By Adam Dreece
ADZO Publishing
OSR
Levels 5-7
Time is running out as the infamous pirate Vocini races toward the swampy ruins of a coastal outpost in search of a legendary weapon, the Cannon of the Blessed. The adventurers must find and assemble the fabled cannon and sink Vocini’s flagship or risk being overwhelmed by his forces and tipping the balance of regional power. But danger lurks at every turn, as the Sea Witch’s minions do not welcome trespassers to her swamp.
This 104 page adventure uses about forty pages to describe about fifteen rooms. That means wordy and a lack of focus. Railroady to boot, I can think of no reason to ever consider running this.
Porchini the wannabe pirate king has one ship and the entire navy can’t stop him. Oh no! He’s going to try to find a legendary cannon in some ruins nearby! The party is arrested by a bunch of level fives and a level nine and sentenced to find the cannon that Porchini is after. You ride in a carriage a couple of hours, a carriage that holds at least seven extra people from all the guards present, until you get to the ruins. You explore fifteen rooms, find the cannon pieces, and shoot at the ship. The cannon does not cause nuclear explosions, so it’s unclear why everyone wants Porchini to not get it. Whatever. This adventure sucks.
Oh, fuck, I forgot. It’s a race against time! Of course it is. Porchini is on his way to get the cannon. I don’t think the party is told that. Maybe once? You have to tell the party when its a race against time or else you’re just suddenly springing shit on them. Better, just don’t do a race against time. They always suck fucking ass. Every fucking adventure is a race against time to save the destruction of the world. *yawn*.
So, five guards. All fifth level. And a level nine leader. This is at least as much power as the level range indicates. If you’ve got some level five guards then why not send THEM to get the cannon? Further, if the fucking ruins with te cannon are just a couple of hours from the fucking major city then why are they still unlooted?! Because of monsters? I think monsters have never met a city full of poor desperate methheads. None of this shit makes any sense.
You know what does make sense? When you’re dropped off the carriages and guards go hide until you’ve got the cannon. “Even if the party searches, they won’t find where the coaches, grand magistrate, and Yokik went, as there is no trail due to magic. A spell has been put on the coaches that cloaks them, which the grand magistrate has control of. It only lasts until the following morning.” See, that makes sense. That’s what a shithole of an adventure would do, and it does it. Railroad the party. Take away options by fiat for no reason. Why can’t the party kill them/find them? I don’t know. The designer decided so, I guess. It didn’t match their idea of a heroic adventure? “The party has until midnight, more than twelve hours, until the coaches will be forced to return to the capital city. It is a two-to-three-day march back, in good weather. Why midnight? Why twelve hours? I don’t know. No reason in the adventure. Just because the designer said so, for no particular reason, and is enforcing it. Hey, remember that level nine? “If the party is in trouble, the GM may choose to have Yokik Swiftblade attempt to save the day (Yokik’s details are in the Creatures section at the back of the adventure).” Because of course the mary sue saves the day. Fucking shit engages in seemingly every low-effort trope possible.
104 pages. For fifteen fucking encounter locations. That’s absurd. Even if I JUST take the room key section thats forty pages for fifteen encounters. So roughly sixty pages of backstory, preamble, monster stats, magic items descriptions. And, of course, how to read a stat block. I hate this shit. Put your fucking effort in to the fucking rooms keys. The extra shit don’t matter as much. The room keys are, generally, the heart of the adventure. Put your effort in to the heart of the adventure. So much extra shit thrown in and such shitty fucking keys. It is, quite frankly, embarrassing. A special combination of hubris and chutzpah that I shall never possess, I guess.
Three page backstory. Four page room descriptions. Just some fucking monsters. “F you dont free the sea witch then she breaks out to attack you.” She’s been trapped forever, and, so, selects NOW as the time to break out. Because of some fucking story idea the designer has. Trying to construct cool moments. Punishing the party for their decisions which interfere with their cool moments. “Oh, no, sea witch is wronged, the party should see that and help and if they dont then i’ll punish them.” Look, reactions to things the party does are fine, but when they seem punitive because the designer WANTS another course of action to take place then that just sucks ass. No one enjoys that.
I don’t know, what do you want to talk about? The long sections of read-aloud in second person? That seems boring. The struggles of your level seven characters in crossing a two foot deep creek?
This is just a crap adventure. I guess it is technically an OSR adventure since it’s statted that way. What IS the OSR, blah blah blah. This is all such old hat. It’s the same old same old. The same people putting out the same crap, time and time again. Why do they care? They make some money off of each one. Who cares? Have another $.39 veal pot pie. Six hundred pounds of oatmeal for a dollar! What, you want to pay $10 for a half pound of artisanal locally-sourced heirloom oatmeal that supports a small business? Fuck you. Eat your swill. This isn’t a future where kilocals are used as currency. There is an inherent quality factor in the hunt for an RPG adventure. Isn’t there? Am I wrong? IS this just a hunt for the cheapest and densest calories? That can’t be right? Why not put out something good? Why not be as happy as you can be with the thing you are producing? You’re not making money. No one is. So WHY? Why put something like this out? It just doesn’t make sense to me.
This is $7 at DriveThru. The preview is 23 pages. So, you know, you’ll not get to see any keys. That’s willlldd. You enjoy that padding though.