By M.Bongers
Stone Gear Studios
OSR
Level ?
To kill a Unicorn is a tragedy. To murder one and construct a weapon from it’s remains is a sin against the world.
This eight page adventure presents a single NPC. I guess I should have known better.
Someone I know was getting her oil changed. They told her that she needed to get her air filter and cabin filter changed once a year. $80. She doesn’t know. Every oil change place is a rip off. Every chain auto place is a rip off. You get your oil changed and NOTHING more and hope that they actually do it and don’t fuck it up while ripping you off. The dealer is the same but they are better at lying and charge 5 times more.
Don’t you wish you could trust someone? If you buy something you could feel like you didn’t need to worry about getting screwed over? Puffery abounds. More than puffery? Adventure levels one through five! Yeah, but it was written for fives and the one experience is totally different, not expanded upon by the designer, and left as an exercise for the reader. Sandboxes that defy the expectations of a sandbox. And not in a good way. It doesn’t matter what the product description says. Do you research, endlessly, for a $2 product? Why not just buy it? You can afford it, right? Damn the cynicism that builds up from the continual line of garbage that flows obfuscates, beyond the category of outright lies. Is it an apple? What, Socrates, is an apple? The form? The function? “It is art if you say it is art.” … and an analogy to D&D adventures? At what point does incompetence become outright fraud? The marketing blurb on DriveThru? Ha!
Frank the NPC kills this unicorn and makes a spear out of its horn. He then goes around killing animals, I guess. You stumble upon his campsite outside of a city. He’s got a couple of followers “if the DM wants to make the combat harder.” That’s your adventure. Nothing more. Just you fight this dude at his campsite, which is not detailed. Does he have a personality? Yeah. Paranoid. So he picks a fight with the party if they are nice to him instead of immediately stabbing him. Cause fighting gotta happen, I guess. It’s a long NPC description and then a note that you can fight him at his campsite. Enjoy this adventure. Or NPC. Or whatever it is.
But, hey, not to worry. There are fifteen downloads for this eight page adventure, so you can have those eight pages arrayed any way you might imagine, as well as solo artwork pieces. Wonderful effort there.
This is $1.50 at DriveThru. There is no preview. Which means I can’t tell if it’s an NPC or an adventure. “But the description says there is an NPC!” And what does the description not say? And I’m supposed to start believing what the marketing says now? Everything is hopeless. Except … the existence of a good preview, which shows you everything you need to know before you buy. Which this doesn’t have.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/490601/a-spear-brings-sorrow?1892600
By Simone ZambrunoClassic Dungeon AdventuresOSE? Generic/Universal?Levels ... 0? 2? Here, characters without heroic skills or…
By Elln the WitchSelf PublishedOSRLevels 1-3 The Abyssea Cave is known to be an isolated…
By J. LasardeBroken Rat GamesS&WLevel 3 A mile from the village of Breckdell is a…
By HilanderSelf PublishedOSELevel …? I guess we don’t use levels anymore? The Big Bad is…
By Mr Pilgrim TomesSelf PublishedOSE"Expert Levels" A sunken cathedral on a quiet mountain lake hides…
By Joseph MohrOld School RoleplayingOSRICLevels 10-14 The sect has not been heard from now for…
View Comments
I guess I don't understand 1) the market for this; and 2) the impetus for it.
Dungeon Magazine used to have a feature for expanded encounters that a DM could use in place of a generic Wandering Monsters roll.
This isn't that. The Author thought up a cool NPC but ... what? Couldn't/won't come up with a scenario to plug him into? Is there any need for a product that showcases a single NPC.
I suppose I will just throw out there the basic tenet that only comes from the experience of actually DMing the game:
A party of PCs is going to make mincemeat out of a single anything; whether it's one Head Bad Guy or one funky NPC with a fancy magic item, 6 PCs against 1 enemy is going to be over quickly. One hold person or one web spell (or in this case one light spell or a command ("Disarm") ends all the Author's fancy plans.
>the impetus
I increasingly think a significant number of bad adventure writers think this is what the game is. Outrageous railroad? Yes, that's the game. Fighting rats in a tavern basement for the first adventure? Yes, that's the game. Combat with one NPC? Yes, that's the game.
In some fairness I've run some barebones homebrew adventures myself. And sometimes they spin up into something good, with the players' interaction and sometimes some additional improvisation. But I do look for more from a published product.
The impetus is that if you put something on DriveThruRPG with a low price and no preview, statistically some saps are going to buy it and you make beer money. Don't think too hard about it.
"M.Bongers" sounds like a fake name, and the "adventure" isn't what anybody would define as an adventure... I'd bet good money that most of the heavy lifting on this thing was done by ChatGPT.
Excuse me my son is also named M.Bongers
Mother is that you?
He needs an M. Bongers license plate then
You'd bet good money? Without a preview or any sample of the text to judge by? As if we weren't drowning in bad "adventures" long before ChatGPT came along? I wish I knew you IRL, I'd be a wealthier man.
Based on what Bryce is describing, it sounds about right
Also - that title. "A spear brings sorrow" indeed. I'm reminded of when I saw Suckerpunch in the theater on opening night, with no reviews except knowing the trailer looked cool, and left thinking the ending was kind of a downer. And then I thought, well yeah, they told us in the title. Joke was on me for not getting it.