Footprints 3 – Stop the Goblin Raid

by Trenton Howard
Freely distributed by Dragonsfoot
AD&D
Levels 1-3

Dickhead elves, mixed humanoids in a small cave complex and too many undead combine to create a bland adventure full of certain death for the PC’s. At least it hits all the low points of adventure design.

Oh’s No’s! The mighty elven city of Kyrimi is having trouble with goblin raids! Trade is super duper important to them and the goblin raids are making that impossible. Please please would the party go stop the goblins? FUCKING HUMAN ASSHOLE SCUM! It would be great if you would do that for us YOU WORTHLESS HUMAN TOILET RAGS! We are but elves with 30-50 guards on patrol at the city limits at all times. Guards who we pay to, well, guard us. Yeah, about those goblins that are stopping the super important trading we do … Get your asses moving, m’kay? Yes, the elves want your help. Yes, the elves are assholes. Yes, they treat you like shit. Yes, trade is SUPER important to them. No, the specifics are not mentioned. Yes, they call themselves a city. Yes, they have shit tons of guards. No, they don’t take care of the problem themselves. Look man, I’m not asking for a lot here but how about you spend just five fucking minutes on the pretext. Just five. Why the fuck doesn’t good asshole King Winselsaus send his fucking guards after the goblins? Hey, how about all those shops in the city, eh? You know, all SEVEN of them? Well, unfair, two are house, one the barracks, one the captains barracks and one the palace. So two. That the DM is advised to stop the party from entering until they meet the king. The workshop is, perhaps, the best. They are not supposed to be allowed to enter until after the meet with the king. It is nothing special. Just a dude working at a table. ARG!!!!!!!!!! So, the elves are assholes, the pretext is worthless, and the advice given in the adventure to the DM worthless. Great. Another stellar Footprints product. Seriously guys, how about editorial intervention? You do have standards don’t you? Footprints looks fine and it has the trade dress so how about you follow-through with some editorial chops? “I’m sorry, no, your adventure needs more work before we can publish it.”

Wander through the forest following an easily marked trail to get to the goblin caves. Have a couple of forced encounters. Do not go to the undead caves. “If the party tries to go here first then prevent them, with some thick underbrush or something else.” Why the fuck would you do this? What is the point? Are you trying to build tension? Hide the vil boss in the undead caves? To do that there has to be hints that there IS an evil undead boss in another location. That NEVER happens. All the advice is doing to giving crappy DM’s crappy advice and enabling their crappiness. That sweet little lake on the map? A lake in an elven forest? Completely ignored. ARG!

Goblin Caves. 10 rooms. essentially linear with a couple of rooms hanging off a straight line corridor. Goblins. Hobgoblins. Gnolls (with fucking Bardiches, inside caves.) The room descriptions are uninspiring. “This room contains various instruments of torture. Past victims lie on the floor” There is nothing of value here.” Yeah, a good DM will put in an iron maiden to throw someone in to. A good adventure writer will, however, include other ideas as well. That’s the purpose of the published adventure. It’s not to put some goblins in some caves and stat them out. It’s to come up with a couple of interesting things to spark the DM’s imagination. It’s crazy that people don’t get this. It’s like they are just going through the motions of an adventure and it drives me nuts. What value was added here? A crappy little map? Stat’ing monsters to put in rooms? Seriously? Was this seriously your best effort at an adventure? The undead caves may be worse. Eight rooms and you have to visit all of them in order to pull the levers to open the last rooms. Let’s see here … 10 skeletons, 8 ghouls, 10 zombies, 3rd MU, 6 skeletons, wight, EHP & 5 ghouls at the same time. For a first level party? Seriously? It’s gonna be a slaughter! Yeah! It’s over! We can go watch the game, or masturbate, or cry softly to ourselves! Yeah! No linkages between the first cave and the second. Nothing.

Why something like this exists in Footprints escapes me.