By Geoffrey McKinney
lotFP
lotFP
Level 1
Located near the coast of hex 2214 of the Isle of the Unknown, this dungeon enshrines the mysteries of the Isle’s lost Minoan past.
This 38 page booklet including two dungeon level maps and some random things, generated randomly, that you could populate in to them. Sometimes weird in a good way and more times just random and disconnected. Not a fucking adventure.
“Can be used immediatly” says the marketing …. pfffft!
There are two old school style dungeon maps. In blue even! With the thin little lines for walls, so, using every square on the paper for the map, just like that famous Gygax “behind the screen” photo. The “key” for the dungeon is included on the same page as the map. The Yellow Temple. The Fiery Room. The Monolith of Dripping Fangs. The Shaking Sands. Just a room name. And each one is named just like that, like it’s the set piece room of all set piece rooms for the dungeon. Nothing is mundane and everything is grandiose. Well, the names are. All of them. There are no keys. What there is is a little notation. “W3” or “T2”. Some are entirely blank. That’s all there is. That’s all you’re getting.
The other pages of the booklet describe what W4 and T2 are. There are twelve of those special rooms, for the seventy or so rooms on the key. Things like “reroll one set of your stats”, which you can use as many times as you want. They have no relation to the room names. The monsters here are Goops. And Gloops. And Gobs. No description. Roll on a table for the random ability of each. You do get some random humans to toss in also. “These Brigands are accomplished robbers and murderers. Their leader (the individual of highest level amongst them) is called the Brigand Lord.” There are other monsters with the names of C1, C2, C3, C4 and so on, the Geofrey special of a random chimeric creature.
That’s the “Adventure.” That’s all it is. Nothing more. I’m not being facetious. That random reroll room? “Six ever-burning wax candles float 6’ high in a 5’ diameter circle. Anyone extinguishing a candle will fall unconscious. One minute later the candle will relight and the person will awake. He must re-roll on 3d6 a randomly-determined attribute (no saving throw).”
Everything in the adventure is like this. It’s not an adventure. It’s just a fucking collection of ideas. And, I’d argue, a collection that can’t be used in the manner in which the designer intends. Nothing present really wors together. The theme is just “a bunch of rando bizarre shit.” Random monsters. Rooms you place yourself with no hint of working together. It’s trying to out B1 the B1 adventure. But that had some theming. This doesn’t.
And it’s all that weird abstracted language. Afraid to say anything specific.
There’s an interesting weird thing here and there, I guess. But, seriously, just go to the Dungeon Dozen and use it. Or any of those other rando dungeon design books. These are too specific to be used as tools and not related enough to be used in the same space.
This is $5 at DriveThru. Sucker. No preview, double sucka!
https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/114330/dungeon-of-the-unknown?1892600
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I really like this author!
That said I really value your thoughts here
This line is very useful to me
Everything in the adventure is like this. It’s not an adventure. It’s just a fucking collection of ideas. And, I’d argue, a collection that can’t be used in the manner in which the designer intends.
just go to the Dungeon Dozen and use it. Or any of those other rando dungeon design books. These are too specific to be used as tools and not related enough to be used in the same space.
What's a good example of this kind of OSR book?
Perhaps the lotfp spider town? Forgot the name
Scenic Dunnsmouth. Which is good enough to tolerate rolling your own village in order to run it, but that's a very rare feat to pull off, and I still suspect its been read, reviewed and hyped more than its been played. I have run it, but its a session of prep just to roll it up.
What I'd like to see normally is unique keyed rooms or encounters, then a table/ generator in an appendix that gives compatible but not overlapping results to those already keyed.
Damn, I saw that the review was for LotFP and hoped we're getting some Bruckstadt quality. Shame.
B1 (which, by the by, is In Search of the Unknown, so I suspect we know the inpiration)
had its place, but I can't see buying another module to randomly-generate the contents.
By pure coincidence, there was a marketing post on the OSE fb page today about a 300-page megadungeon, extolling the benefits of random-generating the rooms. Oy!
I'd a 38-psage module over a goddam megadungeon that I have to generate.
Almost a blast from the past yeah, this one sucked too. I reviewed it ages ago. Mckinney is such an odd designer because his highs are very high and his lows are low indeed. I loved Carcosa and I got great use out of Forsaken Wilderlands beyond but his Isle stuff always struck me as fundamentally static and empty.
How did you like all the other Carcosa stuff he wrote?
There is a lot! How is it
I have not checked out his later Carcosa adventures, figuring that they had departed too far from his initial vision as they had wizards and clerics in them.
I did run my game in carcosa for a year or so.
Scenic Dun!
I realize I'm in the minority, but I like this one. I like the related, Isle of the Unknown, too. The theming of this is consistent with that book's Grecian undertones. I don't mind a bit of fill-in-the-blank modularity. Where B1 was only partially-keyed so a beginner DM could learn how to do it, this one is done so that the DM can scale the dungeon to the party's level. I know most people want a product that they pay for to make the decisions and do the work for them, keying specific rooms with specific level-appropriate monsters and treasure. But I don't mind a product giving me a spark of an idea and leaving holes for me to make it my own. I enjoy doing that work.
Bryce, I'd like to see more LotFP reviews - specifically, Kelvin Green. His recent stuff (Terror in the Streets, Strict Time Records Must Be Kept, etc.) are all pretty good.
Yes please. Kelvin has good adventures.
I agree some more LotFP modules reviews please!