of the messiness that emulates real-life ruins. 

The rest of this is a mess.

We’re told that the river womans daughter is missing. How do we know that? No clue. She’s the nymph that keeps the swamps foul waters in check, so, I guess the foul waters have returned? There’s not enough fish? This all sounds overly dramatic for something that has just happened? It’s just that nothing in the setup makes sense. The intro talks about a yearly hydra hunt. That never comes up. There are vegepygmy on the prowl. That doesn’t come up. The river womans daughter thing … doesn’t come up. It’s just a one-legged one-eyed one armed man who will give the party 2000gp for helping the town. Helping them with what, exactly? It’s not clear to me at all what the town thinks their problem IS. 

There’s a hex crawl. There is a decent amount of space devoted to the overland journey wanderers (although, monster stats seems to appear in some cases and not in others?) and some decent ruins to appear on a table. The ruins aren’t really anything other than notable features though … a low ruined wall … and nothing else. Just window dressing. And, also, the hydra base is one hex away from the town. SO … overland journey? It just seems, like a lot in this adventure, that something is off, or missing, or misunderstood or something. Overland journey? Yes! One hex away? Well … is that an overland journey? That needs the page count devoted to it that is devoted to it?

The village “lies on the edge of the swamp like a sleeping dog.” I don’t even know what that is. A typical room entry is pretty straightforward with things like “The once grand corridor is now a rotten tunnel covered in thick layers of rust, mould and patches of fungi. All windows have been barred, keeping the room in near darkness all day long.” The hydras lair, proper is “A tall, 20ft, cave with a mucky floor and a great bed of reeds on the northern corner. Here the hydra spends most of its night sleeping or eating its daily prey.” I note that there is no mention of the hydra in this room, other than it saying “Monster: 1 hydra.” So, yeah. Thrilling tales of adventure. 

And this is the way the adventure goes. It’s just a hack with a straightforward “say the answer to the riddle” puzzle  showing up so you can open a door. Oh! Oh! I forgot this one “ A circular room, filled to the brim with fungi clusters and moulds. At its centre stands a great pillar of fungi, encasing a cadaver with a cloth over its face” That piller of fungo, with the cadaver and cloth covering it’s face?! Never mentioned again. 

The treasure is light. Almost certainly VERY light for the adventure at hand, with a hydra in it. 1d6x100gp and 1d4 jewels. Enjoy that magnificence. And I say “almost” because I have no idea what level this adventure is for? A hydra is … 8HD? The  vegepygmisies are mostly one’s? It says “low levels”, but, there’s a hydra? And no trick to killing it. I don’t know man. Just another weird missing thing here.

The gaps here are, by themselves, frustrating. The things that should be that are missing. And then combine that with the very simple interactivity of a straightforward hack and riddle room and lack of treasure, and no real evocative room descriptions.

This is $5 at DriveThru. There is no preview. Sucker!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/503983/against-the-hydra?1892600

by Rick Maffei
Expeditious Retreat Press
1e
Levels 2-3

Bandit and humanoid raids have increased on Ashen Ridge rendering the trade route increasingly more dangerous. Spurred by a recent, brutal attack by humanoids that claimed an ingot caravan, guards and all, the elders of the towns below the ridge have put aside their differences and agreed to reclaim and permanently re-staff the fallen watchtowers. Engineers and guardsmen stand ready to attend the towers, but first they must be scoured of any threats and wildlife. The towns have put out a call for brave adventurers willing to seek out the towers, assess their condition, and cleanse them of hostile humanoids and beasts if necessary! Will you hear the call?

This twelve page adventure presents four-ish adventuring areas of a ten or so entries each, for you to stab your way through. Lots of backstory in each entry turn the caves of chaos in to rather long-winded examples of what it should be.

There are some old watchtowers along a ridgeline and the local towns hire you clean them out so they can be garrisoned. For hitting up three watchtoweres, which they KNOW have bandits and humanoids in them, you’re gonna get the princely sum of 500gp. Fucking live it up boys! 500gp! Speaking of, monetary treasure is WAY on the light side, but a gem of seeing, pearl of wisdom, +1 manual (bodily health, iirc?) and a tooth of Dal-Vahr-Nahr reside within. Along with a necklace of adaption, esp, and a decent amount of other magic. But, yeah, just in cash and jewels you’re gonna be hurting a little at this level range. Oh, while I’m on the plot, there’s some subplot that involves  L6 fighter, and his L1 cronies (six of them?) hitting you at the end when you’re wore out. You see, he’s a member of the town council and has been getting kickbacks from the goblins in tower two. Having been outvoted in the Hire Adventures vote he hits you at the end to keep you quiet. Not that there’s much to give it away anyway. Basically it’s just a pretext to hit you on the way out. I don’t really get this. There’s three different watchtowers and a little fairy grover to deal with. Which one does he hit you after? The second I guess. And takes up A LOT of words. I mean, A LOT. It doesn’t really add anything to the adventure before or during it, and afterwards it’s just stabbing Lareth. But, sure, whatever.

And I feel like this adventure does this kind of thing A LOT. B2 and the caves are note exactly a masterpiece, but they are terse to a very great degree. This thing could be as well if the designer could keep the backstory out of the room descriptions. “In a rear corner of this cell, behind a loose wall stone, is a brilliant yellow topaz (worth 500 gp). A bandit imprisoned here stashed the stone for future times and later escaped while being moved upstairs for questioning, only to be slain by an irritable owlbear in the woods some miles distant while making his way back to his hideout. Neither the tower’s original inhabitants nor current residents know about the gem.” So, I’m not opposed to an occasional aside or two in an adventure. But, also, I prefer them when they add to the overall adventure trajectory. Here, everything after the 500gp portion is just backstory. WHY is the jewel here? Well, let me tell you why … When we look at this entry we can see that far and away the text bloat here, in relation to the content, is way out of proportion. And it’s this way with EVERYTHING in this adventure. Why use one sentence when five more are possible? The town council of, like, seven or nine people (a select group from a larger council of forty or so, the text tells us …) is described in detail. Because they will hire the party. It’s fucking insane. There’s no real reason for them to have multiple paragraphs each,or the backstories they do. It’s great that you grew up in Virginia. It’s great that the hogs got the fever. It’s great that you moved to SanFrancisco and prospered in dry goods. But, man, I need to know what I need to know NOW to run the fucking adventure at the table, not the adventure twenty years ago before I had eight kids. We’ve got a small font and a lot of words. Not a good combination.

This is an assault mission. You are stabbing things in the three towers, one with bandits, one with goblinoids, and one with a yellow musk, ending with a fairy kill in their grove. Mostly everyone just sits in their individual rooms to die. Notes about bandits reacting to the noise in room one are found in room two, where the bandits are, instead of where the noise/reaction is needed. I guess you can stab things as an adventure. I’m not the biggest fan of just stabbing, but a good ol assault with a sneak up and plan and infiltrate thing can be a great one. I don’t think this is that though. The towers just have, like three or four rooms each, usually. That’s rough. I guess the bandits hiding on the second floor, with no way to reach them, can be interesting. I suppose the town council would be shitty at me for undermining a wall and collapsing the thing on them. Mostly, a gem of seeing, painted back and used as a paperweight, is what the interactivity here is going to be. Do your tactical assault, 1e style. 

This is just way too long for what it is. I get that, perhaps, you need a page count to publish something, physically. And maybe twelve is the magic number here, hence the smaller font. But cutting back on the text bloat and padding and working a bit more on some interesting descriptions of rooms, magic items, or jewelry would have been nice. Not to mention, perhaps, a bit more involvement in the tower portions. A slightly more complex environment for our fours and fives to take on. Basement tunnel in. Trees too close. I don’t know. Some pretext to get inside and bluff? Nothing certainly precludes this, although the adventures lean is certainly to the “they attack!” side of things. 

I guess the publishing spectrum runs the gamut. Some will suggest changes and some will copy edit? 

This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages, which shows you all of the intro, tower one, and part of two. I really like the inclusion of the areas around the tower, which you can see here in the preview of one and two.  

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/502703/advanced-adventures-45-the-fallen-watchtowers?src=newest_recent?1892600

The Dour DM
Self Published
Knave
Levels 1-3

A magical barrier that has long held the threat of the Frostclaw Orcs at bay has suddenly begun to falter. As orcs begin to push their way south, Queen Lillian Farborn has sent out an edict across the kingdom: find the wizard Talbrek Zod before the barrier falls and the lands descend into war and chaos. Great rewards await those who answer the call. And so, mercenaries, soldiers, and adventurers begin to arrive in the town of Westhaven. Their motivations vary, but their goal is the same: find the wizard of the Iron Spire.

This sixteen page adventure features a few dungeons with about nine rooms each and a pretext of a hex crawl. Terse one pagers surrounded by a lot of text meant to be a framework, I suppose. Ya gotta commit to have something of value, and this doesn’t.

Yes, I know. It’s Knave. And it’s from an adventure jam. But the designer sent me a nice little note that said they were new to the OSR and brand new to putting together content like this. I know, I know. This is not a recipe for success. But, also, they’ve been reading the blog and released it for free. So, they tried to learn about adventure design and they didn’t expect their first work to be The Greatest Thing Evar. So, I’m going down this path.

The idea, I think, is to kick around the starting city a bit and pick up some rumors and then set off to the various dungeons to look for the missing wizard. Weirdly enough, he’s in his fucking wizard tower, so, maybe go there first? That makes both the hex crawl portion of this (which is really just an overland journey to the various dungeons) and the other dungeons just a sideline effort. The wizard iced in a wizard tower. Go to the wizard tower. If for no other reason than to loot it. Thus, our little section on gods, the city, the overland, the other places … these are not really going to contribute much in practice, I think. And one much question some of the choices in this section, beyond including the local gods that have no impact on the adventure. The city is a big map, with like four sentences on it, one for each business. “Best brothel in the city” or some such energy. There’s not much reason to detail the city AT ALL. While the NPC’s are terse described, I’m not sure their inclusion in a “hiring you” hook is really going to justify the word count spent about the city. And, in particular, the “you search a hex” table looks to be just weird for the sake of weird. “You find a sack of mushrooms,” Ok. Great. That’s it. Im not really sure that’s enough to build an interesting encounter off of. 

“The enigmatic wizard Mezzerklop constructed his maze of mystery as a form of sick entertainment. Once inside he watches in delight as helpless souls traverse the murderous Maze” This leads us to rooms like “Painted blue room, a large lavish blue chest, glowing white question mark on top of the chest.” Or, maybe, the intro to the second dungeon: “Tormented by her appearance and madness, she preys on treasure hunters looking to rob the tombs wealth, warping them into undead zombie minions.”  We are presuming an adventurer economy. The bog witch doesn’t exist for her own sake, shes preying on treasure hunters. The wizzo has constructed a test. This is a little too meta for me. And, then, the tonal shift to super mario land just adds on to it all. Am I running a grim orc invasion or a pastel marioland? 

The dungeons here, the format used for them, is a little weird. We’re essentially talking about four one-page-dungeon type things. You get the map and the wanderers on one page and then about nine room entries on another page. Laid out in a two column table. A kind of first impressions in one column and then some details.mechanics in the second column. So, “1) The Chasm: Stalagmites cover the floors and ceiling, a deep fissure filled with strange mutated bodies, a rickety rope bridge.” and then in the second column “Trap!: Bridge collapses if more than one person tries to cross, 40’ drop. Mutant corpses grapple those who fall in.” I’m not sure I’m surviving a forty foot drop, but, good energy there. Always love a good Pulled Under By A Pile Of Corpses thing. Another example might be “Four statues of ancient elves that are covered in moss and mold, slippery and slimy stone tile floors, damp cold stale air.” I’m cherry picking a little with these, they are the better examples in the adventure and, perhaps, a way to do things. But you’ve gotta work those entries, given that they are so short, they need to all be hitting hard, And they do not. They tend to the one sentence variety, which is a little short. Just a couple more to develop things well would have maybe made all the difference. 

Also, the ratio here is off. Four pages, maybe eight with maps, for the dungeons. About … thirty rooms? In sixteen pages of adventure text? It just feels off to me, like the density is a lair adventure for 5e rather than something more involved.

And then, I’m confused. The final dungeon, in particular, the wizards tower. I’m kind of at a loss for figuring things out. The orc warband leader is standing outside of it. Why? I don’t know. All his minions are out raiding the city and on the wandering table for the hex crawl but he stands there alone, brooding. How do you get in to the tower? I don’t know. It says there is no entrance. I guess maybe you are meant to grab the portable door from a different dungeon? And then there are these glyphs and magic portal doors inside, that usually get powered by killing a Level six monster (!.) I’m not gonna pretend to understand Knave power balances, so feel free to ignore me on that one. “Lightning strikes every minute; hits character on 1 of d6 (3d6 direct damage).” WOOF! This shit is ROUGH!

So, perhaps an overly minimally described dungeons that show some promise in some of the rooms, with both evocative text and room ideas. Just not hitting very well, and a lot of space wasted on things that only tangentially impact the adventure. The jam contest constrained things to sixteen pages in a digest format, and I think the impact of tha shows. Just a tad more intro how the dungeons are supposed to work and a little more rooms for the wanderers and wilderness and town to breathe, A little more for the rooms. A scope, perhaps, too large for a city, hex crawl, and four dungeons.

This is free at DriveThru

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/498754/the-lost-wizard-of-the-iron-spire?1892600