tenfootpole.org

By Ian Hickey
Gravity Realms
2e
Levels 1-2

Crashing into an unfamiliar world, the adventurers begin to uncover past events between two warring factions and a hunger that led to their downfall: a hidden cult dedicated to the return of the Great Toad, Father of Death and Rebirth, an ancient being responsible for birthing the universe! For many decades, the cult has been in hibernation. But now, a wandering tribe of ogres has awakened the cult, becoming its servants and capturing tributes to feed the Great Toad in preparation for an ancient prophecy. The stars are in alignment, and the hottest of summers is upon us; the way to RA’hala will soon open, and the father of death will consume everything!

This 117 page adventure uses about seventy pages to describe sevenish scenes, some of which are mini-dungeon and some full blown, in an interconnected set of adventures that don’t mean anything. Mostly stabbing, the great set up is marred by overly lengthy text, as usual, and problems with the encounters. It’s not a disaster, but not worth running. Except for that set up …

So I’m taking my first run through this and I get to the section on weather on page elevent and it says “Clean, fresh water will be hard to find as dead bodies fill the lakes and rivers.” What’s that all about, I think to myself. Then, I get further in: “The day of the falling, thirty thousand people fell from the sky. Screams and thuds broke the silence of the summer heat.” OHHHHHH! That’s fun! This is a whole Dungeons and Dragons ride at the amusement park, except thirty thousand people get transported to the sky WAY above the new realm. Bloody splats! A friendly wizard zips by to give you a levitation potion, so, you know, you’re safe. And others survive also. You come together, only to find that you are revolving in to neanderthals AND your metal is rusting fast. Oh, also, there’s disease everywhere because of all the bodies. And, also, it’s super hot and dry, so you need extra water. (That fucking shit is not my favorite. I assume there’s some game trauma buried in my past when some asshole DM took away all of our shit because of it.) Anyway, you see a tower nearby and fight the small group of cavemen goblins in it. You get a hint to the curse, and follow that to a manor, and then meet a paladin, and then that leads to a village thats been raided, and then to an old dwarf mine, and then to the titular Ogre Caves, and then to an extradimensional space where thousands of high priests of the toad god from thousands of planets are all sacrificing people to bring the toad goad, avatar of universal destruction, back so he will destroy the universe. There’s nothing you can do, so you save the paladin from YOUR evil high priest (which is not as great as it might seem) and then run through a portal to another world. As the adventure says, “without the adventurers entering RA’hala, Imhullu [the paladin] dies, and the Great Toad God, father of destruction and rebirth, returns and consumes the cosmos. Can the adventurers stop the coming of the Great Toad if they enter RA’hala? No! They can only save Imhullu.” 

So, congrats, Friendship was the goal the entire time. I guess, maybe, you leveled? It feels wrong. I’m down with meaningless adventuring. I may even be down with a plot. But to have the goal of the adventure be a plot and then not be able to impact things in any way?  I mean you collect things along the way in your mini-adventures/scenes in this adventure, but, if you don’t collect them, not to worry, the evil high priest has them all collected for you. The lack of any free will, of your choices matterring, is just nonsense. This is the bullshit of one of those adventure paths, except all in one adventure package.

Looking at the read-aloud, it follows through on the railroad theme, along with over-reveals. “By the sound of it, the tower is infested with goblins; their shaman leader stands on top of a pile of stone blocks in the tower’s centre. Waving primitive stone weapons and covered in fur they prepare for your attack” or “ Two large palisades flank the entrance outlined by the campfires. From behind the palisades, a hail of poisonous toads rains down on you.” It doesn’t matter what you were doing, the designer has deigned that you must now be attacked. Nerfing any of the parties actions. You have no free will, you are but a pawn. This is not fun. This is the kind of shit that causes players to disengage. Don’t fucking do this! We can also see in places an over-reveal in the read-aloud. The RA telling the party things that they should only really be aware of after a deeper examination of the rooms. Not to mention, some of the re-adloud is just confusing. “A faint glow of light spills in a doorway at the far end of the room.” … uh, that room has no doors? I guess maybe a hallway?

This all extends to the DM text where things are padded out through some sloppy writing. “This large kitchen has an entrance into the dining hall and pantry and, a corridor connecting it to the reception and ballroom.” It’s the old wound, my lord.  Which is frustrating because in places there ARE hints of things being done correctly. “The large wooden dance floor, once polished and intact, now warped and buckled, covers the room. A large wooden piano dominates the southwest corner of the room” Getting near the piano can cause the floor to collapse. And we’re told that, or its hinted at anyway, by the warped and buckled floor. That’s the way you telegraph a graph in read-aloud. 

There is a disconnect in this adventure in places. We’ll get mounds of text but then that whole “falling through the air” air just comes out of nowhere eleven pages in. Likewise, there’s this paladin that things hinge on, supposedly the only reason you exist in this adventure, and yet here’s what we get “Shortly after the adventurers clear out the Duke’s Manor and attain 2nd level, they will encounter Imhullu in the wilderness, possibly near the kitchen gardens. Alternatively, she can show up near the adventurer’s camp. Imhullu is with a handful of survivors. They are being attacked by an ogre raiding party riding giant toads. Shouts for help attract the adventurer’s attention.” That’s the ENTIRE adventure section. Mountains and mountains of text, and then this. That fucking paladin gets almost nothing in the adventure. And yet thats who were supposed to be focused on saving at the end. (Again, for no fucking reason other than doing it.)  Tonally, this follows as well with things like “The Shamen of the Crow and Chief Mayor Randy Adams.” Uh … ok, it is 2025, I guess. If I’m not mistaken, he runs the inn that “The inn has turned into a hub for drunken Neanderthals” Sure thing man. It’s just got some weird tone to it in places. More of a Gamma World vibe, but in a weird way. 

Did I mention the challenge levels here? Level one? AT the dukes ruined manor, the second location? It’s got a garden. Want to check it out? “The adventurers will be randomly attacked by ankhegs if they wander around the garden” Uh. Sure. I don’t know. Doesn’t feel kosher. Hydras in the wilderness table? Ok, I guess. Maybe. But, also, you WANT the party wandering in the wilderness. It feels like punishment for playing the level one adventure instead of real world verisimilitude. I’m up for high level shit, but not being FORCED on the party. It’s as if the level one party must travel through Tarrasqueland for two weeks where every 30 minutes a tarrasque shows up on a 1-2. Uh. Ok. You TOLD them to do that! In another place there’s forty ogres. As enemies you are supposed to kill. I’m not even sure this is kosher in a 5e adventure? And, on that front, almost ALL of the interactivity in this is just stabbing things.

So, I went on a lot about hating this. And I don’t like it. But, also, it’s not as bad as most things. If you wanted a plot based adventure where most of what you do is stab things then this would be ok. You can see hints of decent things. Yeah, it’s padded out. And I hate the RA. But it does manage to do a plot based multi-location adventure in a less cringy way than most. Plus, you know, it starts with all those splats and that ending where no matter what you do the toad god shows up to start consuming the universe. There’s something you don’t see every day …

This is $14 at DriveThru. Fourteen dollars and no fucking preview. Great. Sucker

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/513622/ogre-caves-of-the-toad-god?1892600

By Newt Newport
D101 Games
S&W
Levels 3-5

[…] So, at the end of a long trek made at your own expense northwards, you find yourself outside the door of an inn where Dr Dee has paid for your lodgings, according to a letter you hold that details your current employment. It’s an ominous missive that details Dr Dee’s precarious position as Warden of Christ’s College in Manchester, and worst still that he has divined that your journey north from Chester will take you along a “Road to Hell”.  Its nine in the evening, there should be music and sounds of revelry from within. It’s strangely silent. You look at each other expectantly. Someone is going to have to take the lead and open that door and go inside.

This 74 page adventure uses about forty pages to describe four environments in an interconnected plot of an (evil) NPC to travel to hell to save his (evil) sister. Mountains of backstory for everything and meaningless window dressing encounters aside, it’s just a hack with nothing more interesting than stabbing going on. 

The adventure is in four parts. Following VERY explicit instructions, you end up in an inn. It’s a  bloody mess with headless zombies and ghouls and shit running around, as well as a few survivors of what happened. Which was a portal to hell being opened. You then go to a village nearby, to a church. To find the town on fire and the undead and devils and cult mobs running around. From there you go to a clearing, meeting some dudes along the way you turn out to be good werewolves who want you to clear their manor of undead. Stopping, or not, you end up in the clearing, transport to pocket hell, and meet the dude who opened the portal who has traveled there to save his sister. Lucifer would like you to do that also, for it seems that this pocket hell was created by John Dee to imprison the wickedly evil sister, and Satan don’t like the competition for Hell space. Or you can side with the devil in charge of this place, which is what John Dee wants you to do, and save him and kill the evil knight NPC dude so his sister remains imprisoned. I note that there are no real consequences outlined for either of these scenarios, as follow ons to your campaign. 

Nor is there any real treasure to be found for your level fives. While listed as a S&W adventure it’s got a VERY LotFP vibe with the whole post-Elizabethan England thing, John Dee, etc. But, also, the treasure seems VERY light for even LotFP. It’s basically non-existent. So, good luck leveling. Someone will, I’m sure, tell me that’s not the point. Then why was it written for a Gold=XP system? 

Let us, though, move on to the actual adventure. Do you like backstory? Well have I got good news for you! “Chester is near to the border with Wales. The city was established during the time of the Romans, when it was known as Deva, and was to be a strong base for the conquest of Wales. After the Roman withdrawal, the city was further fortified by the Anglo Saxons, against the invading Danish, and was the last city to fall to William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest. During the Middle Ages it became great trade centre, not only with the local North Western region of England but also with neighbouring Wales and internationally via a port just north of its Water Gate.” Note: the party doesn’t Chester. The inn they stop at is nearby Chester. This is CLEARLY just padding out the word count. As is the ELEVEN pages of title and backstory before we even get to the players introduction read-aloud shit that begins the adventure. Absolutely none of this is needed. I can see, though, that you are not convinced, so please allow me to continue flogging this horse. “Five past eight. Mrs Weston, who is in the main bar, goes mad, runs screaming into the entrance hall (see room 1) and bolts the main door before sitting down next to the headless body of one of the customers, John of Rochdale. Mr Weston, who is in the bar initially, flees upstairs pursued by a headless zombie, who he pushes onto a large hanging candelabra from the first-floor landing, leaving it impaled there. He then hides in the upstairs water closet.” Ah! A timeline! No, not exactly. For the party arrives at the inn at nine. These are all past events. A detailed timeline of past events to explain absolutely every room in the inn portion of the adventure. THIS IS FUCKING MEANINGLESS. The inability of designers to focus on ACTUAL PLAY AT THE TABLE is maddening to me. It seems so fucking obvious. But, then, that’s not a kickstarters goal, is it? Designed to be sold to be read is a far different thing than designed to be played. 

“As well as being headless he is missing his trousers (which he left in his room, see7a upstairs). John was getting dressed at the time of the miscast spell after sleeping off the worst of the afternoon’s drinking (he took to his room at three in the afternoon) and ran downstairs, to see all the commotion. He made it across the bar, saw all the head exploding mayhem and decided to flee the inn via the front door, at which point his head exploded, thus ending his escape”

Hey, in the inn you can meet a Level 23 time and dimension travelling elf. Who doesn’t really talk to you much, and certainly not about anything relevant. He’s been asleep. Then he disappears. That was great, eh? Oh, hey, yeah, there are also two irish demi-gods hanging out in part three in a small cottage. No, they don’t get involved in anything. They are just there, pretending to be old people, with no sign that they are demi-gods. This is all self-indulgent shit. “Oh, tee hee hee, look! Demigods in the cottage! Isn’t that cute” says the READER. 

Of the actual encounters? Here’s one. This is in the satanic church in the burning village in part two: “This area is filled with twelve wooden benches, arranged in two columns of six rows

Crammed in to this area are twelve cultists, dressed in fine clothes. They follow one of two paths: one of Black Magic (Sorcerers) or one of arms and force (the Warriors).” And then some stat blocks. Do they attack? Are they hostile? Is there ANYTHING to this encounter? No. There is not. Almost every single encounter in this is a stab. Just mindless attacking. A very few are someone appealing to you for help/to join their side. With no real information as to what happens if you do. 

It’s a fucking hellscape of an adventure. Mountains of backstory, no interactivity to speak of beyond stabbing. Swords & Wizardry my ass. And to top it all off, a long myth in italic that takes up a good deal of a page. 

This is $11 at DriveThru. The preview is eighteen pages, most of which is that shitty long backstory. You do get to see two pages of inn, to bask in the padded out encounters. It could use more sample pages of actual encounters, to help folks make an informed purchasing decision.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/270306/the-road-to-hell?1892600

By John Abner
Lichyard Games
OSE
Level 1

Kragnuk and his band of goblin rebels had been traveling for days and their stomachs were thin. He knew it wouldn’t be long before they turned on him. But something told him his luck was about to change. A new lair was near – he could feel it, almost see it. The Watcher had borne witness to the birth of technomagical marvels, observed their inevitable abuse, and recorded every fiery detail of the fall of an ancient empire. It could bear no more and sought for release. But to whom could its burden be passed?

This 26 page adventure uses ten pages to describe twelve rooms. It’s using a “Read Aloud+Statblock” format for most things, meaning not much in the way of interactivity. Random trivia abounds … to no real end.

Ohs Nos! Some goats have gone missing! And now a local family is missing also?! The village decides, rather than mobbing it up and no information to go on, to send a small group of village n00bs to the local evil ruins. We don’t get the missing families name until way late in the adventure, the rumors have nothing to follow up on. If you prod me to tell the party that Frank and his boys been up to the ruins, then you damn well better give me a sentence on what Frank and his boys know. Because the fucking party is going to go asking around for Frank and his boys to get some information. There is this disconnected nature between whats written in the text and whats implied by the text that is prevalent throughout this. As if things were written down without really thinking about the implications of it. I’m not saying we have to agonize over it (thats reserved for the room description, which I want you flog yourself over for each and every one) but just a quick lookover for dangling plot threads would be nice. Like ol Frank and his boys.

Ok, so, evil space empire fell a long time ago. Buried in these ruins is The Watcher. He’s dying and needs a replacement. He’s using the goblins to lure someone in who he can transfer, in not a nice way, his duties to. I’m not a fan of the lure you in” pretext adventures, but, ultimately, it’s just goblins in a ruin with a couple of techno looking rooms. 

Ok, so, we’ve got twelve rooms. Let’s look at one of them: This chamber is empty except for debris, dust, and cobwebs. Many footprints can be seen arcing toward the far-right corner.” Ok, so, nothing really there. It’s a lame description though. Instead of saying its empty there should be a description that leads the party to say that its empty. I wouldn’t not even imply anything about the footprints, unless they are SUPER obvious. I might mention dusty or dirty in the description and then wait for the party to follow up with questions, at which point I can mention footprints to them, as the DM. A good room description delivers a vibe of the environment to the party, and inspires the DM to riff on it, expanding upon what the designer has actually put down on paper. It also teases a bit. You want to kind of hint at things in a read-aloud. It’s up to the party to [ay attention and follow up with questions, about things like looking at the dust. It’s this back and forth that is at the heart of D&D, the back and forth between the players and the DM. The DM providing a description and the players following up on what the DM has said and then the DM following up on that and so on. By just outright stating, in the read-aloud “You see footprints” then you are destroying this experience. Again, unless it’s super obvious.

A second example, if you please! “

This column-lined hall is dominated by a fearsome sculpted demonic face at its far end. Its open mouth forms a portal into an adjoining room. Its tongue unfolds into a 3-step dais. Goblins sit around a softly glowing pile of embers, jabbering in their high-pitched tongue.” In this we see just a read aloud description followed by only a stat block in the DM notes section. Nothing more. Which is too bad, the whole demon mouth and tongue thing could have been cool. 

For All Sad Words Of Tongue And Pen, The Saddest Are What Might Have Been, as they say. It’s just a fight. 

And, I note, another oom tells us that the goblins in it will react to a fight in that demon tongue room. Better, yes, to put that information in the demon tongue room? The DM needs that information there so we put that information there, not buried in an appendix in small print? Or in the next room. There are other missed things as well. At one point you have to climb up handholds in a piller to reach an upper room, coming up through a small hole in the ground. Thee are two goblins in the room, with spears, who stick you as you come through. And absolutely NO notes about that. Just tha they have spears and stick you as you come through. COME ONE. Falling advice? Can’t clamber up advice? Takes three turns to get out? ANYTHING? That’s a nice setup, but it’s implemented so piss poorly that in the end its just another boring old fight. 

“Hidden among the rubble is a wooden chest containing the clan’s booty.” Worry not, gentle reader, the treasure in that chest is not detailed. We are told, in the beginning of the book, to roll on the appropriate tables in the OOSE rule book for treasure. Well fuck me sideways. What the fuck is the fucking point of buying this fucking thing then?

“The door to this area is made of an unknown metal and secured with a bar. It appears to have been airtight, for when it opens, there is a noticeable hiss.” This is a travesty. It’s a barred door. You don’t do read-aloud for shit like this. You tell the fucking party that its a barred door and let them describe opening it, only to respond with the fucking hiss. “We go through the south door” Oh, it was barred and made of a strange metal and it hisses as you open it.” Remember when I said that the implications of what was being written were being ignored?

Finally, I want to talk about the control room in the dungeon. It’s got the required crystal things to play around with to make different things happen. AND ITS TOTALLY RANDOM. There is no pattern to figure out. There are no clues. You just insert shit and roll on a table. Maybe you see some colored liquids flow through pipes. Other than that you have NO IDEA what the impacts of what you just did were. Not that it would matter anyway since it’s completely random. This is not interactivity. This is random for the sake of random. 

Just a hack.

This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages and you get to see several of the rooms. Good preview!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519369/eye-of-the-watcher-for-old-school-essentials?1892600

Adventure Squared
General/Universal/OSR - But really 5e
"Low Levels" - Ha!

Who are the Snake Monks? What is the Blood Cradle? Why are the villages being terrorised? Uncover the answers to all of this and more when you explore the Blood Cradle of the Snake Monks!

This 36 page adventure uses about nineteen pages to describe fifty rooms in dungeon full of … serpent people! The rooms contain a variety of challenges, classic and not, with conceptually decent, if fun house, ideas. But its all done in a weird flat bullet minimal format … that is somehow also quite long? Also, someone REALLY liked the snake scene in Raiders.

“It’s art if the creator says it’s art!” No, it’s not. This is labeled as a generic/universal adventure compatible with OSR blah blah blah. It’s actually a 5e adventure, mostly. Just because creatures have HP and AC doesn’t make it OSR. Even if, tonally, you can manage something akin to the OSR, and even if you dump in enough cash for a gold=xp payoff, there is a WILDLY different power balance going on. The boss here has like AC18 and 180HP. A far cry from the 20HD monsters of B/X and 1e. What is that, like, forty or fifty HD? “Low levels” my ass. This is 5e. Oh, oh, but it also says things like, in the monster appendix “We put in some modifiers for you to use if you wish”, which means creatures have a line that says something like “+3, +1, -1.” This is just a fucking dystopian hellscape. Write it for 5e or write it for the OSR. Fucking christ.

This thing sucks ass in every single way. Except one. It’s got some pretty decent room concepts. A room with a valley/put that is LOADED full of snakes down there. A room full of treasure chests and urns and things that rearrange themselves to block the exits. The room with three apple trees … with apples … A room where you move some portable walls around to literally wall off a deadly fog. The super dark room where torches only light 1 foot around you. A room full of ethereal whisps swirling around … which are snakes. There are quite a high number of these ‘specials.’ Certainly no one can accuse the designer of just having a room with a monster in it to stab. 

I don’t know what to say about them. They suck? None of them really realize their potential. This takes a variety of forms, with things sabotaging the rooms concepts, but in its most fundamental form, they are presented as nothing more than concepts. Imagine sitting around with your friends, drinking, brainstorming ideas for a dungeon. “There could be a room with a pit in it full of snakes!”  or “How about a room that sucks up the light full of shadow monsters!” or “You could get trapped by the treasure you want”! This is what this adventure is doing. The opposite, I guess, of trap and door porn. You can go too far, and most adventures do, in the mechanics and descriptions of the effect of an area. You want just jus the right amount of detail, of the critical pieces, to help the DM run the room without being prescriptive. And then there the opposite end of the spectrum, where this lies, which only gives the BAREST concept of a room concept. These are essentially one liners of each room. And relatively short one-liners at that. 

This is not to say that the actual room keys are one line long. Oh no. They are going to take up about a third of a page to half a page each. How can this be?! Well, the formatting sucks ass. First, it’s single column. And it’s using a very terse bullet like formatting for the rooms. This means A LOT of whitespace for something like seventy to eighty percent of a line. Then, it’s padded out. A room name, A three word description. Room dimensions. And a bullet system that only a mother would say is good. 

22- Crystal Caverns 
Natural cavern approx. 70x100ft. High ceiling (70ft). 
Uneven natural rock floor interspersed with stalagmites and stalactites jutting from the floor and ceiling.
-Crystals 
• Grow from all of the surfaces but mainly concentrated on the walls. 
• Refract light in mesmerising patterns.
• Valuable- 1KG is worth 50GP. 
• Extremely sharp when broken and can be carved into cutting tools or weapons.

You can see, from that, two types of bullets, a hyphen and a traditional round one. The hyphens are the major headings with the bullets containing additional information for the hyphen item. What’s missing is the indent. And we can see, here, from this room key, the three descriptions of the room. “Crystal Caverns/Natural Caverns” and then the “Uneven natural rock” line, and then the “refract light” line. These are all very business-like descriptions. There’s no real joy or inspiration in them. Yes, on some level you have described the room, but the room isn’t sticky, there’s no firing of the imagination. It’s a fucking giant crystal room full of dazzling lights. You need to witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational english language. Oh, and sections are hyperlinked. That room full of chests? It’s hyperlinked to a “Chest Table.” Which actually takes you to the “effects of the fog” table. The actual chest table doesn’t exist, but there is a “treasure table” full of things like “50sp” and “200cp” and “shovel” or “flask of oil.” I think, perhaps, we differ on the definition of the word avarice. And, of course, the improper use of randomness is prevalent throughout. “Here are six things that could be in the drawer!!’ is not the proper use of randomness

Rooms in concept only, no real room descriptions of note, and a format that makes no sense at all. Triple word score for AVOID.

This is $4 at DriveThru. There is no preview Sucker!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519371/blood-cradle-of-the-snake-monks?1892600

By Dan Collins, Paul Siegel
Wandering DMs
OSR
Levels 1-3

Something is poisoning the land – livestock die, their bodies riddled with parasites, and a foul stench drifts from an ancient, long-abandoned temple. Locals whisper of a monstrous hatchling, born from a tainted egg and rotting from within. Treasure-seekers speak of a golden idol hidden in the depths, but none who entered have returned. Whatever festers below is spreading, and ifleft unchecked, it won’t stop with cattle.

This five page adventure uses just under two pages to describe an eleven room dungeon based on a small Dyson map. It was a youtube broadcast to create a dungeon in two hours. It’s better than most of the crap put out, and shows a certain flair for an interesting situation. This places it solidly above average, but that says more about the adventure market in general than this one. In the end, it doesn’t suck.

I’m going to hit this one extensively. It’s five pages. The front cover and back cover are two, and contain nothing of note. There’s a page of background information that also has the map and the wandering table. I might remove the back page and/or put the fluff on the back cover or front cover. This would free up room on the map/wanderer page. In particular, the map and wanderers are reference material, but the background information and notes about 1sp=1xp are generally things you only ever look at once, hence the move off of the reference page. The wanderer table is a little bland, just monsters, although “evil pixies” gives a hint of whats I’m suggesting: uses the freed up space to put in something that the wanderers are doing. Just a little nudge for the DM to riff off of. And then, maybe, put in some dungeon dressing, what the walls/doors/moisture is like; something for the DM to look at during play to beef up and nspire the room descriptions they will be riffing on. FInally, I note the Dyson map. It is what it is, but, also, I doubt it’s sacred; slap on an asterisk or a little monster label for those rooms that might have a monster in it making noise or that could react to the parties noise. IE: the reference page should be a great reference page.

The eleven keys take up just under two pages. But, also, there’s a lot of whitespace there. If you are married to just eleven rooms that’s not bad. The first room reads “1. Eight human veterans stagger toward the exit, their bodies ravaged by infection. Half are weakened (-2 to attacks), while the others are too sick to stand. Their eyes are fevered, and their treasure weighs heavy in their hands – 2 gems (20 sp each).” (then a terse stat block) I like this. I might give it a room title, llke “Boggy hallway” or something, to anchor the description to come. You want the DMs mind the right place, oriented and preloaded, for the description to come. I know that you’re using “veterans” as the monster type, but I might riff a word or two more to make them a hdge-podge of military uniforms, deserters, or something. Not evil, just a ragamuffin band. I love the ravaged and staggering words, staggering in particular gives great imagery. Eyes fevered, great. Maybe “yellowed eyes” or something also. I’m not sure “treasure weighs heavily” and “two gems” match up there, but I like where it is going. Barely able to lift their gems or something? But a pretty good job overall. Lso, 2 gems? Come on, there’s a ge table in the back of the DMG; use it.

Room 2. “A massive nest formed from a tangle of branches and debris fills this chamber, crawling with giant centipedes. Shattered remains of giant eggshells litter the floor – one among them is somewhat more intact, its occupant having successfully hatched.” Massive is a great word. I like the “tangle of branches”, that also is great imagery. Shattered remains of eggs … perfect. The next crawling with centipedes … oooh! Great! I might add a smell or a moist floor also; you want them quaking in their boots when they walk in that place. 

Room 3: “Two towering statues stand in alcoves along the western side of this hall. A near-invisible tripwire stretches between them – disturb it, and they will crash down in a shower of stone and dust. “ Towering! Great! Some argonath imagery there! I’m not usually a trap and door porn guy, but I might add a peg description or just a BIT more in the statue descriptions. Both holding out their hands in a “STOP” sign or something? Just a few words more to cement things. The top in shadows?

Room 4: “Steps lead down to a shallow two foot deep pool of murky water, fed by a cracked and blocked fountain in the center of the room. The cause of the blockage – a small pouch of 12 gems (100 sp each) – lies wedged in its spout. Swarms of flies buzz across the damp stone walls.” A few mpre adjectives. Crumbling steps down? Slick? Moss-covered? See how the water is “murky”? Why arent the stairs something? You can go too far with this, but I’d dump something in. Also, a small pouch? I think not. Small is boring. Cracked leather? Furry sealskin? Something more interesting. I like the swarms of flies, but, also, I might do a little more. There is little implied risk here. Why not put the flies around the spout? Maybe it’s a dead rat filled with gems? Hence the flies? Something to give the party just a little pause in the spout situation. Make them adventure with trepidation … even if it doesn’t play out every time.

I’m going to stop here. These are all general pretty good. A plague mask poison gas magic item also, so, some nice theming in places, although another couple of words would be in order. The rooms are a little disconnected from each other. A more consistent overall design, with things leaking over from room to room, would have been nice. Overall though, not bad. I might have given it a Ne Regerts if it were just a longer and/or the room descriptions were just a bit better or the design was bit more intentional. Pretty decent effort though; I would not be angry if this were likt one of those old 3e era pamphlet adventures. A little generic, but chill.

This is $1 at DriveThru. I know there are only two pages of rooms, but the preview is only two pages, one of which is the cover and the other the generic intro/reference page. Stick in a page of the keys so we know what were buying.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/518555/wdm05-dungeon-design-dash-5-infested-perch-of-the-mammoth-egg?1892600

By Will Jarvis
Inverted Castle Games
WWN
Levels 1-2

Lightning cleaves the sky. High above, a vast city emerges from the clouds. Is it the ancient temple-city of Mitosu? Has the Veiled Emperor returned? This starting adventure has players venturing into a ruined tower that fell from the mysterious city in the sky, crashing into the remote mountain valley of Glynmoor. Explore the charming town of Squabville, subdue the restless spirits awakened by the floating city, and discover the secrets of the fallen sky ruin.

This nineteen page adventure presents a small four level tower with about eighteen rooms in a fallen fragment of a floating sky city.. It captures the drama of small town life a bit, as well as supporting the village with a couple of sites. The phrasings, descriptions, and interactivity is almost enough to make me like it … a rare thing indeed!

Dude is doing some interesting things with this adventure. Right off the bat, we notice this is for Worlds Without Number … but can be used with any OSR system. What’s that mean, in practice? Truly? How do you take an adventure for a system you know nothing about and then convert it YOUR system of choice? Most OSR systems are some derivation of B/X, so it’s pretty chill. But, then, when we get to one of the more niche systems, how does one convert that? Are you an expert on Worlds Without Number? I’m not. But, also, the designer stuck in a note: “Hey, this is designed for 1sp=1xp.” Well Howdy Doody there! That’s actually something I need to know if I’m going to run this in B/X! Dude actually put some thought in to how HIS system differs from the more mainline systems and told us about that! 

Moving on, there’s a small town to support the adventure, and, for what it is, it’s interesting. The various businesses all have some local intrigue, a lot of small town stuff. Ostensibly, a dude on the town council wants you to take a look at a rumored sky tower that has fallen nearby. Secretly, he wants to control the whole valley and is hoping you’ll find something in it to help him. Also, he’s got the last kings regalia in his house, looted from the nearby burial mounds. Also, he’s blackmailing some local bandits to hit some trade caravans to better his own business position. Also, his daughter has probably swindled a local rancher out of his stock. He’s bitching in the local tavern. Also, one of the wandering events has three thugs drag the rancher out in to the street and give him a public beating. It’s not overdone. This isn’t a cartoon villain or Boss Hog. This is all great. The NPC summaries are terse, laid out in a small personality/goals/wants things. Easy to reference and you get exactly what you need to run them … and, more importantly, the situation they are involved in. One dudes wife is missing and the ocala are getting up their courage to go pitchfork mob out. The tavern dude has some shit to share, a quirk that he flies in to a rage if the food at the other place is mentioned. This all makes sense. You can run it. Situations, and just enough about them and the people in them to riff on them and make them your own. I’m pretty fucking happy here. Help the herder round up his cattle that got loose and get a rumor and friendly face out of it. That’s how you do rumors! Fix that fucking sidewalk in front of my house, councilman, if you want my vote!

Magic items are at least interesting, if not well described. “Horn of the Valley (carved from a gwibber skull, blowing it forces a moral check for 1 HD enemies, usable once per day” A very nice minor effect with some local color. Later on we get a suit of plate mail you can  wear … which is actually a kind of broken automaton … so you do feel compelled to kill al ot of vermin. Also, you could repair it and get a new buddy to help you out. That’s some interesting stuff. Magic item? Ally? Curse? It’s just a thing, with all of those aspects to it. 

Descriptions here are serviceable, for the most part. “Rubble has been cleared to open a passage inside. It is completely dark. Sounds of mechanical clanging can be heard coming from within.” It’s not going to win any awards, but it is also not so bad. I like it, but don’t love it. In another place “Piles of rusted tools and machinery parts. An inky black puddle of oil covers most of the floor.” Decent vibes. “The roof of the uppermost chamber has partially collapsed, and a heavy rain is falling through the opening, leaving the floor slick. A large amber crystal is built into a gleaming steel apparatus in the center of the room. It flickers intermittently” Broken dome, rain coming in, amber crystal, flickering. I don’t like the ‘large’ word, it’s boring, and I don’t think the overall vibe comes through that the designer was hoping for. I don’t get cavernous, or wondrous out of this. Certainly not a throw away meaningless/useless description, but it doesn’t really cement the scene either.

The dungeon does not quite that potential energy that the village does. You are, essentially, looting a mostly vacant structure, scrounging for a couple of treasure and dealing with some vermin. The final room has a weather control device, and a puzzle around its use that is the right kind of puzzle, with a few clues scattered throughout the complex. A trap or two is well telegraphed, with a burned body in the room and so on. These are all great, but, the situations that made the village good are just not present in the dungeon, and the environment, proper, feels static and dead. I suppose that’s true to life, but, also, this is a D&D adventure. We want to be doing things. It’s got that same vibe as Tower of the Stargazer, you know, the static environment thing?/ 

I’m a fan of the village and the (VERY small) regional encounters. The writing is serviceable and the formatting, with the word count, is fine. The dungeon proper is a bit of a let down from the highs I was looking forward to up to that point, but, also, I think I’m looking forward to the designers next effort.

This is free at DriveThru. Good job on making the first adventure free.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/518942/fragments-of-the-floating-city?1892600

So, I’m in Charlevoix yesterday, intending to stop by the Dairy Grill I drove past, but I need a few days worth of groceries so I stop in at some local grocery. Looking for local products, I see Michigan Cherry BBQ chips, skin on! I’s in the deli and a giant bag. 160 cal per serving and nine servings. I wander on, not wanting a bag that big. I eventually see the chip aisle and think maybe there’s a smaller bag. And there is, so I get it. I just looked. It’s about half the size of the big bag. And there are eight servings?!?!?!?!

Elderlight Press
Generic/Universal
levels 5-7

The quiet village at the mountain’s base is gripped with fear—protective symbols line every door, and whispers of shadowy figures haunting the forest grow louder. What sinister forces lurk in the mist? What ancient power stirs beyond the veil? Gather your party and ascend into the unknown, where the shadows themselves may not be what they seem…

This eight page “adventure” is just the flimsiest of pretexts to have some dice rolling in … three encounters?. It’s a read-aloud followed by a combat, in outline form. 

There is a giant spectrum of games. You can play Warhammer. You can play one of those indie RPGs in which you explore your own death for some catharsis. Somewhere in the middle is D&D. I’m out camping right now. Just like D&D, camping means something to people. It could mean backpacking in to the woods over a week. It could also mean sleeping in a giant RV in the middle of a parking lot like campground while 600 grandkids run around and you sit around watching Tv outside. Or any of a thousand different variations. Now, someone says to you “Hey, wanna go camping?” Which one can you expect? Alas, it is the same with D&D. The D&D experience I’m looking for is not 4e. It’s not Warhammer. I’d play those if I wanted to play those. I’m not fanficing my character or min-maxing them. I’m a brave little tailor with a glint in my eye and sharp knife up my sleeve in a hole in the ground. I guess you get to play 4e D&D if you want, but I just don’t see the appeal when games do it better.

And thusly this adventure. It’s sitting in the generic/universal category but it is clearly 5e. But it’s the kind of 5et that is 4e. This is just the barest outline of an adventure in order to get to the die rolling. It starts with the Village. Literally the bolded heading ‘Village’ followed by “Dynamic Moment: As the players arrive, they witness a villager hurriedly nailing new protective charms to a door. A scream echoes from another house, abruptly silenced. This adds immediate tension.” You will get no details about that scream. It’s just window dressing. It’s all just window dressing. The first encounter is you travelling to a grover in the woods and getting attacked. I guess you talk to the villagers and they tell you they are scared of the grove and so you go? Anyway, you’re walking to the grove. There’s a short read-aloud ““The trees grow denser, their trunks twisted and blackened as though scorched by an unseen flame. The mist thickens with each step, swallowing sounds and casting strange shapes in the periphery of your vision. Then, the whispers start—faint voices at first, like distant murmurs on the breeze. But soon, the whispers form words: ‘Turn back… your fate awaits.’” And then combat starts as ‘Shadow Creatures’ attack you. What are they? Your guess is as good as mine, all we get is a pretty lengthy stat block with no description or ambiance to their attacks. The next encounter is your skill challenge, as you navigate some cliffs and ledges. Make an Athletics or Acrobatics roll to navigate safely. Last up, another very short read-aloud that says you’ve arrived and then are attacked by the grove’s shadow beast guardians. COMBAT! (In color! Caje is a cajun!) 

If I ignore the half page stat blocks then the text here takes two pages. Which STILL seems excessive for a short read-aloud followed by a combat or skill check. There’s literally nothing more to this. Agnostic my ass.

For the sake of a civilized society you must be allowed to enjoy this gameplay. But, try as I might, I don’t see it. I guess, if that’s what you’re after then this adventure is perfect for you. It’s got a grid map for your minis and You get a little read-aloud before your die rolling starts. So, you found one that fits your style perfectly?

Also, there’s no fucking level range in the marketing/cover/etc. And no fucking loot. 

This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages, and the core six pages of text, so you do get to see the entire adventure Good preview. And worth it to see a fine example of this sort of thing.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/517397/the-mistwood-ascent-the-shattered-veil-mini-series?1892600

By Silvio Navaretti, Alberto Iamone, Julien Fenoglio
Forgia Storie
OSE
Levels 3-5

At the end of his long life, the wealthy herbalist Cavillo Spiga required his descendants to tend to the Botanical Cemetery’s garden where he would be buried, under penalty of forfeiting the family’s immense wealth. For decades his heirs have sent a large number of gardeners every month to keep the Botanical Cemetery in perfect order.  But this month no gardeners have returned and the wealth of the Spiga family is in danger! Can you prevent it from falling into the hands of ruthless probate lawyers?

This 54 page adventure details a small cemetery and tomb, with about twenty locations overall. It is meant to be a light heater farce, I think. In the end though it is just wordy for what it is, as a walking tour of a cemetery with a What A Clever Designer Am I vibe.

I don’t like salmon. Or tuna, for that matter. Specifically, I don’t like them in their “steak” forms. Cod or halibut? Sure. But generally I loathe steak fish cuts. The rest of you can enjoy them while I silently judge you. And the same goes for these farce adventures. It’s some kind of tone thing or something. I can’t stand it. It’s not just farce though. I can get behind some farce, and absurdity. It has something to do with the comedic elements. I think they are supposed to be comedic? They aren’t. They are lame. It’s this pastiche. . You’re supposed to think its farce, or supposed to think it’s funny. But it’s neither; it’s just Try Harding.

Ok, so, cemetery with a dude buried in it. He’s relatives got his money as long as they planted a specific garden in the cemetery and kept it well maintained over the years. He’s back to unlife and, in the words of the adventure “The Herbomancer is working on the recipe for the perfect herbal tea”

See! See! Ohhhh boy! Isn’t that great! Guffaw guffaw guffaw. You’re supposed to think it’s funny. I don’t know, maybe you think it is funny. I don’t. I don’t think comedy works well at all in D&D. Sure, you can stick elements, but the suspension of disbelief required means that, at best, I think you can push things to a magical realism type of thing, with brief steps over the line. You know what I have a problem with though? “d. Bee-drawn: Tens of thousands of bees pull the wagon each with its own tiny harness tied to the front of the wagon. It moves 9′ per round.” That’s the werebee queens wagon. No? How about? “All goblins crossing The Botanical Cemetery tie a twig to their head. This silly accessory makes it so the zombie gardeners mistake them for plants, watering them, covering them in manure and shearing their hair. Cunning PCs might imitate the goblins to stay safe from gardeners.” This is, perhaps, as close as I’m willing to go. It is stepping on another trope, of the moronic humanoids, but, also, the party putting sticks on their heads is fun. This is my kind of farce, with a deadly edge to it. Alas, this is few and far between in this adventure, with most of it being the loathsome kind. But, then again, maybe you like that loathsome stuff? What I’m looking for may not be what you’re looking for, in tone.

There’s more than enough for me to not like without droning on about the tone. In the first area of the cemetery you meet some zombie gardeners. If you question them then the DM is instructed to ignore the questions and have the zombies recommend that te party don’t step on the flowerbeds. Again, not my kind of zombies, but, whatever. (In fact, I find the range of zombie vibes in published adventures wild. Mostly just generic undead, sometimes the hordes of flesh eaters, sometimes the horror of the living dead, and sometimes you can talk to them. I guess everyone has their own private Idaho?) 

Oh, also, that first room has the key you’re looking for and you’d have to be an idiot to not find it. You’re told that you hear the zombies hoes striking something metallic. Whatever. This is what counts for the heights of interactivity here. Oh, there’s shit to do. But, again, it’s just a pastiche. There’s no reason to really do anything. Stumble about, grab the key and the other part of it. Maybe talk to a couple of people. Turn some undead (zombies. At levels 3-5?!) Anyway, stumble about and interact with a bunch of ZannAAyYY creatures. Yeah you 

Oh, you get to travel through a body. FLATULENCES • Every 5 rounds: Muscular contractions in the walls create waves of explosive gas that are forcefully expelled toward the exit” That’s right man, never miss an opportunity. 

Oh, the format? Mostly facing pages. Which means two pages per room. Ug! And it’s trying to to the necrotic gnome type formatting. But it doesn’t understand what the purpose of that is or how to use it. Bolding leading to subject headings? Forget that shit, how about just bolding and subject headings not connected to it? The necrotic formatting works because it all works together. You have to understand the why of it to understand how to use it effectively. Otherwise it’s not bringing the clarity that the format is famous for, it’s just, again, putting on a pastiche. It looks like it should be chill but it’s actually worse than if it wasn’t used at all. What if I made a dictionary, and it KIND of looked like it was alphabetical order, but, turns out, it wasn’t? I mean, it DOES still have word definitions, right? It’s just a major pain in the ass to use.

Oh, one encounter has an amphitheater with a bunch of skulls in it, screaming at each other. Are you going to hear this before you get there? Yes, of course! Well, I mean, not in this adventure. Oh, no, no! The map! It’s fucking unnumbered! It’s just a fucking art piece that you get to follow along with because each room has something like “Northwest door: Leads back to

CAVILLO’S TOMB ENTRANCE. • Northeast door: Opens onto VICTOR’S WALKWAY. • Southwest door: Swinging panels. Leads to THE TASTING ROOM.” What the fuck? JUST PUT A FUCKING NUMBER ON THE FUCKING MAP! Why would you not do this? Why would you not put the dictionary in alphabetical order? It takes, what, five seconds? Maybe a minute, total, if I do it REALLY well and legible and number the text also? Also, almost every other adventure on earth does this, so you decided not to it? And, where is the level range?! Not on the fucking cover. Not in the text description on DriveThru. I guess I’m buying this because i just love the publisher and/or designers so much. Fuck that. I’m looking for a level 3-5. 

I loathe this sort of thing. More than the tone. The idea that wandering around and interacting with a bunch of skulls in an amphitheater is fun. I mean, it is. But it’s not interactive play. It doesn’t really lead to anything. It’s just another example of one of those museum tour adventures. In those, you get to wander, look, but touching brings you no reward and only danger. In this, there’s no reason to interact with anything. I guess you need a key part, so you’re fucking around looking for it, but, also, this is like writing a two page description of the mundane flower shop in town, along with the little flower girl that runs it, all so you can pass on a rumor to the party. And you can smell a flower! Roll on the table below … That’s not interactivity. NPC’s get a couple of lines to communicate their vibe and a couple of bullets for what they know, and a couple of sentences for the environment they are on. Much more than that and you’re just Such A Clever Designer. Look, I’m not saying it’s not possible, but I am saying it’s improbable.

This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages. You get to see the unnumbered map, and a bunch of meaningless text. Nothing of the actual adventure keys, so as to help you make a purchasing decision. Thus, bad preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/517605/the-herbomancer?1892600

By Luiz Eduardo Ricon
Hexplore Publishing
OSR
Levels 3-5

There’s something strange in the neighborhood of Duskenville. Suddenly, not only are people not dying, but all the recent dead started to rise and walk again, seeking to settle their past scores. Hired by a noble knight with a particular dark predicament, the PCs embark on a nightmarish investigation trying to discover why this is happening, while trying to defend the townsfolk from the ghoulish attacks of skeletons, zombies and other insidious undead monstrosities.

This 42 page adventure, inspired by the death art of Hans Holmumblemumblemumble, featur ing ten “place as you will” encounters inspired by the artwork pieces, as well as a small castle with an encounter in it. I don’t know man, how you get 42 pages out of that. There;s nothing here but an outline and some forced art encounters

You know Hans, you love Hans. Iconic artworks. And our designer thinks so also, basing a decent amount of the adventure around the artwork. You’re stopped on the road by this knight who wants your help. No one in the village is dying and the dead have come back to life. He pulls aside his shirt to show a giant hole in his chest. When you go the village everyone says that dudes brother, the knights brother, is an asshat and it must be because of him. In between talking to people you see these little vignettes from the (real world) art pieces. A priest being tormented by a skeleton and so on. You go to the castle to find the brother, to explore it’s empty abstracted locations, only to find him with his normally dead wife, who is very much not dead, but just a little groggy. Oh, also, Death is trapped in this glass globe, all Sandman Episode One style. Free death, kill the dude, adventure over.

This years theme for shitty designs seems to be Abstraction. There’s this mania for not putting any specifics in an adventure. So, hey, I can get behind that. In, like, a one pager. Err, I mean, a good one page dungeon would have specifics, but, like, a one page outline of a much larger adventure? Sure. How about an entire booklet of adventures each of which is one page long, and each of which serves as a seed that can/should be expanded to several nights worth of gaming? That might be an interesting product (that I wouldn’t review.)  But, let’s take that same degree of abstraction and instead make it fill 42 pages? I think not. But, evidently, I’m in the minority because everyone and their brother seems to be writing adventures like this, where they seem terrified to write down anything specific to the adventure at hand.

Each NPC/location in the village has couple of bullet points of information you can learn. Like “The priest is disturbed by a growing number of people unable to pass on, despite last rites.” What the fuck does that mean? Unable to pass on? Disturbed?  Does dude has his head cut off and is still talking to folk? I’d say that would warrant quite a bit more of an emotion than ‘disturbed.’ It’s abstracted, with no specifics. It’s the concept of an idea, putting the heavy lift on the DMs shoulders. When, in fact, the entire point of having a designer attached is to put the heavy lift on the designers shoulders. Otherwise, why is the DM buying the adventure? Let’s not go all ‘spoon feed the DM’ here; as always, we’re looking for enough to be there to inspire the DM, to give them something concrete to riff off of. The ability to do that, time and time again, is what separates a meh adventure from a good one. Or another one at the guardhouse like “An old incident report details Lady Natassya’s death, noting discrepancies in witness testimonies.” Well what the fuck are they? “Locals are scared but refuse to leave, saying “something” won’t let them.” WHAT?!?!?! Something wont let you? Details? Is it a ninety foot tall demon? You are compelled to run back? A curse kills you in five minutes? I’m not cherry picking here. All of the rumors and information are like this. Weirdly abstracted to the point of being meaningless they were included. “Hmmm, why won’t the villagers leave?” says the designer to themselves “Oh, I know, something keeps them from leaving. DONE!” WHAT?! No. Absolutely the fuck not. That’s the fucking color that makes the adventure. I note, also, that the castle in the end is abstracted also, with just some throw away descriptions of nothing. “A door to the west leads to the service wing, also accessible by the door at the top of a granite staircase rising from the courtyard. There’s nothing here except the marks of past revelries and merriments” Sure thing man.

The only specific are the ten little vignettes. Andthese are ridiculously described, in detail. Lets take … The Skeleton Marching Band! Why did an entire marching band get buried in the graveyard, in their uniforms and with their instruments? Fuck it. I love going to zombie walks and am always the scuba diver/golfer/tennis playing zombie. “• The band has 30+ skeletons —too many for a direct assault.” says the adventure. “ But, also, this is a level three to five adventure. I’m pretty sure that’s an auto turn?

Did I mention the bullshit gothic font used so that it’s fuckign impossible to read some headings? I shall save you that rant again, but its absurd I have to keep going on about how people should actually be able to read your adventure. Then there’s just confusing lines thrown i. Ine one vignette a skeleton priest has the real priest captured. A party member must confess a deep sin! “If the PC refuses, the priest suffers 1d4 damage and passes judgment” Which priest? Did I harm the real one by not doing what the skeleton said or did I harm the skeleton one by rejecting its authority? And passes judgement? The living priest passes judgement? I guess, maybe, it must be the skeleton priest? 

Oh, hey, also, you’re soul has been being sucked out the entire time, we learn. “ This is a Soul Syphon, sucking the life force from everyone within 1 mile (except Sir Yannis and his wife, protected by amulets). Every round, it drains 1HP from all within range (Save vs. Spell for half damage)” So half is … a half point? Did anyone read this fucking thing before publishing it? I guess this is more of a “they just started the ritual when you walk in the room” sort of thing? Still, turn undead and all that. Anyway, you’ve got ten rounds to finish him off. No, you don’t know this and it’s not telegraphed. The world just ends sort of thing in ten rounds. Guess you should have gotten your shit together and done some mind reading. Timers only fucking work if the fucking party knows there a timer! They have to be forced to make decisions knowing the consequences. That’s what he fuck tension is. Without that then the DM could just randomly declare at any point, while they are in a tavern “ok, the world ends.” Was it even in danger? 

Abstracted to fuck and back, in virtually every part of this. No real adventure, except for the vignettes, which have no tension thanks to the party cleric. “It’s the old wound sire, skeletons are only effective at levels one and two.” There’s no fucking adventure here. 

This is $8 at DriveThru. There is no preview. Sucker.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/518156/danse-macabre-a-bone-chilling-adventure-for-old-school-rpgs?1892600