tenfootpole.org

By Perry McKinley
Self Published 
5e
Levels 1-4

The PCs will need to investigate the town of Undervine, carefully examining the various personalities there. They will travel to the Muckfoot Bog, the Shadytree Woods, and the nearby Caverns of Undervine. the players will face obstacles and enemies that will challenge their very resolve, until they discover the true evil behind the murders at Undervine.

This seventeen page adventure details a ten location town, a sixteen location manor, and a 6 location cave. You wander about and poke your noses around and kill some shit. There’s a lot of explaining, history, backstory, and read-aloud … very little of which contributes to the adventure. It’s almost certainly completely mis-labeled in terms of level. It’s a mess. And this review is going to be a mess also. Because Reasons.

Yeah, ok, I fucked up. I saw the cover and “Forgotten Realms” and thought I was buying OSR. It’s DMSGuild so it’s 5e. Not that there are any stats provided in the adventure. Not that it matter anyway; the opponents include a Gibbering Mouther, three wights, a basilisk, and an ancient legendary werewolf. At level one? Yes, at level one. I tend to give encounter balance a pass in many of my reviews. A little plus/minus here or there doesn’t matter. Running away is a thing, as is Combat as War. But in a plot-heavy adventure, or linear one, then my eyebrows raise a little. If you HAVE to do an encounter then things need to a little more in line. I guess “have to do” is all relative anyway, you can always just leave the town to its fate. Still, man, 3 wights? A Werewolf? A fucking basilisk? The power curve on 5e changed, but this is silly!

This thing engages in Why Bother syndrome. This is when the designer tells the DM that they can do whatever they want. This does that over and over again. On the way to the town in question “The DM can decide whether to challenge the PCs with an encounter, pass, or roll on the encounter table below.” Or, maybe you’d like some “Once the party moves on, the DM will need to decide if the story has progressed enough for the final conflict with the Werewolf.” Oh, joy. So things just happen because the DM wills it for the sake of the plot and story. This is BAD FUCKING DESIGN. Look, to a certain extent this shit happens in every D&D adventure and in every D&D game. Yeah, the DM drives things from a certain point of view. But in good design its in reaction to the players characters and their actions. In bad D&D it’s because the plot demands it or through DM fiat. Toss an extra clue in somewhere, or clarify things when the players misunderstand or are talking themselves in to a corner? Ok, no problem. Throwing baddies at the party until they reach ability exhaustion for the sake of the plot? That’s bad design. We’re paying for content, well written and designed content. 

The usual long read-aloud is present. I roll my eyes every time. There are walls of DM text with little breaks, dictating the history of rooms, reasons why X is Y, and so on. Bob used to take his meals in this room but he hasn’t been going down to eat lately, having lost his appetite. Uh. Ok.So? Is that meaningful to the adventure in ANY way? No? THEN WHY THE FUCK DID YOU WRITE THE WORDS?

Perhaps my favorite part is the hook at the beginning. A storyteller in an inn relates the tale of the town. He won’t tell the party his name. Outside, if followed, he disappears in a fog. He can’t be fought or killed. He’s some kind of ghost thing for absolutely no reason at all. He just is. If it were a storyteller named Bob that you could stab, would it make any difference? Does the presence of short little DungeonMaster in his red robes add anything to this adventure?  Or is it just more of the DM fucking with the players for no reason at all?

On the plus side the Lynch brothers (the wights) were hung in the village and there’s a frozen fountain the village, covered in snow. Cleaning off the snow reveals a body frozen in the water. That’s nice imagery, and easily the best idea in the entire adventure.

This is Pay What You Want at DMSGuild, with a suggested price of $2. The preview is six pages. It is an accurate and true representation of the adventure in all its glory. From the writing, the read-aloud, and DM text to the muddled confusion of how everything works together. 

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/181334/Deception-at-Undervine?1892600

By Michael LaBossiere
Self Published
5e
Levels 1-4

War is coming. Two nations have set aside their differences to fulfil their historical ambition: to reclaim a province lost long ago. As with any war, arms and armor are needed and who better to claim a long-lost armory stocked with Imperial equipment than the bold adventurers? Complicating the situation is the fact that the old armory is located near the ruins of the summer estate of Count Bekus, a necromancer who was killed, beheaded, burned and interred in a special vault so that he would not plague the world again.

This 37 page adventure details the exploration of a small ruined estate with about 21 locations. It’s abstracted to the point of almost being an adventure outline. Interactivity is generally limited to combat, and the writing is dull with meandering DM text. 

Today I’m going to talk about direct and indirect illocutionary forces with regard to adventure design. Nah, I’m just fucking with you;, it’s The Cave, as per usual. Also, I’m supposed to be nicer in these weekend reviews since A) they tend to suck more and B) the designers tend to be full of enthusiasm from their 5-star drivethru reviews. That means I’ll cut out the The cave bullshit. Yes, that was all for your benefit. Go figure.

Let’s talk good things first. Note that the folk killed, beheaded, burned, and then interred the remains in a special sealed vault. Nice! The local lords generally don’t do enough patrolling of old ruins or tearing them down and digging them up/salting the earth. Just loke town councils INSIST on sewer systems. It’s good to see the local folk dealing with the necromancer effectively. Once the bad guy goes down, keep hacking and burn the body. Fire is man’s oldest friend, use it! 

This blow-off comment about a line of flavour text in the into blurb concludes my discussion of the adventures good points. 

I’m sure the designer here was, as is  generally the case, excited about this effort. Enthusiasm does not a good adventure make. My belief is that designers don’t know what a good adventure looks like, a good published adventure anyway. They are flooded with bad examples, from WOTC, from PAIZO, through the marketplaces. These drown out any good examples that may be hiding. If everything gets 5-stars then how are you know what is good and not good? These people face an impossible challenge. Further, attempts to divine what makes an adventure good are marred by all of the bad advice. Be it well-meaning fuckwits on forums or freelance writers with a deadline, there’s almost nothing worthwhile. Well, almost nothing. Listen to voice saying Follow Me …

Evocative writing is hard. Interactivity, beyond combat, is not straightforward. (See, that’s me being nice.) That leaves us with Usability — Ye Olde Informatione Transfere. This is the basic point that the VAST majority of designers get wrong … before they even get to evocative writing or interactivity. They don’t know how to write an adventure so it can be used at the table. This is, at its most fundamental form, the purpose of an adventure. The DM uses the adventure at the table to run it for the players. The adventures primary purpose is that. The writing, layout, and so forth MUST be oriented towards that. And the vast majority of adventures don’t do that.

In this adventure that applies most directly to the hook. Bob the half-orc has a mission for you and his bard buddy has some information. This is all related in a page of information formatted as paragraphs. This is poor design. For this one scene you have to an entire page of words in your head. That’s foolish, right? You can’t remember that much. You’re gonna want to refer back to the text during play. This means scanning the text to find the thing you want. And yet the information is presented as a great text block with just a  few paragraph breaks. Further, it’s generally formatted in PLOT style. First this happens then this then this then this. This is TERRIBLE. I often talk about bolding, whitspace, offset boxes, and bullets. I’m noting specific techniques toward a greater goal: Helping the DM run this section. The players want to know something and/or you need to respond. You glance down at the page. Can you locate the information you need in less than 3 seconds? [Whatever. An ‘instant’ amount of time that doesn’t delay the game and break flow.] The formatting and organization is critical to this … and its missing here. 

Usually that’s a problem with rooms also. Over described and too prescriptive are the usual sins. This, though, is different. It feels like the encounters are more 4e. You get a large number of locations, lets say, 12, in the upper ruins. Really ruins, just some wall remnants. The keyed encounters takes … I don’t know, one column for 9 rooms … most of which is taken up by one room. Locations 4-8 are noted as “The once fine hamber hall and entrance are now but ruins.” How can this be?!?! Because there’s a little section before/after noting that there is at least one zombie in rooms 6,7,8,&9. (That’s you level scaling for you. Remember, this is plot D&D where the DM fudges everything and player agency is therefore nearly non-existent.) “Put in some stirges if you want.” Or, maybe, buy a well-crafted adventure if I want? Oops , sorry, I’m being nice today.

Anyway, it almost an outline, or 4e style. Here’s a bit fucking map with a lots of rooms. There’s an ooze in it roaming around. GO! It sets up a situation. IN some respects, this is a good concept, that IS how D&D should be. But it feels less like adventure and wonder and Free Play  then it does “Here’s a TACTICAL situation. GO!” Hence the 4e comparison. 

Column long stat blocks. A level range in the blurb that’s different than the one in the adventure. Which is all meaningless anyway since it’s all fudged with numerous implicit and explicit fudging advice to the DM. “Ghoul miners dug this tunnel.” Why do we need to know that? It doesn’t add anything to PLAYERS experience since it’s just DM knowledge. That’s bad. You’re wasting words. Words are supposed to help the DM with PLAYER action. I’m being hyperbolic here, since there’s room for a little of this, but, in general, words have to have GAMEABLE meaning … why is this relevant to the players? “This temple was constructed in order to conceal his true faith.” Well, maybe, but why does that matter? Constructs, who the party will never hear, mutter ”oh my look at the mess.” Sure, every once in awhile you can slip in something for the DM, but it doesn’t come off like that in this adventure. 

This is Pay What You Want at DMSGuild, with a suggested price of $6. There’s no preview. Put in a fucking preview so we know in advance what we’re buying! Yeah, it’s a PWYW, so the entire thing is a preview. I think I’m terrified that some precedent is going to set and we’ll start down the slope of the form changing and thus all the shadows following suit. Ha! Did it again!

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/280959/Belmey?1892600

I leave you with this, a portion of a (potential) PC backstory, between the PC and someone who will eventually become the guard captain who gives the party the quest. 

“Being at the front of the wagon, you could see the two orcs driving it. One looked back into the wagon, holding a crossbow at the ready. He was splattered with blood and seemed eager to spill more. The other orc looked different, quite like a human and there was something softer about his eyes. As he kept looking back at you and the others, even your young eyes could see the struggle going on in his soul.

As the wagon left the village, he let out a terrible howl and swung his axe clean through his fellow’s neck, showering you with blood. He turned and said “I can’t let you go through what my mother did. I’m going to save you all. Or we will die together! Hang on!” You were surprised you could understand him, then you realized he was speaking common.”

How many innocent people did he kill? How many fields burned? Plagues delivered? Atrocities committed? But, saving one child absolves him of his sins? Nah, I’m just fucking around. But, Tonal Mismatch much?

By Robert L Rath
RATHSQUATCH Publishing
5e
Levels 1-4

The morning dew hasn’t even had a chance to evaporate when the carrier rides in. His flowing shirt decorated cart, and a tabard adorned with a lion within a purple diamond tells you that this individual brings a message directly from the capital city. In a village this small, it doesn’t take long for word to travel. The council is summoned, messages delivered and decisions made before the sun even reaches mid-day. What is it that has sent this little village into a scramble? A letter from the King. But what role do they play?

This 121 page adventure features a couple of sub-plots on the journey to explore s wizards house. It also appears to have gone down the “bad adventure” checklist, ensuring that just about every mistake possible is made. It’s an unusable mess.

Let’s cover the good first, and yes it does do something good. As a starting adventure it covers each of the potential 5e backgrounds and has a little hook/background that integrates with the generic PHB background. Local hero, spy, etc, they all get a little section on how that characters background fits in to their life in the starting village and how it drags them in to the adventure at hand. I think i’ve seen maybe one other starting 5e adventure do that; it was a good idea then and it’s a good idea now.

Of course, it absolutely ruined during the implementation. It’s presented almost as read-aloud for the PC, rather than notes for the DM to relate.  You are angry. You feel X, Y, or Z. It’s the worst type of background information, telling the players who they will be playing, ruining whatever ideas they already had for their character. Yeah, in a con game or a one-shot, sure, it helps get things going.

This ham-handed stomping on player agency continues throughout. Mountains of read-aloud (mountains and MOUNTAINS of it) do a great job of relating the parties feelings and what they do. You sit down on some hay bales. You’re disgusted. You wonder. It’s this garbage failed novelization shit that pops up again and again. It’s trying desperately to set a mood and its attempting it in the worst way possible: by forcing the players. Instead it should be presenting evocative descriptions that instill the mood. Is it better to say “yo ufeel tense as you wait” or is it better to presents descriptions that create a mood that get the players thinking they feel tense? Obviously, the second. And that’s something that this adventure does over and over and over and over and over again. And by “does” I mean “does not do.” It’s not quite a puppet adventure, but its close enough to make me roll my eyes on at least half the (very numerous) read-aloud.

Every description is too long. For every business in the villages. For every encounter. For every keyed encounter. There’s too much read-aloud. The read-aloud is bad. There’s too much DM text. The DM text is bad. Oh, oh, I’ll include a section at the end, for a kitchen. I fucking lvoe bad kitchen encounters. I should write a book of collected bad kitchen encounters in RPG’s. It would be magnificent.

It’s trying to include some sub-plots on the way to the wizards house, and even inside the house, but the writing is utterly incomprehensible for play at the table. Long paragraphs relating exactly And then and then and then and then and then. Details embedded in paragraphs, long NPC motivation paragraphs that hide the information you need to actually run the NPC at the table.

Area 16: The Kitchen

[read aloud]The southwest corner of this room sports two cooking pits, which don’t appear to have been used in quite some time. Each pit is large enough to cook a medium-sized animal, with a three-foot stone ledge built around it to keep the meat within. The pits are filled with ash and charred remains. A chimney leads up from here, but it is much too small to investigate.

Long tables line each wall while bowls, cups, and moldering food sit upon them. This only fuels the rancid smell within the room, although it was hard to place at first. The cheese upon one of the tables looks especially bad, with a fuzzy growth upon it. Finally cooking utensils hang from the ceiling.[/read-aloud]

This is the stronghold’s kitchen area, but it hasn’t been used in quite some time.

There are two doors leading into this room.

The west entry is a Simple Wooden Door (10 hp immunity to piercing damage) which slides upward and is unlocked.

The East Entry is a Strong Wooden Door which is locked (DC 15 to open, DC 20 strength check to break; 20 hp to smash but has immunity to piercing damage

And that is our kitchen. Two paragraphs of read-aloud garbage that amounts to nothing followed by some door stats. It’s evocativeness is matched only by its interactivity.

This looks like a home game/campaign conversion, with all those loving details thrown in. I have no doubt this was someones labour of love. It’s just that the designer had no idea how to translate that in to an effective written form. No doubt they took as an example other written adventures for 5e, which were themselves terrible. And thus the cycle of bad 5e adventures continue. No doubt the 5-star reviews are already pouring in. I wish that designers had more guidance on how to write/present their adventures. We’d all be happier. I wonder how much blame goes to editors, who SHOULD know better, and how much goes to a designer who won’t listen? I’m not saying that’s the case here, but an editor who is just a copy-editor is no editor at all.

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is five pages. You get to see the players background integration text that I was fond of in concept and hated as it was implemented. You also get to see some read-aloud and DM text, which should serve as fair warning as to what to expect in the rest of the adventure.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/278644/The-Chosen-Ones-Part-1–Waking-the-Wizard?1892600

By Joel Logan
A Hole in the Ground Terrain & Games
5e
Level 1

The players are asked to investigate the cause of merchant caravans in the region disappearing. The adventure begins at the Blue Crab Inn in the small village of Holly Springs. The players adventure next into the wilderness where they soon discover the source at a cave. Inside the cave the players face many tough challenges, have the opportunity to find treasure, and are forever linked to the Tarmalon Galactic Museum.

This 43 page adventure details a cave system with eighteen rooms over about 28 pages. And some museum thing.? It looks like it’s licensed IP from legacy of the Ancients, some kind of computer game? The DM text is some of the most irrelevant I’ve ever seen.

How doth thought sin? Let me count the ways …

The level doesn’t appear in the adventure description, only on the cover. Meaning I have to click the cover picture on DriveThru and hope it’s there. Fail.

NPC’s get about a column each in 5e format. Appearance, Voice, Wants, Morality, Intelligence, Status, paragraph. Better, I think, to put together a sentence or two and then move on with life? Then they would all fit on the same page. Mindlessly following a script (or format) is never a good thing.

There are a fuck ton of town and regional maps. None of which really matter to the adventure. Yeah, you’re in a town and yeah, you travel to a caravan ambush site but the number and degree of maps seems out of proportion. There’s like ten, between the extra supplement and the ones in the adventure.

Sure daring town locations as … “9. Warehouse – Holly Springs contains several warehouses. The ware- houses are large wooden structures used seasonally throughout the year to store livestock, food, and oth- er goods coming and going from and to Holly Springs. “ Why was this included?

Or perhaps the same blacksmith seen in every adventure ever … “4. Blacksmith – Jasper is a very skilled blacksmith and until lately made a very good living. In addition to agricultural tools and services Jasper is a master weaponsmith and also makes an occasional piece of armor or re- pairs for Frederick’s Armor Shop.” These are the sorts of town locations provided, the same generic ones found in every town. The words are meaningless, they add nothing. Generic fantasy blacksmith” would have done.

“The following are the items that Lillyanna sells that the players may be interested in:” Seriously? No? Then how about …

“If the players choose to speak with him at the Blue Crab Inn they will learn the following:” This happens over and over again. THE NEXT PARAGRAPH WILL HAVE INFORMATION FOR THE DM TO READ TO THE PARTY.

“ The fishing and bait shop is exactly what it sounds like. Players can buy fishing supplies, bait, and also fresh fish and seafood.”

Civilized lands, lush farm country. Monsters are very dangerous and appear in 6 out of 7 wandering monster rolls.

I assume the Galactic Museum is something from the computer game? There’s a map, but not details on any of the exhibits noted on the map?

“The players may be very crafty and attempt to setup a scene to ambush whoever is attacking the caravans. The bone dwellers are watching the area and will attack the players late in the night.” Though shalt not avoid the plot.

Gonna track the ambushing monsters? All that detail, provided, is irrelevant since you just find their lair anyway.

“GM Notes: These stairs were built long ago when the caves were inhabited by humans taking refuge here during turbulent times.”

“This should prove to be a hard encounter since …”

“Over the years the tendro snapper has accumulated a small treasure hoard which is scattered amongst the bones and debris on the land inside of 3B2.”

“3B5 Bone Dweller Village – This room of the cave serves as a village for the bone dwellers.”

“The females of the tribe are also forced to do the cooking of meat for the tribe and many of the menial tasks such as gathering water and the mending of tents and clothes.”

“This passage isn’t used near as much as the passage at 3B7 due to the tendro snapper at 3B2 and 3B3. This passage is likely the one players will use to es- cape if they were captured or to delve further into the dungeon to find Elliot’s brother Bartholomew.”

Have I made my point? 1. EMPTY ROOM – THIS ROOM IS EMPTY. 2. ORC VILLAGE – THIS IS THE ORC VILLAGE. It’s like a greatest hits of padding the adventure without really saying ANYTHING at all.

But … it does provide some monsters reference sheets. Ne per page, but whatever, they are included. It also tries to use a bullet point format to convey conversational information an NPC can relate to the party. Most of it is stupid, dumb, and padding, and detracts from the more important information, but, hey, the designer tried.

There’s also a nice little bit where the party can overhear that boys ran away from a ghost ona beached ship, near the village. There really IS a spectre on the boat! It’s not exactly handled well, at all, but the rando idea/rumor is cool

Thus ends my review/non-review of Cave of the Bone Dwellers. The adventure with the most useless DM’s text I’ve ever seen.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is eight pages. It shows you the NPC’s in the taven and their bullet point layout, and some of the town location descriptions. Judge it for yourself and know that the town is one of the highlights of the adventure.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/272585/Cave-of-the-Bone-Dwellers-Intro-Adventure-for-Legacy-of-the-Ancients?1892600