The Tower of the Standing Stones

By Marco G. Fossati
Self Published
Dragonbane/OSR
I think this is a BRP system

… hear the tale of Ardana, a mage who defied the Dragon Emperor and vanished with her dark grimoire, The Heart of Ardana. Her ruined tower still stands, touched by strange demonic magic.

This eight page adventure features an old wizards tower and uses four pages to describe eleven rooms on like five floors. Long read-aloud, over-reveals, abstracted treasure. It’s really hard for to describe how “lackof adventure” this is. 

So I’m out with friends and the chick next to me is like “Hey Bryce, where are some places to go to meet people. I want a summer fling.” So I turn to some stranger next to me sitting alone at the next table and am like Hey man, where are some fun places to go in Indy, Chickula is looking to meet men. And he’s like “I’m gay.” Dude, not you, I’m like 30 years older than her, maybe you, as a young fella, know of a place where the the young women might go other than a fucking D&D convention?!  “So he replies: “I know of three jazz clubs …” Dude has missed the point. Oblivious to it all. 

Ok man, let’s GET! IT! On! We are Dragonbaning and I couldn’t be more excited this morning. “At the first light of dawn, in the settlement of Outskirt, the player characters came across a ballad sung by a highly skilled female Bard, named Tymolana.” Oh Jesus h fucking Christ. Fortunately, that’s all there is to this. Except the ballad itself. What do they call that? At the cons? Filcing? Felching? Whatever. It then jumps to “The ancient tower, called The Tower of The Standing Stones, lies at the foot of a hill. The player characters will face a hard journey which lasts at least a full day.” So, you get the “highly filled female bard” sentence, the ballad, and then the whole “it’s a hard journey” sentences. I absolutely thought, given that bard line, we were gonna at least mary sue the chick or at least spend an hour having to deal with some read-aloud, but, no. It just tosses in that “it was a rough journey” thing and you’re at the fucking tower. I don’t understand why any of this is in the adventure. The bard has nothing to do with it. The ballad doesn’t matter. The journey clearly doesn’t matter. And the adventure is like this, time and again. This weirdly specific attention to detail and then, quick, abstract everything!

“A weathered stone tower at the foot of a low hill. Its crown has crumbled and the masonry is cracked and flaking; the whole place looks worn-out. A short run of broad stone steps climbs the slope to a heavy, skewed door. Faint chisel-marks and moss stains can be seen on the lower steps and around the lintel. Windows and fissures reveal that it is a 3-story tower. On the top, some standing stones point to the sky. From time to time, some crackles of purple energy strangely illuminate the surroundings.” Over-reveals in the read-aloud. A read-aloud that is too long. Three stories?! Let’s climb to the top! Windows? We’re in! Never use the front door, kids, when doing & B&E. Does the adventure handle any of this? No, of course not

“A narrow stone corridor with damp, flaking walls. Faded paintings of skeletons line the west wall. One skeleton has an oversized skull with purple eye sockets” Where do YOU think the secret door is? Jesus. Ok, so, when you write a description like this you start at the abstracted layer. There are faded paintings on the walls. As the party asks then you tell them it’s of skeletons and the whole purple eye thing. That’s it. That’s the core fucking mechanic of D&D. The DM describes something and the party responds. Why not just fucking say there’s a secret door behind the purple eyes? Fuck me man. Don’t do this. Please. Don’t write descriptions that over-reveal. Keep the game alive. Keep the core mechanic alive. 

“Treasures: Among the crates and the sacks, the player characters can find treasures equivalent to one treasure card.” I don’t know about you, but I like to show off my treasure cards to the young ladies at the bar. They love that treasure card flash! So, I assume this is some Dragonbane shit, but, still, “treasure card?” The party wants the fabled rose of Amun-Sur or the cape of Verde Tacana, not “a treasure card.” Good treasure makes the party want to keep it and wear it, even if it’s non-magical, instead of melting it down immediately to purchase twelve more torchbearers. Why abstract this? It’s like buying an adventure and opening it to read “Have an adventure” and nothing else. That’s it. That’s a major part of the whole fucking experience. 

And this extends. That fucking ballad, which is like eight short lines long, mentions The hEart f Ardana or some shit like that. A spellbook. You ready for it, the reveal, the object of infinite desire, the thing to which launched a thousand ships, The grimoire called The Heart of Ardana: “Grimoire: The grimoire is the Heart ofArdana. The grimoire is trapped (see below).” That’s it. Nothing else. No more description. Not in the text. Not in an appendix (there are none.) No mention of it or its contents. Shall I compare thee to a Summers Day? “Vecna: Seldom is the name of Vecna spoken except in hushed voice, and never within hearing of strangers, for legends say that the phantom of this once supreme lich still roams the Material Plane. It is certain that when Vecna finally met his doom, one eye and one hand survived. The Eye of Vecna is said to glow in the same manner as that of a feral creature.”

Instead we get backstory. “The demon was conjured by Ardana during the siege as her last defense, but the ritual was interrupted before it was fulfilled. It has been in that state since there and looks to be freed. In order to do so, the ritual lines must be canceled” I DON’T CARE. This nonsense adds nothing to the adventure. And it’s EVERYWHERE. 

This is absolutely one of the most boring adventures I’ve ever seen of everything that actually qualifies as an adventure. And it’s not because there is, like, five bandits in the tower. It’s because of the writing, the mechanics of handling things “Place hands of altar and make a wil save”. It’s weirdly abstracted method of not tellin you ANYTHING about anything to want to know about but still making sure that the room entries are a column long. And that each one has a section about every exit in the room. Except for the ones that DO NOT have a sections about every exit in the room. 

This is boring and inconsistent. 

This is $2 at DriveThru. There is no preview. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/567777/the-tower-of-the-standing-stones?1892600

Also, hey, a question for all the eurotrash: I assume each country in europe has a dominant game, aka that Das Schwarze Auge shit. But Italy seems to be the only country in which we get adventures out of. They just crank them out. Something weird in the Italian water, D&D-heavy, or something else going on? Why don’t I see frenchy adventures?