tenfootpole.org

By R.B. Bo
Deficient Games
D20
Levels 1-3

An invitation—by a Count of a name you’ve never heard. From a Castle in a land unknown around these parts. And a Curse which plagues him, pleading for each of your aid—by name—in exchange for an offer too tempting to ignore.   By next morning a horse-drawn carriage awaited each of you. The dark horses stood silent, their black eyes seeing everything and nothing. The sharp-collared driver shifted on his bench, mumbling to himself. You climbed in anyway. The carriage lurched forward the moment you clicked the door shut.

This 42 page adventure is a castle with about 25 rooms; a respun Castle Ravenloft, the original. It’s got good descriptions and an interesting pre-1e take on encounter/interactivity. But, you’ve got to deal with some pretension to run it. And I, the Padishah Emperor of pretension, am also allergic to it.

This adventure is a respun Ravenloft. We’ve got a castle, a fortune teller, a sun sword, mothers icon and tome, beating heart, and dude McDuderson running around having encounters with the party before he big bads them at midnight. It is fairly remarkable in that it has managed to do what we all wish but almost never succeeds: updating something to modern formatting/sensibilities. And I mean that in a positive way. The number of times I’ve typed something like “this needs a heavy edit or rework”, particularly with Dungeon mag, gives way to dreams of doing this. Some have tried, almost always failing miserably. This designer mostly succeeds. It’s like they did a D&D-Mine but left out all (most?) of the shitty new rules ideas that everyone shoves in to theirs. 

The map. We get a side view of the castle with connecting hallways and rooms with page numbers next to them. But, also, I suspect you will never use the map. At the end of each room entry is a little note on room exits, which I usually loathe. It describes the way to the next room. Thus it is kind of point-crawly. But, also, it gives you that “what you hear/see/etc in the next room” thing that a lot of adventures are missing. There’s not keying, or, perhaps rather, the keying is the page number of the room, which is given the in the exit information. It’s manages to take two things I tend to gripe about, the lack of keys and exit information, and turn them around to instead have them provide value in running the adventure. That’s interesting. Mini maps are included, but not really needed. 

The room descriptions here are also quite interesting. The designer has a penchant for those sorts of terse and evocative descriptions that I think both elevate an adventure and make it easier to run. “You wake to sloshing water and clinking chains. Smells of decay & stagnant water. Darkness surrounds you, save for a single candlelight floating between your broken cells.  Dangling feet above water from a single fetter” We’ll allow the use “You” here since it’s the “you wake up” first description form the railroad hook. Another is “A large underground chamber illuminated by wall mounted candles. The air is heavy and thick with dust.” And while I’m never really a fan of the word “large”, or other boring descriptor words, it IS working hard to create a vibe for the room. Which is what a good initial room description should be doing. And, I mentioned before the exit information, like “to the left faint echoes of screams and the sharp crack of bullwhips.” That’s what you want. The interactivity here is also fairly interesting. You do have some fights. And there is a series of encounters with the more memorable people int he castle. Basically, each time you meet them (thanks to the wandering table) they do something more interesting than the last time, thanks to a provided table unique to each one. And yet this is not the interactivity that makes the adventure interesting. It’s got this weird mashup of styles … something like OD&D meets a video game encounter, maybe is a good way to describe it? There’s this non-standard thing about it, but, also, can you see one of these being a really good encounter in, say, an old point and click title. And I mean both of those in a complimentary way. There’s just some weird shit going on in these rooms. There’s a room with a grandfather clock with a skeleton butler dude tinkering with it. If you offer to help he crawls behind the clock and shouts instructions to you … which the player must then repeat verbatim. Or, a baby being born in one room, that if you take it with you rapidly ages to maturity through the adventure. It’s weird shit. And, it generally has some impact on the adventure, not just weird for the sake of being weird. 

If you wanted to run Ravenloft in one four to six hour session then this is the thing for you. It’s a neat respin of it and good positive example of someone accomplishing an update of something older. 

I did mention the pretension, right? This starts with the following hook: “An invitation—by a never heard. From a around these parts. And a plagues him, pleading for each of your aid—by name—in exchange for an offer too tempting to ignore.” What is it? Never mentioned. You start after having been attacked. You’re in the hanging water room I quoted earlier. You have till midnight, then the count shows up to finish you off. So, better find some gear in the rooms and/or escape before then. *yawn* Also, no one kills you in this. If you die, but monster or trap, you get found later, still alive, huddling in a corner. The goal of the monsters/traps are to raise your stress levels for you final encounter with the count. Which WILL happen. You’re told to make sure the party understands that the count WILL be showing up at a set time, in real time. Like, say, you announce he’s showing up in six hours, real time. Uh huh. It’s got this concept of stress. When scary things happen you get more stress. That raises the AC of your enemies and makes saves, etc more difficult. You can lower the stress also. The adventure sprinkles trinkets throughout. When you find one the player gets to describe their relationship to the object from their past life. You find things like Moms Perfume, or your favorite bedtime story. I swear, I’m not making this up. 

But, whatever. Yanking all of that shit out and tossing in some treasure and getting rid of the time limit shit would turn this from its pretension kick to something interesting to run as a D*D adventure. More so than I6, I think. 

It’s Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $0. I’d download it just to see how they managed to pull this off, at that price.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/458350/The-Count-the-Castle–the-Curse?1892600

By Olav Nygard, Johan Nordinge
Cyclopean Games
Blood & Bronze
Level 1

Enter the Slave Pits, where the wretched are sent to perish. You have stepped away from the light of life-giving Shamash; your trespasses have forced the divine eye of the heavens to dismiss you into the shadows, for if you ever met his gaze again his flaming wrath would surely strike you down. But one day, maybe, you can win your freedom back: by hard work, by cunning or by blood in the Sun’s court.

This 48 page mesopotamia themed adventure features a dungeon with four levels and about 110 rooms. Think of it more as a small region or town and not a dungeon … but with dungeon-like elements. It might be groovy as a three-shot or so or someone looking for something different. Which is a weird way of me saying it’s interesting but a little unworkable?

We’re in some kind of mesopotamia land. You get Shamash and Akkadian references, but it also seems a little dark sunish outside with some ancient civ stuff also lurking around. Okey doke, got it? You’ve been chucked in to the slave pits. You live in a big central cave underground with the other slaves and get taken to work in a tunnel each morning by some guards. Who are the only people with any lights. Oh, also you’re wearing a collar that explodes when any sunlight touches it. Ok, intro is over … what do you do next?

I’m gonna have to jump around a bit for this review to make any sense. The adventure is described in four levels. The upper two are the main levels. This is where the big slave cave, tunnels out to the sunlight, guard posts, work sites and so on. Let’s call this a kind of “town.” And then, down below, are two more levels. This has a tomb in it and is more dungeon-like, at least in the way we think of traditional dungeons. 

But, before the keys start, there are a coupe of pages of notes, including a How To Run This section. It suggests the adventure keys be used in four separate ways, along with some atmospheric notes and themes to go with each section. First, have the party get dumped in. Darkness, despair, exploding head slave collars, etc. Then introduce the slave camp. You finding your way in the “big city”, exploring the slave camp, being sent to work … and finding a light so you can explore the tunnels. Then you’re in the tunnels and exploring, like a more traditional dungeon, and looking for a way out. This is going to be a combination of something like “exploring the kings palace”, since there are guard posts around, and exploring a dungeon, since its dark, unknown, and does in fact have some dungeon levels and puzzles in it. Along the way, both in the slave camp and in the keys, you’ll find a decent number of puzzles (giant heads!) and NPC’s to treat with. And most of them are looking to play Let’s Make A Deal. In fact, the adventure might seem a little slower than most because of this. You both are and are not in a dungeon, and this is one of the better products that communicates that kind of vibe. (Although, I don’t think there are a lot of products that are, appropriately, going for that vibe.) You’ve got a kind of slower “town” pace, with talking to folk, with some Work Your SLave Shift stuff going on in between, while you plan and plot. For once, one of these “escape as prisoners” things really does have enough room to breathe and let the players grow and explore. Most of these sorts of things handle the escape in the very first room; it’s really just an excuse to strip the characters of their gear. But this puts them in an environment large enough, and complex enough, for them to plan and work their little schemes. Sneaking off to explore. Trying to get food and supplies. Making deals with unsavoury folk. And this is all great. If you think of this like a kind of “escape the slum” town adventure then you’ve got the right mindset. Kind of. I mean, you are still slaves. 

Our room descriptions are decent, for the most part. Nothing great but solid enough to support the adventure at hand. Things like: “Empty. Damp walls gleaming with moisture. A rotten rope and some splintered logs on the stony and debris-covered floor hint at the original structure.”

There’s really quite a bit going on here and a lot of good encounters/situations to help support the basic premise of the play. The mesopotamia theme is gonna be rough to work in, and continue on with. It’s meant to be the first game, so, starting with nothing, in the slave pits, is not exactly a gimp. And, in fact, the degree of agency the players have over their characters situations is really quite interesting. A little more on guard bribes, or general slave uprisings, or the like might be in order, since it’s VERY light in this regard. But, if you see the players as loners and/or the general populace clearly not in to going all spartacus, then you’ve got a solid little adventure for continued play. Every resource found is a treasure  … with real treasures being used to bribe people for more of the basics. And it does this all without going too far down the path of torture porn. Just enough to bring the setting home and makes those simple supplies worthwhile while not so much as to make it a grind or eye rolling. 

This is $5 at DriveThru. The eighteen page preview shows you the intro sections, a few keys, and the very good map of level one. You should be able to infer things from there.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/176543/Thralls-of-the-Sun?1892600

By Connor McCloskey
Black Gamberson
OSE
Level 1

10 years ago, a catastrophic earthquake struck a stoic keep on the borderlands of human civilization. Three days later, the keep was attacked from within. How, no one knows. The few survivors say that daemon men from under the ground breached from within the fortress itself, and butchered all who stood against them, leaving the heroic Castellan and his guard unable to mount an effective defense.  A decade later, the eldest brother of the Castellan is to be named a Baron, and has sent out a decree; Anyone who can bring him his fallen brother’s sword in one month’s time will receive 200 Silver, and a hectare of land in his Barony.

This eight page dungeon presents two levels of a certain ruined Keep in a Borderlands location. Great evocative writing, good formatting, and enough interactivity at level one to not make me mad. It also gets purple in places and could use a little more focus when it comes to the monster descriptions. 

This is a duel version adventure, for OSE and Shadowdark. And while duel stated would normally indicate something bad, and while I have been on a poor run with Shadowdark, it is also true that the better Shadowdark adventures DO in fact channel a decent OSR vibe. This is also the first adventure by a new designer. And it’s got three stars on DriveThru. New rule: five star drivethru products and three star products are actually pretty ok. Seriously, whoever gave this tree stars is a fuck. Sure, in some perfect world then this might be a perfectly average adventure. But that’s a world in which 95% of shit don’t suck. 

So, ye olde keep is hit by an earthquake and then some grimlocks tunnel up from below and wipe everyone out. Not grimlocks, in name, but they are grimlocks. Primitive humans, they eat your adrenal glands. What’s that western movie, the one with the grimlock cannibals? Bone Hatchet or something like that? Yeah, that’s what we’ve got here. Some sub-human cannibals. 

And let me tell you, dude brings the vibe for that. “The sound of a rabbit screaming a

death curdle. The Ruk beyond break off its legs at the small joints and drink it’s terrified blood.” Ouchies! This sort of thing is done a couple of times. It does a decent job of communicating the vibe without explicitly appealing to gire. It also, I think, would motivate the players. And player motivation is THE BEST way to get the people at the table engaged. In one room we’ve got a bandit, quietly weeping, hanging from a pillar in chains: “Significant amount of face (including eyes) and chunks of legs and hands eaten. Wants only to die. Begs. Name is Marsor. Asks that Hana in Last Tree be told that he loved her dearly but never said. If Hana is with the expedition she will weep heartily for him, say sweet goodbyes, and end him herself. “ Yeah, it’s kind of tropey. But, tropes exist because they are good when done well, and I think this is done well. It’s visceral, again without, IMO, being gory. There’s this appeal to human emotion also, real human things, which helps ground it. That’s some grim fucking shit right there, even without your (potential) hireling doing her thing. Fuck those dudes! Time to homo sapien those shits! Note also, that this is not drug out in a paragraph or two. It gets in, stabs you in the liver and gets out again. That’s how you fucking do it!

There are spots where the writing is quite good. Look, we’re not talking Paris Review, but, also, this is a fucking D&D adventure, so almost anyuthing not cringy will work. There’s a little village, the new last outpost of civilization, included. The village of Last Tree. It has the last living real oak tree before things turn to scrub oaks. The village overview ends with “the tree died last year.” Sweeeett!

The inn gets the following description. I’m also including the first potential hireling:: “Hot meals, warm ale, cool stone floor, ice cold bar wench. A beautiful stone fireplace; not used. Cheap board (3 GP) and drink (3 SP), expensive food (3 GP). Thugs for Hire (Bandit stats): Half a share of treasure. Tinal -Neutral-Tattooed, slaps back, in deep gambling debt. RP: Untrustworthy Jason Mamoa.” Terse. Good description. For both the inn and the NPC. Gives us a vibe and lets the DM run with it. That’s what the fuck a good description should do. Nary a wasted word. And just about every single description in this adventure is done that way. Written to give a good vibe in a minimal amount of words. Formatting contributes pretty well to this. Bolding, bullets, whitespace all combine for something that is pretty easy to read. Not quite rock star levels but still really really good without falling in to the OSE minimalism format. 

A few notes. There is an overland portion that is rather week. Kind of like a six hex hex crawl. It’s doing nothing. And, it has a rift that could be confused for the valley in B2. The Unfathomable Crevasse. It’s directly between the ruins and the town, so it invites exploration … with none really given or much of a description. The entire overland is much like that and is not effective.

The text gets quite purple in places. The fortress to the north looms dejectedly. Or, a wall that looms above the ruins of the keep, silent, fuming, mourning despair. Uh huh. I’m down for some looming but not the mourning and fuming and dejectedly shit is a little much. I get it, we’re trying to inject that despair and forlorn vibe. But that ain’t it.

There’s also an issue with the monsters. We’ve got a wight, some “spirits” and the Rak baddies. The wight, the former Castellan, could use a good solid description. He’s gonna maybe be a central part of the adventure. (Note, he’s not really focused on in the adventure, but, his presence is there and he can be used to advantage or encountered as a baddie … good focus there without going on and on.) Same for the Rak. Bring those evocative descriptions to them. And, there’s a decent number of “spirits” in the adventure. Some are just apparitions, but some, it seems, are hostile. Telling which is which is not always easy. And, I assume that “spirit” is a creature in the OSE manual? This could be done much better.

Finally, you’re there to get the Castellans old sword. A symbol of power for the new baron. You’re returning it to a priest.wise woman in the town, the representative of the baron. When you get back to town with the sword and go see her she MIGHT be a little off. Cause she’s an imposter now, her body buried under the floorboards. “This person is an impostor, a Cultist of Ramlaat, whose influence grows in the region.” Noice! Good complication when returning to town for something that most folk would just write off as a pretext. 

Really good effort here. I might point to some order of battle issues, the overland, a little sparseness in the interactivity as reason to go No Regerts. Soe may be due to the size, or lack thereof, of the adventure. But, really, quite good. 

This is free at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/450587/The-Ruin-in-the-Savage-Wastes?1892600