The Crystal Wood

Posted on February 25, 2023 by Bryce Lynch 
By Matthew Lock
Parts Per Million
Worlds Without Number
Levels 3-5

A local Innkeeper would like you to investigate the disappearances of the foresters and find out what happened to the search party. He suggests you speak to the village priest to look at the body of the returning villager. He is willing to offer a good reward.

This 41 page digest adventure has … I don’t know … six encounters? I’m considering selling out and becoming a much more person because of this adventure.

I kind of hate old people. Speaking as an old person, this becomes a bit of a poser. But, actually, I don’t think it’s old people I hate so much as people who are set in their ways. How did they get that way? What thing caused them to become the sort of person who became pessimistic, sit in their easy chair, and bitch all day long about The Kids These Days and shake their fists at the clouds? This is a relevant discussion because, after this adventure, I am considering a new feature to the blog website. I have, in the past resisted the idea of a Hall of Shame list. We need not focus on the foibles of an individual evermore. In a land where everything you have ever done, every humiliation, misstep and flub lives on forever … why make that worse? Do you really need to see your name on a list of things so terrible that it results in that most of evil of things: a generalization? I mean, to be put alongside the the company of brazen money grabbers who have sold out for a release schedule and revenue stream … is it really fair to just lump someone on to a list with that company?

Ok, so, let’s see. This is, essentially, an imposter. The entry on DriveThru looks professional. The cover image certainly looks so, yes? The same pages look like the layout is groovy. Or, at least enough to pass.And, there’s like, a million other products listed by the same publisher in ribbon format. Dudes got his act together!

Or, maybe not …

Looking at that entry, there’s not really any marketing blurb of what the adventure is ABOUT. Even the introduction, a screenshot from the text. It’s just some generic nonsense that doesn’t say anything, followed  by “The Plot”, which is essentially a hook. “There’s a dead body” Uh. Ok. Context for the DM? No. We continue in to the adventure, proper, with the maps. They are not maps. They are, essentially, battle maps. So, “three encounter in the forest” actually means “three things in a large clearing, one of which is The Approach to the clearing. And, then, another clearing with five encounters. Essentially one room with five numbers on it. These are battle map encounters. So, 41 page pages for three room encounters, essentially. Uh huh. 

How about a wandering monster table with “Small pack predators” on it. Yup, the soul of specificity right there. And, that’s when I remembered I had seen this publisher before. And wondered if “Not being a pessimistic grump” was worth the continued exposure to this shit.

How about two and half pages for a monster stat block? That’s cool, right? The adventure doesn’t evenget going to page eighteen, That’s how long it takes to get to the fucking lineline in which you get some semblance of what is going on in the adventure. You wander through the woods. I’m guessing you hit the first clearing, and then the second. The second has a cave mount, mentioned in the text and not on the map, that leads to the third encounter. But the first and second are just listed, there. How do you get to them/between them? Who knows.

This is just shit. The page looks professional. The cover certainly does. The layout isn’t terrible. The maps look interesting. But then you find out its just a battle map. And there’s no overview of summary of what’s going on. No marketing. And that layout is just hiding a three page monster stat block.

I don’t know what to do here. How do you review three encounters that take up 41 pages. It’s pantomime. Someone is doing this on purpose and yet to no effect. 

This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview is the entire thing. So don’t say you weren’t warned.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/425033/The-Crystal-Wood–A-Worlds-Without-Number-Compatible-Adventure?1892600

Fun Fact: In this adventure with giant crystal ants, I read, at some point:  “it attacks with its martial arts”  “Huh”, I said. Turns out it said magical arts. TIme to cut back on the Sambuca in the morning coffee.

Posted in Do Not Buy Ever, Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, My Life is a Living Fucking Hell, Reviews | 12 Comments

Steal the Relic

Posted on February 22, 2023 by Bryce Lynch 
By Piotr Kowalski
Self Published
Generic/Universal/OSR
Mid Levels? That's what the cover says, man

Big walled park occupies the northern part of the city of Braunsberg. Papal Gardens, as the

park is called, hosts the Cathedral of The Third Coming and the Cardinal’s Residence. From

a legal standpoint this is a New Vatican enclave, where Cardinal Igniazio Scavone and

The Heavens – instead of the Braunsberg governor and the Kings of the Union – have the

final say. This fact doesn’t sit well with many Braunsberg citizens, as the Church of the Third Coming is not looked upon favorably in the Union, where Drakonism is the official and most popular faith. Not many people know that a valuable Relic – part of the True Cross – lies hidden in the crypts of the cathedral.

This twenty page digest adventure uses ten pages to describe about thirteen rooms in a cathedral. It’s another of those shitty “heist” adventures. 

Oh, look, another adventure where you sneak in to a church compound to steal something. 

I think I can make a case, albeit a weak one, that this is not an adventure. It looks like one, but it is not. Let us assume I give you a map of Detroit and tell you to break in to the blah blah blah building and steal the THING. Is this an adventure? It has the trappings of one. Moving further down this scale there is some point at which we agree something is an adventure (except for the Art fucks, which insist its an adventure if the designer says it is.) 

Ok, so, you’re breaking in to this church to find and steal a piece of the true cross. (No stats provided. SADZ) It’s in the middle of some big ass garden thing with a couple of other buildings around. It’s a kind of Vatican City thing, with a separate enclave in the middle of a big city. You get no details on the gardens, or the other buildings. … This would seem integral to the adventure. But, no, its just the main church building thing that gets a map and keys. Not even people living nearby/businesses across the street from the compound, in order to spice up your entry. No, it’s just a couple of wanderer tables with boring old entries on them. Not any swiss guards having sex on the sly or anything else remotely fun. SADZ. But in the fucking grounds man. We want to sneak through them at night! Stick in a neighbor or two to riff off of. Put some guard shit, or grouds shit, out there thats more than a couple of guards. We want something to riff off of!

The church is boring.Like four rooms above ground and nine in the crypts. Symmetrical nonsense, of course. And, no guards listed on the map. You gotta do that man. You need an order of battle for how they respond. You need to put the dudes on the map so we know that there’s a guard standing in that fucking alcove that can see light, hear noice, respond, etc. We need a guard rotation and patrol pattern. That’s the fucking point of the adventure … to sneak in and plan a heist. Otherwise you’ve just got a shitty dungeon crawl. A really shitty one.

Formatting is fine, I guess. It’s just bullets, bolded, with a few descriptive words in parens after each bulleted thing. Which is fine for comprehension but somewhat lacking for creating an evocative environment. 

Speaking of … there’s isn’t one. It’s boring and generic. Rows of Pews (wooden, well made). Yes. That’s what pews are. Brass double doors (ornate, unlocked during the day) Uh huh. Two sets of wooden doors (leading to stairs) Yes … just lik ethe fucking map shows us. It’s just a boring list of facts. There is little to no evocative text to bring the environment to life. Just mundane after mundane. 

WHeres the joy man? WHeres the fun? That is the purpose, right? Fun? RPG’s are not a simulation. We’re here to have fun with our friends in a manner that doesn’t involve booze, drugs and sex (at least at the primary activity.) But, it’s up to the designer to provide for that. And it’s just not here. There almost no interactivity, because the map and keys are not set up to facilitate that. The rooms are not interesting, coming off as mundane, both in interactivity (or lack thereof) and descriptive text.

You gotta infiltrate. Sneak. Bribe. Disguise. And NONE of that is supported by this adventure.

This is free at itch.io. 

https://laughing-worm.itch.io/steal-the-relic

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 3 Comments

It’s Tuesday at two motherfickers!!

Posted on February 21, 2023 by Bryce Lynch

Posted in Reviews | 27 Comments

The Lair of Amanitus

Posted on February 20, 2023 by Bryce Lynch 
By Armored Storyteller Publishing
Self Published
OSE
Levels 5-10

It features a dragon’s lair with a fungal Green Dragon served by Chaotic Mycelian

cultists and other fungal dangers. It is high risk, high reward.

This eight page adventure features a small dragons lair with six rooms. A couple of ok imagery bits don’t make up for the absence of joie de vie. 

It’s eight pages. Except drivethru says it’s ten. Except it’s spreads, so it’s fourteen pages. Oh, and you don’t get an option for non-spreads …. You’ll take your spreads and like it!

Let’s see – there’s a new wandering monster system called Risk & Danger. It’s exactly the same as a normal wandering monster system. Great. And all of the wanderers have some little bit extra to them, just the way I like it. Except the little bit extra is “You’ve intruded in to their territory and they attack!” or some such. “They Attack!” Man, there’s no need to put extra words to it if its just going to be that you’ve stumbled on them and they attack, or some derivation thereof. 

Formatting is ok. Each room starts with one sentence “This cavern has stalactites and stalagmites.” It’s pretty basic and really does not much. Then there’s a bullet list of what’s noticeable, and another of what’s not immediately noticeable. And then, maybe, some DM notes ot monster stat block or trap details or some such. Meh. It’s ok. It’s essentially a read-aloud summary and a DM notes summary, with the other text being specific to certain things that need more detail. Like I said, it’s ok. I think it gets a little long, but you can scan it, 

If you ignore the “intro” sentence, then the what’s noticeable section provides some decent imagery. “A haze of dust and particles float about in the air. • It’s humid and strange fungal growths cover the walls and ground.” That’s not too bad. I can quibble with “strange” as a conclusion/abstraction. And covers the ground isn’t the most exciting description of that, but, overall, the read-aloud substitute descriptions are not terrible. 

Interactivity is all over the place. It’s only six rooms, and there’s a decent number of enemies to stab. Not the best recommendation. But, also, there’s a dead adventurer that can give a clue if you speak with dead on him. Nice! The dragons got what looks to be decent treasure (for lower levels) but the magic items are all book. There is a heavy fungus theme, with the usual assortment of tricks, traps and fungus themed monsters showing up.

There are some misses. If the dragon detects you it doesn’t change anything … except now there are eight more vegipygmies in the room. Exciting. And, sometimes the descriptions ARE lacking … like the room with 20 of them in it. Or, formatting misses, like telling us deep in the text that there’s a dude chained to the alter in the room. I think I might notice. Or, if I don’t, then maybe but it in the Things I Might Not Notice Immediately section. 

It’s six fucking rooms man. In fourteen pages. What do you want man? Something different? Something special? Oh no honey, not for two dollars. It fulfills its purpose in life in being inoffensive and not very remarkable. But, also, it’s rather dull and straightforward, with none of the wonder I might expect in an adventure with lots of fungus and a dragon. It’s fine. Really. It’s fine.

“It doesn’t make me regret every decision I’ve ever made in life. But, also, it does nothing for my ennui.” 

This is $2 at DriveThru. Preview is four pages. Enjoy those spreads … although it does give you a good idea of what to expect in the adventure.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/424995/The-Lair-of-Amanitus-Campaign-Drop-Dragon-Lair-A1?1892600

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

Sorrow of the Mangled Prince

Posted on February 18, 2023 by Bryce Lynch 
By Elven Tower
Self Published
Star Frontiers
Tier 1

The Forbidden City was once the royal palace of a bygone family. The place is shunned and thought to be cursed. But now, for some reason no one understands, children ran away from their homes and into the Forbidden City, and no one dares approach the place. The events have caused people to remember an old cautionary tale of a prince from a bygone era that was robbed of his legacy and became a spirit of hatred. The characters walk into a dangerous place willingly under the promise of a nice monetary reward. They soon discover that the mausoleum compound under the Forbidden City is protected by deadly traps and undead guardians that fight with a strength and brutality that defies explanation. Within, they shall learn what happened to the mangled prince almost three centuries ago and whether it is possible to save the children in time or not.

This nine page 5e adventure features sixteen rooms on two pages. It’s generic fucking garbage by someone trying to make a buck. Who can fuck right off.

It is important to recognize that, generally, people are not bad. Sometimes, people do things that are bad. But that doesn’t make them a bad person. And, sometimes, people create something that is not good. But, a critique of the work is not a critique of the person. We can separate the two. This is a very important distinction that this blog makes. And, really, that everyone should make in their day to day lives. We can critique a work, savagely even, without passing judgment on the person who created it. With this context in mind, thus I say …

Elven Tower can fuck right off and is a piece of shit who actions make the world a worse place for their presence in it. The audacity of the blatant grab of money is beyond. Just … BEYOND. This represents the worse, the absolute worst, that we can expect in mainstream D&D publishing. Which, of course, just means that it is a portent of things to come in the future and we can expect this behaviour to become mainstream. Because that’s the way the world works. Are you a tired old grognard railing against the world? Are you an ignorant artpunk reveling in your cleverness? Well my bucko’s, time to come together and dig up Gygax’s skull to summon Kramer and call back Guy from whatever dimension his tower is in. 

This, it seems, is an OSR adventure. Why is it an OSR adventure? Because the designer has listed it in the OSR category. I know, it’s somewhat generic cover looks like the puppymill 5e crap that is churned out. Or, the product page which looks like every other 5e generic product page full of fluff? Wrong! It’s OSR. And, yes, it is for Tier 1, which I believe is 5e nomenclature, but, still, it’s for OSR. And, it’s written with skill and ability checks/saves nd tuned to 5e, but, still, the designer says it’s OSR and put it in the OSR category, so, it’s OSR. 

I noticed this, and a bunch of other shit from the designer hitting the DriveThru OSR category. I didn’t pay a lot of attention to it. Then I saw a comment. Some rando (who, if reading, I would like you to know you are now one of my heroes) called it out in the comments, noting that it’s not an OSR product and is miscategorized. Which caused the designer to post a long response rebutting that, and claiming to be Star Frontiers. Errr, I mean, OSR. 

Well, fuck you Elven Tower. You are, no doubt, looking to expand your sales. Your 491 products that you have churned the fuck out to make a buck are not producing so you’ve decided, no doubt in the wake of what I assume is a 5e sales plunge, to expand in to new frontiers. Fuck you and fuck your puppy mill of shit. 

But, I digress …

There is nothing in this adventure. It is an empty and hollow shell of generic abstracted garbage with no sense of what an adventure is or how to write one.

We start in an inn. It seems that dozens of the local children have gone missing. Everyone thinks they went to the Forbidden City, an hours walk away (ug!) but, also, everyone is too scared to go there. Uh huh. Let me  help you there, Tex. This ain’t the way the world works. If this were to actually happen then, along the time the second or third kid disappeared, for sure, if not the first, then there would be a fucking mob forming, farm tools, torches and shotguns in hand, and 50% of the people in town, at least, would be off to solve this problem. They aint waiting the fuck around to pay 1000 coins to some randos that showed up. When Maude runs in to the tavern saying her kid is gone then a bunch of fucking drunks go get their buddies and they go solve the problem. But, whatever. You don’t care. You just need to churn out the next thing. 

There’s an inn! It’s fully detailed. FULLY. Two and half pages. For ten rooms. Full of exciting descriptions like “Valoura brews wine here.” Just to be clear, nothing about it is important to the adventure. There might be two sentences, up front, about adventure specifics. Otherwise we get generic and abstracted descriptions about the owners bedroom. It is absolutely textbook in not understand the purpose of a description. Full of meaningless descriptions (well, “full” isn’t quite right …) that have absolutely no bearing on the adventure. Fucking garbage. 

And, then there’s the rumors. “A minority thinks this is all an elaborate, practical joke organized by the children that eludes explanation.” I am inspired!  Yes, please! More abstracted text! I understand people give me shitfor my in-voice desire, but, this is the results without that. Generic abstracted shit that it meaningless and does nothing to help a DM run an adventure. Oh, did I mention that the inn is full of laughter? When two dozen kids are missing.

Good news though! You do get to pick up a mary sue in the tavern in order to accompany your party. Who has a magic necklace that puts the big bad to rest forever. Uh huh. Fuck off man.

Oh, on our way to the forbidden city! Here’s the description “they find a barren wasteland of what once was a rich settlement and the farmlands that surround the royal palace. They are dilapidated ruins, mounds of shapeless rocks, and overgrown fields. Only the Forbidden City itself, because of its size and scope, remains a recognizable feature in the area.” Yup. Ok. nothing to see. Move along. Move along. Absolutely nothing. This is supposed to be the centerpiece. The place people are afraid to go. 

You randomly find an entrance to the dungeon, one of three. Cause the LSR is random, I guess. We now transition to a generic map. The most boring generic map ever. But hey, it shows torches. Why are their torches? I don’t know. But there are. Everywhere.

We now transition to the most evocative room descriptions ever. “This is a long corridor that connects several sections of the dungeon and a semi-natural cavern in the south.” or “The hall within contains three ornate sarcophagi.” or “There are three unlocked wooden chests in this room. The chests and their contents are magically preserved.” No doubt too wordy for some of those among us. This fucking shit adds nothing. No specificity. Conclusions and abstracted content. For what should be the main part of the fucking adventure. 

Wanderers are rolled for every turn. Not a chance. Rolled for. With about a 50% chance of a monster or trap. Ghouls and Shadows. Giant Spiders (2d4 of the fuckers!) The dungeon proper features a Wraith. And an “Underground Stinkray”, whatever that is. No stats. No idea what a stingray is supposed to be. A cloaker? 

Anyway, no sense of what an OSR adventure is. No notes for the OSR. Just a 5e adventure that you could, if you wanted, stat up for the OSR. If your level one to three OSR adventures include a wraith. And a 50% chance of monsters every turn. 

Absolutely no fucking understanding at all. Just fucking garbage. A shameless money grab to say its OSR to expand their conveyor belt f muck to a new category so they generate a new $1.50 a month in sales. Fucking bullshit. A bad adventure. And a bad person in their blatant late-stage capitalism abuses. 

This is $2 at DriveThru.Enjoy your six page preview, showing you the inn in all its glory and the wanderers table. Every ten minutes. Fuck off man. Fuck off.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/425592/Sorrow-of-the-Mangled-Prince–Tier-1-Adventure?1892600

Posted in Do Not Buy Ever, Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, My Life is a Living Fucking Hell, Reviews, The Worst EVAR? | 25 Comments

Haunt of the Barrow King

Posted on February 15, 2023 by Bryce Lynch 
By Peter C. Spahn
Small Niche Games
OSE
Levels 1-3

[…] A few weeks ago, an adventuring company named Legacy Flame came to the Oldwood to reestablish a shrine to St. Galwren—patron saint of one of the fallen noble houses of the Kingdom of Nine. They erected a stone shrine near a Jaldtic burial mound and the leader of Legacy Flame, a warrior-priest named Father Krembers, performed an ancient ritual to invoke the blessings of St. Galwren. This ritual awakened several undead creatures that had been laid to rest beneath the old barrow . .

This 32 page digest adventure describes three wilderness encounters and eight inside of a barrow. Low on descriptive text and high on fluff. The concept is fine and the execution, if most pages are ignored, will do in a pinch.  Spahn is interesting. When he hits well he REALLY hits. Think Inn of Lost Heroes. Or, we could write something mind numbing. He’s all over the place. This one hits somewhere in the middle. 

Ok, so, hang on for this ride. Long ago the kingdom of the nine gets invaded and destroyed by the Jaldt barbarians. They build a burial mound on top of a destroyed castle. They don’t know it had a crypt under it. Of some important saint of the kingdom. So, yeah, they built their burial ground on top of a burial ground. Now, some fuckwit rival murder hobos show up, with a cleric on a holy mission to bring back worship of the saint, as we rebuilds shrines to him. Which causes everyone in the burial mound on a burial mound to come to life. An undead knight fights a barb lieutenant and his clan every night, and fails. Meanwhile, the undead barb king roams the roam, kills folk, and their zombies come back to the barrow to help the lieutenant fight the undead knight. Enter the party.

So, 32 pages. For what is essentially ten or eleven encounter areas. And how can this be? Well, that rival NPC party? They get a six page write up. That seems pretty lengthy to me. Expansive.  There are, essentially, four things you can to in thie adventure. The rival party is one. The undead barb lieutenant is another. He gets a decent sized  write up also. Then he’s got a few living people in his undead horde that don’t get much and then there are some bandits at the start who get essentially no write up at all. A little inconsistent here. But, perhaps, indicative of how important the encounter is? You know what the party makes of important NPC’s though, right? 

There’s also the Victorian mania for complete inventories. Five horse two oxen and two wagons, with GP values. Or, a half page write up that lists everything of value, or no, at a campsite. Including “assorted eggs and produce (worth 10gp at the market,) 

I turn, again, to the misplaced page count thing. A disproportionate page count, or word count, reveals a design that is out of balance. The designer is emphasizing, and put effort, in to things that are tertiary to the adventure. Instead of spending time on a six page backstory, what if instead that effort was put in to the adventure proper? There’s no long backstory here, but, the same concept of misplaced effort applies, I think.

Room seven is The Crypt of Honor. The description of this page long room is “This is the resting place of six renowned knights of galwren.” So, not a description. The sarcophagi get the following description “the hawk and sword standard is carved into the lids of their elaborate stone sarcophagus and a red ruby is mounted on each.” Not much a description. And so it goes. Elaborate is a conclusion. DESCRIBE it. That’s how you write a description, with specificity. 

It’s an ok adventure that should only be a couple of pages long that is padded out to 32. I find that annoying. But, also, there’s nothing really wrong with the adventure. The undead barb warband, with the lieu, zombies, and few traumatized humans is pretty nice and a highlight of the adventure. I’m not really sure it’s going to result in much in-depth play beyond maybe one rp event that evolves in a combat, but, it’s fresh anyway. 

So, it’s fine. I’m annoyed at it, but it’s fine.

This is $5 at DriveThru. There’s no full preview, just the quick one. Uncool.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422611/OSE001-Haunt-of-the-Barrow-King?1892600

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, No Regerts, Reviews | 10 Comments

The Dragon’s Gullet

Posted on February 13, 2023 by Bryce Lynch 
By Malrex
The Merciless Merchants
Gold & Glory
Levels 2-5

River trade between Farholme and Nordskamp depends on the working operation of the Dragon’s Gullet, an old water lock system built by dwarves. The Gilded Spear, an adventuring group claimed the ancient complex has been cleared of danger and an expedition was sent to inhabit and operate the water lock system. Your party is hired as extra muscle to protect the first river trade boat set for departure downstream. An easy job….right?

This 22 page adventure uses ten pages to present a one level dungeon with about fifty rooms. This is a good, classic dungeon.

Ah, the classic dungeon level! A thing of beauty, seldom seen these days. Lair dungeons dominate the market, with their claustrophobic five room design. They have no room to breathe! Being little more than maybe one encounter idea stretched out. But, ah, the dungeon level … enough room in it for a murder hobo to stretch his legs! A map with variety on it! Maybe some loops and alternative passageways. Some variety to what were exploring. Room for traps, tricks, empty rooms, friendlies and monsters galore … perhaps, dare we ask, in their own zones?! And that’s what we have here. A real dungeon level.

Let us first consider the map. Essentially, this is a tunnel under the mountain through which a river flows. Except, there are two rivers, one being a man made channel with the titular locks. THis leave rooms for river encounters, on both sides as well as some hidden water areas, as well as a path down each side and down the middle. Watcherfalls on one river, locks on the other. Tunnels under, rope bridges (or spiderwebs!) over. Stairs up and down, shores, ledges, rubble and the like. And outside a couple of gatehouses flanking the carved dragons mouth tha the river runs in to. This is a good map. A whole lof variety to it. Features on it. One of the best I’ve seen in awhile. This map really helps support the adventure, providing an excellent base from which to build.

And build Malrex does. We’ve got an adventuring party camped out, that cleared out the place. Except, they are actually bandits who lied. Also, their leader has been charmed by a trog shaman and is chucking captives, and sometimes their own men, in to the river for the trogs to eat. Ouch. Deeper in we’ve got some newt-people who also don’t like the trogs. Scattered throughout are prisons who can recruit, things to talk to, enough stabbing to keep the dice rolling, tricks traps and puzzles. All of which is made more interesting by the variety that the map provides. These two bandits are on a ledge over the river about to chuck a prisoner in! You’re not gonna get that, and the game possibilities, in a plain room. This is a really good effort in the interactivity portion. An old dwarf ghost who might get friendly if you fix a broken thing. Of course. Cause thats how ghosts work. 

Let’s take the two gatehouses, on either side of the river. With a bandt lookout in them. Smoke coming from one of them … a sign to be aware. Horses camped nearby. Some light treasure, and vermin. And the bandits maybe on the lookout. Oh, sorry, adventuring company. And thus the adventure starts strong. Gak those dudes sight unseen? Capture and question? Trust them when they say they are supposed to be here? 

“A square, stone building tilts towards the river as erosion from high floodwaters has destablized its base. Cracks and holes reveal only darkness inside. A huge rusted and broken chain (1’ thick) enters the building from the west wall. The once stout door lays just inside the entrance, covered in muck and greenish moss.” The Rex of Mals can write an ok description. We’re not winning any awards here, but it’s relatively short and takes a stab a good imagery. Descriptive writing is hard and while this isn’t a master class in it, its good enough to not make me hate it. 

Malrex does get a bit long in their DM text. The formatting is good enough, I suppose, to support the length, but its getting close. Whitespace, paragraphs, bullets, bolding all work together. And, at fifty rooms in ten pages we can’t really complain about length too much, can we, given modern standards? Anyway, I find the format a bit busy to support whats there. Maybe its the blank line above the bullet starts? Idk. But, again, good enough. 

I might have wished just a little more oob, for the trogs and newt-people in particular. But, It’s a decent adventure. Decent loot, some new magic. A great map and good interactivity and descriptive text and formatting that doesn’t hinder the adventure. And even supports it at times.

A good dungeon level.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The prev iew is fourteen pages; more than enough to get a sense of the thing. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422992/The-Dragons-Gullet?1892600

But, also, this adventure needs more +1 swords

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Level 3, The Best | 12 Comments

Trouble in Southshore

Posted on February 11, 2023 by Bryce Lynch 
By Matthew Evans
Mithgrathr Entertainment
B/X
Levels 3-5

The elves of Gul Nalore keep to themselves, so it was a surprise when a delegation came to the people of Southshore asking for help. Things must really be bad. But, are they bad for who you expect?

This 42 page adventure features a dungeon with sixty rooms and and a lot of words that I don’t give a fuck about. Two days of my life I’ll never get back again. Is it as bad as all that? Sure. Why not?

Ah, the elves. One wonders how they have survived so long. Maybe they give birth like seahorses or some shit and continue to exist just because there are so many of them. Because, of course, they are fucking idiots in this adventure who can’t seem to do anything for themselves. 

There’s a lot of bullshit in this adventure, so hang on. Ohs nos! Them orcs that live nearby are killing folk … and the kids haven’t come back! Please go ahelp! You find the kids, dead, and a yellow orc tribe shield. WHich was left by the black blade orcs stirring up trouble. Blah blah blah, kill some orcs and make peace again between the orcs and humans. And then hear a drunk miner talk about some lizardmen on a boat. And then see some flyers from the elves who want some people to go kill a dragon for them. Seems they love Love LOVE their giant golden elk and a dragon has moved in and started eating their one true loves. But they can’t kill it because they are fucking idiots. Err, I mean, it lives in the mountains that they are forbidden to enter. *sigh* whatever. Ok. Inside we find some turtar’s in the dragons service .. humanoid turtles which will eventually include four TMNT’s. The dragon turns out to be a wyvern with a ring that gives him a 16 INT …given to him by his adopted Red Dragon mother … who doesn’t appear the adventure unless you kill her adopted kid so she can punish the “heroes.” Ok, so, anyway, the wyvern isn’t a bad fellow, he just wants to eat the giant grubs that live in the dungeon … but they are gone now, because of some serpent people who moved in to the dungeon. And elk taste better. He’s eating one now … want some? SO, maybe, kill the serpent people and convince the elves to live in harmony with the wyvern. Unless you ate their elk friend. Ahhh, a callback to the orc situation … find the hidden thing going on and convince the “Good Guys” that the monster is actually good. Oh, shit, I forgot, the serpent people are actually transformed evil human cultists. Cause thats the only acceptable bad guy anymore. 

Our overland map features text that is hard to read. Like “I used a yellow font over a yellow background color” hard to read text. The formatting it triple column paragraph in the style commonly referred to as “Wall of Text.” All of you fuckwits bitching about the OSE house style will be condemned, in your own personal hells, to reading this shit. Yeah, I think paragraphs are great. And, when dealing with a novice writer who doesn’t know what they are doing, the OSE style will, I believe, result in a better product than this wall of text shit does. 

Let us begin the wall of text example. I shall cover just the first sentence of many paragraphs. This is the actual adventure text, not the summary. This is what you are supposed to run from. And I’m only listing the first sentence of each paragraph. “The road from Nefford to Southshore is only 15  miles, but most who journey between the two towns usually stop midway at the village of Waddleby to patronize The Sore Foot, which is generally regarded as a nice establishment.” [blah blah blah] “When the PC’s arrive they’ll find that they’re the only customers there.” blah blah blah. They’re met by a red-haired boy that looks yto be a dozen years old “blah blah blah. Inside, the PC’s are greeted by the Bbarkeep Theodon Wenz. blah blah blah. After the charatcres have had a chance to secure rooms and order their dinners, the front door flies open and the child from outside (name Timmy Schmitz) is led in by a man dressed in leather armor and wearing a green waistcoat. Blah blah blah “Alright everyone, lets make this easy says the man as he takes a few more steps to allow his masked companions to file in behind him. Blah blah blah. 

I’m not going to keep going. I fucking hate this. First this happens then this happens then this other thing happens then this other thing happens. Paragraph after paragraph. COlumn after column. Page after page. Room descriptions full of passive sentences. History in the text. Justifications in the room descriptions. 

Just go stab some people. But don’t stab the wrong people! Otherwise you won’t get a +1 shortsword. 

I don’t know. Same old shit. Tricking people. And, more importantly, punishing them when they fall for it. That’s lame. Whatever. It’s not as bad a the fucking “and then this happen and then this happens” wall of text shit. Let us consider this a record of the wreckage of my life.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is 24 pages. Enough to get a good sense of the adventure. God help you. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/393813/RC3–Trouble-in-Southshore?1892600

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 15 Comments

Pearly Prison of the Crocodile Queen

Posted on February 8, 2023 by Bryce Lynch 
By Maximillian Hart
Self Published
OSE & 5e
Levels 3-5

A town has asked you to rid it of a monstrous menace, but it seems some barnacled druids have gotten to the creature’s lair first. Will you ally with the druids, aid the temple’s lizardfolk defenders, or delve straight down the sinkhole to challenge the crocodile queen herself?

This ten page adventure uses four pages to describe a sinkhole dungeon with thirteen rooms. 

So, there’s this giant sinkhole. A couple of hundred feet deep. Caves in the side of it. Old temple the the bottom of it. The bottom, full of water, is SWARMING with crocs. Including a giant one … our titular queen. The locals take some food and treasure there every so often to sacrifice. The last group didn’t come back. So you’re do gooding. Turns out some druids have started attacking the place, so, you’ve got the druids on one side and the lizardmen who live there and worship the croc on the other … all arranged around/in the sinkhole.

The sinkhole map is fine. It’s hand drawn and tries to show a kind of 3d image, with passages and rope bridges going up, own, and around the sinkhole, along with chambers and so on. It takes a second to grok but then it’s ok. And, the rope bridges and cave mouths and such, with the croc swarm looming below, make for good company. Or, as the lizardmen say, if you talk to them about the missing villagers, who it turns out slipped and fell, they “were eaten by crocodiles upon hitting the water. It was hilarious.” Nice bit of text there. The formatting here is similar to Dungeon Age’s excellent tree-colum system with boxes, underlines and bolding. It’s a nice hybrid of text and formatting to make things pretty clear. Maybe not as much as a Dungeon Age adventure, but it gets close.

Ok, so, two factions, with the druids in control of the upper part of the sinkhole and the lizardmen the lower part. And no order of battle for either. So, slaughter away with your stabbing and no one is going to come out to play. THis relates to a general lack of interactivity beyond combat. While theres a reaction table, nd some faction notes, everything else is going to be limited to stabbing someone and/or maybe clearing some rubble. At one point there’s a missing goblet on a pedestal. Obviously missing. Replacing it gets you nothing. And there are several setup like this. Prompts to do something. That result in nothing. Just stab a stab a stabboy stabbing up your stabs. You could lose a stab. You could lose a stab.

Descriptions are fact based. If it’s underlined or boiled it gets a sentence in the read-aloud. “This room extends deep into the limestone walls and becomes a natural cavern. Holes of various sizes dot the floor. Incense burning in a thurible set on the floor in the center of the room cannot quite mask the faint acrid smell that lingers in the air. A number of dead lizardfolk litter the floor” Not bad. Gets the job done. Not particularly evocative either. 

The beginning of the adventure tells us that “Chance: If the text says there is, say, a 1-in-6 chance of something occurring, roll 1d6, and on a 1, the thing happens.” Wonderful. Value added.

It’s fine. A little one dimensional. It reminds me of a 4e adventure, with a location with some quirkiness and a couple of groups of people to stab. You want that? Here you go. The promise of the map, though, is held back by the issues mentioned and the lack of depth/size to the dungeon. A larger space, a little more complexity in the map, more rooms … it would allow things to breathe. Mini-dungeons have to be spectacular to be any good at all. 

But, hang on, I want to talk about the main thing in the adventure: the fact that the bottom of the sinkhole is full of water and SWARMING with crocs! And 10k in gold under it all … So, we’re gonna collapse the beginning tunnels to block shit off, and then shoot arrows at the queen untli she submerges. Maybe we kill her. Maybe not. Anyway, then we start dumping in poison and poisoned animals. Kill all those normal crocs. Pump out that fucking water. Sure, water from the elemental plne surges “up and down” it. But, hey, thats the story of mankind. Bringing order to the entropy of the elements. At least long enough to get that fucking loot at the bottom in the most low risk way possible. Combat as War motherfuckers.

This is $4 at DriveThru.The preview is all ten pages, so, good job on that.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422390/Pearly-Prison-of-the-Crocodile-Queen?1892600

Posted in 5e, Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 3 Comments

Niffel’s Landing

Posted on February 6, 2023 by Bryce Lynch

By Justin T. Smith

Christina Stiles Presents

Castles & Crusades

Level 1

In this excursion, the players find themselves running an errand at a whaling outpost. When they arrive, a cold fog rolls over the island and no people are about. As they explore the outpost, they discover the truth about what happened to the inhabitants.

This twelve page adventure has six sites. It is a textbook example of how to not write an adventure … while still having an editor who knows how to spell.

So, Frank killed a whale. Then he built a tavern at the site he killed it, on some rocky shore, and it’s now a whaling station. But, also, Frank didn’t say the Prayer Of Thanks, so now the whales ghost hates him. The ghost whale sings the song of madness, or some shit. Frank is now dead. Franks wife is dead. Franks son is dead. Most of the people at the station are dead. Except for six who are now insane. And Franks daughter, who the whale ghost loves. Of course she does.

This all take twelve pages. Which seems a bit much for six rooms. But what is I said seven of those were just padding? The cover, title page, license, etc. That’s only five pages, right? Except one is a full page map of the tiny island. SO, six rooms in four pages. Which is still too fucking many  pages for what you’r egetting.

There are no decent descriptions. You get some victorian lists of contents of rooms which, no doubt, is historically accurate. Which is an insult is they bear it, because the point of the game is not historical accuracy but rather fun, to which historical accuracy can contribute, sometimes, if done correctly with the end goal in mind. So, we’re not talking The THing here. No swirling mists with dead mean walking out of them. Just boring.

There is no interactivity. I mean that more than most times I say it. You get to stab a couple of zombies and six crazed whalers. That’s it. Oh, and if you wander out in to the rest of the island then you might get attacked by a zombie. All stabbin. Those six crazy whalers? They are in to factions that hate each other, hole up in opposite ends of two warehouses. But you’ll not get any good roleplay out of that because they attack immediatly. To the death. Blah blah blah. You know the drill.The whale cries out every hour with a 10% chance. If you fail your save you go mad. Wonderful.

You’re supposed to bury the whales bones to lay it to rest. If you don’t then the little girl does. So, you know, no need to actually go on the adventure, right?! Which would be a good thing because there’s no treasure in the adventure. Gold=XP in C&C, right? Not in this case, buddy.

And, while I’m on it, a Level one sidetrek that takes plac ein the arctic? A side-trek at level one? In the ARCTIC?! Uh huh. Not that they put THE FUCKING LEVEL RANGE on the cover, or in the description or anything, so you won’t actually know what fucking level the thing is for.

Oh, oh, to actually win you need to convince all of  the whalers everywhere to give prayers of thanks when they kill a whale, and it needs to be maintained for a generation and passed on to their kids! I kind of like this, in an assholey LotFP kind of way. 

The rest of island is location number six. It says that if you enter there is a one in six chance of meeting one or more zombies. This sentence is emblematic of the entire adventure. The designer doesn’t give a fuck about you. One or more. How fucking many? I know, it seems like a small thing. Just throw some in, Mr DM. But, seen from an adventure writing standpoint, why would the fucking designer not say how many zombies there are? It’s one of the most basic parts of any adventure. How many things are trying to bite my face off. But they don’t do it. Because they don’t give a fuck about the adventure. Not that there is one here anyway, since theres no XP and the little girl solves the immediate problem. But, everything about this adventure is NOT oriented towards the DM running the actual game. It’s just bullshit. 

THERE IS NOTHING HERE. 

As the page ratio implies. As the descriptions imply. As the treasure implies. As the lack of level range implies. As the Zombie encounter implies. But, hey, maybe repeat that room two backstory a few more times in the text in case we didn’t get it the first few times you repeated it. This is a one fucking page adventure. If that.

It’s 2023. And this shit still gets made. You think raging against the dying of the light has any impact? Absolutely the fuck not.

This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview is one page. The credits page. Absolutely fucking worthless. The point of the preview is let the potential buyer get a feel for the adventure to see if it fits them. Showing me your fuckign credits page is a fucking insult. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/423776/Excursions-Niffels-Landing–CSP3007?1892600

Posted in Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 11 Comments