tenfootpole.org

By Joseph Bloch
BRW Games
AD&D
Levels 3-4

A hundred years ago, the pirate king Harven Half-Skull was buried with his ill-gotten booty in a secret tomb. Your band of adventurers have a map that claims to show the final resting place of the pirate king, and you’re off to claim his loot. But the dead do not rest easy…

This ten page tomb dungeon has twenty two rooms in three pages, and features undead and water themes, it being the tomb off a pirate king. Workmanlike in its design and presentation, it does a good job of emulating the style of the early AD&D adventures: short rooms with not much fucking around in the writing.

The pyramid tomb is a favorite of designers. Except this time it’s not a pyramid but a sea cave And it’s not egyptian but a pirate. But, still, tomb with undead, traps and some loot.

This adventure emulates the style of the older AD&D adventure, G1, S1, and so on. The descriptions are workmanlike and to the point. The rooms are not too complicated, te writing not that inspired, and everything with a briske style.Room six tells us “There is a colony of green slime on the ceiling at this point.” and that’s it. The underground river tells us that “This is a fresh-water river that flows into the sea a half-mile northeast of the tomb. Except in areas #7, #10, and #16-19, there is no air above the surface; the river completely fills the tunnels. It has a slow current moving from the southwest to the northeast.” I don’t know how to label this style. It’s not exactly fact-based, I tend to use that (negatively) for styles that emphasize things like “the statue sits on a dias 6.3cm high with a diameter of 2.6 meters.” It’s not expanded minimalism either; that’s reserved for people who offer too many mundane details in their room descriptions. This is, insead, a kind of, oh, I don’t know, baseline room description? It tends to the terse style, concentrates on what you need to run the room, mostly, and doesn’t tend to embellish much at all.

It is that lack of embellishment that I have problems with. Adventure writing is such a tightrope. There are so many ways to go wrong. The adventure does nothing wrong (mostly). It also does nothing to recommend itself. This style, and thus this adventure, does nothing to make me want to run it. It comes off ass … dry? Dry isn’t right, that’s a different design sin. I just don’t care about it. This is clearly not a disaster, I don’t feel cheated (as I usually do when I’m spouting profanity.) My expectations have not been crushed. I just don’t care about running this. I know there’s a segment out there that worships early T$R adventures and like this style. I don’t get it. It seems like nostalgia worship to me. I don’t need laser pistols, gonzo elements or grim dark to make me like something, but you gotta have SOMETHING … and that’s what this lacks. Something to make you want to run it.

I can quibble with some of the choices made. That green slime encounter is nothing special AT ALL. I’d like to see it kicked up a bit, a little more evocative, better word choices. Certain rooms (Fresco Room, I’m looking at you. You too Shrine Room) could use another pass at the editing to tighten up the descriptions. They either get too wordy or they don’t put the most important things near the top of the description. [Things the DM needs first go high in the description and expanded details go lower.] I don’t see an editor attached. If that’s the case then Joe did a decent job by himself, and clearly has some vision of what he wants, but lacks the outside eyeballs and detachment that a good editor can provide. Not that there are many good editors, so I’m speaking academically of course.

It’s pretty clear Joe understands how certain D&D elements work. There is a chamber you can only get to by following the (completely submerged) underground river … with a shelf high up with a body and a magic item. In another area there are keys hanging underneath a bridge the party crosses over. Rewarding exploration and people that go a little bit farther is good design. Likewise, he’s got a golden crown with jewels with magic powers … and has an EGO/is intelligent … and a bit evil. This is a great item. First, it;s the kind of thing that the part will keep and adds to the fun of future adventures as someone wears it around all the time, in town, in the tavern etc. Second, it’s intelligent, which again gives you more hooks in the future to play with. Third, its evil and so the party has some FUN moral issues to sort out. Arguing about orc babies is not fun. What to do with a SLIGHTLY evil magic item IS fun. Or maybe that’s just my obsession is the Eye and Hand.

I will say that there is something weird going on with the undead; I don’t think they are a challenge? This is for Adventures Dark and Deep, which I’m going to assume is an AD&D clone and follows AD&D turning. This is also for levels 3-4 … and has more than a few challenges with skeletons in it. Don’t they turn on like a … 4 or something, or auto-turn? That’s not really an encounter at all … but maybe its supposed to be that way? Turning undead in D&D doesn’t work, I think. Even at low levels skeletons are not a threat if you have a cleric. That’s too bad. They are a classic monster and deserve more love. Even Gygax knew they were broken, with his +1 amulets in the Borderlands.

Anyway, hey Joe, time to return from your vaudeville show. Now that you can emulate old D&D you might try kicking things up a bit. Kick up those rooms descriptions a notch or two. No need for more words, generally, just better word choice. That green slime encounter, for example. A little more evocative to make people excited to run it .. .by which I mean putting a strong image in to their heads.

This is $2.50 at DriveThru. The preview is one page and show you the first eight or so rooms. Which is exactly what a preview SHOULD do, giving you the ability to understand what you’re actually buying. You can check out the Fresco room, room three, to see what I mean about the need to tighten up the writing in places, and the rest of the rooms show the workmanlike writing style.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/257274/The-Tomb-of-Harven-HalfSkull?affiliate_id=1892600

By Mark Bowen
Blue Sword Games
5e
Level 1

he most recent raid by The Burning Ones goblin tribe has left the village of Greendale in a state of uproar. The miller’s daughter has been kidnapped and the mayor has put out a call for adventurers to hunt down the goblins and find the missing girl. But is there more to these raids than meets the eye? Why are the goblins burnt and timid? Only a strong band of heroes will be able to find the answers and save the girl from a gruesome death.

Why me?

This is a fourteen page adventure in a goblin lair with a dragon in it. Massive reaD-aloud, lame treasure, “maps as art” …is this really mainstream D&D?

The party is dumped in to the adventure, rescuing the millers daughter from the tribe of goblins that raided the nearby village. I guess the local manorial lord is absent again or can’t be bothered, so the mayor has the party dp the job. Seriously, what’s the point of taxes? It being local elections, let me note that the job of the mayor is to fill the potholes, remove the snow, time the traffic lights, and keep goblins from abducting important peoples daughters. I’m absolutely certain is a chaotic good act for the party to depose the mayor and collect taxes themselves. They can’t be any worse than this guy … who doesn’t actually exist except as an abstract concept in the column long read-aloud.

Well, there is an option for having the party hang out in town. You have to succeed in a skill check to have the townfolk tell you anything. a) this is stupid because the party are helping the townfolk. b) this is stupid because what are you supposed to do if they fail the roll? Oh, you’ll just fudge it and tell the party anyway? THEN WHY NOT DO THAT IN THE FIRST FUCKING PLACE?!?!?! It’s like the designers don’t actually think about or run their own adventures.

Back to Ye Olde Reade Aloude. People don’t listen to read aloud. WOTC even write an article about it. Two to three sentences is all you get then people stop paying attention. And yet, adventure after adventure does it. Why? Because they learned that it’s the”right/” way to things from others … including official product. Hey, Mearls, how about fixing this? Don’t Adept anything that uses more than three sentences of read aloud. Then people will learn new behaviours and I’ll have to find a new reason to drink. Like the crushing realization that life is meaningless. I think that’s traditional, anyway.

So … the goblins live in a cave. The cave is a linear map with six rooms. That’s fun, right!!! Linear! Six rooms! Oh, and there’s no grid, it’s just a “pretty” art piece. I say pretty because its not. Seriously, what was the point of the map? You know … the fucking pit trap isn’t even on the map. That’s right, the big old X is missing from the map. Who the fuck doesn’t put the pit trap on the map? Someone with little concern/knowledge of how to help the DM at the table, that’s who.

The tunnel with little no value items in it has a magnifying glass, a greatclub, and healing potions. Uh huh.

Who wants to guess how many goblins are n the goblin tribes lair cave complex? No, zero is wrong. It has four. Three at the entrance and one old frail goblin inside. That’s it. That’s a goblin lair. Those are the goblins that raided the village and everyone is in fear of.

Oh, the cave does have their leader in it, a dragon. Yes, a large dragon. That’s the goblin leader. He’s in the cave.

I’ve seen this in other modern adventures and have not commented … whats with slapping high level monsters on low level adventurers? Trolls at first level, etc. When do people fight skeletons? Is harryhausen dead? Why are you putting a fucking dragon in a level one adventure? Why not just put asmodeus in and call it a day? Is it the 5e power curve? I don’t get it. What happened to stirge and fire beetles? No, I’m not being old, I’m talking about power curves and character growth. Oh, and the dragon knocks people unconscious. WTF man?

Yes, you CAN sell out the villagers and offer the dragon tribute, and even gain the dragon as an ally in the future. THAT is genuinely a good thing.

Perhaps my greatest disappointment in this adventure, which is full of them, is a certain magic item. The only one worth mentioning. A disk, with writing in infernal, on how to soul bind to create soldiers for the “Grand Army.” And that’s it. It’s not actually a magic item or has value. The dragon knd of wants it, if it knows the party has it. That’s it. Man, what a lost opportunity. Let the fucking make some zombies man! Or grow some! What fun!

Just another adventure from someone who didn’t actually think any about their adventure.

This is free at DriveThru. As such I’m too lazy to talk about the preview.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/156433/The-Burning-Goblins-Old-Version?affiliate_id=1892600

By Mark Craddock
Cross Planes Games Studio
Black Hack/Labyrinth Lord
Levels 1-3

Uh ….

This eleven page “adventure’ details one encounter, a forest clearing. I think not.This review is going to suck because there’s nothing in this “adventure” to review.

The publishers blurb says “introductory adventure” and “levels one through three.” In this case “adventure” means one forest clearing that a naga attacks in to while the party is camping. Then a hag shows up to attack also. The end.

Yeah. Level one. A naga AND a hag. 3HD and 4HD. There’s this certain aesthetic in old school play that overpowered encounters are ok, and I agree with that. The deal, though, is that the players have a choice to engage or not. Your first adventure. You are camping in the forest, 5 minutes after creating characters. Then a 3HD naga crashes in. Uh … uncool. And then a 4HD hag shows up to kill whoever is left. That’s decidedly NOT old school play.

And then it does this weird “roll to continue the game” thing. You have to make these investigate rolls … for basic information. And if you miss it, well … nothing happens? You have to make a roll to notice a thick fog rolling in? And a crescent moon, and the fog, and … it just makes no sense.

Side Trek adventure from Dungeon Magazine, crappy though they were, generally had more going on than this ENCOUNTER doe. Not a fucking adventure. ENCOUNTER. I could never have the audacity to publish something like this. Which is why I’m a middle class wage slave.

This is $1.50 at DriveThru. The preview is five pages. You get to see everything but the hag battle at the end.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/257669/Campfire-Tale-for-The-Black-Hack-and-Labyrinth-Lord?affiliate_id=1892600

By Talbot S. Raiche
Self Published
5e
Level 3

The people of Yarlstone are afraid to go into the woods at night. It started with an increase in poaching, but soon merchants and guardsmen were found dragged from the trails and torn apart. A bounty has been placed on those responsible, but who is brave enough to investigate the howling that comes with the full moon?

This twelve page adventure features a small cave system of eighteen rooms with a werewolf in them. Terse and largely evocative room descriptions are a highlight, but slavish devotion to regimented formatting brings the product down, as does the lack of supporting material for creatures and setting.

5e and twelve pages would normally mean a shit product that describes three encounters, maybe … at least that’s what I’ve come to expect. When I saw this was single column I was looking forward to a total shit show, but I was pleasantly surprised. Instead of a shit show rip off product (ie: three encounters or less) it is instead someone with a vision who needs some help improving.

The rooms (in an old cabin) have descriptions like “Living Room: Dim. Creaky floors. Dusty tables and chairs, Cold Hearth. Old rugs.” or “Closet: Dark, Musty, Moths, Worn cloaks on wooden pegs.” That’s pretty good! It DOES create a great atmosphere that a DM can then fill in and riff upon. That’s what a DM needs, just enough to get an idea in to their head, then they can expand upon it as the players explore and ask questions. You grok the place, and because of that you have infinite power over it to convey the vibe to the players. It’s easy to scan at the table and does what it needs to do. I like the style, a lot. It’s not the ONLY way to achieve the evocative & terse thing I look for, but it is one of the simplest to understand and mimic for n00b writers, I think. The room names could have been overloaded some “Decrepit Living Room” or “Musty Closet”, for example, but hey, that’s nitpicking.

And …. I’m done being nice. The rest of this adventure barely exists. It is, essentially, minimally keyed. Rooms have “5 cultists + 3 wolves” or “2 black bears.” Treasure is boring old book stuff. There’s no real reason behind things. There’s some pretext about the werewolf being a bandit, and a wolf cult, all relayed through backstory, but the adventure keys proper are as close to minimal as you can get. Take Palace of the Vampire Queen and add those atmosphere descriptions and you’ve got this adventure. The creatures and environs come off as cold and mechanical. The creatures need to be doing something. The traps need a bit of life. There’s tis devotion to the rigor of formatting that’s weird. Rooms have a section stating “Doors: Slatted wood fencing – locked.” And then, each on a newline, “Pick: DC 14 Dexterity Check” “Force: DC14 Strength Check” and “Break: AC15, HP27.” Ok, get it. I get what you’re trying to do. But it comes off as rigid and mechanical and lifeless … and also takes up too much space. Imageine putting it all one one line, with bolding, underlines, italics, bullets, etc. Same impact to support the DM’s scanning and more fluid.

Further, imagine the doors, traps, treasure, and monsters were given the same treatment as the room atmosphere. Just one sentence of atmosphere each. There’s not village, or wilderness, but imagine that a village was listed, with the same one or two sentence atmosphere, along with, say, three NPC’s given the same treatment. And a little wilderness section of the same. As is, the hooks are essentially non-existent, just that there is this bandit cult leader and he lives in the woods and the nobles don’t like poachers. But give that the same atmosphere treatment? And those wandering monsters? Same thing. Instead of “1-2 black bears” how about instead “1-2 black bears, foraging, wounded, starving” or something like that? Then you’ve given the DM just a little more to work with.

Also, would it kill you to put in a one page summary of monster stats? You use the same thing over and over again … why not fill one page with their stats. Just a summary, so the non-pedants among us can run the monsters from it?

Finally, a note on formatting. Yeah, it’s part of the Notebook Dungeon series and you put it on a background that looks like a legal pad, single column. First, don’t use single column. It sucks for communicating information. I know it’s fucking easy, but its been well established that double column is better for information transfer. Easier to scan up and down than left to right. Yes, I promise, some google searches will turn up the lit. Second, the legal yellow and lines don’t improve the legibility of the adventure, they detract from it. It gets in your eyes way, especially the lines. Don’t do that. (Just like you should not have large sections of italics. Its hard to read.)

Nice idea for the rooms, but it went too far minimal.

This is $2 at DriveThru. Alas, there is no preview.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/255121/ND12-The-Deadly-Den-of-the-Wanton-Wolf?affiliate_id=1892600

By Luka Rejec
Hydra Cooperative
OSR

… It’s an intimate, tragic adventure of witch hunting in a town huddled between rivers and mountains and forests one wet and cold October.

This 68 page “adventure” describes the NPC’s in a small town and wraps some rules around for garnering support from the locals to burn people as witches. Some reference sheets are provided to help the DM with the social situation, and it is CERTAINLY a well-charged situation in which to throw some PC gas … but I’m having my doubts as to the “Adventure” nature of this thing, as well as playability. In the end, I’ve decided it’s an adventure, and a cute idea, and some decent NPC’s, but it doesn’t all come together.

If I publish a list of 30 NPC’s, is it an adventure? If I give each a quirk, like “knows he weakness of metals”, is it an adventure? If I give them each four or five “household” NPC’s of one line each then is it an adventure? If I add rules for liking/hating the party and rules for mob justice is too many people hate the party … is it an adventure? What if I say “the other NPC’s think one of the NPC’s is a witch”, is it an adventure … even if none of the NPCs are witches? What if I add “the town council give the party 3000gp to find the witch in 30 days” … then is it an adventure? Have I beaten the horse enough? As a reviewer I find the question of “what makes it an adventure” interesting … and this adventure walks close enough to the line that I can use it as a pretext to discuss that.

Ye Olde town council hires the party to find the witch in their town. If you can do it in less than a month then you get the cash. There are some mini-mechanics provided on convincing the town council that the accused is a witch, and some around the town folks growing to love, or hate, the party. There are thirty main NPC’s provided, each with a quirk or secret or two, and each generally with a small group of others in the household, also with a quirk or so. There are reference sheets for tracking the love/hate thing, and mini-rules for mob justice.

It is a social adventure. Each of the thirty days in the month has some little small event, like townsperson x tells the party townsperson Y was a witch when they were younger, etc. This is also augmented by some kind of calamity, some witchsign like stillborn cattle (and generally much weirder) that whips up the locals a bit more. Too harsh with the locals and they start to fear you. Too many fear you and a mob forms to burn the party as witches, the tables turned.

It’s a decent set up. The locals are in witch fear fever. Everyone has something to hide. The mini-rules handle the extra new situations well. The calamities and rumors on each day keep the action moving. And in to all this you add a WHOLE bunch of gas in the form of the party and wait for the shit to go down. It’s all very loose, almost a framework for an adventure rather than adventure. That’s both a strength and a weakness.

There’s no actual plot, other than what naturally develops during play. That’s because there is no actual witch … the locals are just all spun up because of some coincidences. But … no one knows that. The coincidences are not explained. The locations and events precipitating things are not touched on AT ALL. So, the pumpkin that spills teeth when cut in to? Only mentioned in passing once, in as much detail as I just typed. Or the fish that turned up dead with a handprint on them? Again, no more explanation AT ALL than I just provided. It’s literally all just rumors and people with something to hide. There’s strength to that, it recognizes that all you really need is a volatile situation and adding the party can turn it in to an adventure. On the downside … well, it feels plotless. The lack of explanation for the “bait” that starts everything is totally up to the DM. And not explicitly so, just implicitly.

It’s also the case that the party will need to frame someone to get the money … and/or save themselves from the mob. Or, they can just rob people.

The lack of the precipitating events, and of a plot, does leave things feeling a bit hollow. It’s all just fucking around. You could just as easily take People of Pembrocktonshire, or any other NPC book and say “they all live in the same village. The party is hired to find the village witch, but there isn’t one.” Same adventure, essentially.

It’s heart is ni the right place. Ut tries to provide reference sheets, etc. The entire thing needs A LOT more cross-referencing. Everything it uses the words The Mayor it also need to put “(p39)” right after it … and do the same for all NPC’s. You gotta help the DM out … especially when things are as loosy goosy as this. Councilor, Cult, Lodge could also be better noted in more locations. There’s also about a column of “background story” for each of the main NPC’s. They do a good job of communicating flavor, but are useless in play. I also think they are useless in play if you skip them … there’s no way you can hold 30 NPC’s in your head. This seems much more aimed at people just reading the adventure rather than running it. Stil, skip it and your ok.

It’s all a bit too aimless for my tastes. The secrets are not explicit, or damning, in most cases. “I can tell whats wrong with someone when I touch them.” Ok, sure. I guess so. It needs a little more push in the PC direction and just a little more pretext at the beginning, I think. Yeah, there’s a rule on how to actually put a witch in the adventure. But, it’s just random.

Luka has done something different and I applaud that. It FEELS a lot like that movie The Witch … except for the ending of course.

This is $13 at DriveThru. There’s a free version available;https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/256916/Witchburner?affiliate_id=1892600

By Tim Callahan
North Wind Adventures
AS&SH
Levels 4-6

Your party have travelled northeast from the great city of Khromarium, through the unforgiving expanse known as the Lug Wasteland. You undoubtedly seek greater riches in the north: ruined tombs secreting ancient artefacts, deep caves filled with long-lost Atlantean technology, or strange villages built atop sacred Hyperborean burial grounds that brim with pre–Green Death treasures. Finally, after having emerged from the treacherous bogs, you set up camp on a craggy outcropping that provides dry land and a modicum of protection from the crawling unknowns. Straightaway your attention is drawn by a nearby light source, a fire not more than a hundred yards away. Through the cacophony of croaking frogs, buzzing insects, and hissing slimy things, a shriek of pain knifes through the air.

This 52 page adventure describes a manor house with 35 rooms that is stuffed full of things to stab. Some decent rumors and magic items are added to encounters that have a certain life and interconnected nature … that the signature North Wind “lets fuck this up by writing a novel instead of an adventure” style is then added to.

I thought this time it would different. A North Wind adventure not by Talanian could be an interesting thing. A different take than the creators, using the same reskinned AD&D setting but brining a different style. How wrong I was. I guess AS&SH self-selects, or Talanians hand as co-developer is too evident.

I’ve got a certain amount of respect for someone true to their vision, even if that vision is WRONG. I see this time and again, and suspect its true for Advanced Adventures as well. It’s good to have a vision but you need to know when you have blinders on and do something about that. North Wind in general, and this adventure also, tend to focus on a novelization sort of description rather than a playable description. And, comic book guy, don’t be a shit; “playable” doesn’t mean boring. I’m fan of archaic words, nonsense words, tearing gramme apart, and so on, all to the end of creating an evocative environment. At first glance this adventure does that. You can certainly find a lot of twenty dollar words and archaic sentence structures. But it’s sin, I believe is in putting those before playability. What’s more important, creating an evocative environment or playability at the table? If we accept “evocative” then we justify 10,000 word room descriptions. We we accept “playability” then we leave ourselves room for both, the evocative description is important, but it must be a slave to playability.

These are the sins of Paizo, and North Wind in general, and in which this adventure seems to fall into. The actual keys are only about twenty pages long, averaging one or two a room. Backstory and timeline are enumerated, and wilderness encounters get a page of text, or at least a column.

The first sentence of room four, of the manor, is “Though far less barren than the area immediately outside the crumbling defensive walls, …” Nite the indirect passive writing style. Perfect for a novel, a love letter to the Appendix N heroes of North Wind, but absolutely shitty for playability. Long descriptions in passive voice, writing in a backwards style, forcing archaic word choices that are dry instead of vivid. We’re left with an adventure full of thralls and apen-men that somehow comes off as boring and dry.

I will say that, in places, it almost seems like two separate authors. The entire wilderness section is a mess, full of these column long novel descriptions of rooms, and this carries over in to certain parts of the manor. But other parts of the manor seem terse by comparison, only four sentences per room. Here’s room 3A “The smell of rodent urine consumes this area. In the southwestern corner, stairs spiral about a newel up to the first floor. The northeastern corner is piled with sand, leaves, shredded rope, tattered cloth, and other debris in a three-foot- tall, five-foot-wide mound, where rest 6 giant rats. The rats exhibit timidity and will retreat deep into the debris at the presence of men, but if the nest is poked or prodded, they will react violently.” That’s not so bad. Needs a little formatting and whitespace to fight some wall of text issue, but ok. Smell hits the party first, a basic description that’s not half bad with tattered and shredded things, and then the monster reactions. Not rock star, but not enough to botch too much about. But that room description, and others like it, stand in stark contrast to the columns of text that seem to consume other rooms, as well as their overuse or archaic structure.

I like the setting, a manor besieged by ape-men, evil folk and creatures inside, and it’s got some non-boring magic items mixed in and an encounter or two that are more than ok, with the vast majority being imaginative enough to handle an AD&D style. I just wish it were playable without making struggling over the text and highlighting it.

The rooms have some interconnectedness, or at least some theme areas, with thralls, apen-men and so on all being around in certain sections … always a great idea. But the initial description of the outside doesn’t dwell on the ape-man sige, even though their are all about outside (on roofs) doing weird things. The party needs to see the shaem on the roof with with bubbling cauldron at the start, not have that part hidden in text deeper inside the adventure. “Let’s see, what do you see? Hang on, let me look through every room description and check and see what you can see from outside …”

It’s also more than a little hack-y. Essentially, everyone is an enemy. The evil ape-men are trying to stop an even greater enemy, but, hey, ape-men. The thralls look friendly, but attack. Shit gets old fast.

Do you just read D&D books instead of playing? Great, buy this.

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is worthless, showing you nothing of what you are buying.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/248580/The-Beasts-of-Kraggoth-Manor?affiliate_id=1892600

Joseph Avery & Walter Haynes
Sin ‘n’ Strut Productions
5e
Level 7

The circus is in town and with it is an settling group of carneys. The show in the big top where death defying acts all seem to be going wrong is cut short and the audience leaves in silence. Without any clues to follow, the party must look to other attractions for clues. Egghead the clown can be heard from the funhouse in Mirrors and Mazes. A crippled carnival barker lures passersby into Sinisterio’s Hall of Curios. A silent and hulking mass of a man pulls a cart through the grounds advertising the Haunted Hayride and Scavenger Hunt. All the while time slips away, half remembered. Can you uncover the mystery of the circus? Can you get out before it gets you?

This seventeen page shitshow of an adventure (Leading the witness!) has the party forced in to being trapped in an extradimensional circus. You hang around for awhile and then get sent home, with everyone dead being brought back to life. So, basically, a shitty “it was all a dream’ adventure. (Again, objection! My Lynch seems to be saying the adventure is shitty because it is shitty. – Overruled, and go back to your Critical Role ‘Story’) This adventure makes a lot of bad decisions.I don’t recall if it makes any good ones. Let’s generalize and say “it has no redeeming qualities.”

First, “it’s all just a dream” is going on. In this type of adventure nothing has any consequences. You wake up (or, in this case, come back from the demiplane) and you’re generally ok again. Dead people come back to life. You keep some treasure or an effect or two in some of them. The main thing though is: your decisions don’t have consequences. It is, in effect, just an excuse for the DM to fuck with you. Arbitrary shit happens and then you go home. Gygax was kind of being a shit when he said you can’t have meaningful adventure without keeping track of time, but I would instead say you can’t have a meaningful adventure if your decisions have no consequences. (Yes, I know what he meant. Fuck off pedant.) You gotta have some skin in the game, and dreamtime adventures don’t have that. Usually mostly.

The very first thing you encounter as a player is some read-aloud. It’s under “opening act” (which makes me throw up a little in my mouth, but whatever. It’s a pretentious tonal thing.) Here’s the opening read-aloud: “You’ve gotten news of a circus just outside of town. All of the derring-do has worn the spirit down and you remember wanting to have a fun night out. Take in a show. Eat something greasy. Your memory is hazy on how long the walk was to get here, must not have been too strenuous.” Note that third sentence, “Your memory is hazy.” At that point, as a character, I don’t care any more and have checked out. It’s means “dreamtime” and that means I get to be bored for the next four hours, enduring arbitrary DM bullshit I will have little impact over. (Also, for the record, I feel a little shitty calling this shitty D&D adventure subgenre dreamtime. Yes, for all the reasons you would imagine. Still, I shall persist.)

Arbitrary you say? Arbitrary I sez! The key to getting out of the demiplane of circus is … the arcanololth in charge decides to send you back. Oh, hmmm. Yeah … ARBITRARY! “He doesn’t want his little demiplane playtime interrupted by chaotic adventurers.” or some such. uh huh. WEAK DESIGN. I think you mean. And, ultimately, of course, if you did you just appear back on the prime at 1 HP at the end of the adventure. No consequences. Arbitrary. That’s shitty unimaginative design.

The mechanics of the writing and organization are not much better. Maybe worse. Action, much akin to watching a play, takes place in long paragraph form. Sit in the stands and watch the big top means “DM wades through text saying that this happens and then this and then this.” Bullets people. Distinct paragraphs. Use whitespace. Organize it so the DM can, at a glance, figure out what is going on without actually READING a paragraph of text, fighting their way through it to try and find the next relevant bit of information. Bad Bad Bad.

Oh, what else. It seems in vogue these days to abstract mazes through the use of playing cards. This is the second one I’ve seen lately, which means WOTC must have published something that everyone is cribbing. I get the concept but, again, it comes off as arbitray. “Just make a bunch of skill checks.”

You know, related to many modern adventures, and this one in particular: the story is NOT yours, as a DM to tell. I know, i know, people say it is. That’s a common thing. Those fuckwits are WRONG. Yeah yeah, onetruwayism, whaever. They are wrong. The story belongs to the players. Their choices are what the game is about. As a DM you get to react to them and synthathize it through the lens of the adventure, but its THEIRS not YOURS. Maybe think of it as you, the DM, writing the villains story. (Then cut out all of the trivia and nonsense backstory, focus on things of import to actual play.) You want to write the villains story right up until the time the speeding freight train otherwise known as The Party runs in to them. The villain has plans, he’s doing things, he’s making an impact. He’s going the distance. And then he’s caught in the middle of the railroad tracks.

This is $3 at DriveThru. The previe is too short, but the last page shows you the crappy “this then this then this” attempt at describing a scene.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/254897/Saint-Floras-Grounded-Circus?affiliate_id=1892600

By Ben Dutter
Sigil Stone Publishing
Apoc/B/X

This 42 page mess is an non-linear sandbox style adventure, or so the adventure tells us, repeatedly. Non-linear by the standards of Apocalypse Engine, maybe, but not when compared to anything above “dreck’ level adventures. A couple of faction camps outside of a linear dungeon that runs between them underground is all you get. It is the most basic of things, expanded to 42 pages.

Some giants are laying siege to a jarls fort. The fort guards one end of Moria. Out in the woods are some Freefolk in a camp that sits on another entrance to Moria. They have the giant chiefs daughter held hostage to get them to do the siege of the jarl fort. This COULD be a great gasoline storage facility for tossing in the molotov that is The Party. Instead it’s dull.

The fort and freefolks camp each get about two pages. It’s starts will some bullets. Great! The important bits! Oh, no, it’s just all trivia, expanded upon the main text that follows. It tells us the freefolk are descended from jormundt. It tells us the camp sits over the entrance to Moria. It tells us it holds the jotunns daughter. It’s fact based boring shit. Or it’s useless trivia shit that doesn’t contribute much to the actual play. A great gaping fetid maw that everyone avoids and the sun seems to shine a little dimmer … that’s a good bullet, but “Covers the entrance to Moria” is just boring. The difference should be obvious. One makes the DM feels a certain way (if done well) and they in turn communicate that vibe, and expand upon it effortlessly, to the players. Worse still is the trivia, like the jormundt thing. Ok. Jortmundt. Why the fuck does the party care? How does that lead to interactivity? Actual play? No, not implies x which implies y. Play. Now. It doesn’t.

Then the main text follows and it expands upon the uselessness. A column full of dull and useless trivia. The dungeon is sometimes worse, giving you lots of wasted rooms, text, and the like, combined with overly long and boring descriptions when you DO reach something interesting. And it’s essentially linear. Joy. Linear is useless. Passing by a dark side passage freaks the party the fuck out, and there’s value in that. Uncertainty is what the underworld is all about.

Look, I get it. Apocalypse is a different beast. It’s not D&D. Some people like it and that’s ok. But bad writing is not ok. Making us dig through text to find something useless. Trivia. Fact based descriptions that are not in the least evocative. Those should be common elements regardless of the system and how it plays. You want linear? Fine, you can enjoy that, I guess. But badly written? Nope.

I will say that there is something the rest of D&D could steal from Apocalypse: the creature blocks. Or, what’s in them anyway; the blocks themselves seems longly formatted. But, it uses those brief little bursts to communicate flavor. Creatures have Trail Tags, like “silent lurker, aquatic, slippery, surprisingly strong.” That’s GREAT. Less is more. It leaves you with impressions that you are free to riff on. THE SAME THING THE REST OF THE DESCRIPTIONS/ROOMS SHOULD ALSO BE DOING. Then there’s this little abilities section and some TINY comat notes, like leads tribe in to combat with shrieks, or some such. Again, GREAT. Cues for the DM when running them! They aren’t always done well, but other RPG’s could learn a lot from them. (The same could be said for 4e’s special monster abilities … assuming everyone had not memorized the MM.) This specialness and abstraction of mechanics, rather than focusing on the details, also applies to the magic items and, because of that, they have flavor and character. Which is what the fuck magic items SHOULD have.

You know, I had a feeling, based on the name, what this was going to be and I was right. I try not to prejudge adventure but, man, I wish authoris would pay more attention. I guess I blame T$S and WOTC. They have spent MANY years publishing shitty adventures and people have “learned” that is the correct way to do things. But, fuck man, look around at what people consider to be good outside of your echo chamber. Yeah, you have to put some work in. A lot of fuckwits (and there are A LOT, they drown out critical thought) will tell you that something is good that is not. You gotta put some effort in. But you’ll be a better writer.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is 19 pages long; and I applaud the authors for this, it gives you a real chance to see what the actual writing is like before purchase. Jumping to the last third or so will show you the bullets point summaries that begin each section (a great idea poorly implemented) and the expanded upon dullness. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/246611/Stjernheim-The-Siege-of-Deepknell-Hold?affiliate_id=1892600