By Mark Taormino Dark Wizard Games OSRIC Levels 1-3
Enjoy those fucking hill giants at level one, you fucking idiots!
The Hamlet of Taldren has been a peaceful settlement for many years, however dark times have fallen upon its denizens. Roving bands of Ogres have been raiding the stockpiles and animal pens in the night! It is believed they answer to a rambunctious giant living in a nearby lush green valley known as the Hill Giant Highlands. There have also been reports of strange animated fungi plant monsters appearing in the Caverns of the Wicked Peaks. Folks have even spotted bandits lurking around the ruins of Sternholm Keep and wandering skeletons in the old cemetary in the Forest of the Fallen Oaks. The villagers have cobbled together a ragtag group of willing adventurers to put an end to these dastardly fiends wherever they spawn. Fame, fortune and glory await those brave souls who can defeat these evil monsters and restore order to the Village on the Borderlands!
This 64 page adventure describes a village and four small dungeons. It represents all that is wrong with the universe and I literally do not give one shit about it.
Fucking garbage through and through, that’s what this is. A complete insult to every other adventure ever written, the last fifteen years of the internet, and every bit of common sense that should be available to even the most casual fan of Dungeons and Dragons. I hope I die before I wake.
64 pages is what we get. For fifteen fucking dollars. Fifteen dollars. I’m not usually one to bitch about price, but it’s this kind of shit that gives moderately priced supplements a bad name. Why the fuck would I ever spend even five dollars on something if this is the kind of quality I can expect to get from it? Why not just pirate the fucking thing since it’s going to be garbage anyway. Sure, tell yourself you’ll pay for it if its good, whatever gets you through the night. The real issue is that this dude took fifteen dollars from me and gave me this great steaming pile of shit. Why ever buy anything? Just take the shit they shovel down your fucking throat and be fucking happy that they didn’t also kill you when they fucking did it. Expectations. Don’t have any. Ever. Just expect that you are burning your fucking money. If anything else happens then be fucking thrilled about it.
But, of course, the first 36 pages describe the village. An utterly boring village. I’m not even sure how you get to 36 pages describing a village. Oh, wait, I know, you describe fifteen farmers hovels. All idyllic. All with chicken and all french country kitchen and tuscan kitchen. No, don’t get your fucking hopes up, the descriptions aren’t that good. Oh, they are long as all fuck. Long, overlong, read-aloud. And long DM text. Paragraphs. Long ones. With lots and lots and lots of bolding. Of Entire sentences. Multiples sentences at a time. Half of a long paragraph bolded. Whats the fucking point of doing this? You’re calling attention to what exactly? That there’s a jar of pepper on the shelf? It’s a fucking abomination. Theres NOTHING going on in this place. NOTHING. Take this, one small snippet from an overly long DM text that happens after an overly long read-aloud about Yet Another Farmers Hovel “He is looking for extra money so he may offer to sell the PCs his Potion of Water Breathing for a reasonable price (GMs discretion). His wife is dressed in a modest, but well-kept dress that hints at elegance despite its simplicity and her blonde hair is tied back in a neat bun” You could have fucking done something with that. But, nope, nothing. The highlight is a druid that is blind. If you steal from him it’s a “moral challenge”, but, also, he’s got 400pp in a chest along with a +3 dagger and a necklace of prayer beads, along with other goodies. Moral test indeed! And these ARE the highlights, by far, so don’t go fucking telling yourself that you can handle something with that kind of content.
Oh, oh, all of the read-aloud is in second person. Everything. EVERYTHING. Second person. “
As you survey the area you can’t help but wonder what other dangers and mysteries this valley holds” Pardon me while I throw up in my mouth from the hackneyed writing and then throw up again from the second person writing.
And this extends to the writing in the dungeons. Fucking railroaded encounters. Oh, no, not that kind. Oh no it’s the absolute worst kind. After suffering through a long read-aloud about a throne room in a cave it ends with the figure on the trone standing up and saying “My blade and I have been waiting for you.” If you stumble upon some ogres in the hill giant caves then one of the read-alouds ends with “The one with the club drunkenly grumbles about him cheating as he turns around and notices your party. He speaks in Common, “Any of you want to play Knucklebones with me… hiccup?” So fuck you and fuck your stealth. Fuck your invisibility. Fuck your wizard eye and gaseous form. Fuck everything you, as a player, do. Fucking railroaded second person read-aloud. I thought I had seen everything but this is surely a new low in adventure design.
Page long read-aloud. Quarter page read-aloud. That throne room? The art above the room entry shows a skeleton dude on a throne. Turns out though that it’s just a normal human dude. Perfect. The art is not just not contributing to the adventure it is actually working against comprehension. Just the fuck what I want in an D&D adventure.
It’s all fucking garbage. The village. The dungeons. All trash. Second person. Too long read-aloud. Too long DM text. Bolding EVERYWHERE to the point it actually causes more confusion than not using it. Boring ass dungeon full of stabbing things and a few traps. “Use DMs discretion” advice everywhere.
This thing can go fuck itself. FIfteen fucking dollars. Fuck you man. Fuck You. Dark Wizard Games needs to get a lot smarter a lot faster.
This is $15 at DriveThru. The preview is ten pages. Check ou preview page five/real page three for an idea of the bolding issues, but, imagine MORE bolding.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/453131/Village-on-the-Borderlands-1E?1892600
No The Worst EVAR? NioMy Life is a Living Fucking Hell?
Bryce, it was good of you to give Mark Taormino and Dark Wizard Games yet another chance to see if there was any improvement in module quality – unfortunately there is clearly no improvement! Mark and Dark Wizard Games go do your homework by reading and running a number of adventures from Bryce’s The Best list!
Now I can take criticism as an author but this was just beyond ridiculous and distorted to the folks reading your blog. Some of your points may be valid with grammar and stats and it does have some faults here and there maybe 20% to be generous in my opinion as the official hack writer of the module!
I will let your BLOG READERS decide if they “agree” with all of your laughable criticisms about my VotB module. To all of Bryce’s fans remember what he said that it is: “Fucking garbage through and through, that’s what this is. A complete insult to every other adventure ever written, the last fifteen years of the internet, and every bit of common sense that should be available to even the most casual fan of Dungeons and Dragons.”
Now… for the folks reading this blog, here is a link for you to download “Village on the Borderlands” 1E PDF of 64 pages for FREE and see how “accurate” this reviewer Bryce is on this one. Read it and you will be able to do a first hand examination and in YOUR OWN PERSONAL OPINION ask yourself HONESTLY the following questions: “Do I agree 100% with Bryce’s review?” and “Do his opinions of this module REALLY match my own now that I have read it myself?” and “Would MY players enjoy this?”:
Village on the Borderlands 1E PDF:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/31fx13l6xeqljwb09ew1q/Village_on_the_Borderlands_1E_Combined_v1_FULL_RELEASE_07_27_23.zip?rlkey=3zquovaetyptnt8jlfn15uh4m&dl=0
Here is what the physical book looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4nVI7AfZMY
And if you want to see an honest review of the module with good and bad check out this video here which calls it “… one of the more charming fantasy villages available”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vsiHse7JlQ
And here is what the actual fans of my modules say about them:
https://www.darkwizardgames.com/testimonials.php
I will strive to improve any grammar or stat issues in my books but I will continue make the modules and story lines my way that my true fans love. Good day sir… and PS I will still send you all the modules in PDF for free if you like! Save your money, kid!
Looks like it made $33k on Kickstarter. This dude has found an audience or at least can market his adventures.
I’ll try not to think about all the ways $33K could have been better spent …
That should get you a week solid of hookers and blow
Does level 1-3 mean start at 1 end at 3, or that it works for a mix of PCs between levels 1 to 3? Not that it makes much difference against giants… just curious.
Wait. $33K? How is that possible? Who is the audience (in a super-saturated RPG adventure market) that is clamoring for this?
Is the writer a celebrity? WTF?
I think (from quickly scrolling through the campaign), that the premise was that the village is going to be a dynamic and lively locale. I guess people liked the idea. Slap some old school art to go with it and raise 33k.
Step 1: drop the word “Borderlands” in your product title.
Step 2: have some old-school art ready.
Step 3: exploit grognard nostalgia.
Step 4: ???? (Normally, produce good module, but let’s be honest, that’s optional.)
Step 5: Profit!
Step 4.5: Pray to the D&D gods that the nostalgic grognards DO NOT search for reviews of your previous modules by either Bryce, Prince or Melan!
“Is the writer a celebrity? WTF?”
ummmm… yes actually…. he is an actor (shorts and music videos mostly) who has worked with Keisha, Lil Wayne, and Jenna Jameson to name a few. He has a Hollywood following and is a bit of a jack-of-all-trades. He targets people who want old school trappings and things that “aren’t politically correct” so the audience of grognards is already built in.
Does make sense.
The Garbage culture = $$
But Bryce, the module comes with 16 recipes!
Good heavens.
If you do want what is the best of Mark’s products…I highly recommend
Monsters of Mayhem #1. It’s pretty darn good. Art and formatting are both really nice.
Thank you for that I appreciate it!
Wow, you had me laughing hysterically at your wildly misleading, hate filled review of my Village on the Borderlands module! I get it… “man-child RPG rage reviews” – it’s your funny shtick in life and AVGN would be proud if he knew who you were. I stumbled across your blog today as I just ordered another mass physical print run of my VotB 1E modules to fulfill recent website and retailer orders for my Dark Wizard Games website.
Now I can take criticism as an author but this was just beyond ridiculous and distorted to the folks reading your blog. Some of your points may be valid with grammar and stats and it does have some faults here and there maybe 20% to be generous in my opinion as the official hack writer of the module!
I will let your BLOG READERS decide if they “agree” with all of your laughable criticisms about my VotB module. To all of Bryce’s fans remember what he said that it is: “Fucking garbage through and through, that’s what this is. A complete insult to every other adventure ever written, the last fifteen years of the internet, and every bit of common sense that should be available to even the most casual fan of Dungeons and Dragons.”
Now… for the folks reading this blog, here is a link for you to download “Village on the Borderlands” 1E PDF of 64 pages for FREE and see how “accurate” this reviewer Bryce is on this one. Read it and you will be able to do a first hand examination and in YOUR OWN PERSONAL OPINION ask yourself HONESTLY the following questions: “Do I agree 100% with Bryce’s review?” and “Do his opinions of this module REALLY match my own now that I have read it myself?” and “Would MY players enjoy this?”:
Village on the Borderlands 1E PDF:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/31fx13l6xeqljwb09ew1q/Village_on_the_Borderlands_1E_Combined_v1_FULL_RELEASE_07_27_23.zip?rlkey=3zquovaetyptnt8jlfn15uh4m&dl=0
Here is what the physical book looks like:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4nVI7AfZMY
And if you want to see an honest review of the module with good and bad check out this video here which calls it “… one of the more charming fantasy villages available”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vsiHse7JlQ
And here is what the actual fans of my modules say about them:
https://www.darkwizardgames.com/testimonials.php
I will strive to improve any grammar or stat issues in my books but I will continue make the modules and story lines my way that my true fans love. Good day sir… and PS I will still send you all the modules in PDF for free if you like! Save your money, kid!
Hi. I think it shows that you believe in your product when you give it to us for free to judge. I chose to go into it with an open mind, although I agree with Bryce some 90% of the times in general.
I struggled. I gave up reading on page 10, where there is a read aloud that goes for 2 pages. But if the rest of the village continues like the first 10 pages, I’ll tell you my honest opinion.
1. Read alouds are horrible. Second person and long is a terrible design choice in 2024 when aclaimed products have shown us how much easier it is to run a terse document.
2. General wordy issues. You spend 2 paragraphs to tell us about a house that its only interest is that the NPC can identify gems. You can do this in 1, 2 sentences. Use bullets even.
3. The bolding is truly working against the reasons and benefits of using bold letters.
May it be some good content in your document? I don’t know. As I said I was appaled by the read aloud at page 10 and gave up. I guess it’s possible. But not in this format.
What I think is the main issue with the adventure though, is the tone of your replies half a year later. It shows you cannot take bad reviews and criticism and just enjoy the good words that come from people who enjoy your work, ignoring the other side.
Ok I will take your notes and seek improvement in those areas. Keep in mind these 1-3 points you mentioned are all personal likes and dislikes. Some folks may not like them and others do. So I’ll just have to accept that.
I have had PLENTY of fair and honest reviews pointing out good and bad in my work that’s fine I never argued with them, but as to why I am responding now is this is first time I found this review (and yes I know he also trashed my other 3 modules Secret Machines of the Star Spawn, Dread Swamp of the Banshee and Shadow of the Necromancer).
Also I have never had such an unhinged “professional” reviewer throwing his tantrum and telling people to “steal” the product and throwing out the F-BOMBs at me – like a petulant child:
“This thing can go fuck itself. Fifteen fucking dollars. Fuck you man. Fuck You. Dark Wizard Games needs to get a lot smarter a lot faster. Fucking garbage through and through, that’s what this is. A complete insult to every other adventure ever written, the last fifteen years of the internet, and every bit of common sense that should be available to even the most casual fan of Dungeons and Dragons. I hope I die before I wake. Why not just pirate the fucking thing since it’s going to be garbage anyway. Sure, tell yourself you’ll pay for it if its good, whatever gets you through the night.” – Bryce a.k.a Professional RPG Reviewer
I first replied professionally but I did have to drop down to his petulant child tantrum as well. I will seek to improve the points you mentioned and thanks for checking it out!
Well, this “professional” made all of a couple of hundred dollars last year, 80% from the Patreon. After website expenses I’m in the hole. “We gotta start charging more for this ice!”
Let’s look at that “opinion” comment you made, Mark. Sure, I can accept that it’s just opinion. Everything is. I’m even down for the fact that non-Aristotelian logic can have value, meaning math is subjective. And it’s also the case that when 99% of the population declares that “not eating feces for breakfast is good” then we can, as a matter of course, declare as a truth that not eating shit for breakfast is a good idea. The alternative leads to the arch-heretic Derrida.
So, points one one through three are only opinion in as much as, yes, everything is opinion. Otherwise, the general consensus of the community is that they are valuable. Much in the same way that you are allowed to order your expensive steak well done.
Marks post got caught in the comment URL spam filter, so he double posted. I just approved them both
Bryce you are the goat
Release the kickstarter!
Ask Kelsey for help!
Yeah, I know I suck. It’s the hookers and coke.
I’m stuck on writing up good examples. And then finding bibliography resources.
I retire from work in ten months. Except more work then.
Yes DO THE KICKSTARTER unless you’re SCARED LOL. If it looks anything like your logo for this AVGN forum here with the “stick figure” art and a blurry Tomb of Horrors image then… WOW you are a real professional! I can HARDLY wait to see YOUR MODULE ONE DAY if you ever get the courage to write one and show us all “what is what” since you are the expert on module writing! It better be one GODDAMNED FANTASTIC module that uses no traditional fantasy tropes since you hate those! FYI I am doing my module business as my only full time income job since last year. I hope one day you can do the same my super talented friend.
Mark, I understand you’re very angry. I’ve reviewed about 5000 adventures at this point. And I say that not to say that you should do what I say, but, rather, that perhaps there are people who might have opinions other than you do. You don’t have to do what someone says but, also, maybe pay attention. Consider the alternatives and give it some thought and see how it impacts what you are doing. And, a little research would have shown several I’ve written.
On another note, how are things going buddy? In your personal life, I mean? I’m a little worried about you.
Not very nice to ask a Rape Review victim how they are. Lot’a F’s in this “Review” Bryce. Not super conservative. And from what you’ve also said, your “Reviews” are just your opinions, which means you have over 5000 opinions. Me to. Unshared. How many individual modules have you played to justify your opinions? How many have you run? How many campaigns? How many one-shots? 5000+ opinions is a lot but are they just D&D modules? I’ll be checking them out now. What about other ttrpg system “Reviews”? I’m confused that you can think such abusive opinion sharing would make sense for any future version of you that tries to publish anything.
Actually that’s a pretty severe critique of this module. The module says for levels 1-3. So I am assuming the Hill Giant is a boss for the end of the quest and BTW, he doesn’t look all that tough. He’s got 35 HP. Also, compared to the original Keep on the Borderlands which featured a minotaur, I don’t think the new module is that far off base.
I’m thumbing through the module and I love the 1E style artwork. The village is actually better fleshed out than the original Keep was. If you don’t like the module you have a couple choices – 1) Change it to your liking [the DM can do that, ya’ know???] or 2) shelve it and don’t buy anything from the author again. Why trash the author?
By the way, thanks for the review. It got me to actually look at the module, and I like what I see. I’ll probably be BUYING this one.
Oh, and one more thing – you sound like the guy in the ‘falling off a bike’ meme that sticks a stick in his front tire and then wallows in self-induced pain and victim-hood.
Checked out the free download provided by Mark. Read through the whole thing. In a word – bland. In two words – very bland. I have to side with Bryce on this one, though perhaps not with the hyperbole.
Reprising Keep on the Borderlands is as old as the hobby. It’s akin to rewriting Moria. How many iterations does the hobby need?
OK. What parts? Please inform me so I can improve my writing. Seriously… let’s not talk in vague generalities or hand pick one villager home encounter like Bryce did or twist some other singular encounter. Get to specifics if you really READ ALL 64 PAGES and didn’t just skim them. Cover each area in at least one sentence as to what was bland: The Village, The Inn of the Whistling Pig, Sternholm Keep, Hill Giant Highlands, Forest of the Fallen Oaks and Caverns of the Wicked Peaks.
“What parts?”
All of it.
I had a look at the PDF of this, I’ve seen modules from this company before and I’m a lover of old school modules, so after this harsh review I thought I’d have a look.
I can’t say I agree. The module looks like the originals, lovely blue maps, similar layouts and it reads pretty well to me! I’m guessing that as a 0 module it’s setting the scene for a series and I looks like a decent base to me.
I really can’t see what’s so bad about it. Having looked I’m actually tempted to buy it and the rest of the series!
And I’m skint!
Chris, your love and support of Dark Wizard games is clear. It’s good for Mark to have a friend and laudable of you to come out in support of him.
I must say, though, that you are everything wrong with the world. Blue old school maps, really? That’s your standard for something being good? Looking like the originals is the mark of quality?
We play D&D here, not collect it.
A couple more things about this “in depth review”… Bryce says ” There’s NOTHING going on in this place. NOTHING.” Apparently he did not notice during his “speed reading” that my module actually has ton of story lines going on and anyone trying to “pretend” it doesn’t is not really reading it and is just skimming it. First of all there are FOUR complete mini-dungeons of varying areas (which can be engaged in any order of sandbox play – they are independent of each other) each one with a unique story line and boss and adventure: Sternholm Keep, Hill Giant Highlands, Forest of the Fallen Oaks and Caverns of the Wicked Peaks. There are over 100 named NPCs in village (along with a location chart unlike Hommlet and Keep on the Borderlands) along with a full Tavern and Inn filled with characters and hooks. The village has over 45 homes and shops along with the Tavern and multi-level Inn of the Whistling Pig with about 25 rooms and the module has plenty of tables of players hooks, rumors and village events going on.
For another tiny example of brainless Bryce’s bits of misleading info regarding the Sternholm Keep story line is: “The art above the room entry shows a skeleton dude on a throne. Turns out though that it’s just a normal human dude. Perfect. The art is not just not contributing to the adventure it is actually working against comprehension. Just the fuck what I want in an D&D adventure.”
Once again proof that he did not even READ that whole section of the adventure because the cursed sword that the “dude on the throne” is wielding had aged him into a skelatal human old man. So once again Bryce proved he is a complete MORON and is skimming these books to give you his bogus reviews so he can “lap” up your clicks, likes and views. The skeletal is boss Warwick Diamondfingers (and YES this is D&D a FANTASY game with awesome fantasy character names). From my book text: THE CURSED SWORD: It will also age the cursed PC by a factor of d20 years for every year the sword is owned. The only way to break the curse is via a Remove Curse or Wish spell or GM’s discretion of a clever solution from a player.”
Also he did not mention ONE THING about all of the amazing artwork in the module… Hmmm… I wonder why. Can’t say ANYTHING positive I guess.
So basically the only thing here that is full of shit and garbage is BRYCE himself. He needs to go take an EX-LAX, plop down on his golden toilet (like in my Secret Machines of the Star Spawn module – there really is a golden toilet in it) and clear the shit out of his bowels and that will free up the garbage in his brain before his next review of anyone else’s modules.
Full out tantrum in the sweets aisle…
Did not see one of those since my little one was 3
Nice job, Mark Taormino. Your shitty-ass attitude guarantees you’ll not get one red cent from me. I hardly agree with everything Bryce says and sometimes he’s caustic as hell but that’s what we’ve come to expect from him and his blog. You just come across like a petulant child. Develop a thicker skin.
Yes I agree. I got “triggered” and “unhinged” I apologize to the forum members LOL. You don’t have to support my projects I understand. If you ever change your mind (or anyone else on this forum) contact me via email and I will always send you a FREE PDF of ANY of my modules to check out! Thanks for your feedback!
I forgot to mention this is what triggered me and my attitude:
“This thing can go fuck itself. Fifteen fucking dollars. Fuck you man. Fuck You. Dark Wizard Games needs to get a lot smarter a lot faster. Fucking garbage through and through, that’s what this is. A complete insult to every other adventure ever written, the last fifteen years of the internet, and every bit of common sense that should be available to even the most casual fan of Dungeons and Dragons. I hope I die before I wake. Why not just pirate the fucking thing since it’s going to be garbage anyway. Sure, tell yourself you’ll pay for it if its good, whatever gets you through the night.”
– Bryce a.k.a Professional RPG Reviewer
Certainly that is an amazing attitude for a reviewer to have, my bad for being triggered by it everyone! 😉
After reading your review Bryce I have to honestly say that, ‘ you’re way off in your review. Mark Taormino and Dark Wizard Games have proven time and time again the original feeling and thrill of the original 1st edition AD&D game. His adventure modules have that classic old school feel and atmosphere.I’ll put it to you this way, if the adventure modules produced by Mark Taormino and Dark Wizard Games are so terrible then how come when Mark announces a new adventure module is in the works on Kickstarter it immediately gets backed/funded in less than 24 hours? Because they’re that damn good. But hey, everybody is entitled to there opinion correct?
I don’t think you can judge by how fast something is backed. I mean, it would be like saying “how come people say DM Dave creates shovelware when he has 7k patreons?”
Just because something is backed quickly doesn’t necessarily equate to quality. Some movies make hundreds of millions of dollars. Does that mean they’re good? A Taylor Swift or Dua Lipa song may be a #1 hit. Does that make it good because it’s the #1 song today? Maybe that movie or that song is just popular and popular doesn’t = good in a great many cases.
Matt, your love and support of Dark Wizard games is clear. It’s good for Mark to have a friend and laudable of you to come out in support of him.
This is obviously a shill, so I suspect Mark has posted on his own forums/socials, yes? Listing his full name and the publishers full name, each time, is dead giveaway. Which is fine; everyone needs friends to support them. But I’m not his mom. I’m some rando with $5 in my pocket to buy a D&D adventure. And this one sucked ass compared to the best being produced. It showed a complete lack of understand of what a D&D adventure is for.
Wait, I could have whined loudly about how unfair Bryce’s review was the whole time? And gotten clout for it??
I doing this internet thing all wrong! Let me try:
*ahem*
“Bryce is a big stinky meanie head who used mean words on the internet about a product I made and put out into the public. That really hurt my feelings and I think he should have his reviewer license revoked. Wavestone Keep was the greatest module ever written and has literally zero flaws, it is not a steaming piling of dog poo that was shat out by an inexperienced designer. Bryce just doesn’t understand the true genius of the nine room dungeon.”
And now the money just… starts rolling in? I’ll expect my kickstarter check in the mail in a week.
But you got all the tags at least ;).
Truly, I won the Bryce mutli-crown on my first try. All my future accomplishments will pale in comparison to this 🙂
I read the review and maybe it is with merit and truth but Bryce Mr. Pole does rarely read books so it is lies with snakes
They always say “Don’t read the comments. The comments are bad for you.”
They are wrong. You need to read the comments.
If you’re a new reader, the jaded asshole delivery style can seem really personal. Layer on some critique standards that not everyone always wholly agrees with and
hilarity ensues. Mark, I would try to find something positive to take away (no one’s perfect, right?) and let the rest roll off.
Thanks for that I read ya! Yes this is the first time I discovered this blog so now I get his “shtick” and humor. Notice how I am not even going to respond the reviews he did of my Dread Swamp of the Banshee, Shadow of the Necromancer or Secret Machines of the Star Spawn. All of my modules follow my writing style and will appeal to some and not others and that’s the way it is which is fine.
He trashed some of my modules, but another got The Best and couple of No Regerts. You have to take it in stride. Bryce is doing the Lord’s Work, but he’s just one man.
Sir. There is no need for such vulgarity. You have ruined your credibility because of it and your personal attack on Mark.
LOL!
OK. you dangled a free pdf to the grogs. I read it over.
First and foremost, like most folks here, I’m the older side, possibly on the much older side than some, started playing in’81, my group never switched to 2E, we just kept on with 1E and, in a funny twist, the game came back our way. 🙂
This is blunt and honest:
* It’s pretty; effort was put into trade dress, maps and the art is well done. I, for one, appreciate being pandered to.
* I knew I was in trouble when the module started thus:
“It’s MINE… no it is MINE… that one is MINE. No I want that one! MINE! MINE! MINE!” That’s all you and your compatriots have been squabbling about for days! Like litle spoiled children you have been arguing over treasures that you haven’t even
found yet! Your group of adventurers has been on a long and perilous journey to reach the Valley of the Moon where those future treasures are rumored to lie in wait! Finally, you have arrived at the top of a hill overlooking the lush and green Hamlet of Taldren
below. As you catch your breath and take in the view, you dream that the rumors are true of a ruined castle nearby, home to dangerous creatures and ancient treasures! But you can’t help but feel a sense of unease as you also have heard tales of a nearby giant’s lair, where a creature is said to reside with a special eye for beauty! Additionally, a sinister and creepy haunted forest that has claimed the lives of many a foolish traveler looms out there. And then there’s a mystical cave system, said to be filled with gems and oddly colored mushrooms, guarded by strange fungi monsters. As you survey the area you can’t help but wonder what other dangers and mysteries this valley holds.”
Yuck. That’s not just falling afoul of “show, don’t tell,” that’s telling, underlining and highlighting things. It’s also running afoul of The Cardinal Rule of Module Authorship: Don’t tell the Players or their PCs what they are thinking. Here, you’re literally putting words in the PC’s mouths.
* It continues;
“The residence is surrounded by a small vegetable herb garden with a few brown, black and yellow feathered chickens pecking at the ground nearby. One of the yellow chickens awkwardly stops moving around and stares at you then proceeds to get nervous and well, you know… better watch your step over there! It starts clucking and pecking the ground again then walks away from you.”
What. What are you doing here?
* The utility of bold text loses focus commencing on Page 9.
* The entire read-aloud fortune telling thing. No.
* On that note, you’ve fallen into Cult of the Reptile God’s trap of treating the village as a dungeon, where every room must be described. It’s a quasi-medieval village; there should be a handful of points of interest and move on to the meat of the adventure. 15 pages in, it’s one hovel after another – THAT THE PCS WILL NEVER ENTER LET ALONE SEARCH! Pages and pages that could have been reserved for the dungeon. We you expecting the PCs to search every house? Why treasure for peasants? Also – an inordinate amount of treasure, magic treasure (scrolls?) for farmers.
* 18 pages in, I’m having a dairy farm read aloud to me. Are you, by any chance, related to Len Lakofka? I’m having flashbacks of organizing L4 into coherence.
“It is owned by farmers Benjamin and Abergale Johnson (AC: 10, MV: 120 ft (40 ft), HD: 1d4, HP: 4,#AT: 1, D: 1-2, AL: Neutral, Languages: Common, XP: 5) They have four kids (three boys and girl) who work on the farm and two dogs,Chester and Joey.
The PCs can buy milk, cheese, and meat from his for a reasonable price, however non-locals usually get charged a bit more (GMs discretion).”
That’s just 1/10th of the verbiage dedicated to this farm (one with 5,000 gp and Oil of Slipperiness socked away for no reason). Is there an OSR version of Hârn I was unaware of and that’s what system this is written for? These are ALL the wrong details to focus on. No grog nor OSR player is going to haggle over cheese, sir, I guarantee you.
* There’s a “SIMPLE FARMERS HOUSE” (we’re now 20 pages in) with 41 lines (!) of description. Oh, and the simple farmers ALSO have treasure and a magic potion.
* If the entire interior of the “FISHERMAN’S HOUSE BY THE WATER” is in bold, then bold serves no purpose.
* The laborers in the LABORER’S COTTAGE (24 pages in, why Lord?) have a ring of telekinesis. If you don’t understand why that’s wrong, or never wondered why telekinesis is a 5th level spell, or why in the name of Zargon these “simple laborers” would ever have such a thing, then, respectfully, I don’t know what can be said for you.
* At this point, I must note that the Author has blown past and exceeded the page count of G1, the ur-example of how to write a goddam playable module – terse yet descriptive, factions, the weird, challenging high-level play even excellent art crammed in, and we’re still at the granular level of describing the moisture farmers collection of screws and bent nails.
*26 pages in, we find a HERMIT’S HOUSE with merciless overuse of bolding and MULTIPLE READ-ALOUDS, because some DM soliloquies cannot be contained in just one. On and on AND ON AND ON. Oh my God, it’s Hermot’s Houses all the way down. Mr. Author, every single one of you players is looking at their phone right now.
* 30 pages in, we’re in a tavern, with a page of read-aloud and … every corner described.
* Page 31: Another private room with two straw beds tucked neatly in the corner. Two large windows on the south wall provide a breathtaking view of the courtyard. A small table and chair rest nearby and the wooden floor is covered with some dried mud or is that blood… oh well what’s the difference?
As my son would say, “Bruh, wut?”
* You’ve named the bad guy, “Chief Grumblebutt.” No, you did. “Chief Harold Grumblebutt has everything a hill giant could ask for, a beautiful loving wife and two adorable children.” Everything is just so wrong. I’m almost out. It’s sheer stubborness at this point. SO MANY WRONG DETAILS. 36 pages in, when does the module start? I’m … I’m waiting for Godot, aren’t I?
* Page 37, finally the adventure and … this is for levels 1-3? So, why is there a hill giant on the wandering monsters list? And 2-12 ogres? Are you aware, Mr, Author, a single ogre has killed generations of PCs in The Village of Homlett? Have you, sir, actually played D&D? Well, at least the Wandering Monsters table ends with giant rats, so that’s QUITE a swing there.
* Oh dear, we’re back to telling the PCs not only what they think, now it’s what they do:
“The dead body of a human lies in a tangled and twisted mess of broken limbs in unnatural positions and is being ripped apart by four Ogres! The floor is slippery with wet blood. It looks like these bastards were fighting someone and that someone lost.
Badly. The creatures are breaking its bones and chopping it up… they notice you and attack!”
This isn’t a Fighting Fantasy book; it’s supposed to a module, which is now over as 4 ogres mop the floor with a bunch of low-level PCs (you do know, Mr. Author, that sleep affects 0-1 4+1 HD monsters?)
* Page 41, here’s the 40 HP hill giant chief with 4 dire wolves, and in the next room two more hill giants and four more dire wolves. So, this was a cruelly long Kobyashi Maru all along?
* I could go on, but it’s all more of the same. Just an obsessive level of all the wrong details and no attention put on the game, or even how the game would work (later on, these newbie PCs are attacked (the text says so) by a shambling mound). The village component is like a shopping list read TO the players, the dungeons are purely generic.
Thank you Gnarley.
I lacked the vigour to post similar specifics after reading the PDF.
Mark thinks adventures need to be written like that because N1 & T1 had obsessive village write ups so thats clearly what D&D advenures need. And apparently there is a market 40 years later of people who still want 17 pages of generic village write ups for their players to completely ignore just like the good old days.
Although I kind of love that the labourers have a ring which could either make them entirely redundant (hide it forever!) or the greatest most renowned labourers in all the land (actually use the thing you have!) and yet still live in a crappy labourers hut in the middle of nowhere and offer to give the ring away to the first randos they see.
You read almost the entire thing. You took one for the team! Joking aside, if I were the author I would find your comment even more painful because it highlights details of what is wrong. But he probably thinks “oh what does Gnarley Bones know… my fans know better”.
Sounds like his fans are throwing money at his KS simply because they’re his fans, not because of quality, or lack thereof. People sometimes back the product maker, not the product. Happens all the time. Good for him. Obviously, he’s tapped into a customer base that’s willing to pay for what he’s serving.
Fun fact… I always loved the yellow stripe modules of 1980s that I grew up playing and had been wanting to write some since the old D20 license came out in 2003 or so. I am not an expert writing or in DMing nor do I try to pretend to be (that’s why you see a lot of “GMs Discretion” in my modules) I just always had a desire to make “fun” modules like how I used to DM them in the 80s. When I started writing retro modules for professional commercial release back in 2012 with my first module Hanging Coffins of the Vampire Queen and Kickstarter I had zero connections or fans in the business nor did I even think it would be successful. No “friends” or “family” to support it. The KS barely made its goal of $2,500. In fact, before it reached the $2,500 goal, when myself or the backers were not sure that it would make it, I literally had random backers who did not know me messaging me telling me that if they had to they would put in a higher pledge to MAKE it happen. I was like wow, I hope I can deliver for these folks a great product. Fortunately they did not have to add any more and naturally it and ended up at $2,700+ and was successful.
After I delivered the book the backers started asking me to “make more” even with its stat flaws, major railroading, grammar problems and other issues. But people liked what they read and the physical quality. Next I made Secret Machines of the Star Spawn and they all came back along with new people discovering my work and then they asked for more. Next and I made Villains of the Undercity and they all came back along with new people discovering my work and asked for more. And I kept growing a fan base as it kept growing like that with me making module after module. Now as of 2024 I have published about 20 modules.
So “no” they are not supporting the books because of “me” they support them because they like to buy them and run the modules with their gaming groups who enjoy them. Not because they have a yellow stripe or familiar look (that alone does not make sales and if you think it does then try it on your own). I know this is probably an unfortunate “reality” for some of the folks on this blog to accept but there are folks that like my products for the stories, characters, physical high quality of the art, maps and presentation. Some of my KS projects made more or less than others sometimes it depended on the product or the economy. People seem to like lower lever modules like 1-3 as well e.g. Shadow of the Necromancer did $26,000 on KS. Village on the Borderlands did $33,000 in gross sales on KS and I still sell it routinely on my website and am in the process of doing its second physical print run as we speak. I sell out of all of them and always reprint them for new orders.
Thanks for your specific feedback Gnarley Bones I appreciate it. The writing style is just the way I do it with the humor and 2nd person stuff (sometimes I write it like I was speaking to the Players myself DM-ing). I will work on improving stat and grammar issues. I just always figured DM’s would adjust around any stat issues etc. The reason I had detailed each 100 NPCs and their cottages was because Hommlet and Keep maybe were lacking in that area. Large read alouds may not appeal to experienced DM’s but new DM’s may appreciate having all that to work with. Once again this is a good teachable moment that my style appeals to some people and not others! As the famous quote goes, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time!” Thanks again for taking the time to read it!
Hey Mark, I’m doing a deep dive into your adventure as well. It’s becoming too long for this comment section (on 4 pages so far) so will tell you when I’m done and can message you or post it on my blog or on Bryce’s forums or something. Got visitors in town, so may be a few days.
Overall, I’m in total agreement with Gnarley Bone’s assessment (and Reason’s comments), BUT I’m focusing more on suggestions, tips, and specific examples to try and keep your style but help improve your approach and a few layout suggestions. The art so far looks great.
Mark, I hope you take Malrex’s offer seriously. He has a tremendous track record of producing high quality adventures in terms of content and layout and his insights (and, more importantly, suggestions) are going to go a long way toward growing as an author and publisher of OSR adventures.
Ok thank you Malrex and WR I appreciate it. Have a great weekend!
email sent to info@darkwizardgames.com with my assessment.
And damn WR Beatty–made my day, thanks man.
I don’t have time to address all of these but this one in particular: “Chief Harold Grumblebutt has everything a hill giant could ask for, a beautiful loving wife and two adorable children.” That is supposed to be a joke. You must have missed reading the part of the module that states “Grumblebutt he has a keen eye for beauty” as his wife and kids are ugly. The running joke with that Hill Giant Boss character is that all of his monster trophies on the wall have ugly faces and he is looking for the “perfect” adventurer trophy for his wall and that will end up being the PC with the lowest charisma score when they encounter him. He blurts out… “Your face! The BONE STRUCTURE is INCREDIBLE! I must have it mounted on my WALL!”
But are you writing a joke adventure? Because it comes off jokey.
Styles are styles, and people appreciate different styles. What I was trying to get at in my review is I felt (in my own free-to-be-casually-disregarded opinion) that you spent far too much time and page space on entirely the wrong details. Vivid page-long descriptions of hovels. Then, the dungeons, where the action is supposed to be taking place, are really generic and (again, just my opinion) not well thought-through.
There is a school of thought that modules for Player Characters Levels 1-3 means that you’re supposed to start with 1st level PCs and by the end , perhaps survivors hit 3rd level. Another school posits that the level range means that PCs of 1st through 3rd level are appropriate for the module – I belong to the second school.
No experience is gained in the first 30 pages of the module – unless you’re running it for murder hobos and, realizing that the serfs have rings of telekinesis, they ransack the village door to door. So their coming to the dungeons at either 1st level or perhaps a smattering, depending on what school one attends.
But it doesn’t matter. Four ogres will, themselves, wipe out the party. Multiple hill giants and wargs cement a TPK. That’s poor design. The potent spells 3rd level casters can come up with are sleep (doesn’t work on said wargs or giants) or web (which *might* help, but might not with a hill giant’s 19 strength and the thickness of a web cast by a 3rd level magic-user. On the cleric’s side of the ledger, hold person doesn’t work on any of those.
Ditto on the shambling mound, which is even more fearsome than a hill giant. It is not EVEN CLOSE to being a monster that automatically attacks a party levels 1-3. There is no point to that encounter.
I get that Gary made the ur-mistake, in statting out the first AD&D village, in going hut-by-hut, and then that format was used in N1, L3, etc., but in the forty years since then, its now realized that those are just wasted pages. The PCs aren’t going door-to-door to meet every serf and mud farmer, they’re not searching every hut, all of that is for naught. You do up the Big Ticket Items: the inns, the church, the graveyard, the apothecary and then you stop. Have a few paragraphs generally describing the village – sure. Have a list of the villagers and their connections and foibles – if you must, but only if it directly impacts gameplay. Wrong details.
Focus on level-appropriate encounters and the dungeon as an ENVIRONMENT, not a ecological one (I despite dungeon ecology; when players ask what the nereid has been living on, hiding in a room at the bottom of Tamoachan’s pyramid all these centuries, the correct answer is ‘tears of adventurers’). I mean, what is this dungeon providing? There have been approximately 13, 674, 392 dungeons released over the last 40 years, what sets this one apart, what does it offer that makes it unique, are there cool traps or features? Why play this?
I’m sorry that was supposed to be funny?
Folks on this blog are confused and complaining about all this “bolded text” in GMs sections of the cottages. FYI the bolded text in the GMs section of the cottages is worded and meant to be potentially read aloud to the PCs as to the description parts inside the cottages as well as for the DMs info.
You already have copious read-aloud. Be consistent and sparing with bolding. As an obvious example, as you copying (again, meant in appreciative way, not pejorative, I like Old School Dress), TSR typically bolded room names, magic items and spells. At times, bolding was extended to all treasure – and that’s it.
Normally I do that but in this one I bolded text in the GMs section of the cottages and worded it to be potentially read aloud to the PCs as to the description parts inside the cottages as well as for the DMs info as to not have to create another boxed text area.
Mark, we are all very happy for your success. That there is a demand for your modules fills me with a certain encouragement. However, Bryce is not measuring sales figures. Surely you wouldn’t agree that a module by WotC is significantly better than any of yours simply because it sells more?
Anyway, inspired by Gnarley Bones, I decided to have a quick look at the PDF myself.
* I started with the cottage descriptions. Page 1, item 1 – Small Farmhouse. When you playtested this, was it important in your game to specify that Martin and Sally Parker (farmers) are “usually in the fields during the day and at home sleeping at night”? If you think this is important for the DM, how come the description of Levi and Sarah Brimley (also farmers) does not specify that they farm in the field and sleep at night? Do they also eat food? Walk using their legs? At least be consistent in your approach.
* Ok, let’s leave the village and get to the actual adventure. I skipped past the art of a man who is so old that he looks like a skeleton, as in an actual undead skeleton with glowing eye holes. Because that’s what happens when you age.
* Purely at random, I picked page 50 to read:
5: Undead attack.
* The magical trap with the skeletons could be an encounter with a twist – but no, it’s just 4 skeletons to fight! What happens if the PCs do or do not disrupt the magic circle? The module doesn’t say. There isn’t even any guidance telling me that as the DM I can just make something up! This is sarcasm – of course I can always make something up, but as the designer, you should have provided the details.
* Instead you have written out “Roll initiative” (in case the DM forgot the combat rules?) and “There is nothing else of (sic) here or anywhere nearby”. Is this helping the DM or just unnecessary noise?
* Then under the tree there is a sack with 6000 sp. Out of curiosity, would you let a PC carry that sack?
6: Bandit surprise.
* So, the game has rules for surprise but you are forcing a surprise encounter on the PCs regardless of how alert they are. That’s robbing players of their agency.
* The description says the bandits are “heavily-armed and armoured”. The stats say they are wearing leather armour and carry shortswords. Which is it? Oh and right at the end of the description it says that one of them has a shortsword +1 but that’s not in the bolded combat stats. So is the bandit not bothering to use his magic sword?
* The bandits “demand that the players hand over their valuables and weapons”. I’ve got a character sheet and a pencil – will that do?
* If the bandits are defeated the PCs “may find a stash of stolen goods hidden nearby, including gold, weapons and other treasure”. How much? Where is it hidden? You don’t bother to tell the DM, even though this is much much more important than how many chairs each farmer’s house has.
* Anyway, some pretty rich bandits these (magic sword, over 1000 gp plus an undetermined stash). There’s a guy down the road who just killed his buddy over 80 gp.
8: The situation.
* So in the bandit surprise, the read-aloud specifically referred to the bandits as “bandits”. Here, the dead bandit is called an “adventurer” and his buddy is just “a human male”. Sounds like the DM is intentionally tricking the players, as opposed to fairly describing what the PCs see.
* The bandit has a dagger, but of course it’s not in his stat block, and only blood on his hands is mentioned in the read-aloud. So did he kill his buddy with his namesake Blacksword, his dagger or his bare hands? I guess we’ll never know! Yes, the DM could make this up on the fly, but then the DM could also make up the number of kids that a farmer family has. Which is going to be more relevant during play to the PCs?
***
I decided to stop there. I suspect that anyone reading this blog can look up a page of the module at random and identify a similar number of issues.
I’m sorry Mark, I realise that you and your fans feel that this is some sort of subjective, personal attack – it’s not. Doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun with your module or that you need to change – you be you. But objectively, I can’t see why I would choose to run this module instead of the many other available modules.
PS. Mark, please can you rein in your fans? It is clear that they are posting here en masse. I don’t think it is acceptable to compare your state after receiving a critical review of your module with that of a rape victim, as Anon did in the post above.
Thanks for the feedback. There are several valid points but otherwise the rest are all just nitpicking every single sentence in the module we could play that game with any modules on the market especially the old ones.
For example I will pick one at random. Don’t bother wasting your time continuing I get it and we get it:
6: Bandit surprise.
* So, the game has rules for surprise but you are forcing a surprise encounter on the PCs regardless of how alert they are. That’s robbing players of their agency.
MY RESPONSE: Valid Point OK. I would assume a seasoned DM would simply ignore my mistake and run the appropriate surprise roll and move on with the game.
* The description says the bandits are “heavily-armed and armoured”. The stats say they are wearing leather armour and carry shortswords. Which is it? Oh and right at the end of the description it says that one of them has a shortsword +1 but that’s not in the bolded combat stats. So is the bandit not bothering to use his magic sword?
MY RESPONSE: NITPICK DMs discretion.
* The bandits “demand that the players hand over their valuables and weapons”. I’ve got a character sheet and a pencil – will that do?
MY RESPONSE: NITPICK Your character sheet and a pencil are not part of the PCs inventory nor valuable.
* If the bandits are defeated the PCs “may find a stash of stolen goods hidden nearby, including gold, weapons and other treasure”. How much? Where is it hidden? You don’t bother to tell the DM, even though this is much much more important than how many chairs each farmer’s house has.
MY RESPONSE: NITPICK DMs Discretion.
* Anyway, some pretty rich bandits these (magic sword, over 1000 gp plus an undetermined stash). There’s a guy down the road who just killed his buddy over 80 gp.
MY RESPONSE: NITPICK That’s right. 80gp. Murder hobos.
I forgot to mention, I will work on correcting those kinds of loose ends in future modules. Thanks!
Mark, your attitude as evinced here in your responses has been a big turn-off for me, and I suspect some others, in deciding whether to ever purchase or consider one of your adventures. I wish you the best, but I’m going to be steering clear of anything written by you.
Fair enough. Thanks for taking the time to post!
Mark, I don’t want to belabour the point, but there’s an obvious typo in “[the bandits] demand that the *players* hand over their valuables and weapons”! By itself this would just be a nitpick of course, but combined with everything else, it builds up..
The real issue with the rich bandits is that after defeating just four bandits, a level 1 party will have 3,000 gp (1k in gems, 2k from selling the +1 sword), which is enough to level one or two characters. It can literally be their first encounter upon entering the forest and it’s enough to level up! I think Gary Gygax would have had some nitpicks with that kind of gameplay too.
Anyway, if I want a village sandbox with a sprinkling of humour, I’m going to use my DM’s Discretion and run The Blackapple Brugh by Kyle Hettinger (Bryce’s review here: https://tenfootpole.org/ironspike/?p=7563).
I forgot to mention to all the folks who took the time to point out the specific encounters with issues like typos, stat problems etc, thank you. I will incorporate as many fixes to those encounters in the next printing of a v2 version. I had literally just ordered reprints of v1 a day before I found this review so when I do the next one I will include as many legit ones as possible then I will re-post an updated zip file to download. Thanks!
Good banter in the comments with a suprisingly wholesome finish. The OSR is going to be just fine.
This review sounds like it was written in a correctional facility by a twelve year old.