The Thief King’s Vault, D&D adventure review

By Tim Hitchcock
Frog God Games
S&W
Level 5

It has long been said there no thieves in the city of Caltoshar. At night, one can safely walk the streets, and a few worry about locking their doors. Yet one would be foolish to believe Caltoshar is without a criminal element, for there are thieves aplenty if one knows where to look. The best advice would be for you to assuage you curiosity with such matters, and enjoy Caltoshar for what it appears to be. You’re probably not one to take wise counsel, though.

This twenty page adventure uses eleven pages to describe a couple of lead in scenes and an eighteen page dungeon. A thief/trap/tomb dungeon. The signature Frog style is prevalent, delivering the usual mediocre product. 

The Frogs are famous for not giving a damn about their editing. In this adventure we get: “[…] attempts to open them. must saving throw 18points of also anc (see below) hidden […]” I don’t know what the fuck it means either. But, whatever; they will keep throwing these scraps to the crowds and the crowds will keep lapping it up like mothers milk. It’s 2020 and there is no right, no wrong, no up or down, yes or no. Just a whole bunch of rap, flowing freely. As usual.

Scene 1: You get invited t a winery and asked to go steal a little idol from a merchant. Scene 2 you obtain said idlo. Scene 3: Returning to hi, dude you hired is killed by thugs. Scene 4: Walk five days through the wilderness. Scene 5: an eighteen room trap dungeon. These can serve us by framing some discussions about design.

Scene two has the party trying to obtain a small idol from a merchant. He lives above his shp on the second floor, keeps his windows locked, and has two small dogs. This is handled fairly well in two (longish) paragraphs. It doesn’t drone on and on. You can sneak in, feed the dogs, charge in and kill the dude, whatever. It’s ALMOST an afterthought. By which I mean “not overwritten at all.” You need some details, about the locked windows, second floor, neighbors, the dogs, but the rest is just left to the DM to run. They way it should be. I can quibble on word choice and criticize on flavour, but it is, essentially, done correctly.

Scene three has the party returning to the dude that hired them, presumably with the idol from scene two. They find his tied up in the middle of the room, a pool of blood under him. Surprise! There are six thieves in the room, staging a coup against the dude, the current guildmaster.It’s fairly easy to see what was being tried for here. A coup, the underlings grabbing power for themselves, etc. But, it comes off as just another generic D&D fight. “Thugs”, not names, showing up for the first time in the adventure. No hint of dissension prior. The imagery here is not quite hitting the mark. We get hints, with the dude croaking “its a trap!” if ungagged before the ambush is sprung, but it’s just that, hints of what could have been, missing the details and design that could have turned “six thugs attacking” in to something with more resonance. It is at the end of this scene that we’re told what’s inside the idol … which should have been mentioned in scene two, when the party first picked it up. 

Scene four is a joke. A short little multi-day wilderness journey, with two wandering monster tables. The read-aloud covers all five days. And then there are wandering monster tables for The Plains and The Hills, with no guidance on when to use which, or what frequency, or anything. I guess it’s the day three foothills the read-aloud mentions? It’s just an afterthought, and not in a good way. In a “no one cared enough to actually proofread this adventure” way.

Scene five. An eighteen room dungeon. This is, essentially, negotiating one trap after another. The read-aloud reveals too much detail about the rooms, killing the back and forth between the party and the DM. It also contains no hint of the traps to come other than “there are doors.” It just uses the “throw everything in one paragraph” Frog style which, I think, is fairly typical for the industry. Or, what I think of typical anyway. It sucks for running it. When you get to the end you are met by some people who offer you 200gp for all of the treasure you’ve found. There are no stats for them in case you don’t want to hand it over, though it’s implied they are powerful. 

Who really cares? These are not, I suspect, meant to be run. They are just churned out for the 5e crowd to make a buck and then converted to the OSR for a little more cash to grab. Who the fuck cares about quality? It’s not like any of this was surprise. “Vault of the Thief King” by Frog God Games tells you everything you need to know.

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is three pages, the first three pages, so you get to the see the title page and the adventure hook. Nothing at all to help you make a purchasing decision. Shitty shitty low-effort preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/335350/Thief-Kings-Vault-SW?1892600

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16 Responses to The Thief King’s Vault, D&D adventure review

  1. SG says:

    Sure this is just a blog, but it’s funny to see you complain about lack of editing. Your blog is such a mass of distracting typos!

    • Anonymous says:

      Yeah I had the same reaction when I saw a paragraph about “famous for not giving a fuck” and incomprehensibility immediately followed by “Scene 1: You get invited t a winery and asked to go steal a little idol from a merchant. Scene 2 you obtain said idlo.”

      That having been said, while I think it somewhat undercuts his argument, especially if you’re not inclined to be charitable, ultimately it’s the published product that’s under review rather than Bryce, who probably churned this out while sitting in a dark room guzzling whisky and listening to The Cure’s “Faith” on repeat. He’s not selling us anything.

      • Bryce Lynch says:

        On a good day it’s Primary
        On a bad day, which most are, it’s Everythings Gone Green

        I kid you not, putting one song on repeat for three days is called “Brycing it” in my friend circle

        • Bryce Lynch says:

          Help me somebody help me
          I wonder where I am
          I see my future before me
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before
          It seems like I’ve been here before

        • Robert, OSR Heretic says:

          Those are two very good songs so yes, play them on repeat as much as you want.

  2. EOTB says:

    Whether this applies to Bryce’s writing or not I don’t know, but typos, grammer errors, and incorrect homofones in free internet media capture reader attention while they the media – essentially driving reader engagement with the point, even as/if the reader chastises the error.

    It’s not uncommon to insert such errors purposefully.

    • squeen says:

      Brilliant.

      • Jacob Bonnari says:

        Yeah, I’ve always seen Bryce’s shitey blog editing as a sort of murmur of an entry for the Turner Prize – teasing us lexicographically while at the same time satirising our superior spelling and typing skills.

        If he ever runs out of material the world will be poorer for it.

    • Edgewise says:

      For a while I thought he was inserting them. Now I think he is simply refusing to hit the backspace key. Ever. It’s a lifestyle choice, don’t judge him.

  3. Foo says:

    «This twenty page adventure uses eleven pages to describe a couple of lead in scenes and an eighteen page dungeon.» …?!?

    • Reason says:

      So that usually means 6 pages of legal disclaimers, titles, contents pages, maps & assorted similar filler stuff & probably 3 pages of maps/art.

  4. Max Z says:

    “Who really cares? These are not, I suspect, meant to be run. They are just churned out for the 5e crowd to make a buck and then converted to the OSR for a little more cash to grab.”

    That sounds dumb. Then what are they meant for? To buy and put on your virtual bookshelf? “5e crowd” does just that with what they purchase? I’m confused.

    • Reason says:

      They are meant to be bought by rubes who have no idea what a good adventure is. FAR more adventures are sold than are ever run. So yes, in a way.

      Sometimes there is a genre of “oh lovely art, I love the aesthetic, the author is cool and writes pseudo novels” that are great to read but actually shit to try to ever run or play. That’s one category. I don’t think it’s a 5e thing yet- it sure was for other editions.

      I think at present it’s just if you want to churn out cheap shit – do it for the biggest selling demographic and then make extra on the side remarketing the same shit for osr without ever understanding or caring what makes a good adventure for either.

      Consumption is a pass time in the modern world. It is quite separate from utility. People buy for all kinds of psychological reasons. I myself have literally dosens of pdf’s I’ve never run yet- purchased over 10+ years- for campaigns I may run or never run, who knows. I still actively play and DM, but I’ll probably never use half of it. I’m currently 18 months into a Mothership campaign, may not DM D&D again for a year- years?

      But I have dosens of module PDFs free and bought and I’ve run maybe 10-20% of them, amidst my own stuff.

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