Furvik’s Destiny

By Adam Dreece
ADZO Publishing
OSE
Levels 5-7

First, a strange goblin sorcerer managed to take over an ogre cult, then he somehow knew how to navigate a hidden crypt and turn it into their lair. Now he has stolen the Gauntlets of the Ice Demon Kofnar and is on the verge of unlocking their power. The party must journey into a trap-filled, ancient crypt to get to Furvik and his followers in time to stop him.

This 71 page adventure presents twenty rooms in an old trap and puzzle tomb. It engages in every bad adventure writing trope possible. I hate it. A lot.

Frequent readers will need to take that I Hate It and make up a Bryce review in their head, reminiscent of the old days. I made a mistake. I thought the credits had a lot of same last name energy and was aghast at flaming on at a group of jr high students. It turns out I was wrong. But, also, I’m still not flaming on. I could take this review to a bunch of places. These are places I’ve been before. Dozens of times. What’s more important, the act of creation or the act of selling? What are the moral ramifications of claiming to write for yourself and yet putting it on a blog? Do designers have any obligation to figure out what the definition of the word good is, or shall we simply let pure unrestrained capitalism decide? The annual autumn of new students discovering UUnet and horrors until they figure it out become eternal. No one is born with the innate ability to write an adventure. Once more in to the breach! 

We begin this adventure with eight pages of padding telling us how to run an adventure. The designer spends time telling us what a stat block looks like. They tell us that the DM can change things in the adventure. They tell us that … You get the picture. The boilerplate. This is part of how you turn twenty rooms in to 71 pages. What if, instead, you just write a fucking adventure? And then just published it? Without a bunch of appendices? WIthout a bunch of intro shit? Just twenty fucking rooms. No context. I mean, those twenty rooms ARE the adventure, right? It’s what we’re paying for? You can shove the aesthetics of a book up your ass; I’m paying for an adventure to run at the table. It can look nice, or have supporting material or whatever, but, first, it’s gotta be a decent adventure. A couch that is all Bed Of Nails isn’t a couch it’s an art piece. Concentrate on the fucking adventure.

Our hook here involves a dead family member. Jokes on you buddy, no player character has a family. Do you know why? Because the DM is always killing them or kidnapping them or something.  My cold father is dead, my estranged mother keeps going on about the church of Wheatana. My brother got his hand cut off for stealing and now is the hickest of hicks. My sister is drunk all the time and miserable. Why the fuck do I give a shit about any of them? You think a happy family that I care about led me to a life of murder hobo’ing? 

“It’s up to you as GM to determine what type of close friend or family member works best for the party – brother, sister, father, mother, cousin, aunt, uncle, etc. Wherever you see [Family Member] in the text, swap it out for whatever you decide.” Ths, then, is a major theme of the adventure. Beating a dead horse. WHich anyone reading this will I’m sure be WELL aware of. The same information. Over and over and over and over and over again. The most basic of things expanded out in to PAGES of content. There’s a section here on pit traps. They have poisoned spikes at the bottom. Two pages. It takes TWO PAGES to describe this. Remember when it used to be a simple X on a grid square with a dot in it? TWO PAGES. And, then, the pit traps get even MORE text when they actually show up in a room. This is madness. I’m not sure how it is even possible, with a highlighter, to wade through this during play. And, of course, there’s Bryce’s core assertion that shis shit detracts from the actual room keys proper and this is all wasted effort that should have gone in to polishing the actual keys.  

Oh! Oh! I was talking about the family member thing and then I got interrupted by going on a pit digression. Let me digress from that digress and talk about gimping the party. The fucking thing is a puzzle and trap dungeon. And it’s got some ogres in it, the minions of the goblin sorcerer. (Ug!) And, get this “Furvik and his lieutenants have crypt keys which unlock secret doors and deactivate (or activate) traps. They have all memorized where they are. The party should not come into possession of a working crypt key too early as it could bypass a large part of the adventure. Feel free to have any keys found too early break when used.” Man, just fuck you. I was going to be nice in this review but I just can’t stand this. I get it. You want the party to “experience” the dungeon. How about you let them do whatever the fuck they want? Fucking level sevens. “All three of the doors are made of two-foot-thick stone and have anti-magical powder in them which renders them immune to magical effects” YOU WILL EXPERIENCE THE DUNGEON!!! “As mentioned earlier in About the Crypt, the players shouldn’t be able to pick the lock successfully or use a crypt key until later in the adventure. However, any failed attempt to pick it will trigger an alarm in Area 15, 16, and 19 which cannot be heard from Area 1.” YOU WILL EXPERIENCE THE DUNGEON!!!! God fucking forbid the players use their fucking heads or their characters abilities to overcome obstacles using imagination. You might not fight some random ooze that shows up. Heavens to mercy! 

Back, now, to our hook. “A party member gets to [Family Member] in time to hear them say, “Ogres attacked the temple. Please, make it right. Help the elder. Outside.” The Family Member dies, unable to be healed from their wounds. They have nothing of use in their possession.” How heartwarming! *barf* *barf* *barf* I’m level seven. Ra is my best bud. We hang out on Sundays (get it?! Get it?!) Sun god bro before Ho’s. You’re seriously powerful as sevens but, no, your beloved [family member] dies. This is the worst kind of dreck. Oh, oh, and “Once the party agrees, the elder teleports the party to the entrance of the crypt” Wouldn’t want to waste time, would we. “Time is of the essence. If the party attempts to return to town to get provisions, or rest up, they will fail the mission.” How does the party know this? A hidden fail condition, always a great thing to slap down in an adventure. I’m down for some fails. I’m down for some Broodmother Skyfortress. But it’s not a game unless the player is making an intentional choice for a meaningful condition. They must choose to suffer their wounds and chance blindness, or whatever, in order to Save The World. Even our player characters are doomed by the existence of Free WIll. 

I can go on and on here. The read-aloud is is in first person mode, never a good thing. Doors slam shut behind you and lock when you enter a room. Treasure is light for a gold=xp game. The ogres all wear plate mail and carry +2 sabres. On and on and on it goes. Rooms that take four pages to describe because of all of the padding and if/thens and instructions to the DM. 

Two parting statements of a more personal note: Far after I developed my opinions on this adventure I reached the description of a door with symbols/scenes on it. “ A success will reveal that it tells three tales. One is of how greed for knowledge gets the better of the curious. The second tells of how sacrifice is needed and often unexpected. The last seems to be about having patience and that pain, as all things in life, is transient.” This is how you become a wizard. By rejecting the small minded caprice and impudent convention of the prols.”  Some murals “… show a scene of a rolling countryside with burning towns and skeletal warriors battling people from all walks of life.” Good for you skeletons. Good for you.

You should write. Over and over again. You should create. Over and over again. And you should strive to understand what you are doing, if only for yourself.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is ten pages. You get to see part of the first room. So, I guess, it’s an ok preview. You just need to understand that nothing is done if it’s not beaten to death. No aspect of the adventure. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/507654/wondrous-and-perilous-adventures-furvik-s-destiny-for-old-school-fantasy?1892600