A Opossum’s Hat

Lindsey Bonnette
Self Published
Generic/Universal
Level: 1?

A necromancer grows in power each day within their lair. Undead minions harass travelers and lurk at the edge of the village. Thanks to a magical artifact, the necromancer’s plans are expanding beyond raising the dead, and the forest will never be the same.

Fourteen pages of non stop excitement featuring an opossum necromancer in a magic hat! Marvel at the evocative descriptions and the clarity of writing! New design techniques bring forth endless possabilities!

This adventure, in the generic/universal category on DriveThru, has Signposts instead of lead-in encounters! And is not actually an adventure. It’s a Collection! And, before I get too cynical, I applaud the attempt to find some kind of meaning in the plot based adventure structure of the modern era. We don’t know what we don’t know, and it seems logical to imagine that there are better structures for conducting modern-era type adventures than the ones created for the more fun and fulfilling exploratory adventures from the beginnings of the hobby. Certainly, understanding “there is a plot” and trying to fit the adventure to that base assumption would fall in to line with one of the core tenants of the tenfootpole: we handle structure according to the specific needs of the adventure at that time. IE: we seldom need room/key for the village. And thus we’re open to experimentation and new types of things in order to fulfill the “promise” of these new adventure types. And thus Signposts, as clues and lead-ins to the main adventure locale. The whole “collection” thing seems dumb as fuck to me, in contrast with the concept of signposts, but, whatever. Language changes over time and words mean what we decide they mean right now. 

But they gotta work. Do they work here? I don’t know; I was too distracted by how shitty this thing was. 

The signposts are supposed to be things that kind of point you at the main adventure locale, the farmhouse. We get two tables for these: inside town and outside of town. The inside town table is, essentially, just a rumour table. People have gone missing in the forest. Walking skeletons sighted in the forest. Attacks .. throughout the forest. Get it?  Off to the forest you go. Blood trail leading to the farmhouse. Crows flying in the direction of the farmhouse. You ge the idea. The wilderness table  is 2d6, full of “none” entries and two monster attacks, alongside the “signposts.” I don’t know. I guess you just roll on it until you are bored and/or the party go to the farmhouse/get to that entry? 

It is, however, the entries themselves that are shitty. “Missing Persons: Travelers through the forest have gone missing, and people in town are talking about missing friends, relatives, and goods.” This is what passes for an encounter in this. For a signpost. “Hey, something could, you know, maybe happen that is somehow related to a missing person.” This is a shitty encounter. In fact, it’s NOT an encounter. I’m not even sure it’s an idea for an encounter, but we’ll get it the benefit of the doubt and say it is. You don’t get fucking paid to come up with ideas. You get fucking paid to put them down in a manner that helps the DM at the table. This means taking something generic and abstract and turning it in to something specific. Who, what , when, where, how, to steal from someone else. Bessy was afixinn to meander over to Ma Barkers with some blackberries yon morning. We found her basket and some blackberry stains over by the forest near where the crick meets that old stump where Eustice cut off his foot. You know, back in ‘63?” Give the fucking thing some fucking life. THATS what you’re fucking getting paid for. 

And all of the signposts are like that. Just abstracted garbage.  

Then we get to the adventure locale, the farmhouse. A few locations, maybe five? And they have page long descriptions Yeah! Who doesnt love fucking wading through a page long description with a fucking highlighter in order to be able to run an adventure. Worry not, though, folks, they’ve put a summary at the end of each description. I get the concept, but it’s done in a shitty manner, not really relevent to the room or running it. You can put a summary in, but then you need to reference back to the main text, with it, to make it a meaningful summary. Like, with bolding and such, so I can find things in the main text. 

Of course, it’s padded out. “The main room of the farmhouse acts as a study” DOn’t do this. Just describe a mainroom that is a study. The designer kind of does this, but that first sentence is padding. Or “This is Vesims corpse” Nope, again, stop telling up what you are about to do. Just do it. “This is Vesim’s corpse. Ophelia and her minions leave small gifts, bones and candles, for the corpse in return for the knowledge that Sage provides.” Excellent worldbuilding! But we don’t need to know WHY they do it. Just tellus what the room looks the fuck like. Like, what the gifts are. Stop abstracting, be specific, and do it in almost he same number of words … after cutting the padding out.

The main thing going on here is the magic hat. It’s turned the villain in to a necromancer! Except, when you get ahold of the hat is just gives you a +1 to magic skill checks. Lame. LAME! It gave necromancer powers to someone and yet, now, I’m getting a +1 to my skill check:?? Fuck your magic item gimping!

And, of course, the main villain is an opossum, who accidentally put on the hat and got sentient and named herself Ohpelia. We are supportive here, friends, of people playing D&D in different ways. Bunnies & Burrows was, I believe, a very early game. 1976 says rpggeek. We just don’t play D&D that way. But, also, they also deserve good adventures. 

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $5. There ain’t no preview, sucker! But you can get it for free since it’s PWYW.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/447568/A-Opossums-Hat?1892600