Legacy of Blood

Posted on December 11, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Jonathan Hicks
Open Ended Games inc
Against the Darkmaster
Levels 2-3

Once one of the mightiest families of all the Nine Kingdoms, the Leorics have now fallen on hard times. Dark tidings and unspeakable rumors surround this once noble house. But a chance at redemption may still be at hand. In a desperate race against time, the heroes must recover a cache of lost magical artifacts before they fall into the hands of agents of the Darkmaster. Only this way they can restore the fallen noble family’s legacy, and stop the darkness spreading through their domains. Can they reach the treasure before the agents of the Darkmaster pursuing them? Can they sneak past the dragon who has made Castle Dulgroth her lair? Can they survive this Legacy of Blood?

This 37 page movie uses 22 pages to describe a fantasy novel. 

Like what the fuck man? What the serious fuck. Are you proud of this “adventure?” This is what you dreamed of doing? This is what you lay awake thinking about? No? It’s just a fucking paycheck for every single person involved? Oh? Rlly?  I couldn’t tell.

This thing is crap, from start to finish. I’m not sure there’s anything good about it at all. It doesn’t feel like a cynical money grab, but, rather, a product mired in the past. As if someone active in RPG’s from an earlier era decided to produce something and had learned absolutely nothing in the meantime. Cycnically, I think it’s just pushing out product and who the fuck gives an actual fuck the morons are going to buy the fucking thing anyway so why actually give a shit in producing something good?

This is now, what, the second fucking review in a fucking row of a movie plot adventure? You don’t have agency here. What you have here is columns long read-aloud text in which NPCs dump fucking exposition at you. All in italics, of course, because no one gives a flying fuck about usability or readability. And then the overly dramatic read-aloud exposition is then followed by mountains of DM text all arranged in just normal paragraph form. It’s fucking impossible to find anything in this. There is NO scanability, at all. This is Dungeon magazine, the worst of Dungeon magazine, all over again. In 2021. 

You ready for some hooks? How about an exciting one, like “They are looking for new opportunities and have swords and spells to hire out.” Yeah, that’s the extent of the fucking hook. The others are similar. A fucking hook that says absolutly fucking nothing at all. Why the fuck is this included? Do you seriously think that this is adding value to the product? Do you seriously think that this is helping someone run their game? No? It’s just fucking boilerplate? THEN WHY THE FUCK WAS IT INCLUDED? Because there was a word count, perhaps? 

Blah blah blah, … Desperate Race Against Time. Uh huh. You put that fucking shit in your adventure description and I know its crap without even reading it.

Ok, so, what’s up here? The actual adventure? It’s a fucking movie. You will get almost no choices at all. You will go overland and get attacked by The Darkmasters forces. You will win, and then an overwhelming force will descend upon you. The goal is to get the party to run, so there can be the next section … The Exciting Chase! And of, course, whats an exciting chase without a rescue from a mysterious ranger?! And then, of course, the chase must resume so you can flee in to a barrow and have the entrance collapse just in time separating you all from the darkmasters forces. And then you explore to escape only to find a tunnel that leads to where you want to go … pursued by the forces breaking in to the barrow. Only to come to a vault. Where the ranger betrays you! Ohs nos! And then the darkmasters forces arrive and attack! Ohs Nos! And then the dragon above shows up! Ohs Nos! 

“Anything can happen on this journey; perhaps a small scout force of Orc wolf riders intercept the players as they head to the barrows.” Yeah. That’s what you’re fucking paying for. To be told anything can happen on this journey. This thing is padded the fuck out. Backstory and motivations. The animated skeletons “have sworn to protect the riches of the barrow and they will do so!” Uh huh. That helped me run the game. “The water is ankle deep which could signify that the barrows are below the water level of the lake and the water is getting in somehow. “Wlel, just fucking wonderful. The price of tea in Taiwan while we’re at it? 

The absolute worst kind of drivel. Cinematic bullshit. Meant to tell a fucking exciting story. It might as well be a video game that is nothing more than quicktime events. This is why we play D&D? To have no choices? To just roll dice in combats? To have no control over the fate of your own lives? 

My cynicism here is strong. It’ is SO depressing to see shit like this. I get that different games have different vibes and the extreme agency of exploration D&D is not the vibe of every game. But to have little to no agency at all? Like the serious fuck? Didn’t that go out decades ago? Shall we forever cursed to relive this shit, because of designers or publishers unwilling or unable to liearn from the past? Shall I be generous to people who have made little to no effort to learn and update based on the times? Is all there is just banging two rocks together, forever, with no progression beyond that?

This is $9 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages. You get tp see that magnificent hook page and a couple of pages of irrelevant backstory. So, terrible preview that in no way helps you make a purchasing decision.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/374191/Legacy-of-Blood?1892600

Hello. This is the Bryce Emergency Review protocol. Bryce writes about three weeks ahead and has not written a new review in about three weeks, so this script has snagged an emergency review to post instead. Bryce has also been emailed and told to get back to work instead of engaging in whatever delight he is currently using to manage ennui.

Posted in Reviews | 14 Comments

The Dungeon Near the Shadow

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Jason Wardell
Phantom Funeral Press
Generic/Universal/OSR
Low levels

The persistent suborbital occlusion sits writhing in the west. It dropped from the heavens, some say, or maybe it bubbled out of the ground or burst out of the space between air, three years past. Some call it the shadow for how it negates the light, drowning everything it covers in opaque darkness. The sun no longer sets in the west: it disappears into the shadow, and each evening you can hear prayers at every hearth that it returns unchanged the next day. Most things that enter the shadow do not return, and if they do, they are seldom unchanged.

This sixteen page adventure details a dungeon with ten rooms. It’s trying to be creepy, brings a little in the into, and then fails to convey that in the room descriptions. I can haz sadz. 🙁

Okey doke. That fucking intro rocks, doesn’t it? Hey kids, who wants to go to that place that causes the sun not to set? You do?! Me too! I wonder if we can find any men at arms to go with us for 1sp a day? Might a rough sell …

There’s a town, it’s well and terse described, as are the people in it. Casidy, an apprentice blacksmith and former guard at The Dungeon (it was an outpost of the Tyrant King … before The Shadow swallowed his entire kingdom whole …) has this to say for herself “We weren’t all bad. Some of us strove to make things better… Not all of them deserved to die. Many did, but not all. I should have done more.” You’re still getting stabbed Casidy, as a minion of the Tyrant King, but, hey, I appreciate your introspection. JK! No reason to stab her. Which is the BEST reason, of course! Anyway, NPC’s in town are good and so is the rumor table. It sets everything up as very creepy. ““Those people, those changed things in the shadow look creepy, but they’re harmless. Mostly eat bugs and moss to survive.” Nice rumor! Very in voice! 

What follows is a long section of text about The Shadow, or, more proper, the Miasma that impacts you if you’ve been in The Shadow too long. Save for effects, they build up over time, and … well … this is the first sign of trouble. The entire thing, all of the effects, the timeline, everything, is presented as, essentially, two pages of text in paragraph form. NOT. COOL. This is not a table that you can reference easily. This is a book that you must read and memorize, or, worse, highlight. And that’s not fucking hapenning. Ok. so, it sometimes happens, but, it has to be a pretty stellar product for that to happen. And this ain’t it.

Because of … the rooms.

Every ten minutes and every time you enter a room you roll for a wanderer. That seems a bit excessive to me. Almost as if we’re mashing up encounters rather than pushing the party along and getting them to stop wasting time.

Further, and more seriously, the rooms are … less than creepy and more … disorganized.

Basically, each room is a mass of text paragraphs, one or two usually, that is some weird combination of text that could be read-aloud or could be DM text or could be … something else. I don’t know. There’s second-person, so, some “you’s” in there. Which makes me think it’s read-aloud. But then it also gives away information like it’s DM text. It tells us that statues are of the Tyrant King, that would be DM text instead of read-aloud, or that a doorway was barricaded by Carl … which is absolutely DM text. The descriptions are abstracted and not very evocative, as opposed to the dream-like descriptions that teased the adventure in the first place. “The armory is mostly picked clean, save for a large set of Imperial Armor? and several days worth of lantern oil & torches.” That is not a picture painted. That is abstracted fact based text with the words “picked clean” inserted. 

There are a couple of interesting wanderers in the dungeon. A shadow beast and a shadow man, both of which seems fairly interesting, or have the potential to be so, but are not used well at all. No real support in their descriptions (maybe that art piece in room four is it?) and not really any good supporting information on interacting with them. What could have been a magical mystery comes off as a stat block with a sentence of “he attacks you if you killed anyone” text. 

Efforts like this are disappointing. It’s a good idea. The creature concepts range from meh to excellent, but the dungeon is poorly implemented, for the most part, and everything comes off as “meh” because of the blandness of the actual adventure and descriptions. 

This is $4 at DriveThru and I don’t see no preview. Boo! Boo I saw, Sir! Give us a preview so we can determine what we are buying before we buy it!


https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/378192/The-Dungeon-Near-the-Shadow?1892600

Hello. This is the Bryce Emergency Review protocol. Bryce writes about three weeks ahead and has not written a new review in about three weeks, so this script has snagged an emergency review to post instead. Bryce has also been emailed and told to get back to work instead of engaging in whatever delight he is currently using to manage ennui.

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

Frankenstein

Posted on December 6, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Daniel DeFazio
B&W Media
Generic (no stats)

Ingolstadt, Bavaria – 1799 Elizabeth Lavenza is searching for her fiancé Victor Frankstein. Cholera has taken the lives of many citizens of the city and the streets are crammed with fear. Amidst the chaos, bodies of victims are going missing and a creature stalks the rooftops near Victor’s laboratory.

This twenty page adventure, a re-telling of Frankenstein, exemplifies all that is wrong with late 90’s role playing adventures. 

Todays review is charity work. Someone suggested that this designer is A) popular in the new world we find ourselves in and B) needs help. So, I’m jumping in. Both statements are very accurate. The designer has their own website and runs a decently popular youtube channel. And they have no clue how to write an adventure. Since the fucking fanboys are sure to show up, let’s make this clear. This is not a moral judgement on the designer, or a reflection of them as a dungeonmaster. This is a statement based on their inability to have the skill of technical writing, or at least to recognize that adventure writing is technical writing. The purpose is to help the DM run the adventure at the table.

First, let us examine the subject matter: Frankenstein. Another offering is MacDeath, clearly a riff on the play. Both well known works and essentially retellings. At least Frankenstein is. Let us ask, why? Why not original IP? The recognizable IP no doubt appeals to non-RPG players … but, again, why? You gonna play this instead of How To Host A Murder? Ok. There’s not enough in this for a newbie DM to use. And if you’ve got an experienced DM then they are gonna barth before running this. It’s some weird middle ground choice of how much information to present, and how. 

The primary sin, here, is the retelling of the story. The characters in this essentially have no agency. Very little of their actions matter. Oh, what’s the Vampire adventure whos name I always forget? You know, the worst adventure of all time where the party doesn’t get to play, they just get to watch ancient vampire monologue at each other? This is that. This is not an adventure inspired by Frankensteinm it WILL be the Frankenstein story, all the way to the end and the designer WILL ensure that it works out that way. When the party first meets Victor he is behind a locked door and nothing, come hell of high water, will result in the party getting in through that door … because that’s not where the plot is yet. It would ruin the STORY. Yes, the fucking STORY. This is a fundamental misunderstanding in RPG design that many new designers have. The story is not the designers. The story is not the DM’s. The story is the players. I don’t give a fuck what shit you dream about at night, and how it might unfold. All that goes out the window when the wrecking crew meets it. You write the fucking thing with that in mind, and I don’t mean by preventing things from happenning.

Likewise our ending. There MUST be a showdown in Victors lab. The create and Dr MUST meet and fight, with flames. That moment MUST happen …the adventure dictates it. Possibilities in the decision tree that do not result in the few laid out by the designer are NOT allowed … and in this case we mean supported. “Oh, a designer can’t support everything Bryce …” “ Fuck you N00B”, I say, the designers job is to present information for the DM to riff on, in that way many outcomes CAN be supported. 

About 80% of the text is read-aloud. Specific read-aloud generally laid out in a somewhat bulletish manner in a Q/A format. So, if the party asks Frank about X then read this long section of monologue. Embedded in this is the personality of the speaker, the scene, and a lot of backstory. This works against effective running of the adventure. You can’t riff on a monologue. Ideally, you want a brief personality snippet, in a few words, and a general outline of information to be conveyed in a way that’s easy for the DM to locate and add their own flair to, reacting to it and changing it as the parties actions dictate. The format selected herein, along with the plot really force this adventure down a “watching the movie unfold” kind of thing. Which is not roleplaying. And fuck you, new readers, for thinking it is. Yes, there can be a great variety in how games are played, but taking away the agency of the party is not one of them.

So, it’s the most extreme railroad kind of plot-based adventure, combined with a format that actively works against riffing on and focuses on monologue. Pretty much exactly a late 90’s adventure and everything this blog rails against.

Finally, let me state that I get the generic/no stats thing and am supportive. But, man, throw in one page for some stats for a system or two.

This is $7 at QuestGivers.com, the designers site.

https://www.questgivers.com/product.php?p=38

Hello. This is the Bryce Emergency Review protocol. Bryce writes about three weeks ahead and has not written a new review in about three weeks, so this script has snagged an emergency review to post instead. Bryce has also been emailed and told to get back to work instead of engaging in whatever delight he is currently using to manage ennui.

Posted in Reviews | 27 Comments

Night of Blood and Teeth

Posted on December 4, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Shane Lacey Hensley
Pinnacle Entertainment
Savage Worlds

It begins with a shipwreck on a cold, gray night in Lankhmar. The Temple of the Shark God has come to Lankhmar. They teach “the Way of Predation,” an extreme version of survival of the fittest. The city begins to take their message to heart. Tempers rise. Violence flares. And the city burns. Is the cult the cause of the troubles? Or is there something more ancient, more powerful at work? Your scoundrels, rogues, and heroes must find out before everything they know vanishes in…A Night of Blood and Teeth!

*Withering Sigh* Someone asked for this. I agreed, based on my recent good experience with Lankhmar. Then I realiazed it wasn’t DCC Lankhmar.

This 32 page adventure has five scenes in Lankhmar. It is boring. Lankhmar is boring. Mostly because the designer doesn’t really understand Lankhmar, even though they state in several times things that imply they do. As if the designer knows what they should do but are unable to do it.

Ok, so, shark cult brings a talisman to Lankhmar that brings bad luck. Scene 1: There’s a shipwreck. Scene 2: Some vignettes around town. Scene 3: Save the Beggar King Scene 4: Steal talisman from Shark Temple. Scene 5: Take a boat ride. Scene 3 is completely useless. The party is hired by the thieves guild to go save the beggar king from a mob that the shark cult has instigated. There is no real meaning to this encounter. It serves no purpose. It does not advance the adventure. Failing it does not throw up obstacles. It just wastes time. Scene 5 you take a boat ride to drop the talisman in to the sea. Of course, the shark cult arrives JUST. IN> TIME. as you perform the ritual. There’s no real reason for the party to go on the boat ride; you’re on some anti-shark cult ladies boat and shes the one doing the ritual. It’s a fucking meaningless scene that exists only to have a big final battle. Scene 1 has the party “saving” the survivors of a ship wreck. The hook is that some people come in to your bar, you learn of the shipwreck that is happening right now, and that they were merchants with a lot of gold. Thus you could be heroes that save people or just want to loot the still breathing bodies. This is the best you’re going to get in this adventure for Lankhmar attitude. “You could be a hero or for more larcenous, you could steal from the survivors as they fight the waves while drowning.” The rest of the shit is all do-gooder stuff. One of my favs is the beggar king thing; if you refuse to be hired then the DM is encourag to have the party at least go out to watch what is going on for this meaningless thing.

There’s no grit. There’s no dirt. There’s no squalor. There’s no larcenous thieves. Tis could just as well be written for a 5e game … and, I guess, that’s kind of what Savage Worlds is anyway, a popcorn reality, so, you know … why the fuck would you play this when there are other Lankhmar adaptions available?

It’s full of column long read-aloud in italics to convey information. Long italics sucks shit and is hard to read and no house style should contain it in 2021. Likewise, no long sections of monologue to convey information. You write the fucking adventure so it comes out over time. This is basic, basic design shit. And yet here we see Yet Another Publisher engaging in it. Fuck your editors and Fuck your house style. Make a fucking effort.

Mixed in to the long paragrapgh style encounter descriptions are, of, lets, see, a quarter page of backstory, in random places? Like, how does that advance the plot? How is that backstory actionable or leads to gaming moments? Oh, it doesn’t? THEN WHY THE FUCK IS IT IN THERE?! To meet pay per word requirements, no doubt. Look, I don’t know that’s true, but it is generally true in the industry, so, yeah, lets be evil and slap it on here also.

I don’t know. The temple raid is nor interesting. It gives the DM several options. A straight up fight, sneaking in, dressing up as acolytes, etc. But then it doesn’t really support those styles at all. It just says you can do it and goes in to the (boring and long) room keys. 

There is essentially no thought given to running this at the table; how the DM would use it, making it easy to scan and so on. I guess that’s not a surprise. Are there ANY major publishers that do this? I mean, basically, once you publish an RPG and it has ANY popularity at all then all you have to do is shovel out adventures and people will buy them. Why invest in making them good, or easy to use/run?

Why do you even license something like Lankhmar for Savage Worlds? I guess I know, money. I’m not even sure market demand counts here, unless it is induced. 

This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages. The last three show you the start of the first scene. Enjoy that shit. It’s the highlight of the adventure.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/247786/Lankhmar-A-Night-of-Blood-and-Teeth

Posted in Reviews | 5 Comments

Slime Cave of Norwal

Posted on December 1, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By James Introcaso, Sean Van Damme, Jeff Stevens
Self Published
Zweihander
Basic Tier

Anthla Tremal leads the Cult of Slugidor, the ancient deity of oozes. She brought the cult to the caves five days ago after learning Orthive’s tower was destroyed when the now-deceased wizard tried to summon Slugidor. The cult found the basement of Orthive’s tower connected to the caves and captured and questioned Orthive’s ghost. According to Orthive, the cult needs a “worthy sacrifice” to offer the demon lord. Anthla sends the minor oozes created in the slime to terrorize the people of Norwal, hoping heroes track the monsters back to Slime Cave…12p 6r

This twelve page study in depression describes a cave complex with six rooms and a few slime monsters in it. What do you actually expect to get from a review from a low effort adventure? Joy? Meaning? What even does happiness mean?

So far everything written for Zweihander is crap, right? Or did I miss something?

I guess Zweihander remains the hotness in the mainstream OSR world, with the market continuing to be spammed with adventures. This one was a 5e adventure converted to Zweihander. So, you know, one of the worst things in the world: a conversion. The grim & perilous world of Zweihander is about to meet its greatest foe: the magical ren faire of 5e! Yeah, so, tonally, this thing has issues. It’s the gump drop fairy world of 5e, with candy colored art, rather than the grimdark of Zweihander. Conversion, conversion, conversion. Yes, you can use any system, but, certain systems have certain vibes and a raw conversion, in my experience, seldom manages to convey the vibe of the game. All they are doing is slapping some new stats on monsters, converting skill checks if you’re very lucky, and that’s usually it. Low effort conversion to take advantage of the hotness. LAME

So, a village of 200 people supports a tourist industry to the local ruined tower and caves full of slime. 200 people. Tourist industry. With a spa. And a gift shop. And an inn that serves extra oozy eggs and slime pea soup. Ok, so, I have to admit, I like the food, and the slime spa treatment iea, but only in a farcical “lets push this fucking thing to its fucking limits.” But, this plays with the suspension of disbelief. As does the hook of all of the local militia having being killed by slime oh please might you do something? I’ll maybe give you a magic shield, and, if you bargain more, I’ll throw in a slime bath treatment at the spa. Seriously? This is the grim dark that Zweihander promised me? I’ll all for farce in a game, but there has to be some core of realism. The world the players are in MUST be the straight man. It must SEEM normal, until the party shows up and starts to fuck things up. 

So, there’s a cult, because mental illness, anti-science (alchemists) and cult religions are the three acceptable bad guys these days. Not that I have a problem with that, but, its fucking over-used. Everything is a fucking cult these days. Come up with a decent fucking spin on a cult maybe? Remember the throwaway cult in Hoard of Tiamat, and the Hack & Slash remix of chapter 2? THATS a fucking cult. This is just a fucking low effort throwaway. Anyway, the cult is in the caves, blah blah blah, they need to lure heroes to cave to sacrifice them to summon their slime god. Lure. Heroes. Yes, another fucking low effort idea. I can’t come up with any reason why they are in the caves and/or pretext for things so I’m just going to say that they want to lure heroes in and sacrifice them. Jesus. How about a skill gauntlet while you’re at it, just to “test” them? No? That would be effort? Ok. So, cult luring heroes to the cave.

You have to track the oozes that raid the town. I have no idea why you have to do this. It seems obvious that the ruined tower, and slime cave underneath, are the place to go. But, anyway, you track the oozes. If you make your roll you track them to the slime cave. If you fail your roll you track them to the slime cave and get attacked by four of them. So as to encourage mix/max’ing of characters. Inside the cave are six rooms.

Let’s see … “get attacked by an ooze” seems to the major theme here, surprisingly. After fighting oozes in cave one, cultists come rushing out, (their names are in room two, obviously) to pretend to be adventurers and lead the party to the finale trap room. Oh, and a “shimmering ooze” attacks the party, I guess maybe when they cross a slime river? It’s just a one sentence thing. Which, I can appreciate form a terseness standpoint but has absolutely no flavour at all. 

Another room has an ochre jelly in it, standing behind a slime river and in front of a chest. The chest is trapped, setting it off pushes you in to the ochre jelly. Why you left an ochre jelly in the room is beyond me, as is why the thing didn’t attack you before you opened the chest. 

Oh, there’s a ghost. The cult trapped a ghost in a giant alien-like pod transparent bell jar. He’s a scared ghost though, and doesn’t fight ot help you. Except by prodiving monologue to explain everything that is going on in the adventure. Because that’s the only way to convey information, beyond a journal/diary, in a shitty adventure. 

I guess, the only good part of the adventure is that if the party fails then the cutists summon their slime god and it devours the entire world. So, you know, time to switch games. THAT’S a good thing!

Low effort ideas. Low effort interactivity. Conversion job. Nothing to see here, move along!

This is $3 at DriveThru. The preview is eight pages. Good enough to make a purchasing decision. That, to be clear, should be “NEVER.”

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/368404/Slime-Cave-of-Norwal–ZWEIHANDER?1892600

Posted in Reviews | 28 Comments

Brewkessel Level 1

Posted on November 29, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Tom Holmgren
OSE
Level 1?

Once upon a time, there was a wonderful school of spellcraft and sorcery called Brewkessel. 62 years ago it vanished in a flash of red lightning, taking with it some of the best and brightest names in magic. All that was left behind was a deep, smoking hole. Was it the result of a spell gone wrong? Had the gods finally rained down judgement on their vile witchcraft? No one could say for sure. In fear of repeating Brewkessel’s unknown mistake, one by one the other schools locked their doors. Brewkessel reappeared 7 months ago.

This 66 digest page “zine” uses about 36 pages to describe about 31 rooms on the first level of Hogwarts castle. A fucked up Hogwarts castle. It’s got a consistent vibe (fucked up Hogwarts) and does a relatively good job of supporting the DM, supplementing its excellent formatting and interactivity. Descriptions could use some work, but, hey, whatever. It’s pretty good. 

This mania for calling everything a zine needs to end. It’s a fucking module. Was G1, G2, and G3 three individual zines? No? They were modules? Fuck yes they were. And this is level one of a megadungeon, along with some supporting information on the village outside of hogwarts. The village inn, a bit on the outside grounds, the witch who guards the entrance and so forth. It being a digest, about one to two rooms are on each page, usually along with a nice little minimap showing their relation to each other. 

Ok, so, fucked up Hogwarts. That’s what you need to know. That, more than anything else, is going to be the deciding factor if you want this adventure. The tone. The party WILL recognize aspects of Hogwarts. Four houses. The great hall. Rowing across the lake perhaps. Paintings that talk. The owlery. But then, it’s going to be slightly twisted. A kind of Bioshock/City of Rapture version of Hogwarts. It is still KIND of functioning as a home for some powerful wizards & witches, but … things are a little rough inside and the occupants and magics a bit corrupted. 

You see, the castle was transported to Yuggoth and a lot of people got brain parasites. They settled on the land, learned to adapt, and had a couple of coup’s. Then someone brought the castle back. So, you’ve survived on an alien planet for 65 years, being a bit flexible to survive. That kind of warped. It comes off a lot, in many ways, like Castle Xyntillian, but with a Hogwarts vibe. Both, kind of functioning as their intended purpose … but both corrupted and having a very dangerous disposition. If you want that vibe then this adventure, or at least this level of this adventure, is for you.

Before reaching the castle keys we get a short rumor table and a few businesses in Hogsmead. Those are focused, all three on one page, with the content tending to less is more. A line about the proprietor and maybe what the party can get there. It’s focused on supporting the party through the dungeon rather some kind of a “day in the life of a rustic village” nonsense that all too frequently appears in print. We get a short little “by land or by lake” to the castle, along with wanderers, and a few rival adventuring parties. A wandering monster table for the castle with a paragraph or so for each entry, describing the monster (if there is one) and giving a little push to run the encounter in an interesting way. Exactly what it should be.

And then we reach RIGHT outside the castle. The map depicts a greenhouse, or, at least, the former site of one. And the whomping willow and the forbidden forest, all of which get no description at all. (Perhaps in a future volume?) What we do get, though, are the groundskeepers. When the castle returned a former student and now high level witch showed up to run the entrance, charging people to get in/out, having contracts to sign and casting spells for fee. She’s supported by a large group of animal headed mercenaries … with a variety of possibilities, from mundane to FUCKED UP, as to why they have animal heads and why they support the witch. This harkens back to the old days of groups of thieves hitting the party on the way to/from the dungeon, taking some loot … serving the purpose that the gate guards and tax collectors sometimes do. It’s a nice touch and she adds a lot to the vibe as well as providing some practicalities like Remove Disease and Identify, as well as some mini-quests like finding keys, etc. I should note that there are also a few hooks provided, with one of my favorite being “whenever your blood is spilled, it runs uphill toward the castle”, with a close second being a hideous oracle predicting your death in the castle. Uh, duh, of course I want to go there then! 

Formatting emulates the Necrotic Gnome style of conveying information with bullets, with strategic bolding and cross-references. It’s clean and easy to scan.

Interactivity is great, with curses, boones, banes, potential allies and neutral parties scattered everywhere. Just about every room has some kind of thing going on, which, while not exactly true, even the “empty” rooms feel like you’re someplace worth looking in to. But, how about that painting with a vampire on it. She’d dearly like for you to find the key to the collar she wears … she’s so … thirsty. And in return she feeds you information, helps as much s a painting can … and giving her the key has “consequences for other paintings on this level.”  That’s enough detail for the DM to riff off of without needing to go in to exacerbating detail.

Owlgirl lives in the rookery, once an own, now a girl/owl hybrid. ALl she knows is the rookery, but will grow in to someone else if shes exposed to the wide world beyond … which she is curious about. A classic trope, and combined with the owlery and the owls, a perfect thing for the party to take advantage of. And take advantage they will need. The letter room, near the owlery, has an 8HD mail golem in it. There is no issue here with finding encounters beyond that of the party. They abound. Including the high level staff, who, at least on this level, mostly want to be left to their own devices. Their own Tallulah Bankhead hedonistic devices. 

I could take exception with some the language used to create an evocative environment. Certainly the mini-maps, in an iso-metric view, help, and the bulleted items do a decent job. But the overall nature of the room is, I think, lost a bit. The carpentry shop tells us about scattered rusty woodworking tools, unpleasantly siggy wooden planks and a crude carving. Thats a little lifeless, noting the individual elements present in the room but not the overall vibe of the room, proper. Most of the rooms fall in to this syndrome. A few, though, do not, like room two, the courtyard, which describes overgrown grass, dead in patches with three dead black wood trees spotted with red growths … and a three tier fountain of white stone in the middle, with flowing water, something painted on it, crudely. That’s two bullets, the foliage and fountain, that when taken together in a description provide a good overall feeling of the room. That is missing from most of the entries. This is one of the limits of the Necrotic format, the difficulty in providing an overall feeling. Or, perhaps, the need to ensure that the individual elements add up to that overall feeling. 

Beyond this, you get the usual issues with a single level of megadungeon. What are the connections? How does everything fit together? What do people know about things deeper in? If you are going to accept a level by level design then you must also accept the issues with this. And also, that future levels may be slow, or never, show up

Still, this is a very worthwhile addition to a game. It’s the best Hogwarts I’ve seen. It captures the spirit of Hogwarts, and warped nature turning it in to an adventuring locale … without it being too cutesy or bizarre for the sake of bizarre. It’s a fine line to walk and the designer does a good job. I hope to see more entries. 

This is $9 at itch. The product page has a good preview of the room page layout and so on, and how the designers on personal art compliments the vibe. Nice job.

https://kettlesberg.itch.io/brewkessel-1

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

What Nightmares May Come

Posted on November 27, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Andrew Foster
Self Published
City of Mist

An aging catholic exorcist and assessor needs the crew’s help in banishing the alleged evil spirits surrounding a young boy. What kind of terror could bring a once steadfast priest to the breaking point ? Could a mere child really be the harbinger of something evil or is something else at play? Whatever it is, it’s quickly spreading to the nearby neighbors who are being plagued by the all too real events colored by death and terror. If that wasn’t enough, people are starting to believe the rumors about a previously captured serial killer who is on the loose again. Will the crew be able to save the residents of the 36th Street Apartments in time before their own living nightmares consume them?

This 25 page adventure is the usual spooky dream time investigation adventure of a modern horror nature. It has nice touches here and there and, surprisingly, doesn’t reach TOO far in to the pretension that the marketing hints at. It also has no idea how to support the DM. Or write read-aloud. Or format a section for scanning. And, I take offence at the subject matter.

This adventure centers around a kid who is the living manifestation of The Spirit Of All Life, the aboriginal creator who also created the dreaming. Or is the dreaming? I don’t pretend to understand. All I know is that a white kid is the aboriginal creator. Can you do this in a home game? Sure. Should you shit all over gypsies in a published adventure? Probably not. It’s in bad taste and things suitable for a home game are not always suitable for a published adventure. 

So, I don’t know where to start with this. I bought it explicitly because it looked like pretentious edge lord shit. Read that marketing blurb again. “What kind of terror could …” and, the best of all, the last two lines of the other marketing blurb are “… ultimately come face to face with their own demons, and hopefully find the wisdom to help a hurt soul come to terms with their grief.

“ Uh huh. Grief? Uh huh. The characters own demons? Uh huh uh huh. Fucking masterful pretention that is. How could this adventure be anything other than the full on catharsis that we all seek from a tuesday night of gaming with beer and pretzels!? Finally, my deep held truma regarding the search for meaning in a world inherently devoid of it shall be resolved and no longer will all love me and despair but I shall remain Galadriel. Or, I’m gonna have some more Campairi and roll my eyes. 

So this kids mother dies. He starts making people have nightmares, including a priest who comes to exorcise him, a psychiatrist who examines him, and basically everyone in his apartment complex. The party enters at the behest of the priest, does some basic investigation of the priest, psych, and the apartment complex. They go to the kids apartment, find a THING has happened, and go to the roof to find the kid pulling the entire complex in to the dreamtime. The only real conflict here is with shadow monster things from the dreamtime. This seems lame to me, much in the same way that I bitch about designers using humanoids too much in fantasy adventures. When every threat is supernatural the tone of the game changes and becomes substantially less visceral, with, I believe, less perceived threat of the players characters. The fantastic made mundane. 

It’s a pretty standard adventure of this type. You get a call from the priest. Go to the church and fight nightmare monsters. Investigate. Go to the next place in the chain, the psych’s office. Fight nightmare monsters and investigate. Go to the apartment complex and investigate and fight nightmare monsters. Find the kids apartment and have the “emotional” ending. 95% of all modern adventures go this way, be it the modern genre of the post-90’s time frame. They both do it. You know, the plot thing.

I’m going to cover a few interesting things about this. First, the monsters/people, etc have a few bullet points in them to help run them, atmospherically. One of them “Creeps along the walls silently like a fluid shadow”, or “Whispering and snickering near you” or “Bang and scrap at the doorway where Father Stone has barricaded himself in” or “Dissipate right in front of your eyes with a terrible screeching noise.” I talk frequently about specificity and in supporting the DM with some advice. These are excellent examples of what I’m talking about. It’s specific examples that the DM can either include directly or riff off of, instead of generalized advice. It’s not text heavy, or dragging on for paragraphs. It’s bulleted for easy reference. It’s exactly how the DM should be supported for a shadow nightmare monster might act and/or interact with the party. 

It also doers this interesting thing, in one place, that tells the DM “Hey, if you want a quicker pace to the game then skip this next section and if you want a slower pace then use it.” That’s interesting advice, especially in one of these plot/investigation things, and something that I don’t think you ever, but rarely, see an adventure do. It’s totally misplaced in this adventure and has you skip some quite evocative content, but, hey, nice idea anyway.

FInally, the designer does have a certain penchant for writing a cliff hanger line of dialog. The hook has a priest calling you late at night and whispering in to the phone in a terrified voice before screaming “I will cast you out and send you back to hell!” Sweet! That’ll wake you up in the morning! As you approach the church, the read-aloud there ends with you hearing a scream coming from within “You have no power in the house of the Lord! Unclean spirit, I cast you out and back to hell!” Uh … fuck yeah! That’s how you write a cut! None of this “What do you do?” interrogatory bullshit. 

Ok. I did my good deed for the day and noted a few non-shitty things. Time to Burn it down. Burn it down baby burn it burn it down!

The read-aloud happens as you transition to each new scene location. It is terrible. Dreadfully pretentious. I guess, I could see how it could be ok in a kind of noir-like voiceover. “The silhouetted gothic form of the River- side Cathedral, with its vaulted but- tresses and harsh pointed arches cutting through the thick misty fog looms over you, stopping you in your tracks. Is it awe, reverence or fear?” or “The palpable hopeless- ness reminds you of one of the City’s harshest truths…“Everyone is just a step away from disaster.”” Classic examples of telling instead of showing. You want the party to feel this way, and it’s up to you, as the designer, to write content that gets them to feel this way. I am not so jaded as I let on that I cannot be moved. But, if you TELL me to fell someway them I’m just going to roll my eyes and say fuck you, at least internally, and fuck with the game. You gotta communicate this shit by showing. What can you describe that makes me THINK “a step away from disaster?” Write that. 

The designer also leaves shit out. A LOT of shit. They center certain pieces of information as being important to the story and then never mention it again, at least not in a way that is useful for the the DM. A serial killer, back on the loose again? Let’s not mention ANYTHING about him other than give him a stat block for his nightmare version. What the fuck do you do if the party starts to investigate the killer? Asks questions about them? Nothing. Well, “make some shit up”, of course. But, the designer should be supporting the DM in this. Thisa happens time and again in the adventure. The priest is troubled by a past exorcism that went wrong. The demon in the church taunts him about this. The party is sure to ask him about it. But, nothing is provided. Sure, it’s all misleading content, but, fuck, if you’re going to introduce something like this then give it a few sentences to support the DM as the party inevitable follo wup on this lead.

Scenes are also incompletely described. You see a doctor sitting in her chair in one intro paragraph. There’s no fucknig mention of the giant pools of blood that surround her, since she slit her fucking wrists. Or, in another, of a body hanging out the window of the apartment complex that you can presumably see from the street, or the piles of people mulling around in the courtyard. No, you must reach those other locations before those details are shared. And yet, those clues, mentioned before then, lead the party to those scenes. If you open a door to a 20-x20 room with a fucking giant dragon in it then you mentioned the fucking dragon inthe read-aloud. Prominanalty. You don’t leave the giant pools of blood as a follow-up detail. This is not the over-explaining that I blast readaloud for. 

I could go on an on on this adventure. I’m particularly disappointed by the lack of dreamtime support, and annoyed at the direct question “whats your worst nightmare” that is asked for the players characters so it can manifest. This is SOOOOO overfuckingused and always not supproted … just as it is here. And the final “battle”/scene on the rooftop is essentially not supported at all …e xcept for a entire page of stat block for the kid. Who the fuck can wade through that during a game while running it? Nothing evocative, nothing to guide. 

A locked door mystery without mentioning the door being locked. 

This is $7 at DriveThru. The preview is three pages. You can get a decent idea of the writing style from it. It’s a good preview. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/375944/What-Nightmares-May-Come?1892600

I recommend watching from 30 second onward. I love how the stenographer is diligently recording the chanting.

Posted in Reviews | 5 Comments

Date of Expiration

Posted on November 24, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Graphite Prime
Graphite Prime Studios
AD&D
Levels 4-7

You have never seen a dungeon like this before! What happens when crazed mechanical beings from the future arrive on your fantasy world?

This 108 page adventure uses about sixty or so pages to describe a futuristic hellhole of a tower with about 45 rooms. Uninteresting descriptive/layout format complements the nature of the site and while descriptive text is low word count, it complements the art well. 

Occasionally someone with attempt to write an adventure on a trash world. You know, the entire planet is a dumping ground and there are weird holes and tunnels everywhere littered with refuse, made up of refuse. Or, there was HoL, proper, or every those tunnel scenes of sewers in The Matrix or the alien warrens in Aliens. You get this idea of a chaotic area that you are picking your way through, uncertain exactly what is going on, surrounded by an alien environment. I’ve never seen this described very well. It seems to be a relatively popular area to explore, but the nature of the environment makes it difficult to convey the vibe in anything other than a visual format. Hence the HR Geiger stuff, the Matrix tunnels, and so on, doing so well to inspire. This adventure, also, relies on an art style to help convey the vibe, much more so than the words alone. 

We’re up in the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun with the blah blah blah. I’ve actually got Burn It Down on heavy, loud repeat right now, but, you get the idea: the frozen north, barren but mountainous and rugged. Rumors of strange things to the further north, from the last friendly fort, and strange creatures. You hex crawl north Miss Tessbacher, through 28 or so possible hexes, one to two hexes a day. Until you see, nestled in a valley of ice and snow, a rusted iron contraption, made of up rivets and pipes, draped with golden cables and wires. 900 feet high and 700 feet wide. Yup. We’re there kids, Wally World awaits! That is unmisfuckingstackably the place you want to go to. It cannot be recognized as anything other than a place of wonder. You. Have. Arrived. 

Let’s imagine a government research lab, say Black Mesa. You’ve got the scientists, the staff and receptionists, the janitors and food service people, some soldiers, a few, ahum, “men of vision” and so on. Now, lets take the whole place, complex and all, and transport it so fucking far back in to the past that time looses its meaning. But, those Men of Vision are on a mission. But, the working dudes? Hey man, they didn’t sign up for this shit. Thus you have some human foibles mixed in to an otherwise focused “mission.” That’s what’s going on here. Except, the people transported back are cyborgs from so far in the future they no longer know that humans WERE their ancestors and they don’t resemble the cyborgs you know and love from movies and Tv. They are more like a loose collection of wire, like a pile of cassette or VCR tape, on the floor, that can pull itself in to different forms. They can’t really do that, but, imagine the pool of wirre HAD given itself a vaguely (and I emphasize vaguely …) humanoid form. A little insane, on a missione, some occasional moments of relatability … all while they harvest people and animals for experiments. Some are hostile, some curious (and therefore probably hostile in a “vivisection” kind of way …) and some are drunk or apathetic or resigned to melancholy. In short, NOT a monolithic enemy.

We must now discuss the map. And art style. And formatting choice. And evocative writing. Because, they are all one and the same here. Or, perhaps, working towards the same end, intrinsically linked. 

There is an overview map, a big map showing the entire layout. And then that map is broken up in two four smaller “quadrant” maps, to help make things more manageable. But, the individual rooms? They EACH get their own map. Imagine a drawing of a room, in the center of a page. Scattered around it are small blocks of text with lines pointing to various parts of the map. If there’s a pit then there’s a small block of text describing it and then a line pointing to the pit on the map. You’re with me so far, right? Three, maybe four features per room.

And by “room” I mean “this part of the big ass complex weird and confusing complex.” There is SUBSTANTIAL verticality to this, with virtually every “room” having three of four vertical components separated by small “flat” sections. And it’s all this weird post-industrial/hyper-technology setting. 

With a black and white art style that that is a signature of Graphite Prime. I wouldn’t want to draw comparisons, but ,those of you unfamiliar may think of Scrap and the “less is more” ambiguity that the black & white styles of both artists convey. (It is gauche to compare one artists style to another? I feel like I ned to do SOMETHING to give the gentle readership some basis to visualize …) It leaves significant room for the imagination to fill in the gaps, while still inspiring that imagination to actually do so. And the the words are rather utilitarian, the complementary art, IN YOUR FUCKING FACE on every page, does wonders to fill the gap. This is what passes for one feature of one “room”: “Floor Hatch: Locked. Opening this hatch unleashes a swarm of hundreds of time-bombs. They are

about the size of small cherries and aim to fly down one’s throat” Complimenting this is the actual room art, showing the hatch in the floor and the space underneath. 

I might complain the the “always on” features of the rooms could be further front and center. There is a monster ref sheet, it could have gone there. Or on the big map, or quadrant map, or even on the “common features” map page. At best you get “is consistently lit by industrial lighting that creates a gold/rust colored glow. Otherwise, the Structure looks like it was crafted from Iron.” A little more in the “general inspiration” category would have done well. I don’t now. Oil? Something. 

Complementing the dungeon proper is the hex crawl, which can almost be run with the mini-descriptions on the hex crawl map, the expanded text later on almost not needed. Wanderers for the hex crawl and for the dungeon are both great, with good actionable things going on, from weird and bizarre to deadly. And, the dungeon isn’t just a killer, there are boons to be found throughtout, wandering adventure parties, a dryad, pixies needing to be freed, and a whole fuck ton of “loot” to get way with.

There’s a techno element to this adventure, but, it’s not really science fiction. I mean, not in the way most of these “lets put in some science shit” usually are. The creatures and environment is from so far in the future that it essentially almost never comes up in play. I mean, you can tell, immediately, this is tech shit, but this is not the relatable tech from Barrier Peaks. This is almost at the point of Tech As Magic … except it’s not quite there … there’s a bare recognition of relatability that keeps it meaningful, from going off the deep end of the magic pretext. 

I’d run THE FUCK out of this. Best.

This is $8 at DriveThru. The preview is elevent pages, with the last few being “rooms.” I’d recommend taking a look, both to get familiar with the art style and if this formatting style works for you. I think it works GREAT for this kind of “indescribable” environment. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/370864/Date-of-Expiration?1892600

Posted in Level 5, Reviews, The Best | 11 Comments

Death Ship of the Roach Princess

Posted on November 22, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Matt Finch
Frog God Games
S&W
Levels 1-3

A mysterious ship in the city’s harbor holds terrifying secrets … and the characters are trapped on board! This plane-shifting, roach-infested, puzzle-laden adventure offers fabulous riches, but also offer a fate worse than death.

This 34 page adventure uses fifteen pages to describe fifteen or so relatively complex locations on a ship that is also an interdimensional nexus. It plays with a couple of D&D concepts, and shows an understanding of the player motivation. It is also plagued by the Frogs house style which does absolutely nothing to help the understanding of the adventure or running of the game. At least they got the right cover on this one.

So, listening to my critics, I spent more than 30 minutes this morning picking out a new adventure to review. SOME readers seem to think that its my lack of research that leads me to the issues I have with quality. “What did you expect, Bryce?” is a common refrain. We shall see, in this mornings experiments, gentle readers! I dig in and passed Morg Borg after Troika adventure, with appealing descriptions and covers and previews that indicated they were probably the usual crap. Multiple Starry Knight, Filbar, Joseph Mohr, and more. Pamphlet dungeons, two page dungeons, four page dungeons. All passed by. I skipped Frog God dungeons. “This time it’s gonna be different!” I told myself. Then I spotted something that looked interesting, clicked on it … and immediately saw it was Frog God. I went back. Then, it struck me. It had Finch’s name on it! I went back. Yup. Matt Finch. Someone who knows what the fuck they are doing. Perhaps, gentle reader, he can overcome the apathy of the publisher to deliver something quality?

If you played the first adventure in the series then you See a Ship In The Harbour to investigate, or if not you hear from another sailor about a large crate of gold rowed over yesterday … and it’s assumed to want to loot it. You row over to the ship to find it essentially empty, except for a few notable items. First, there are a fuck ton of roaches on the ship, more than usual, by  lot. Not monster swarm territory, but, still, a FUCK TON. Second, There’s a bunch of dudes in the rowers hold whose hands are melted in to the oars. They saw you’re trapped here, just like they are. Seems like you’re in a Zeno’s Paradox situation if you try to leave, oh, and also, you’ve got about three days to escape the ship before you melt in also. Finally, that big pile of crates in the corner? It’s in the shape of a spiral making a portal to someplace else, and each one has some gold ingots in it. That’s the first six rooms “of the ship.”

Thus Finch turns on its head a trope of D&D. Two, actually, and he states this up front in his designers notes. You get the treasure FIRST, but you need to get out with the treasure, you need to escape. This pushes you in to exploration. And this is the second trope: the escape adventure. Generally this starts with the party being prisoners, etc, or some other hackneyed idea. This, though, turns that on its head. Rather than a punishment escape, as most of these adventure types are, this adventure is a reward escape: you’ve already got the gold, essentially. Your motivations are different and therefore the vibe is different. And … there’s the three day timer at the end hanging over you. (I have a hard time seeing that as an issue. Maybe its an explicit pushback against sleeping for spells after every encounter, for OSR, 5e, or Pathfinder?)

You then go through the spiral crates and find extradimensional spaces, with more spiral places to explore. These places you find tend to be a large cavern or mini-complex of rooms, generally with a couple of other spiral exits. You encounter roach monsters, cultists, and some sphere of annihilation-like traps while searching for the command words that will let you bring the ship back to reality … at least enough to escape with the gold.

It’s imaginative and interesting. The roach element could have been played up more in the rooms. As it stands there are a couple of roach swarm monsters and a note for the DM to emphasize the roaches in their description. More support could have been included for that statement. It feels like, otherwise, its just going to get lost the way so many other environmental issues get lost in a game. 

There’s also a bit of exposition dump in the adventure. The doomed oarsmen, up front, explaining things, is the first big dump. I get it, you need to explain the whole trapped/doomed fate thing, but it feels a bit much. And then I’m thinking of the “Memory roach brains” locale, with more exposition dump. Two very big dumps that, I believe, could have been spread out a bit more. I know WHY they are there: you’ve got to get the party headed towards their goals … or even know that there is a goal to head to, but they come across as exposition and/or monologue.

And then there’s the Frogs format. They never met a Wall Of Text that they didn’t love. With a small font. It feels like they are trying some techniques to get past this. There are a coupe of instances of bullet points, particularly when someone has information to relate. There’s also an attempt to divide the larger areas up in to smaller sections. Think a big cave with a general overview description that hints at other parts of the cave … like murals on the north wall or inky blackness on the west well … with those two areas both getting their own descriptions. This FEELS like an attempt to break the rooms up in to more manageable sections … while still working within the confirms of the selected format. That’s laudable. And it still doesn’t work very well. A stronger/any attempt to explain the overall “flow” of the adventure would have been helpful also. There are multiple command words that do different things found in different areas with different impacts. It’s not OVERLY complex, but its also not immediately intuitive … the way gibberish words can tend to be. A little extra help in this section would have been useful. 

So, Finch knows what he’s doing. It’s not just a hack and there’s shit to fuck with and, if run properly, a decently fucked up vibe. But I don’t think it supports the DM very well to do that, and you’ll need a fucking highlighter, again.

This is $11 at DriveThru. I enjoy the Frogs hubris. You might take a look at the last page of the six page preview to see if the formatting style fits your needs. It doesn’t mine; it feels like work.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/346989/Death-Ship-of-the-Roach-Princess-Swords-and-Wizardry?1892600

Posted in 5e, Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Review, Reviews | 12 Comments

The Hamlet of Volage

Posted on November 20, 2021 by Bryce Lynch 
By Joseph Bloch
BRW Games
Adventures Dark and Deep
Levels 1-3

The peaceful hamlet of Volage is beset by evil. Nestled on the edge of the High Vale in the shadow of the great Sesve Forest, the farmers and artisans of this small community have reported inexplicable happenings; cattle suffering from strange murrains, mysterious fires that seemingly start from nothing, crops rotting in the fields before they can be harvested, and more besides. There are whispers of witchcraft about. You and your companions have heard of these troubles and journeyed thither to root out the cause of these evils an bring peace and plenty back to the sleepy village.

This sixteen page adventure has a good idea but features a village in which nothing happens. Oh, it’s SUPPOSED to be about a shadow war between two different coven of witches, but how the fuck the party arrives at this is beyond my comprehension. I do know, though, that the local lumber yard specializes in making ax handles. Joy. 

Consider the humble witchfinder. Arriving at a village, using harsh questioning techniques, maybe just burning all of the village women at the stake just to be sure. After this adventure I feel a certain understanding for how they came to that. I’m not excusing it, but, I believe I can now offer at least an explanation of how they got that point in their lives. And knowing is half the battle. COOOBRA!

The party of level ones (for, this is a level one adventure, as plainly stated in the text, in spite of it saying levels one to three on the cover) arrives at the village. You heard there was witchcraft here and you’re here to sort it out, being that kind of people, I guess. There’s no local lord to take care of it, so, I guess no one is paying their taxes. Seems like some enterprising and belligerent local worthy should look in to changing that situation. But, we’re not playing with the morality of the time, we’re playing with the bougie morality of the modern era. So, you’re here, says the intro, to stop dem witches!

Why? No one in the village is asking. No one outside the village is asking. Meh, whatever.

We then get a listing of some of the buildings in the village. Nineteen. The tavern, some farms, the lumberyard. At this point I want to say that absolutely none of these buildings have nothing going on. That’s wrong, but it’s also right. There’s a burned out farm with a ghost in it. He wants his barn to finish being built, seeing as it wasn’t completed before he died. And about half the houses have a witch in it. This is explained in a format something like “Frank, Marthy and their kids Mary and Sue. Mary and Sue are witches of the Broken Claw coven.” That’s what you get. Run the fucking adventure, chump! That’s what I mean by nothing actually going on. There’s a shine in the forest where one of the covens has rituals. You’re somehow supposed to find out that there’s a coven of witches in the village and find out that’s where they do things. But there is NOTHING in the fucking village to support this. 

Which, again, isn’t exactly true. There’s a rumor table. One of them says something about people going in to the forest at night to that old shrine. Another has Mary & Sue sneaking off to the forest at night sometimes to meet boys. Out of twenty rumors. That’s it. Oh, there are woodsmen in the village. You could question them, I guess, if there’s anything out in the woods. That’s kind of rando, and they don’t talk to outsiders, but, I guess you could do that But, not with the elves, strangely. The group of elves who visit are even more insular than the woodsmen. 

A minor complaint: the witch coven is led by a 4th level cleric and 6th level cleric. I guess that’s cool for level ones to combat? Along the same lines, fuck, everyone and their brother in this is weird. The elves are insular, but there’s a friendly centaur merchant? Everyone in the village has some kind of magic item or is, like Level four? What up with that? The drunk dude in the tavern is a level 4 barbarian with 35 HP! 

But, back to the main point of bitch: NOTHING. IS. GOING. ON.

You get a series of up front things. A family was killed six months ago. Some cattle and sheep were slaughtered. All of the cats in the village died one morning. Rats ate all the grain in a dudes silo. The miller got sick and took a month to recover. This is ALL the secret war, but, there is NOTHING to support ANY of this. Do the two fucking covens know each other exist? Who knows. I guess it’s implied they do? What do the individual members know? Those locations have NO details about the events that took place. Just the shit I already types is relayed again. “All my grain was eaten by rats,” How the fuck do you run something from that? There are no village personalities. No inciting events. No conspiracies. No plots. Absolutely NO potential energy.

This is not how you write one of these things. These things should be like a gas factory, with open vats and barrels of gas. Lit by candles. With cookfires everywhere. That’s what the fucking village should be like. You look at it and you say “Oh, yeah, thats not good …” And then the traveling demo team for the local fireworks manufacturer shows up. The Party. “Hello sir and/or madam, please allow us to demonstrate our MR SPARKY”

You want things going on. You want potential energy. You want relationships between the villagers, some related to the situation and some not. You want things going on. You want the villagers to be super tense and on edge. You want suspicion falling on the lumberjacks. You want the elves to a serious contender of suspicion, by the villagers and party. You wants the fucking to be up to things. You want the sites of the former action to have a clue or something about who was behind it. You want a good innocent victim witch burning while screaming curses. You want this place HOPPING with potential energy. You want the fucking Montagues and Capulets going at it in a cold war in the village while all of this is going on. Ok, so, maybe not all that. But you want a SITUATION. 

But what you get, here, are boring facts. There’s nothing to riff one. “Mary & Sue are witches.” Well, great. There’s NO Dm support at all in this adventure. “You should heighten paranoia and foreboding among the party,” GREAT! Yes, you should! But the adventure offers absolutely NO support for this beyond “make the players make random saving throws.” Ug! 

What we DO get is loads and loads and loads of useless information that, I suppose, is supposed to fire our imagination. Like the lumberyard specializes in ax handles and pieces of furniture. Uh … Or that the blacksmith spends most of their time shoeing horses and making nails. Or that Franks cattle barn is only open for lodging in the summer months since in the winter he keeps his cattle in there. This is TEXTBOOK example of How To Not Write. This might all be true. It might all be accurate. But it does NOTHING for the adventure. And, yet, the designer spent time writing those words INSTEAD of putting in the potential energy and situations that would have led to a good adventure. 

And don’t give me any of that Bryce only wants nonstop fireworks” shit. No, I don’t. I’m fucking useing hyperbole. But there has to be fucking SOMETHING going the fuck on in the fucking village so you can go get killed by those level 4/Level 6 clerics at the forest fucking shrine. 

We are, however, told, that “Most of the inhabitants are of Aeridian extraction with a bit of Zhul, most of the families originally hailing from Furyondor, and a few from Velhana and Perrengaard.” But, they all get along now. How nice! 

A hidden witch war in a village in trysts, love affairs, rivalries, shit simmering under the surface. That could have been good. Instead we get the winter farming rules of Frank the herder with “Mary & Sue are witches of the Cloven Claw.” 

Fun fact: I get Joseph Bloch and Joseph Mohr confused. They are the same person, in my head. They are not. Bloch at least knows what roleplaying is. Doesn’t support the DM at all, but, knows what roleplaying games ARE.

This is $3 at DriveThru. The preview is three pages, one of which is fucking cover. How the fuck does that help me make a purchasing decision? Especially since I can already see in the product listing? The last page describes the woodsmen. It is, I think, some of the more useful information in the adventure. Which is not to say it IS useful, but at least there’s SOMETHING.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/373537/Adventure-Module-V1–The-Hamlet-of-Volage?1892600

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