Sir Edgar’s Tomb

By Aaron Gustwiller
Aaron's Gaming Stuff
S&W
levels 1-2

The tomb was discovered by Aldo, a local shepherd, while he was out searching for a lost sheep. Aldo noticed the tomb’s carved doorway when he was passing a rocky hill and saw the stairs down when he approached the entrance. Though he didn’t know what it was, patrons at the local inn, to whom he told his discovery, reasoned that it could be Sir Edgar’s tomb, the only tomb known to be in the area that was unaccounted for. 

This nine page digest adventure uses about three pages to describe fourteen rooms in a small tomb dungeon. It is minimally described, with little more than stabbing.

What value does a designer add to an adventure? If we just roll on a wandering monster table, and then roll again on a Dungeon Dressings table then that’s not much work for the home DM. This can, and has, been programmed a thousand times and you can find numerous examples right now of websites that will generate a dungeon based on that. So, as a designer can you just take those results and package them up in to a dungeon? I mean, I guess so, sure. But why? There is the explicit goal, I guess, of making money. You could pump one of these out every week and make some amount of money, build a following, run a kickstarter and make more money. I guess rolling on the random tables and having AI pump them out gets you there. But then also there’s the goal to create. To really work on something and be inspired in your creation. To design something that people will love and find enjoyment in. Through your work you help others find some joy in life. A slower, more difficult process, to be sure, but I suspect a much more rewarding one, personally, and I suspect financially. A slow hit is better than a fast miss, as they say.

And thus, this adventure. “Next to a marble basin is a Giant Rat. The basin is full of black, foul smelling water.” This is a room description. We rolled giant rat and basin I guess and then embellished it to marble and put some foul smelling water in it. There’s really nothing to this. Or “Up against the north wall is a chest with [coins] in it.” I guess we rolled a treasure chest on that one. There is nothing to these. There is nothing here. There is no value beyond rolling on a wandering table, and I can do that with a generator in less time then it took to grab this adventure from DriveThru. You’ve got to add value beyond what a random roll produces. This ain’t that. 

You’ll be stabbing here. There is a room with a basin of clear water that will heal you. “There is a shallow marble basin, filled with clear water, in the center of the room.” And then there’s another that you open a compartment in a statue, with a key you find deeper in, for a +1 sword/+3 vs dragons. Well, that’s a nice one for level one anyway. But, beyond the point. There’s no interactivity here. Just walk in and stab something. I’m not gonna go all Three Pillars here, but, again, this is the point of having a designer. Someone to think about the adventure beforehand, make the connections, and communicate them in an effective way that leverages them to more than the sum of their parts. Someone to really do the work to communicate a vibe to the DM, to create something that the players that will intrigue and scare them and give them opportunities of joy. Sure, emergent play, blah blah blah, but, also, you’ve got to have something to work with in the first place. 

Or you can say “There is a stone box up against the east wall it contains [coins].” 

This is free at DriveThru. I think I’m done with Aaron’s Gaming Stuff.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/517053/sir-edgar-s-tomb?1892600