Journey Under the Rock

By Marco Fischer
Savvy Thief Studios
OSR
"Low Levels"

[No Marketing Blurb]

This fourteen page adventure uses four pages to describe seven areas in a big rock. It’s verbose, which is weird since it just describes “possabilities.” There is little to no value or things of interest here, mostly because there’s very little specific here. 

The lack of a marketing blurb here is, in retrospect, telling. There’s no overview, no setup. Just some shit about this being a one-shot, exciting, etc. It falls in to a kind of abstraction in its descriptions, a kind of abstraction, needless, that makes the entire thing feel generic and more than a little hollow inside. Get it?! Get it?! Hollow inside!

We start with what The Rock is. It is “The hideout of a long-defunct mages’ guild. Its

last disciple is lost in the astral plane.” Oh, no, maybe it is “Part of what remains of an ancient lost civilization in the mountains, which hid its structures within the stone to protect itself from its enemies.” Oh, or maybe it is … *sigh* Yes, indeed, it is a d6 table. A d6 table to suggest what The Rock is. I LOATHE this shit. Why would you do this? Why would you make this decision? Just pick a fucking backgrund and THEN THEME THE FUCKING DUNGEON TO IT!!!! You know, mages lost on the astral or lost civ or whatever the fuck else. Why would you just put in a fucking table? Somehow six throw-away choices, with none of the fucking rooms themed to any of them, makes the fucking adventure better? This fucking PLAGUE of designers not knowing what the actual fucking purpose of randomness is. Instead of getting an environment designed around something you instead inevitably get content that is more than a little generically themed. And thus it is here as well.

“A village near the Rock is inhabited by descendants of its old occupiers, who want to recover some artifacts with historic value to their people before they are ruined by the current occupiers, goblins, or stolen by greedy adventurers.” Yes. Absolutely. Magnificently themed. I am enthralled. Just fucking pick something already and go with it!!!!

So, I’m not exactly, but I THINK, from the description, that this place is a giant rock that is kind of balanced on a number of boulders, like they are holding or suspending it in a cradle. There’s no real diagram or art piece or anything and the description is not exactly clear. Whatever,. Goblins live inside. How many? “There are a total of 5d6 goblins and 1d6 giant geckos in the caves, as well as a chief of excavation (king) goblin with 1d6 bodyguards.” Yup, that’s what you’re getting. And that’s not even in a room description or two. That count is in some long-winded page long overview of the dungeon. So, you just enjoy splitting up the goblins and deciding which room they are in and so on.

How about a typical room? “Warehouse: This dark chamber with a dry and dusty air houses the materials the goblins retrieve from the Rock. It also serves as a kitchen and pantry, where a pair of goblins trusted by the chief are responsible for preparing and delivering the meals to the dens. In addition to the grub goblins, there may be 1d6-2 additional goblins carrying or bringing in a load every hour. With the exception of water, which is stored in clay jugs, everything is stored inside wooden barrels, suitable for tying to the backs of giant geckos. There will be a total of 4d6 barrels when this room is first visited.” What the fuck is the point of this room? There are six fucking rooms inside The Rock and you selected this to be one of them. This garbage room. Dark chamber. Dry * Dusty. With some crates. There’s a remarkable description of a goblin kitchen for you!

There’s nothing in this place. The entire dungeon is written as if you could hack the goblins or talk to them. It’s all abstracted content with very little specificity. You got one room with some skeletons in it, and brief shadow puzzle. This is not an exciting or interesting place to be. The encounters are not good. They are not well written. They are abstracted. They are not interesting. The entire place, from start to finish, is both overwritten in terms of word count and completely under-described in terms of bringing it alive and under-designed in terms of making the place either interesting or making the rooms work together.

It’s just more grist coming out of the published adventure pipeline. 

This is $5 at DriveThru. The review is six pages. You get to see the linear dungeon, and many of the “possabilities”, but none of the rooms. A decent preview needs to show us a dungeon room or three. How else do we know what to expect when we buy the product?

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/530644/journey-under-the-rock?1892600