Battle for Carrion Vale

Posted on July 16, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 

By Joseph R Lewis
Dungeon Age Adventures
OSR
Levels 6-7

I’m popping this one earlier in the queue, cause it deserves it!

This morning, the forces of Law and Chaos clashed at Castle Yennagor. The battle raged all day, but as darkness fell, a cataclysmic explosion destroyed most of the castle and leveled both armies. Now, as night claims the vale, flickers of life return. Survivors make camp, flee the field, or continue the fight. Scavengers creep over the dead. And one question remains unanswered: what happened inside the castle?

This 37 page adventure details the parties journey through 28 possible vignettes in the aftermath of a battle between law and chaos. A rollicking good time full of situations that are full of gameable content supporting by a useful format and great writing. This is the level 6 adventure you were looking for!

Ok, so, you know all of those adventures in a ruined castle that was the result of the forces of law and chaos fighting a climactic battle? Well, this is one of those. EXCEPT, this one is on the battlefield right out front and the castle JUST exploded (as they are want to do when Law & Chaos clash in a fantasy setting.) What this gives us is a kind of point-crawl around the battlefield, with the castle at the center, and lots and LOTS of bad shit going down all Deep Carbon Intro style. And I fucking LUV it!

This uses the Dungeon Age style, which I find quite effective. It’s triple column, and easy to read. We get a brief title for each “encounter”/vignette, like “Tattered Shipwreck” or “Weeping Women” and then a little section of descriptive text. A sentence or two that relates the general scene that could be read-aloud. After that we get bullets, with bolded keywords starting them, describing the major points and a few sentences elaborating, perhaps with some of those words bolded as well for more follow up information. A separate section details treasures. It’s an effective style which makes it easy to scan the text and pull out information, and is relatively dense, using the three column format, with about three “situations” per page, sometimes less with artwork. NPC’s and some monsters get a few words of disposition (alien, playful, hungry for flesh) or (critical, judgemental, impatient, hungry) to help the DM with their personalities during the encounter. This is the less is more philosophy, that I love so much, but with enough text that the DM is not fighting through an abstraction, as , I think, the OSE house style is sometimes criticized for. 

Writing here is very good. Here’s the entry for Screaming Men. “Screams echo across the smooth, glistening mud. A huge well with slick vertical walls descends into the soft wet earth. At the bottom, a dozen people battle against a writhing mass of red tentacles and golden eyes. A dozen corpses lie trampled at their feet.” Note the use of adjectives and adverbs. Echo. Smooth, glistening. slick  & vertical, wet earth, golden eyes. You really get quite the evocative scene description for so few words. It springs to life, framing the rest of the encounter in everyones head, DM and players alike, for the scene to come. This happens over and over again, with Lewis doing a fantastic job of painting these pictures in so few words. And then switching over to a little more direct writing, with less descriptive text, for the follow up information. You’ve already got it by that point.

And then there’s the encounters proper. Or, situations, I think, is a better term. In that above example we’ve got soldiers from both sides fighting that thing. Of course! The two forces, the common soldiers, working together against a common threat to ALL men! It’s a classic set up. And I do love me some classics when well done. Oh, and one group is mercenaries in the service of the chaos side and the other common soldiers of the law side. So the chaos dudes attack the law dudes when the horror dies. They’ve got a contract and reputation to uphold! And the horror is … well, a horror, with a great attack and his eyeball can serve as a magic item! Yeah! That’s all i want in life!

And this goes on, in encounter after encounters. Dudes getting impaled on stakes. Old women piling up corpses. Thieves looting bodies. Dudes fighting over a knife. There’s supporting material for travelling and a good wanderers table th tmakes sens, both of whic hare handled breezily and effectively. I’m down man!

And then there’s the castle. Where the paladin dude is rolling around on the floor fighting the chaos wizard dude, both struggling over the golden skull of a saint. And pleading for help, making promises. As does the skull … if you kill them both then he’ll make you a saint … with appropriate powers! An appropriate reward, I think! So much here is sooooo good. A necromancer constructing a body horror from the dead. A angel of battle come down to looky loo, as a golden ball of light. Slithering half-vampires crawling over the dead and dying sucking dead, while an aristo one looks on and offers to turn you in return for some services. Win friends. Make enemies. 

AND PLAY EITHER SIDE! You can be in the service of law or chaos when the thing starts. There’s a roll to see where you start out on the battlefield, on the outskirts, to add some fun!

This entire fucking thing is BAD ASS and exactly what you want for an adventure like this. Level fucking six babbbbby! You’re a big boy, time to put on your big boy pants and figure the fuck out what you’re gonna do!

This is $4 at DriveThru. A fucking steal! The preview is twenty pages, more than enough to get a good look at the format and encounters and tell if you want to buy it. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/393396/Battle-for-Carrion-Vale?1892600

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews, The Best | 16 Comments

Delusions of Grandeur

Posted on July 13, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By Adventure Bundles
Adventure Bundles
OSE
Level 1

There is a kobold clan living in an abandoned dwarven mine. They call themselves, Iga Shuvne, which loosely translates in common to The Big Ones in the Mines. The name is new. The kobold chieftain changed it after the discovery of a wand, as he thought it better describes what the clan now resembles. It was about a month ago, when a scouting group of kobolds exited the mines to patrol the surrounding cliffside and desert. There, on the ground, near a patch of dried bushes, they found a wand which allowed them to change their size. Although they have made themselves smaller while testing the wand, the actual interest was on the property that allowed them to enlarge themselves. They brought the item back to their chieftain, and since then, he boasts with confidence, pride and has even started declaring dangerous ideas about attacking the nearby villages of men.

This eighteen page adventure features a two level mostly linear dungeon with about sixteen rooms. It is the usual 5e take on kobolds, but in OSE. IE: dumb, comwardly, and with some silly traps. It lacks strong descriptive text and is pretty straightforward. The single exception is a Drowned Maiden, that shows potential, but suffers the same.

We’ve got some light hooks around behind hired because the kobolds are getting more uppity and hanging around and stealing things and such. Off you go the old dwarf mine (don’t humans and elves ever mine?) and journey three days up the mountain/desert with a few wanderers. A colorful little 5e-style map has two levels, mostly linear, with some water features in it. And kobolds.

Modern kobolds.

We wanna be dragons and we make traps like we’re tinker gnomes. I loathe tinker gnomes, and modern gnome culture. And modern kobolds. Your mileage may vary. But, they are weird rube goldberg trap heavy. Vats of molten honey. A wire from a fake gem to a dropping killer bee hive. (Save vs death.) A compressed elk bladder that contains a mixture of snake poisons. A charming little feature is the inclusion of Grimtooth style drawings for the trap; an appeal to the nostalgia of the olden days. As things go, I’m rather fond of bee hives, and even snake venom. The more rube goldberg nature of the traps is a bit of a let down, as is the somewhat heavy nature of the traps, in quantity. It approaches a schtick. I’m open to being called prejudicial here, for while I find them charming I also sigh more than a little bit. Anyway, a lot of traps to go with your “i wear dragon wings and a dragon mask” chief. And vats of molten honey to fall on you. And weak floorboards. And …

The text is a little on the nose for me. Mechanical minded and to the point without much charm to it, or evocative writing. I can’t say it’s BAD, but … the read-aloud is short and the text well formatted for quick play. There may be a thing or two out of order (if the trips is first then the tripwire should be first) Rooms with read-aloud do a decent job, but that’s not all of them The egg room, for example, is just DM text “There are 5 nests here, containing all current kobold eggs of the tribe. There are green, red and black eggs at the moment, and all contain little kobolds in the early stages of development. If the kobolds in Area 4a, Kobold Living Area have been alarmed, then some will be waiting here to defend the eggs.

Otherwise the chamber has no enemies” Like I said, devoid of life and a little too mechanical minded. Compare this to a room WITh read-aloud “The sound of waterfalls feeding the underground lake emanates around the cavern. A couple rock pla?orms with jagged edges protrude from the crystal clear water, while makeshift bridges made of ropen rope and planks extend to connect them.” That’s from room three, a particularly well done/formatted room. Maybe the read-aloud could be a little more active in it’s verb use, but it’s ok. 

You’re gonna get traps and fighting. There is a shaman that might get you to go kill the chief, and vicey versey, but only if you don’t make omelets in the egg room. There IS the inclusion of a Drowned Maiden, which I take it is a 5e thing. I love the concept, it being a classic. The description, though, is “As soon as the party approaches or comes out of the water, a drowned maiden named Drowned Constance will emerge from the water. She has ventured too far away from her lair that connects to these underground rivers and is lost and hungry. She will ask the party to bring her an egg of the “scaly little ones” to feast upon so that she can return to her lair.” Not very evocative at all and a little boring and one dimensional, but, it’s not fighting. More thought, going in to this, could have really elevated it, and the design … which I think is pretty much the same with the entire adventure.

As a 5e adventure this is probably pretty standard, or even much above the usual quality levels. I can’t say though that it seems like a good OSE adventure. A little linear and prone to fighting. Maybe a better kobold cave than B2, but, also, maybe not. It’s needs a text uplift, and a rethink of of the overall design and situation within the cavern. 

Oh, the delusion is tha the chief has a wind that makes him/kobolds bigger or smaller. It shows up on the chief, probably in the last room, and is not really handled at all. Not so great for the main gimmick/title gimmick.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThrue with a suggested price of $3. Le Preview is the entire thing. I suggest checking out room three on page seven of the preview. I think it does a good job of showing all of the good with the formatting/read-aloud as well as the more difficult parts of the design.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/401027/Delusions-of-Grandeur-OSE?1892600

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 14 Comments

Exploring the Unknown

Posted on July 11, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By Joseph Mohr
Old School Role Playing
OSRIC
Level 1

Lord Huet was once a powerful warrior who slayed dragons and explored dungeons with other adventurers. Recently news of his untimely demise has come to the village near his keep. Adventurers are gathering to explore this keep as the retainers of the lord have now run off with everything that they could carry. What treasures might still remain?

This 28 page single column adventure features three levels of a linear dungeon with about 33 rooms. It’s using the “populate yourself” mechanism from b1. 

I am, I guess, a sucker. Most of you know this by now. But, man, Mohr knows how to suck me in with his marketing! I see the cover, I see the description, I buy the thing, and then I look at the designer. Rought Roh Raggy! Remarkable, though, in getting me to buy it! Dude has the Make It Appealing part down pat.

The rest, not so much. 

The maps are three Dyson affairs, essentially small cramped linear things. Text is single column to pad the page count out. And, of course, it’s b1. Except it doesn’t DISCLOSE it’s B1 until you’re purchased the fucking thing. Ug! Had I know I wouldn’t have bought it. Of course, it also says MOHR on the DriveThru page and I was clearly able to ignore that, so, who knows.

The text is shitty. Recall one of my favorite room description examples from Dungeon Magazine? The trophy room that went to great length to describe it, only to end with “but that was long ago and it is all looted now?” Yeah? Remember that one?

“Entry Hall – Those who enter the keep must enter here or through the secret tunnel

leading to area 14 of the dungeon level. This area was once ornately decorated with

tapestries and golden candlesticks. Someone has run off with most of the valuables.

The heavy reinforced door has been left unlocked as the servants and retainers took off

with much of the treasures that remained here.”

Great, so, we’re told what the map shows. Then we’re told what the room once looked like. Then we’re told why the door is unlocked. Is there an actual description of this room? Of course not! Why bother with something like that?

Sometimes, I like to engage in a little game called Thing Explainer. When having a conversation with someone I like to take something they’ve said and define it for them. So, if they say “pants” in some conversation we are having, then I will say something like “Oh, the things you wear on your legs that have pockets that you can hold things in!” It works remarkably well to alleviate my boredom with the moron I am currently talking to. Let’s look at the Guard Post description: “Guard Post/Barracks – This area has several bunk beds. There are empty trunks at the

end of each bed on each side so that each guard could store their clothes and valuables” Mohr has done an excellent job playing the Bryce game. He’s defined what a footlocker is. 

Linear map. Nonexistent room descriptions. A b1 clone, down to fountain rooms and hidden things in statues. And, i’m a sucker for marketing.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $3. Preview is six pages, but you only get to see one sentence of one room. Bad preview,  not giving you an idea what to expect. But, I mean, great job in running a business. You don’t need to do anything like have a good product to sell things!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/401052/Exploring-the-Unknown?1892600

Posted in Reviews | 10 Comments

The Gemeria Code

Posted on July 9, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By David Maynard
Maynard
OSE
Levels 3-5

Depending on who you ask, Gemeria was a hero, sorceress, illusionist, artificer, witch, artist, poet, trickster, seductress, or villain. She made her mark on history, becoming incorporated into children’s fables playing all of those roles. Her cryptic language of mystic glyphs is carved into the walls of every significant city and dungeon in the world. A century later, her secret lair has been discovered, potentially holding the key to her secrets. The race is on to decipher her code and profit off the knowledge and power contained in her home.

This 24 page adventure uses twelve pages to describe a 33 room dungeon with substantial puzzle-ish elements. Light on encounters but with factions, it presents a different, “longer” experience than most of us are going to be used to these days. I wish the grapes tasted like grapes, though.

Once you make it through the seemingly impossible gauntlet of Making The DM Not Want To Tear Their Eyes Out, what next? That elusive DESIGN criteria. This is what we have in Gemeria. An adventure that hits the marks on most points but fails, I think, in Design. 

First, an overview. There’s a dungeon. The wizard who owned it is dead now. She’s famous for making painting and spray painting weird graffiti words on walls. There are two groups of NPC’s in the dungeon, vying for control: a band of humans on one side and then a band of monsters and bandits led by a wizard on the other. Those are going to be your three primary points of interactivity: deciphering a glyph code, figuring out how to use paintings as teleporters (and grabbing the paint needed to do it) and interacting with the two factions. That will be the main thrust of the review. 

Beyond this we have a simple to follow writing style. Here’s the text for room one: “This room features a ragged, faded carpet spread over a perfectly flat stone floor. Light in this room (and the rest of the dungeon) radiates softly but evenly from ceiling tiles 20 feet high. A painting hangs on the left wall over the remains of a table that has been torn to splinters.” It’s relatively terse, easy to follow. Not exactly the most evocative but not odious either and it does try, with “splinters” and ragged and faded. The format then follows up with more details on the painting, highlighted in bold, with some cross references to where the painting leads to. 

So far we’re batting a thousand. Descriptions are on the shorter side, easy to scan, good bolding and cross-references. Magic items have short little descriptions that are pretty good, along with some effect variety. “A golden goblet with glittering gems set into it that smell strongly of turpentine. Glyphs are carved into the bottom of the cup.” Or saying the command word for a magic sword, awakening it for a turn. They FEEL like OD&D items, and that’s a VERY good thing. A magic hatchet, not an axe. A world of mystery and wonder. The dungeon factions get decent easy to follow descriptions, some goals, have enough to them that you can run them easily with some variety, and there’s a timeline to help the DM advance the plot a bit for their impending clash. And the advice is generally good. The most iconic being “The temptation to have the players discover the glyph’s meaning organically through the cyphers might cause GM’s to disallow Read Language or Read Magic in this case. DO NOT DO THIS! Reward the player for their unorthodox spell investment!” Yes indeed! That’s old school. 

“And, so, Bryce, what’s the issue?”

Well, I think maybe it’s the pacing. The map is pretty straightforward, essentially two halves of the dungeon, each half controlled by a faction. A main hallway connects them, as well as two “hidden’ paths. (I kind of like the map. Essentially very simple,. But with some variety in style that makes it seem more than it is.) 

There is, essentially, nothing going on in this place. 

All of the encounters will be with wanderers (slightly silly ones) or with the factions, with only a single area containing creatures otherwise. The factions, while well done, need a little more oomph to them. Some plotting. Some probing actions. A list of things to get them MOVING beyond the simple timer they have. 

The puzzles are essentially the party figuring out the cypher and finding some painting to make magic painting portals work. And most of the paint shit is in one room at one end of the dungeon. 

This makes for, I think, a very slow play experience. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Imagine a session, hyperbolically, in which the party only explore two rooms. And not in a 3e style, but in an OD&D style. We work all night on two puzzles. Again, thats hyperbolic, but, I think, puts you in the right frame of mind when I say a slow experience. Thoughtful, perhaps? 

Again, encounter density is VERY light, relying mostly on wanderers. Factions, while not completely static, to tend in that direction far more than they do not. Puzzles are puzzly and, I think, a little location loaded. I don’t know. I could be wrong. It could play fine. But I’ve played enough to think that, perhaps, it won’t. I’m also in VERY dangerous reviewing territory right now because I’ve overlapping my own tastes. I think some options in playstyle in my dungeons, but one note dungeons turn me off and this is, I think, a little too slow paces for me. 

But, also, this is not odious. The text is NOT hard to follow, it’s easy to follow. The writing could be a little more evocative, but, that fucking shit is hard to do and it’s not BAD in that department. I might label this a fine journeyman effort … if a little too focused on one playstyle. 

This is $5 at DriveThru. There’s only a quick preview and no full sized one. Tsl tsk tsk. We need to see a few dungeon rooms to see if this is worth buying ahead of time. 


https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/391529/The-Gemeria-Code?1892600

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, No Regerts, Reviews | 5 Comments

The Tomb of the Twins

Posted on July 6, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By Luke Simonds
Cats Have No Lord
Black Hack 2e

The Tomb of the Twins is a mini-dungeon designed for use with The Black Hack 2e system. It is a small dungeon set in the tomb of two ancient necromancers with many possible ways for unsuspecting adventurers to be killed. 

This ten page adventure uses four pages to describe twelve rooms in a tomb dungeon. It’s not overly offensive, keeping things breezy in the text department while providing some light interactivity in most rooms. It’s just also not that interesting, with the sparseness of an AD&D dungeon in twelve rooms.

This one is kind of rough. At first glance it’s not doing anything too terribly wrong. A featureless done of black rock. A set of large silver mirror-like doors that open easily. Rooms that, while not overly short to a minimalistic degree, are still short enough, on the text front, to be able to read and take in relatively quickly in a traditional paragraph style. 

“This is a 5 by 10 ft. room with a low ceiling. Inside this room, objects float somewhat

weightlessly. There is no source of light in the room except what comes through the front door. Straight ahead is another set of double doors, these made of a dark wood. The doors are unlocked, but stuck shut, swollen from dampness” That’s not an altogether terrible description. For an empty room it’s burning some energy to the thing. The light from the doors you just came through. The weighless thing is out of left field and never mentioned again, so lets ignore that, but damp swollen wooden doors? Sure thing! There’s another paragraph describing five glyphs above the door that mean nothing. I can get behind that as a kind of entry room for a dungeon.

But it really does this in room after room. This kind of sparseness. Which, you know, I really like. It’s got a kind of old school feel coming through. Room two is a mural on the wall with some unlit brass sconces on the wall. Rooms three and four have three chests each. Room five brings us “Chairs, pieces of a broken table, remnants of a banquet, and eight skeletons are strewn wildly about the room. In the corner is a large hole dug roughly through the floor.” Not bad. 

But, also, we’re halfway through now, about, and there’s just nothing here. There are ONLY twelve rooms. The kind of sustained dungeoneering, and the sparseness of the rooms that would follow, is just not present here. There’s only twelve rooms. And thus you wander in to a room and go on to the next, not really DOING anything.

Well, not exactly true. There are the traps. Attached to almost every room is at least one trap. Black hack style. That fucking empty room one has a trip wire inside the doorway that rings a bell in the corner of the room. Wait … what? I though that room was empty? No? There’s a bell in it? Uh … ok. And room two tells us that those brass scones … well, one is actually gold. That’s the key to opening the secret door. Oh, and you know there’s a secret door because of the dust on the ground with footprints in it. Uuh … what? 

So you’ve got these trp & door porn descriptions (at least they are relatively terse) that contain more information that you get to integrate in to the room description. And while the initial descriptions are great, a kind of hybrid between read-aloud and DM text in that you could either way with them, the trap & door porn details seems like they should be integrated as well.

Or, maybe you just don’t tell the players about the dust and/or let them live with the brass sconce situation? That seems shitty. Do you roll with the shitty shitty thiref as a class and make them announce and roll in each room and then tell them about the dust/gold, as favour text for making their roll, or do you integrate the dust, and sconces, in to a room description and then elaborate on the footprints and/or gold nature of one scone in the natural course of play as followups through Q & A interaction with the players? I mean, I obviously prefer the second method, but, the way the text is presented makes that difficult to achieve. The extra information is a tack on, and obvious, rather than an integral part of the room.

Oh, and the fucking treasure? “You may decide how much is in each chest.” Well fuck you. Even though you tell us there is a “large ruby” and “gem encrusted cup” in the chests, they have no value. Figure it the fuck out on the fly My DM, the designer can’t be bothered. 

It all ends with two things on a pedestal that, if you fuck with, brings two liches back to life to fuck shit up. Uh …. That seems a bit extreme for what otherwise would be a pretty simple adventure? A little Death Fristy, but without the telegraphing that Death Forst goes through to let you know. Arbitrary here. 

So … you know … it needs a little more thought. A little simple, a padded page count for only four pages actually mention used for the rooms. And the rooms essentially being a placeholder for a trap/secret door and maybe a fight. Yup, there’s a floor tile puzzle or two, but that’s de rigeur at this point.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2. The preview is broken. Sadz. 🙁

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/399883/The-Tomb-of-the-Twins?1892600

Posted in Reviews | 5 Comments

Fogheart – The Torso of the Giant King

Posted on July 4, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By Lucian Correa
Antigona404
OSE
Levels 1-3

Once upon a time, long before the heyday of the plains folk and the inevitable fall of their empire, deep within the forest, there was a mythical creature that stood upon all the others. Some of the old and forgotten tales, only remembered by the eldest roots, refer to this creature as an implacable tyrant who ruled with an iron fist. There are songs that birds keep secret that speak about the benevolence of this colossal presence, who supposedly wandered through the forest transforming every inch of soil into blooming life. Truth is The Giant King didn’t seem to welcome the arrival of foreigners, and soon enough, a war happened.

This 32 page island has about six locations, each with about six places at them. It’s myconid heavy, and a little weird without being gonzo, with a fairytale lean. It’s ok, with strong strong anchoring elements in most locations, but a little abstracted for my tastes. You gonna Wing It a lot … in a hex crawl kind of way.

The core of this is an island, surrounded by fog. Once on you can’t get off. Somewhere, on the island, is the body of a mythic giant, dead a long time. His rotting body has caused a lot of myconids to pop up, with their goofy society. The island has six pretty iconic location. A town built from wrecked ships, a wizards house, a ship cemetery, ancient ruins, the cave that has the giants heart (and a cult) and a fairy wood with essentially an ent. These each get a little three sentence summary that is pretty good. “The only town on the island, built from whatever finds its way on the shore.” or “A cursed seashore where Fog Spirits mourn their past lives, wander- ing the wreckage of their stranded ships. The vessels come from different places and times,”  Not bad fo a kind of foundational framing of the various locations. 

Each location then gets its own little section of a couple of pages, enough for around six places at each, give or take. And, each of these generally has a little detail that you hang your hat on. In the meeting house in town we get “Clathrus the Shaman lives on the second floor, surrounded by old roots that contain the history of his people …” Sure, old roots and a shaman. Or, in the tavern, a weird foods table “two stone floating on wine.” or a gray mushroom covered in moss. (It is, after all, mostly mushroom people in town.) 

It’s the iconic locations, a ship graveyard, the myconids, the town of leftover parts, that give it the kind of fairytale bend. And then there’s the wizard. On an island full of mushroom people and faeries there lived an wizard. An evil wizard. In his own hut. Doing his experiments. Feared by all. Who wants to live forever. Yup, hitting all of the checkboxes, in a good way! Likewise the magic items are a little unusual, well described in a terse but evocative manner, and come with limited charges, usually, and some mythic way to recharge them that is both unusual and not impossible. 

The only real downside/problem is the wanderers table. A little short, at six entries, and mostly a “they attack” theme. Wandering around the island will get you repeats and the encounters themselves are boring. This could be beefed up. A lot. For any setting which you are traveling you’re gonna need some wanderer variety. And, hopefully, more than just “they run at you and attack”, which, while not entirely true here, is the energy the encounters are putting out. Oh, also, the level range is not in the product description or on the cover. Don’t be a tool. Put the level range somewhere obvious.

But, the main differentiator in wanting this, I think, is going to be your feelings about hex crawls. Do you like a hex crawl? To be clear, this ISNT a hex crawl, but the level or description for the various locations, both the major ones, like the town, and the minor ones like the sixish places in town, are at a hex crawl level, with hex crawl energy. 

A little open ended in a way that is unusual for an adventure but de rigueur for a hex crawl. Let’s look at an example, the gate of the wizards house:

The Gates
A wall of sharpened branches blocks the road to the house. A living vine entangled in the gate asks for proof of the wizard’s presence to enter. It can be easily destroyed or burned, although that alerts Uprix in his quarters.
• Following the wall into the woods leads to a tunnel into the fields, dug by starving Moss Beasts

Maybe not the best of examples, since gate is pretty sparse place. Hmmm, lets just use that as an example of the descriptive syle/format, which is generally good and at least a little evocative. Ok, how about a wrecked pirate ship, The Bloody Heart: “An old caravel trapped in the seashore since a long time ago. There is a rope ladder that goes up to the deck, and a hole full of eels in the hull that leads to the Captain Quarters.” and then a couple of bullets about some fog spirits guarding the deck that don’t know they are dead and a half-closed rusty door to the captains cabin. 

It’s all got a very … abstracted kind of vibe. But not in a generic way. There’s always something there to inspire, much in the way a hex crawl description (a good one anyway) should have. Kind of a Heres a very general description of something and something weird to kind of base riffing this encounter off of, but, also, nothing overly specific about the place or whats going on. And that’s totally a hex crawl description. 

And I’m a little put off by it. It’s not what I was expecting. It’s not what I want in an adventure like this, one that contains some specific rooms? Sure, for something like a tavern, or the stores in town, I can get behind this. And for a kind of summary of location “this is what the caves are like” then, also, I can get behind it. But, when it comes to “the first floor of the house” or “The pirate ship” then I get a little … perturbed. I’m expecting a location based thing and instead of a cave encounter I’m getting a more abstracted cave thing. I’m not sure I’m in the mood? 

I feel shitty about this? Usually I’m ok with slamming an adventure. Hey, you write a bad thing. But this isn’t exactly a bad adventure. Except maybe for the wanderers, it’s not bad, when seen through the light of one of a “hex Crawl Adventure But Not a Hex Crawl” framing. There MUST be room in the taxonomy for something like this. It’s not your typical location based adventure and not a hex crawl and not a setting.  A small region, maybe, with adventure sites? It’s enough of an adventure for me to be ok calling it An Adventure, but energy is hex crawl. And that has to be ok, as a specific type of product. It’s just that type of product is rarely seen and thus can come as a surprise if you are blind buying this. But, as long as you know that and are ok, then, absolutely, Have At Thee!

This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is broken. I can haz sadz 🙁

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/394756/Fogheart-The-Torso-of-The-Giant-King–Old-School-Essentials-version?1892600

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 5 Comments

Dragonmaw Cave

Posted on July 2, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By Richard Ruane
R. Rook Games
B/X
Level 0

For many decades, the towns of the valley were guarded by Olkana, a kindly, young brass dragon, who lives in the even older Dragonmaw Cave to the north. No one has seen any sign of her in months, though, and recently livestock and pets have been stolen, travelers have gone missing, shrines have been desecrated, and even some wells have gone foul. You and your friends have traveled three days to Dragonmaw Cave to see if the elusive Olkana can help.

This 24 page adventure uses five pages to describe eight rooms in a cave system. It’s minimally keyed, but with expansive text that turns the entire thing in to a meaningless slog of a deathtrap.

This zero level adventure features two cacodemons! Yeah! And a 5hd dragon with “armor as plate.” Like, what the fuck man? I don’t even know … like, I get it. It’s OSR. You can have overpowered challenges. But, things you are meant to kill? Like, placed in your path as an obstacle, or, the goal of the adventure? A 5HD dragon? With breathe weapons? Ok, sure … 

Oh, wait, I’m supposed to say something good or nice in each review. Here, this is a cute thing: “If the PCs don’t immediately attack, she’ll offer to wrestle one of them in exchange for safe passage. If the PC wins, Hano will create an icy bridge so that they can cross the underground stream safely.” That’s an ice mephit, doing that. The wrestling thing is cute, as is the ice bridge. Very folklore, both of them, and you know I love folklore. Of course, the rest of the adventure has no folklore elements at all, and no vibe at all in that area, but … again, I’m supposed to something nice at least once in every review, says mom. Oh, and there’s no hook. And I’m taking that a bonus. Or, rather, maybe I mean there’s no intro text, no lead in to the adventure in town, etc. It’s just what’s in the marketing blurb. And I’m totally cool with that. This is a location, it’s got some shit in it to stab and steal from, and all you need to know is what’s in the marketing blurb. There’s enough there tossed out to play with. Fouled wells. Ship missing. “Desecrated shrines” … like what the fuck is that? Covered in dragon shit maybe? Idk. But, whatever. You don’t need a lot of background shit to get goin in the adventure.Just give me a bit to riff on and a location to go with.

One room has a dragon nest “lined with several silver chalices.” No word on how many. This drives me nuts. Put in the fucking amount man. Same thing with monsters, when it happens. This is pretty basic fucking shit. And room keys. Put it the fuck in. Stop fucking around and fulfill the basics of the format. Once you get a few under your belt and don’t suck donkey balls anymore tTHEN you can experiment.

Let’s see, room descriptions. How about “This location is guarded by the ice mephit

Hano, who’s bored with working for Calder. …” Yeah. Nothing. Or, how about “Amari the hatchling spends its time resting atop its small hoard here. …” There are, essentially, no location descriptions. There’s maybe a line, that says what is here, and it devolves in to mechanics. Lots of wordy mechanics. Lots of wordy tactics. Lots of focus on shit that don’t matter.

The rest of the page count is a fuck ton of new classes and zero level rules. 

Whatever.

Sucks.

This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages and shows you a few rooms, and some of the new class shit. The few rooms ARE representative, so, good preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/400448/Dragonmaw-Cave-for-OSR?1892600

Now that shits over with, let’s talk important shit: New cars. I give my car to my son, who got his license two weeks ago. He’s starting his first job at the home of Winter Fantasy and, no, you are not riding the fucking bus for ninety minutes like a peasant when you could drive ten minutes away. So, all I’ve got is the truck, which I have turned in to a camper with a camper shell. It’s an old Frontier, so, small, but still not something for running around town in. I start looking and think I want a Miata. Go look at some, manuals of course. I’m looking forward to getting twelve speeding/reckless tickets in the first two weeks and then driving in to a pylon and dying. THen, I think, woah, no backseat. And the girlfriend has three-ish young kids. That’s not a cool relationship move. But, I still want something fun. So I start looking at two door Wranglers. Right?! Softtop, fun, backseat for kids. Perfect! Ain’t none new. Used is looking pretty ratty. One dealer has a new one but what’s a $500 window etching fee, I walk out over it and they don’t chase me down, even though I’m paying fucking cash. “We’ll sell it tomorrow.” Fuck, the market is hot, especially for Wranglers. Depreciation websites show that they are the #1 least depreciating car. Wow. I try Carvana. Find a 2012 with 98k on it for $1k MORE than the 2012 window sticker was. Wow! I grab it. Comes in. A little loose (jk) but, hey, it’s a fuck run around town car, right? That’s cool and adds to the charm. On the way to the mechanic (which I bribe each time with a meat and cheese gift platter. Always tip folks, it gets you better service.) the check engine comes on. Great. I get a call two hours later “You DO NOT want to buy this car.” I go in. Misfires on #2 and a main seal leak. Ouch! I go straight out and try to look at some buy here pay here places, but all they got are jacked the fuck up four doors. I find a dealer with a 2-door sport thirty minutes north in BFE, go up, and buy it on the spot. Fucking thing will never leave the pavement. Gonna take off the roof and door and put two yellow surfboards on top and drive it around year round like that. Off road is for the truck, man!

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 8 Comments

The Darkness of Kasta

Posted on June 29, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By Angelos Kyprianos
Spiral Lane Productions
OSR
Level ?

A strange incident invokes fear and doubts in the people of Kasta, a remote town that suffered greatly after the Royal War. Since then, the People of Kasta have always found ways to coexist peacefully, regardless of origin or creed. However, doubt and fear might awaken one’s worst instincts and Kastian people might soon face new trials.

This is a six page outline of an adventure padded out to 37 pages with a fuck ton of battlemaps and creature stats. The mind boggles.

No, I’m not exaggerating. Six pages. There are six scenes and they appear one on a page. Six pages. Ok, sure, there are a few pages of NPC’s, and a p[age of “other things to do”, but no more. Six pages. And what kind of epic fucking adventure do you put on six pages? An outline.

Maybe this happens. Or maybe this other thing happens. After a funeral “some events of minor violence may take place and have the sheriff restore the peace with warnings and fines.” Well, that’s fuckingexciting as all fuck, isn’t it? No suggestions. Nothing more. Just some suggestions, in general, of what might happen. 

Hooks? No, no hooks. You’re just tossed right in, assuming you’re there to investigate. Actually, that’s not true. There are hooks. Four. “The murderer is a war veteran of Gralian descent whose house was destroyed and family were slaughtered.” The other hooks are similar. They aren’t hooks. They are … things that happen in the adventure? Another one is “Many people will falsely suspect the Vampires that live in the castles due to prejudice.” Not a hook?

Also, people suspect the Vampires that live in the castles to the north? Uh … fuck yeah! That’s my kind of thing! Sadly, they get no detail, at all. Which may be why it comes off so great. Like, what the fuck is up with that? And not A vampires, but, plural? Uh … Rock On man! 

There are no combats. “Most battles are not inserted directly into the story in order not to interrupt the atmosphere. The Story Teller can insert them at their convenience when the timing seems right.” In fact, there are no battles at all. There are, in the rear, a list of creature stats. So, like “Andalusian rebels” and shit like that. Not encounters. Not vignettes. Just some stats. Figure it the fuck out Mr GM and do what thy will as is the whole of the law. 

Where there is read-aloud, at the scene stars, it’s very long. It contains such gems like “As you approach Ulious’s body, you can see that there aren’t any scars or signs of wounding. His death looks natural, but is it? Further investigation might help shed some light to this case.” Need I sy WHY this is bad? His death looks natural … but is it? Oh man, just, like, fuck off with that shit.

I don’t know what else to say here. There’s no content, just an outline. “The party should ask around with some people to find the rebel leader.” Uh … ok. Oh, and each page is supposed to take 4-6 hours of game time to complete. Yeah, I forgot that. *sigh*

What’s the point of this? Why make this 37 pages? Why label it an adventure? Why not actually write the adventure? This is really nothing more than some DM notes  for a session you might be having tonight with your players. Seriously. Something you might jot down on index card, as an outline, of themes you want to hit, etc. 

And this is an adventure?

This is $10 at DriveThru. No preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/400008/The-Darkness-of-Kasta–A-Grimstone-Adventure?1892600

Posted in Reviews | 24 Comments

Zed & Two Noughts

Posted on June 27, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By Josh Domanski & Reilly Qyote
Exalted Funeral
OSE
Level 0 Funnel

Terror descends upon a quiet town, kidnapping citizens and thrusting them into a hellish nightmare. Trapped aboard a vessel crewed by prophecy-driven shapeshifters, unfortunate souls must band together—or perish. Fight brutal monsters, avoid devastating traps, and test your wits against an inscrutable enemy in … ZED & TWO NOUGHTS

This thirteen room single-column adventure contains about nine encounter areas on an alien spaceship. Descriptions are good, and it’s well organized, but it lacks substantial interactivity and there are some annoying deviations from the format and editing missteps.

This is a zero level funnel, with a decent chunk of the book, maybe half, devoted to creating funnel characters and how to run one. That leaves about sixish pages for the adventure adventure. It starts with the characters being abducted from their village by a spaceship and ends, hopefully, with the characters escaping the nine room ship. 

It has some decent descriptions in it. Evocative, and working hard to create an alien environment that is still recognizable as a play space. Our opening scene starts with “sounds of destruction exploding in the dead of night. Fires rage, buildings topple, and townsfolk flee in every direction.” That’s not bad to set a vibe. Toppling buildings. Fleeing people, raging fires and explosions. That’s a good use of descriptive words, non-typical ones, that paints a dynamic scene for the DM to then rif fon. Which is exactly what a good description should be doing. The spaceship is a writhing disk of tentacles. The hallways and floors soared in tiny hairs. You are pulled through slimy circulatory tunnels in the ships walls. Circulatory … that it’s evocative.

Our first actual room, the prison, contains the following one line “teaser” description “Warm metal floor littered with confused townsfolk.” Perfect! I’m oriented to the room now and everything I take in will now be in that context. It’s followed by “Fleshy walls sprout hard bunks like scabs. The ceiling squirms overhead, as bulbs of glass emitting sterile light form across its surface. Seven bowls on stalks stick out from the floor around the edges of the room, resembling the placement of numbers on a clock.” The descriptions here are good. Squirming, stalks, sterile light. The two descriptions parts work together to build on each other.

Following the description are some bullets with more information about important things. It’s laid out well and easy to scan, although, a two-column format probably would have worked better and made things trivial. This isn’t the OSE house style, but a good example of one of my favorite styles. A brief intro, a good description that’s short, and then bullets to follow up on things. 

When you finally make it to the alien overlords they react to the party base don their actions. Great! “Were they murderous and cruel? The Observers are fearful and ready to defend themselves. Were they clever and competent? The party is met with respect and deference.

Did they lie, cheat and steal? The Observers are suspicious, ready to take control or strike a deal. What about the foolish and humorous? They are met with condescension and mockery” We see consequences of the play style chosen. Big fan.

There are a few things I can criticize. The escape pods are … pretty non -escape pod looking, and in the lab. That’s going to be hard to put together without some direct DM assistance. It’s not clear to me that the bowls in the prison are toilets, or that you can crawl through arm holes … both of which are mentioned in a different room, in reference to things in the prison … that should have been in the prison room. In retrospect, the phrase “a friend from town is squeezing in to one” should have clued me in, but it appears a little randomly in the DM notes, with no reference to what the “one” is. Another room has some important “general” information, magical instruments floating on a stage, buried in the DM notes instead of up in the main description. Just these little issues that really should have been caught in editing and fixed up.

More seriously, though, I’m not sure about the interactivity. The various rooms are a little sparse on things, and there are only nine, including the village abduction. Primarily, i think, it’s supposed to come from the Random Events table … which is supposed to be rolled on every turn. Yikes! That’s a lot! And there are only ten entires, some of which are unique enough to make reuse difficult. Overconfident bully from town taking over the party? Maybe the second time its a spineless one? A young dwarf, bloodied, who’s an imposter/alien? Maybe the second time its the exact same and they ALWAYS do the young dwarf thing? So, yeah, maybe … but, also, it’s pretty frequent, and I’m having a real hard time with the … length? Lack of interactivity? Things going on? It IS a small space, so maybe I just need to adjust for that? 

I wish there was more here. I don’t know … I don’t tink size … I’m just left a bit feeling empty. This one is close to a regerts … and maybe it should be one. I’m just not very excited about it.

This is $10 at Itch. Which I’m chill if, if the adventure is a good one. We do lack a preview though. Never a good thing, and always a good thing to give the suckers a chance to see if they are going to vibe with your selling them ahead of time.

https://afterthought-committee.itch.io/zoo

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 6 Comments

Black Ship of the Sunless

Posted on June 25, 2022 by Bryce Lynch 
By AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON
Selddog Games
OSRIC 
Levels 8-10

As a larger body of work, Black Ship of the Sunless has a central theme – corrupted history. This first episode, Black Waters, serves as the inciting incident, transitioning your players from reality to the surrealistic version of the island of Cozumel on the Yucatán peninsula in the year 1519. The player’s ship is about to smash into a coral reef and find themselves marooned and trapped at the footsteps of a pre-Columbian Maya temple at Tantum Cuzamil

This 61 page adventure, written by AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON, features three different versions of the same reality. The players kill a spanish conquistador to escape each one, and the afterlife place/reality they are in. Oops, sorry, no, my bad. I meant to say that AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON has written an absolutely SHIT FEST of an adventure that stands out as one of worst pieces of dreck I’ve ever reviewed.

I don’t know, what, ten years? Three a week? I’ve seen some shit, man. But this one, ooooh boy, its really pushing the limits of the fucking shit I have to eat three times a week. AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON has written a real doozy. When you get through my jaded exterior of depressingly low expectations then you’ve done a job indeed!

On page three, the title page, we’re told that this adventure was Written by AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON. Look man, I’m fine with hubris. But, you gotta know, AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON, that choice was gonna lead to this? It is ABSOLUTELY the first sign that this was going to be a very special adventure.

The next page? How about this little blurb right at the top: “Reference to the content in this work in any media must include the below citation verbatim.

Cannon, T. Elliot. Black Ship of the Sunless. St Johns, Florida. April 2022.

T. Elliot Cannon – Video Game Designer and Author. http://www.telliotcannon.com/”    Really? “Must” is an awfully strong word  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON … Must? I debated not putting it in at all. I mean, there are absolutely fucking zero consequences for doing so, but, then I thought “And loose this fucking chance to let all of your potential customers know what kind of person you are,  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON? I think not!”  

Ok,  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON, we’re going to cover something quite basic here: RPG adventures are not video games. Nor are they novels.  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON, RPG adventures are a piece of technical writing. They are meant for a very specific purpose. The DM opens them up at the table and runs an adventure from them. I know, crazy, right? But, because of this, you are trying to write something that facilitates the DM doing that. We’re gonna touch on that more.

But, first let’s start this adventure! Everyone ready to play? Great! Let’s start with the DM reading a read-aloud that is two pages long!  “The shrimp with lemon, garlic, capers, and linguini paired with a full bottle of white wine sent you to bed …”

Jesu Christo!  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON, what have you done?! Two fucking pages?! Of read-aloud?! I hesitate in making hyperbolic statements, but, as a general rule, I think I can pretty confidently state that any time you are two pages to explain something, in D&D, you’ve have fucked up BAD. Did you know,  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON, that players don’t listen to read-aloud? Did you know that they tune it out after awhile? Did you know that’s why they pull out their phones and disengage from the game? Did you know that no one wants to read, or hear, your fantasy heartbreaker novel text while playing this adventure (Specifically, this adventure. Maybe you’re a good author. I don’t know. But we DO NOT write D&D text, even read-aloud, like it’s fantasy autor meme text.) It’s all true! There’s even a study, done by some WOTC folks, from a con, that shows that players begin to tune out read-aloud after three of four sentences. Weird, right, that they would want to actually play the game instead of being talked at? Heeeeeyyyyyy …..  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON, you’re not one of those AAA Video Game Designers that makes a person site through their fucking intro videos, without a skip key, are you?  Hmmm … things may be starting to make sense now …

Let’s see … then we have AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON  explicitly stating that it’s inciting incident time .. time to grab the players attention! This is fucking dumb. First, you had two pages of read aloud, which put the fucking players to sleep, sent them to the kitchen, bathroom, and Hayville on their phones, then you just dump them in to a pretext combat. Uh huh. No interaction AT ALL. Just yelling COMBAT! 

Do you think this is what D&D is? Listening to two pages of read-aloud and then being IMMEDIATLY dumped in to a combat? Do you think this is what AD&D is, in particular? Do you understand how old school D&D is different from Pathfinder/5e and the like, in how squishy characters are and how BAD of an idea is to force combat on them? I mean, outside of the issue that you are FORCING them to do something at all? Do you understand that a good game is about meaningful choices and that you have done NOTHING to facilitate that?

No, you don’t. How do I know this?

There are no fixed enemies. The DM is told to just throw skeletons at the party, in the first encounter, until the DM is satisfied it’s been a good time. “The goal here is to challenge the players against smart enemies so they savor their victory” we are told by  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON. Depressingly,  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON doesn’t understand that this is not how you challenge your players. You challenge your players by giving them the opportunity to use their wits, and creative thinking. To explore on their own. You don’t do it by jumping to a scene, reading a bunch of read-aloud, and then yelling COMBAT and having them fight a tactical setup. They mus have the opportunity, generally, to pick and choose and be strategic in their adventure, in their resources consumed, and so forth. Yes, there’s a place for a forced combat, but the entire concept of an inciting incident, as a combat, is bad bad bad advice hanging on since the 90;s. “When the players run low on enemies, have more pop up through gaps in the ship’s hull. This first encounter is about excitement, conflict, setting the tone, and start having fun playing.” No. “When the time is right, smash the ship on the reef, prompting your players to swim to shore in the middle of night during the hurricane” No.

Have I mentioned extraneous information that clogs up the single column text? Single column is hard to rad, to reference at the table. The text is in paragraph form, making it hard to reference at the table. I don’t mean “normal” adventure paragraphs, I mean book style paragraphs. This is impossible to run. You need a highlighter, and if y ou need a highlighter, and can’t quickly pick out pertinent information, then the designer (AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON, in this case) has done a bad job. “Narváez is the passenger on the Soaring Gull at the onset of the adventure who breaks the seal on a Tome of Black Waters. Although he is dead after the early encounter, his story is of interest as it will appear later as clues and in texts.” No. His story is not of interest. It’s only of interest if it contributes to play at the table. 

The players are on a railroad. There are no meaningful NPC’s. The villagers, ghostly, that you could interact with are not detailed in any way to allow the party to interact well. The bulk of the encounters are a giant chunk of read-aloud and then a paragraph of DM text that is meaningless. There is no interaction other than combat. 

Best of all, exposition. “Utilize the Guardian to explain that current situation where there are three facets of time, the Ghostly Facet, the Life Facet, and the Death Facet and that these formed due to the actions of General Pedro de Alvarado. Ensure the Guardian also explains who Ix Chel is and how her Oracle has the knowledge of how to merge the three facets of the 1519 Glimpse back to normal time, which is in essence the key to the player character’s escape from this infinitely looping world. D&D is not an exposition dump. We learn these things, or should anyway, through play. Through interacting with the adventure, with the environment, with the NPC’s Not through an expo dump. 

As the designer tells us “ Fortunately, any death sends them back to the Ghostly Facet on

the beach.” Thus, there CAN BE NO MEANINGFUL PLAY, because there are no consequences This is player tune out on a magnitude that I have seldom seen.

Can we blame  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON for all of this? Well, he did write it, so yes. But, also, I hazard a guess that  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON has never seen a good adventure.  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON wasn’t born with an innate ability to write a good adventure.  AAA Video Game Designer and Author T. ELLIOT CANNON experience in novels or video games will not translate to this form of technical writing. Yes, you gotta write to get better. You have to DO, create. But, also, you need to figure out what a good adventure looks like before, hopefully, you do so. Otherwise your vision will not translate to the DM and therefore to the players. 

This is $5 at Drivethru. The preview is three pages. You get to see the main read-aloud. Joy. There is nothing in that preview to tell you what the actual adventure looks like, unless you know enough to avoid adventures with two pages of read-aloud. And, there’s no reason this should be an 8-10 adventure. There’s nothing special here to make it that except HD for the skeletons, etc.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/393248/Black-Ship-of-the-Sunless?1892600

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, My Life is a Living Fucking Hell, Reviews | 34 Comments