The Scorching Gantlet

By Andrew Walter
Forgotten Oubliette of Forgetfulness
OSR
Levels 2-3

Run the Gantlet of Farradok! Imprisoned by a sadistic fire giant and stripped of their weapons and equipment, the adventuring party must escape from the fiery labyrinths beneath his court – but it won’t be easy. His three evil champions and retinue of hobgoblins have also joined the game…

This 43 page adventure presents a dungeon with two levels and about forty rooms. It’s one of thos e”you’ve been captured and stripped of your shit and have to escape” dungeons, with the usual puzzles, traps, and forced combats. And no treasure. Or decent formatting. Or evocative descriptions of any type. Enjoy!

Have I already done the camping thing? Whatever … if I come to you and say we’re going camping this weekend, what do you think of? Are we backpacking in? Are we parking the RV in the  middle of a football field lot and watching grandkids bike with 600 members of the family? Hanging out with a bunch of college kids around a fire getting drunk? Driving off down a forest road to a secluded spot to pitch a tent? Once of those definitions is valid for a lot of different people. Three’s no right answer, just as there’s no one true way to play and enjoy D&D. Which is a mighty suspicious way to open a D&D adventure review …

Good thing I control the narrative then, isn’t it? I mean, I’m the one buying this garbage and taking the time out to look at it and then write about it. And, fortunately for my sanity, I have standards and know which fucking definition is “correct.” The adventure, in the introduction, proudly proclaims that it “rejects imagined product and design ‘standards’” Wunderbar! I’m down for this shit! Smash the patriarchy! It’s 2023! Let’s push the boundaries of what we can do, examine the base assumptions we make about D&D adventures, modernize it while keeping the core of what makes them the magic that they are! We choose to do these things not because they are easy but because they are hard! Oh, wait .. it’s used here as an excuse to not try at all …

You’ve been captured by a fire giant and his 120 hobgoblin minions. You’re stripped of your weapons, armor, and gear and dropped down in the dungeon to escape. There are three champions that chase you, all Running Man without Richard Dawson or the RUnning Man Home Game. A bunch of forced combats at level two, how nice! And, the adventure also notes, with perhaps some pride, that there is little to no treasure … the reward is getting out alive. Forced combats and no treasure for leveling … I wonder if we are really playing OD&D? It is not an OD&D experience, that’s for sure. The bad old days of killer DM’s and killer dungeons. Worry not though, you get to the roll on the “Hobgoblin Punishment table, so, also, you can start with 2/3hp! Or any of a host of other further gimps. DId I mention that the dungeon is slammed full of 2HD creatures? And 3HD creatures? And a smattering of 5HD creatures? And you without gear, weapons, or armor, tsk tsk tsk …

You are charged with “Find the blue key to escape!” Seriously. Find the blue key. Once you do find it and get back to the exit gate you get to answer a riddle and each time you answer wrong someone else gets turned to stone. Did I mention the LARGE number of insta-death shit in this? The fickle hand of fate is in full force in this one!

The adventure is El Senor Grimtooth forward. Witness: “As soon as the Blue Key is placed in the lock, a magical force yanks it out before it can be turned and flings it into the hole in the ceiling. The door by which the party entered slams shut and locks, and the holes in the walls begin filling the room with scalding water.” Doors slamming shut are always the sign of quality. There’s no real puzzle here. You just get to figure out how to open the locked doors. 

And thus it goes. Wander from room to room. Face a Grimtooth puzzle/trap. Engage in a forced combat. Have a wanderer roll every turn. 

Evocative descriptions are essentially nonexistent, being maybe a word or two of description at most. “Warm foetid water flows at a swift pace” That’s it. The formatting is VERY double-spaced. There is A LOT of white space between sections of text. So much so that it is hard to follow. (I have this fucking fight at work at all the time; the devs LUV putting in WIDE line breaks, and don’t seem to notice the cognitive dissonance this causes by breaking a grouping effect. Prob because they are clueless to the information that is being grouped.)  Weird bolding of shit is everywhere. I’m sure there must be some reason to it, but I can’t tell. Room numbers? Monsters? Secret doors? Equipment? I don’t know what else.

Anyway, yet another deathtrap dungeon, this one a challenge, with an escape the dungeon without shit motif. 

This is $2.50 at DriveThru. You get the entire thing as a preview, so, very good preview! Well done! At least there’s a foundation to build on …

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/456846/The-Scorching-Gantlet-UD1?1892600