By Velociyrx
Self Published
5e?
Level 0
The citizens of Arden don’t know it when they get up the morning that the adventure starts, but they are about to have a very, very bad day. One that will push them to their limits, and maybe a bit beyond, even. One that will put them on the path to becoming heroes. If they can rise to the challenge. If they can survive. Are you ready for your first day of school at the Hero Academy? The curriculum is hard and unforgiving, but the rewards…well, the rewards can be sublime. May fortune find you, and smile!
This 41 page funnel adventure details the attack on a village by a group of 400 invaders. It is one of the worst adventures I have ever seen. Rambling, devoid of structure, and with little to do. What can I say, it was in the OSR section.
I am at a loss. I don’t know what to say. I’m not allowed to be a shit. I’m not allowed to fucking hate life and all that lives. Can I rant and rave and cuss and throw a fit? No. I have to be supportive. I have to say things like Falls short of their vision and crap like that. Somehow, we are expected to have a giant steaming pile of shit shoved down our throats and say Thank You Please More! You can’t actually not like anything, you can’t have fucking standards. And thus ut always was and alway will be.
Hermes Trismegistus as an old level one wizard of mine who was 98 and taught in a magic school.And he killed three giant rats over his career with a magic missile in the schools basement hence his name. And he blew out this kids throat once with a magic missile and got no end of shit for killing a kid even though the kids eyes were glowing black and he was JUST about to start unleashing hellfire. You remember all of those long, old, boring, let me tell you about my character stories that you have had to sit through politely until you can find an excuse to be somewhere else, like cleaning out the pig styes? This is that, except in DM “Let me tell you about my home game” form. It drones on and one and it interjects pages of This Is What Happened In My Game, in detail!, at various points in the text. Pages that have little to no use, even as examples, in the game you might be running from this adventure text.
I don’t know how to describe this. 400 dudes attack the town of 200 people. They knock down the two guard towers first thing. At some point some PC gets two arrows fired at them. At another point two attackers show up for the party to fight. Then you can roll up to six times to make forays in to town to save people and gather supplies. These are just Stealth Checks, with no other roleplaying or situations. Oh, Oh, there is this: “Mrs. Miller appears out of the roiling smoke to one of the search parties. She is bloody and crying. Her two youngest children are missing and Mr. Miller died looking for them.” That is the closest, and the ONLY place, in this adventure where there is any specificity to a situation. Seriously. That’s it. The abstracted stealth checks are the adventure. There is NOTHING else. The fucking Miller shit is what the adventure should be. Situations. Difficult decisions. The designer prompting the DM to scenes and situations and greatness.
But not here. Forty pages to get a couple of encounters. Somehow it has both no details and an overabundance of them at the same time, but nothing gameable. It’s as if I write an adventur ein the style of this blog, all stream of consciousness with long rambling sections, little formatting, and what formatting I do throw in I ignore and mix in other shit.
A page of italics r4ead-aloud to start the adventure. A LONG and involved process of character creation, that attaches the players to their characters through a long rich fully developed backstory. It’s a fucking funnel man! A funnel is designed to NOT do that, You make some dudes and GO, you’re not attached. You get attached through their deeds.
“This is very open ended and when this adventure begins, I have no way of knowing
where your players have placed their characters” The entire adventure is like this. “Meanwhile, if any of your characters have situated themselves around Miller’s Pond, they’ll be pursued.” Why would I be around millers pond? There’s nothing special about this place. “If several of the characters started in or near the tavern, their action economy should overwhelm these two, which will give the characters an important win, plus 2 Gambesons, 2 Spears, and 2 daggers for the effort. That’s potentially huge.”
“This…this right here is how heroes are ultimately made. Not born, made.” Jesus h fucking Christ. Fantasy Heartbreaker anyone? You have to suffer through page after page of this smugness. Of this mastabatory fantasy of their home game world. I pulled section after section of text from this to quote, but it’s just too much.
There is no interactivity to speak of. What little there is is abstracted to a die roll. There is no specificity; the miller pond thing is BY FAR the only specific situation in this. It is long, conversational, rambling, overly invested in itself. Bloodymage, at least, didn’t drone on for forty pages. Information is mixed in willy nilly, with little structure to find things. It talks AT the DM instead of supporting them in their game. It’s the difference between Ulysses and an operation manual. I’m not doing a Finnigans Wake thing here, I need details to operate the thing.
I really can’t say enough bad things about this. It does … nothing? But it manages to do it in such a smug Holier Than Thou way. I really cannot stand this. It’s an outline of an outline, that is then abstracted. While still somehow dumping TONS of detail that has absolutely no bearing on anything while telling you how great it is.
This is $3 at DriveThru. There is no preview.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/511510/a1-the-attack-on-arden?1892600
It’s okay to laugh at me: I do not know what a funnel adventure is. We used to pour Bacardi Silver rum through a funnel stuffed with cheesecloth and whole peppercorns, but other than that, I’m bust.
This thing looks like I need to scrape it off my shoe. I can’t separate Arden from the Battle of the Bulge, but that might just be generational.
I do like the cover. It has a kind of rough-hew penciled look that I find pretty evocative. Alas, a good cover with no substance is a 1986 Jaguar XJS sitting decrepit in your garage.
It takes balls to eat this much shit. Good for you, Bryce. Don’t burp in my direction.
A funnel adventure is a conceit originating from DCC or LotFP or something along those lines. For the first adventure of the campaign, each player runs half a dozen level-zero losers simultaneously, after which whoever survived the resulting bloodbath gets promoted to a 1st level PC going forward.
Aha, thank you Yomar.
It is a hybrid of Meat Grinder and Boot Camp. I have a vision of a kind of Bingo-card covered in endless specs for characters with mere numbers instead of names. And a big red marker.
Honey, wake up, new tag just dropped
Oooooohhh, you had me a “Hero Academy.” Sounds awesome!
Me too! 😉
Did… did you guys even read the review? Because it sounds like you stopped at the introductory paragraph – otherwise I don’t think you’d be so keen on this.
I did even more than that, I read the adventure!
So why is Bryce saying this is literally the worst module ever written, and you aren’t? What redeeming qualities has this actually got?
What redeeming qualities has this actually got?
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An author willing to listen, edit and improve. That’s what we want, right? Ultimately, we want the products produced by hobbyists to get consistently better so we all have more “stuff” to enjoy?
You’re saying this module is good because the author is willing to improve? That makes no sense.
You’re saying this module is good because the author is willing to improve? That makes no sense.
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No, I’m saying the adventure is better because the Author cared enough to improve it.
Yeah, but the original comment was “Oooooohhh, you had me a ‘Hero Academy.’ Sounds awesome!” not “Oooooooohhh, you had me at ‘wants to improve myself’. Sounds awesome!”
Also, where did the author say they were working to improve themselves? I don’t see them commenting here. Are you the author, anonymous?
Yeah, but the original comment was “Oooooohhh, you had me a ‘Hero Academy.’ Sounds awesome!” not “Oooooooohhh, you had me at ‘wants to improve myself’. Sounds awesome!”
Also, where did the author say they were working to improve themselves? I don’t see them commenting here. Are you the author, anonymous?
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Yeah, but the initial question I answered was “what redeeming qualities does this thing have?”
And the answer I gave, which you apparently object to, is that the author is responsive and has already issued a revised (much improved) version.
I’m not really sure why that’s worth arguing over. That’s what occurred. You can believe it or not but…that’s actually what happened. I got an email saying a significant revision was available and I got it for free.
No, I’m not the author. I’m just riffing off other comments left here and somehow getting into an almost argument about something not worth arguing over, so…
Look, I’m not trying to argue anything. I’m trying to understand why there are people posting under an anonymous account extolling the virtues of a module that Bryce literally labelled as “No, seriously, the worst EVAR?”. So I ask “what’s with all the praise?” and the confusing answer I was getting back was “An author willing to listen, edit and improve”, which wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the comments section by the author, and didn’t seem to have anything to do with the original comment.
See the thing is, I’m not you – I did not receive an email saying the “adventure is better now, here’s the new version, I’m working to better myself”. Instead, all I have to go off is what’s here in this comment section, and what’s here is basically “this adventure is trash”.
Hopefully you can see the disconnect in statements now, yes? Again, not trying to argue anything – just pointing out that your statements are being confusing as hell, because you’re basing your position on information that none of us have.
See the thing is, I’m not you – I did not receive an email saying the “adventure is better now, here’s the new version, I’m working to better myself”. Instead, all I have to go off is what’s here in this comment section, and what’s here is basically “this adventure is trash”.
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Okay. Well, now you know.
I bought the adventure. Then I wrote to the author and said, hey! This isn’t really structured like an adventure and i’m not the only one saying so (link to this review). And in like…two days, I get an email saying that a significant revision was available.
So I downloaded it.
And then commented here.
That’s it. No hidden agenda.
Just, letting you know that the author actually responds and fixes and improves.
And that’s good, right?
Improvement is good and should be applauded, yes.
But we’re not here to read about authors improving themselves – we’re here for reviews of adventures that exist presently for purchase. We don’t base our purchase decisions on what might become of the author in the future.
So in that vein: How is the revised version of the adventure? Good, or still bad?
So in that vein: How is the revised version of the adventure? Good, or still bad?
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Very good. Night and day. But you should decide for yourself. Go to his World Anvil or Patreon page and ask for a copy. Betting if you said you’d leave feedback you could get a complimentary copy.
An author who’s willing to edit and improve.
tropical
Well, to the author’s credit, there is now a 15 page preview on drivethru, so I’m willing to believe he listens to feedback. Here’s some additional feedback from my skim-through.
Character creation section … isn’t level 0 classless schmucks who are made at the speed at which you can roll their ability scores, background, and starting gear?
Spell points and cantrips. Warlocks and bonus actions. It’s not just Bryce who thinks this thing is 5e-coded. If it’s 5e just come out and say it’s 5e.
Please consult Ben Milton, the Alexandrian on situations-not-plots, and other OSR blogs on adventure design before categorizing yourself as OSR. Also, actually play a few times under a seasoned OSR DM.
Paragraphs that don’t give more information than bullet points would give. The paragraphs are not hard to read, but can’t be scanned at the table. Please give the bullet points so the info can be scanned quickly at the table. Add a paragraph below if it gives additional info useful to the adventure that isn’t well communicated in bullet points.