tenfootpole.org

By Douglas H. Cole
Gaming Ballastic LLC
5e
Levels 4-7

The Hall of Judgment: Here Tyr himself guided human and dwarf in the ways of honor, law, retribution, and justice in war and life. It has been lost for centuries, hidden by the power of Asgard from those without permission to enter. Until now . . .

Well it’s Saturday. Time to review another bad 5e adventure. Joy. Oh wait, it’s not utter dreck!

This 62 page norse-flavored adventure has sixteen or so linear encounters (with a few optional ones), mostly wilderness ones, before one room temple with a demon in it is encountered. The actual linear adventure is only about 16 pages, the rest being the lengthy introduction and the bestiary and battle maps at the end. The writing, while long, tends to be well organized in the individual encounters. But it also tends to make certain assumptions that leaves out critical information, leaving the DM confused with some of the baseline assumptions.

There’s a three page backstory that read like fiction. “Una’s bond with Aeiri strengthened over the distance …” I don’t bitch about this stuff anymore, since I can just skip the “failed novelist” garbage. Well, except when I can’t skip it because the fucking adventure is mixed in to it. What are you supposed to do, with what, and how? Well kids it’s all mixed in to that backstory. NOT. COOL. The adventure needs a short summary so the non-masochists among us can avoid the backstory. We’re on a quest to find the Domstollinn, whatever the fuck that is. I gathered, through the 60 pages, that we’re going to this hall at the behest of some priests and they gave us something to give us some kind of True Seeing kind of power. Summaries are critical to these sorts of adventures. Orient the DM BEFORE they get in to the text so they know what to expect. Yes, if you are an expert you can have it unfold via the text and not do a summary. New Flash: You are not an expert. I accept you’re the hero of your own story, but do the rest of us a favor and put in a summary.

There’s a map of the region. I guess it’s a map, there’s no key. It doesn’t really matter anyway since, as far as I can tell, it doesn’t show where you are going. Or any of the encounters. It’s just a picture of the region without any relevance to the adventure. It’s MORE confusing this way since I spent time studying it, trying to figure out where things were. It was hard, because it turns out they weren’t on the map. At least I don’t think they were?

The first encounter on the way (event based, remember), has a “striking rock format” and three out of place groupings of individual trees. First, let me nit and note that “a striking rock formation” is a garbage description. Striking is a conclusion. Tell us what it looks like and let the players determine it is striking. But, the real issue is the mistletoe. The trick to this encounter is finding the direction of the mistletoe. What mistletoe, you may ask. I don’t know. There is about two pages of info on this encounter and one bullet point, near the end and in the middle of the text says “The three trees, with mistletoe at the tip …” This is TERRIBLE design. When I say it makes certain assumptions, this is what I mean. Clearly, the designer had a vision in their head. They knew three trees had mistletoe and this was a clue. But they have not clued US in to that fact. The adventure does this over and over again.

There are some riddle-like things that are quite difficult. There’s a one word hint, Yggdrasil, that is supposed to clue you in that those trees are the right ones. Later on there’s a different one that says “Willpower through suffering increases joy.” This is your hint that you need to lift a rock and touch a door to open it. Those are both some pretty tenuous hints.

If you can get past the omissions of those base assumptions then the actual text is decently organized,or at least not poorly organized. Whitespace and bolding is used to good effect. There is still A LOT of text for what are simple encounters, but it’s not nearly as bad as the page count would indicate.

The encounters proper range from the riddle-like things I mentioned earlier, to straight up fights (with enemies teleported in to advantageous positions by a fae queen. Ug!) to skill challenges like climbing a cliff or crossing a rope bridge. The temple at the end is one room, with a trapped demon in it. A little anti-climactic after a one-month wilderness journey.

All is not hopeless though. There are some sections on using alternative means to cross the bridge, climb the wall, etc. It’s duel-stat’d for S&W and to the designers credit they seem tp get at least one aspect of old school play: no die roll is needed if the party describes well what they are doing. Die rolling is for looosers who don’t role play. Die rolling means a chance of failure.

This is a good example of the modern method of making an adventure. The Mcguffin is referred to as ‘the Mcguffin’ by the designer. The entire thing is about little set-piece-like events that take place. You have some small freedom in the individual events (unlike many adventures and to this designers credit) but the thing as a whole is just one thing after another with little choice involved. The text is long, but not atrocious by 5e/Pathfinder standards, although it trails by a long shot what I would consider good … although a decent job is done at organizing it. Except for those assumptions that each encounter seems based on. The editing job/proofreading was very poor not to catch that; maybe it was just copyedited?

“Not as bad as the usual 5e fare” isn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but it IS runnable. Kind of. Once you figure out what is going on. That’s a damn sight better than most.

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is eight pages long and, to its credit, shows a couple of encounters, including the notorious #2, with the Ash & Mistletoe. It’s on about page five of the preview if you want to check out the weird assumptions made. https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/226510/Lost-Hall-of-Tyr?affiliate_id=1892600

By James Boney, Joseph Browning, Joseph A. Mohr
Expeditious Retreat Press
OSRIC
Levels 2-5

Return to the little village of White Dragon Run! At the edge of civilization— the place where monsters are a constant threat and adventurers thrive—reputations are made or broken, and deeds are performed only to be set in verse decades after the real story is long lost. On this thin line between country and chaos lies White Dragon Run, the last stop for the civilized before the well-trodden road becomes the weed-infested trail leading to creatures that would rather fight than herd, fish or farm.

This twenty page adventure describes the small town of White Dragon Run, revisited from the the first supplement of this name, as well as four encounters for the wilderness around the town: a hermit, a humanoid cave, a weird tower, and a Yuan-ti temple. The actual encounter areas only take up about seven pages. The encounters are interesting enough, and provide good variety, but I find the writing skewing to the academic. I’m also more than a little bewildered on how everything fits together. I would say it’s the usual fare from XRP.

There’s a decent size hex map and in the middle of it is the town of White Dragon Run. The town has the notable business and personalities described, much in the way the Keep was; that one on the Borderlands. I find the “keep-style” of towns and villages not very interesting. It’ ends up just being a list of names and stats and prices. Maybe a potential sub-plot like “Bob is an assassin in disguise” or something like that. I can do without the pricing detail; in most cases it just seems like trivia. (Perhaps with the exception of the traditional “our bars speciality in food and/or drink”) But a one or two word personality, and maybe some subplots with the other villagers, would liven things up quite a bit. Grumpy blacksmith or Innkeepers wife in love with the bower; that sort of thing. It adds an element of interactivity that makes the places seem more alive. The rumors are old school as well “There’s an evil snake temple in the hills.” That sort of style. Again, I prefer a little more specificity, something like “Cousin Gary? Haven’t seen him since he went out looking for that old snake temple.” A little more character. Finally, there’s a wanderers table that is not much more than a book standard table and adds little to nothing.

In a surprise, the local lord, while remote and dandy, actually gives a shit and if notified of trouble will send a full troop at fast ride to help the party/town. It’s refreshing to see that; rubbing elbows with the lords is a nice way to transition play around level 5.

The actual adventures vary in size. The hermit is really just an NPC. The humanoid cave four rooms, the tower nine or so, and the Yuan-ti temple about 20. There are pools to drink from, a giant snake idle dripping golden liquid from its fangs, dead NPC’s, riddles, traps, and some terrain features to overcome in the various dungeons. Plus, the tower is OD&D weird, with pulsating hearts and lumpy faux-monster protrusions. I’d say the IDEAS present have enough variety that this feels like a 1e/0e adventure and not just a pure hack-fest.

I will say, though, that the writing is flat. It feels academic, or maybe fact-based. Here’s the bulk of the description of a snake idol room:
SNAKE GOD IDOL: There is a large statue here of the snake god Apep. It depicts a large snake head on the body of a man and its mouth has large fangs from which drip a sweet-smelling, golden liquid. The statue radiates both evil and magical energy.

That’s interesting, but not exactly inspiring. “Large statue”, “large snake head”, “large fangs” … large isn’t exactly the most descriptive word in the most descriptive language on earth. It also has issues with what I might call text padding. Giving a little background section or history, or a sentence clause that is irrelevant. “Otherwise the room is empty.” Does it matter that the room is empty? Is that fact relevant to the players interactivity with the room? I know it seems minor, but these things combine to reduce scannability and therefore usefulness at the table. Instead, focus on the adventure elements and making them evocative.

Finally, I might add that I’m a little perplexed about some of the choices made. The locations provided don’t appear on the hex map. Nothing does, except terrain and the town. I guess you just drop them in? The rumors kind of hint, but it’s entirely up to the DM how to introduce the characters to the snake temple … without the adventure provide much/any help at all. I’d like to see the locations integrated a bit more in to the town or NPC’s. The amount of text taken up by per-terrain wandering tables doesn’t seem to add much over the terrain tables in the standard core books. But, in one room, with orcs behind a 4’ defensive wall on top of a 6’ rise … there’s no words at all about climbing or reaching the top or defensive bonuses or anything like that. I would think that’s exactly the sort of guidance a DM would be looking for at that encounter.

I should note that these comments, as well as several others, all tie back to the purpose of a published adventure: helping the DM run it. I think we can all agree that the content of the adventure is meant to help the DM, the only question is how much/specific should the writer be? At one end you’ve Palace of the Vampire Queen and other minimally keyed adventures, while at the other is the stinking pile that attempts to describe everything in the room and every possible action of the characters and enemies. Generally speaking, the closer the text is to minimal keying then the easier it is to scan at the table, and therefore run. Some formatting mojo can help push that boundary and allow more text. However, the more minimally keyed, and thus easier to scan, the less inspiring it is for DM. There is some sweet spot where the text is minimal and yet still evocative. Where that sweet spot is depends on the “inspiring” part for you. This adventure skews to the Keep/Homlet side of amount of text, with maybe a bit more text than products provided, but still in the same spirit. While ok adventures, especially for their time, I don’t think either was written in a particularly evocative style, and I don’t think this is either.

This is $14 at DriveThru.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222005/Advanced-Adventures-38-White-Dragon-Run-II?affiliate_id=1892600

By Tim Kearney, Matt Click, Michael Barker, & James Kearney
Absolute Tabletop
5e
Variable

The only review says this is a ground-breaking product. Let’s find out!

I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind. I’m keeping an open mind.

Fuck me. It’s an adventure toolkit rather than an adventure. 62 pages. The front half is six locations, six encounters, six NPC’s, and a bunch of tables (include die drops). The idea is that you can kind of mix them all together to get create an adventure. Then the back half of the book has even more tables; a kind of inspiration for further adventures to creature. The “adventure” is actually pretty good, even though it’s going to take work to put it together. The back half inspiration tables are just inspiration tables. They are nice, but I think it’s hard to justify the cost when there a billion online for free. This is a complicated product to review.

I’m going to cover the back half first. There is room in my life for something like this. Something LIKE this, but not this. It’s a bunch of tables that, using, you can generate an adventures, and its various elements, from. For example, the trap section has six tables that you can use to generate a trap. First, what kind of saving throw does it require. It’s its Charisma, then there is some kind of fear to overcome or someone to fool. Then, what are the consequences of the trap. This is what type of damage (cold, acid, fire, etc) and what it does (blind, charm, frighten, stune, prone, etc.) Then there’s the style. A fake trap, leftover creature trap, natural trap, etc. There’s a couple of “severity/damage” tables, purely mechanical. So, rolling we might get INT save, Psychic Damage, Exhaustion, creatures corpse rigged as a trap. What kind of trap does that spark in you? A mind flayers body falls when you fuck with something, his tentacles kering that trigger a psychic blast that exhausts people? Not bad, plus we’ve determined that you can weaponize a dead mind flayer, which I like also! I like this concept and there’s room in my life for it, but I don’t think the print element works well. I might pay $10 for website access for HUNDREDS of table entries for each element. For example, for encounter terrain there are 20 entries and one of them is “floor is littered with skull and bones.” I might instead like to see “X littered with Y.” More variety and possibilities. It’s just an idea generator, after all.

The adventure, proper, is decent. I suspect it’s meant to be an example of how to use the tables, and it has some modular aspects to it that I think make it weak for “on the fly” use. Being modular, you need to do some rolling on tables then then some thinking to put the whole thing together to have it make sense before you run it. Yes, it IS a toolkit, and I guess that’s the difference between that and an “adventure.”

The hook generator, character motivations, and adventure twists, all tables, are pretty decent. But, I really want to touch on the Locations, encounters, and NPC’s. These fit three or so to a page, in a shaded box, and after about two sentences of read-aloud they are presented in bullet point form. A little verbose by good OSR standards but it does a great job in being easy to scan and providing impressions for the DM to work from. “The Altar of Sorrow” has the following read-aloud “A simple slab of rough-hewn stone dominates an alcove in this entrance chamber. A stone stairway leads deeper into the keep.” Short. A little generic, but good enough. The bullets though, in the DM text/bullet points, are pretty good.
A simple stone dais, cluttered with worn copper coins.
Yellowed bones of various shapes, sizes, and sources.
Scraps of parchment with words denouncing the Frozen King and his reign.

There are some sounds and sensations also, which get a little melodramatic, especially given that there are multiple sounds and sensations presented for each room. Pick one and go.
The locations are augmented by the Encounters, which the random element helps you place in the room. Again, about three or so per page and well formatted, using bolding, to help separate information. And, again, too long, dwelling too much on each aspect, but the core concept is a decent one.

Even the setting background is interesting, presented in about one page, in bullet points, detailing the world ala a Campaign Questionqire aka “The powerful wizard in the world is X” It’s not in that format, but give you an idea of the organization. I liked it, and might even pay for a booklet of one page campaign worlds in this format.

I liked just about everything in this, in their component parts. The location and encounter text does get a bit long, beating a dead horse instead of getting and out quick. If the publisher could learn from that then their actual adventures would be pretty good.

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview shows you the die drop section and the last two pages of it show you the Midnight-ish campaign world. Alas, nothing of the core table elements or adventure pages though.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/224724/Oath-of-the-Frozen-King–Adventure-Kit?affiliate_id=1892600

By James Thomson
MonkeyGod Enterprises
3e
Levels 3-4

For a thousand years, Yagga-Kong have offered a fabulous reward to anyone who can find their way through the maze. Every generation or so, someone lives to claim it. Will you be the first this century? Then come to the Last Redoubt, where the mountains scrape the dome of the sky and the air makes men bleed from their ears. Come walk the twisted streets of the City of the Damned and brave the depths of the Maze of Screaming Silence.

This is an older, out of print adventure and doesn’t seem available digitally. I don’t normally review out of print products, or older for that matter. It somehow made it on to my list and I stumbled across a copy at Half Price. This isn’t going to be a regular occurrence, although I have promised Kent I would get to The Beholder, eventually.

This one hundred page(!) adventure describes an “evil” town with a few pages devoted to the pretext to going there: the titular maze. It oozes character, revealing in the environment it has created in the way few other products do. The core elements are excellent. It can be evocative in the way few other products can. It also probably has four to five times more text than it should. It wears that onion on its belt because it was the style at the time, but, even given those allowances, it’s hard to get past. It is fairly close to that platonic ideal I have of stumbling on to a classic adventure at the “dead rpg’s” booth at a con.

Evil Iggy, a warlord/raubritter, has a small outpost. Down beneath it is a little town/village that has grown up full of scum and dregs. Every day everyone gathers around the Maze to see who till try it. If you stay in, and survive, you get a bunch of cash. People bet, obviously.

This is a mostly a town adventure with extensive social components. I’m VERY fond of those elements. Town adventures are some of my favorites. Nothing gets the players going like the freewheeling nature of a good town. The Maze is mostly a pretext to get the players in to town and interacting with people. And, of course, to kick off the plotting and scheming that goes with something like “defeat the maze and win a prize.” The whole thing feels like a less mercantile Bartertown/Thunderdome thing. More scummy and knife you in the back than sell your camels.

I find the text, some of it anyway, some of the most evocative I’ve seen. It pulls at every fiber of your being as a DM. You WANT to run the encounters in this thing. At one point there’s a little paragraph that goes something like: “The Oracle presents a fearsome sight, blood pours out of her mouth, eyes and ears, her fingers are torn down to the bone, she laughs and screams “soon!” continuously as she lashes out at all and sundry.” She’s just turned in to a king of zombie, the “kill you and you become a zombie” kind. That kind of strong imagery, or maybe concept, is present over and over again in the adventure. Almost every single encounter/element has that something quite strong on which the DM can hang their work and work with. You WANT to run these and cackle gleefully to yourself on the joy you expect to have. Not the joy of punishing the players, or see their own difficulty, but in the joy of your mind racing with delights and possibilities. It’s a great example of really and truly communicating the vibe of an encounter to the DM. Creepy ways the locals interact with you. Guards that present pidgeon common in a wonderful way. Rumors presented in voice. “Last winter was bad. We had to eal all our dogs.” Yup, thats a bad winter! But anyway, “no there’s no dog fights in the pit … Someone times you can get a pit fight gong between two drunks, but it’s not like betting on dogs.” That’s a fucking rumor. (of the fighting pit and the guy that runs it. I removed that part)

It does a great job of giving advice to the DM via side boxes, and in the main text, aon adding atmosphere. How to communicate the flavor of the locals. Little things to cement the character of the town. It helps the DM communicate the flavor to the players. At one point there’s a ncie page section on various schemes the characters could engage in to acquire the ring the warlord wears. A pretext to drive the action to be sure, but it recognize that, once laid out, its up to the adventure to help the DM understand some of the more common responses and advice them on making them fun.

And the big bad the center of the maze? The beast that everyone fears? It’s a minotaur. Just a minotaur. Not one of those BloodWolf Tainted Exalted Minotaur King things. But it’s referred to as The Beast, not as a minotaur. It’s a great example of making a normal monster from the manual mythic without resorting to bullshit. Fuck yes a 6HD minotaur is a challenge to a party of 3’s and 4’s!

One more thing, at one point the local use their sly humor to get the party to stay in a cursed home. If/when the party survives they are then treated with a newfound respect and deference by the locals. That’s a great touch. Not enough adventures have the locals give the party their due. There are some real mechanical effects in addition to the roleplaying ones. It’s a great technique and one that should be used more.

It is also MIRED in too much text. The hook takes up the first 20 pages (that oracle that eventually goes zombie.) It also involved a dream (ug!) It has almost two pages of read-aloud. If you kill her and the loot the place BEFORE she goes zombie then there’s a little section of advice on how to punish the players by having their characters tortured and killed by the local lord. Being punitive to the players is never good. There’s also a writing style that almost is like a novelization of the adventure. It’s clear someone had a certain set of elements in mind and by god the players and their characters were going to follow that script. “If someone is disrespectful enough to pull back her hood then …”The usual culprits of irrelevant backstory and if/then writing combine with the “novelization” and ham-handed oracle/dream scenes to produce something truly atrocious, and quite out of place compared to the rest of the adventure. “Run this until the players get bored.” Indeed?

The writing is too long throughout the product. For every evocative couple of sentences we also get mountains of text that is not relevant or written a little too clever, irrelevant to the direct play of the characters.

It can also be generic at times. “Before your eyes, and before you can take any action, a man is stabbed to death by another man, who then runs right past your position. There are a few witnesses, but no one does anything about it.” That’s a weird style and uncharacteristic for most of the adventure.

But, still, quite good for the time period in which it was published (2002.) This is that most rare of things: a physical RPG product I’ll be keeping. I’m not sure it can be run well, it’s organized for shit and, like I said, you need a highlighter and a weekend taking notes to get it organized. But what’s inside, at its core, is a magnificent city adventure in hive of scum and villainy. Someone needs to update the writing, editing the fuck out of it and putting in a bit more of a summary for the DM, and publish it anew.

Alas, I can’t tag it The Best. It’s too unwieldy and I’m not selling my standards down the river because it’s a town adventure. But I can recommend that you pick it up if you see a copy.

Read more about it at:
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/61969/maze-screaming-silence

By Karl Stjernberg
Self Published
OSR

A spore-filled series of caves where everyone is sad, sad, sad!
Console sad fungoids, argue with a gargoyle, risk getting your skin melted off and replaced by a moist, spongy matter! All that and more, in Spores of the Sad Shroom!

This sixteen page adventure details an eleven room dungeon full of mushrooms. Nice detail, terse writing, great treasure, freaky effects all bring the mushroom vibe. It’s just a tad too “system neutral” and a bit short, otherwise it would be a home run.

This thing brings the detail, that’s for sure. Or, rather, it brings the specificity. I’m a strong believer that being specific in your dungeons really cements a scene in the DM’s head and allows them to expand upon it. That allows the designer to communicate far more than the actual text they write. At one point, if you talk back, this could happen: “An angry mushroom-brute takes one gigantic step out of the wall and cracks its knuckles, loudly. It insults trespassers and gut-punches anyone standing up to it.” That’s a good example of being specific. It really cements the entire scene and communicates the flavor. It does it in just two sentences. It doesn’t drone on with details, or text, or meaningless backstory. It’s an icepick to the brain of an idea. This adventure does that over and over again. It’s one of the more terse written written adventures AND one of the most flavorful. In fact, I’d say this is pretty close to perfect as you can get and still use sentences. There may be other formats, like bullet point phrases or “impression words” (used to such great effect in Hyqueous Vaults) that can also be used, but, for sentences, this one is close to the top.

Looking at just the “what happens if you talk back” table, you get anxiously apologizing mushrooms who explode, wailing in emotional pain mushrooms, kill me and eat me mushrooms, the knuckle-cracking mushroom, an especially emo mushroom, and a NPC henchman mushroom that steps out. That’s a great deal of detail, and doesn’t even cover the table at the rear to help with the inevitable “I eat a mushroom” character action.

At one point there’s a river and the text offer three possibilities on where it goes if the characters want to further explore it. All three are magnificent and you could build a lot of fun around them. “The other evil manta rays are jerks!”

The treasure can be great. From mushroom effects to hollow magic swords, gobets to be repaired, fingernails and eyeballs (ala Vecna) it reveals in the OD&D non-standard vibe that I love so much.

No everything hits on all cylinders though. Most of the rumor table is, in contrast to the rest of the adventure, a little generic on detail. “A great evil was sealed down there.” Uh, yeah. Ok. That’s a good example of NOT being specific to the detriment of imagery and helping the DM.

Further, the adventure is almost systemless, needlessly I think. It doesn’t really provide stats for almost anything, except for a couple of new monsters. “Gargoyle” you get to go look up in your own system. Further, there are areas that could be trapped, or, another adventure, have some mechanic associated with them. In one area you pull a sword out of a mushroom and are sprayed with sticky liquid. That’s the extent of the mechanics. “ you are sprayed with sticky liquid.” I really like lightweight mechanics … but I’m colder on “no mechanics at all.” The original mind flayer and his 1d6? That’s fine. Older D&D versions, clone or not, are close enough that this could have been for Labyrinth Lord and it would not have detracted from it.

It’s also short, at eleven rooms. It feels like you just get in to the swing of things and then its over.

All of that old D&D mushroom art, from Sutherland and his ilk, sure seem to have had a disproportionate impact on the OSR. It strikes me that a higher percentage than normal of mushroom adventures are pretty good. Maybe it’s the permission to be more fantastic and less Tolkein?

This is $6.66 at DriveThru. The last two pages are representative of the product. There’s a bit on mushroom commenting on the party … and the repercussions of giving them lip back, as well as the first three or four rooms. It’s a good preview.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/230641/Spores-of-the-Sad-Shroom??affiliate_id=1892600

By Ron Lundeen
Run Amok Games
Pathfinder
Level 1

Late at night, the storm howls and sheets of rain fall. The High Road is supposed to be safe and well-traveled, but this stormy night there has been no one else on the road and no place to stop for shelter. A gruesome scene on a rain-slicked bridge leads to a nighttime race to grant a restless soul peace.

Gah! Freaky fucking cover!

This 38 page “adventure” has eight scenes. You’re trying to track down a local nobles undead kid and put him to rest, complicated by a troll running around. Linear, padded text, too much read aloud, endlessly droning DM text. Also, at least one good bit of imagery, but, like Paperboy, it’s not worth it, kid.

Scene 1: You stumble on the scene of a battle on a bridge, then skeleton attacks. Scene 2: Meet aristo at an inn. Scene 3: Troll attacks. Scene 4: Aristo pleads with party to take over his mission. Scene 5: Chase after the troll. Scene 6: Party kills undead kid. Scene 7: Fight maggots in graveyard. Scene 8: Put kid to rest/fight undead. This takes forty pages because … well … the designer doesn’t know any better? I can only assume they’ve only seen examples of shittily written adventures.

Three sentences. THREE. FUCKING. SENTENCES. That’s how much read aloud you get to put in a time. You put the fucking information in the adventure in such a way that the DM can communicate it AS the NPC. Or in back & forth questioning/responding to the players.

I don’t know what the fuck else to say. The DM text is padded to fuck and back with endless trivia and go-nowhere statement. Hence the forty pages. “The party might be suspicious of the open gate in to the cemetery, particularly is they realize it detects as magic and requires a Will save for some reason. Therefore, the party might instead decide to enter the cemetery by climbing over the fence or obelisk.” This is after a paragraph listing the climb DC’s for the fence & obelisk. “Once inside the party must locate the kids resting place.” Uh huh. You forgot to say they also need to breathe.

The designer doesn’t know how to write an adventure. The ideas aren’t in and of themselves bad, but he presents them in just about the worst way possible. An aristo hunting his undead son, a vindictive troll … the dead of night in a storm .. it’s a good gimmick. At one point skeletons claw their way out of corpses, bursting them, in order to attack. That’s pretty fucking good right there and EXACTLY the sort of imagery I’m looking for in an adventure.

I like the overall idea but it’s close to incomprehensible here, buried in the text the way it is.

This is $6 at DriveThru. The preview doesn’t work. Sucker.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/104119/Teeth-of-the-Storm?affiliate_id=1892600

By Jeffrey Talanian
North Wind Adventurers
AS&SH
Levels 4-6

Until about three years ago, the peculiar town of Port Greely was renowned as a proli c exporter of crustaceans. en the Greely lobstermen severed all ties with outside partners. Subsequent attempts at renegotiation were shunned. More recently, a small group of Fishmongers’ Guild representatives from the City-State of Khromarium has gone missing in Port Greely, and answers have been less than forthcoming. At present, the Guild seeks answers. It wants to know what became of its representatives, and it wishes to re-establish its lucrative partnership with the Port Greely lobstermen. Your party have been contracted to help resolve e Mystery at Port Greely.

This forty page adventure details a corrupt town and the underground temple of fish-men in charge. It’s a typical Talanian AS&SH adventure, which means strained text at the expense of usability. Jeff’s formatting continues to be an issue also. Both contribute to an adventure hard to get in to. It’s a dungeon with thirteen rooms for christs sake, and takes forty pages to do that.

Hate it or hate it, Talanians got a style. I love to tell my wife that it don’t matter what style you got as long as you’ve got one. I’m wrong/a hypocrite. It does matter. Rule number one of adventure writing is that it is technical writing. The thing has to be useful for running a game at the table. You can also use it to start a fire, line a cage, get inspiration from, or read for fun. But, it has to first be useful at the table.

Talanian uses footnotes. That’s a good example of using formatting to help refer DM’s to other useful information. “Where do I find more information about orcs? Oh yeah, the footnote says page 23!” Perfect!
But most of the adventure text does NOT contribute to usability. Parts of the adventure feel more like an Appendix N novelization of an adventure. One of the first locations is a tavern in town and that vibe is present throughout. The arrangement of the text seems more like novel writing than adventure writing.

Some of this also has to do with the formatting choices made. Page twelve has a description of a room that seems to be all over the place. The formatting, leading sentences, bolding, all seem to contribute to an almost random stream of consciousness description of the room. Scanning it to find something would be a nightmare.

The actual text runs from uninspired to strained. Here’s the description for a giant centipede: “multi-legged, segmented arthropod of 21?2-foot length, feared for its painful, venomous bite. It is but rarely encountered during the day.” Well, ok, yes. Factually true. But it doesn’t really do anything to inspire the DM to action. Further, I would argue that the last sentence is both irrelevant (who the fuck cares? Just modify the damn day/night wanderers table) AND a great example of the strained writing style employed. How about this fine example: “If perchance sorcery or some ability is employed to comprehend their conversation, it seems one fish-man bemoans his ineligibility for certain mating rights; meantime, the others berate the lamenter for a pathetic weakling.” Strained AND am example of if/then writing. One room with barrels of lobster takes what seems like miles of strained text to share an uninspiring vision of the room that could have been done better if it were shorter and used less strained text. “Nine massive marble barrels set in to the floor foam & churn with lobsters.” Done. Talanian tells us, via the last sentence, that these are food for the bob & margaret, the high priests. Joy. So what? Does that have a bearing on the adventure?

Speaking of, the text is loaded with used to be’s. Mixed in to the descriptions is a lot of useless history that will never come up. Island 4 is a great example of this, with the text full of a history lesson. This does not contribute to good scanning of the text.

I could bitch about other things also. The ship’s captain, probably important to the adventure, doesn’t get a personality at all. At one point the party is probably captured, in town, only to be freed by some rebel townfolk. What’s the point of this? It smells like plot. In fact, the entire town section seems weak. It’s supposed to be an Innsmouth-like situation, and at one point they chase and hunt the party in town … but there’s almost no guidance on this or things to spice it up and make it fun. That’s the point of someone else writing it beyond the running dm: to provide the running DM some guidance. Otherwise what value are you adding?

Just Another Innsmouth. And not as good as Scenic Dunnsmouth. Move along. Nothing to see.

This is $10 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages and shows you nothing by a couple of paragraphs of the hook.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/187120/The-Mystery-at-Port-Greely?affiliate_id=1892600

By Shane Ward
3 Toadstools Publishing
Labyrinth Lord
Level 3

A long time ago lived an evil and very eccentric warlord named Gardag. Over the years he built up a cult following, many flocked to him and worshipped. He sent out his cultists to pillage and burn the surronding lands. Eventually he amased a huge stock pile of treasure.

There is no real indication that Gardag was strange, at all.

This twenty page adventure describes a 24 room tomb. It has a simple branching map and only uses about six pages for the room keys, the rest being pregens and hirelings type info. I find the writing bland, padded, and the formatting choices hard to read.

Issue 1: The DM text is all in italics. I know, I know; it makes me seem like a petty little bitch. But it’s hard to read. I don’t like feeling like I have to fight the adventure in order to run it. Adventures with big blocks of italics or cursive or other hard to read fonts drive me nuts.

Issue 2: The writing is flat. “Large paintings depicting various historical scenes from Gardag’s reign.” That’s boring writing. It doesn’t inspire the DM to want to describe the room well. “The room is ornately decorated with murals depicting Gardag on the walls.” There’s always this element in published adventures that the DM running must bring a part of themselves to it in order to breathe life in to the adventure. We’ll accept that as given. But the role of the adventure designer is to make it easier on the DM. Specificity can help cement an idea in to the DM’s head, where their own imagination can take hold and add and expand it. “Murals of Gardags life” is abstracted. “Murals showing Gardag’s atrocities in the looting of the city of Fazool” is specific. It gives the DM something to work with. And that’s really the point of a good adventure. You can create a minimally keyed thing (and/or maximally describe it) that is easy to use, but the value beyond that comes giving the DM that extra little bit of a helping imagery (without getting long winded.) And in a market overflowing with shit I expect that extra bit. Don’t. Settle.

Beyond that, I think the writing is weak overall. It pads out the text using the usual methods. “This room is 40×40/” Yes. In fact that the map shows that. What’s the point of putting it in the text? “If there are any PC’s that can read elvish then they will read that …” This sort of if/then stuff drives me crazy. The writing is in elvish. Stating its in elvish states a fact. “When the party walks in to the room” is a kind of conversation writing style. It pads out the text and makes it harder to find the information you need.

The rooms are pretty standard. Pit trap. Poison gas trap when you remove a painting from the walls. Skeletons, zombies, more moorlocks. Branching map. Treasure is light, except for a room with ten tapestries each worth 1000gp.
It’s hard to use and it’s not very evocative. It doesn’t make you excited to run it. That doesn’t mean explosions and transformers set pieces. That mean good writing that inspires the DM.

Gardag is Pay What You Want at DriveThru, with a suggested price of $0. The preview shows you the entire adventure. Yeah Shane! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148044/The-Tomb-Of-Gardag-The-Strange?affiliate_id=1892600

By Seth Kenlon & Klaatu Einzelganger
Mixed Signals
Pathfinder
Levels 1-3

Mrs. Wyverstone has a simple job he needs done. She has a home she wants built. The foundation has already been laid, but her building crew has abandoned the job. She needs a crew to go in and finish the job. She says any able-bodied idiot can do it. So why is she hiring adventurers?

Ug.

This forty page single-column linear adventure details the parties attempts to build a house(!) for an old woman. It is, essentially, just linear event encounters. Single column, a railroad, unorganized, it still manages to not score WORST EVAR by giving the DM some advice. Barely.

Man, where to start? The lady who who owns the tavern is building a house and needs some workers to complete it. She’ll pay you 1000gp, parceled out over the project, to do the job. Inflation seems to have hit Pathfinder pretty hard. I don’t think the size is ever mentioned, but the mason does the walls in one day, by himself, and then does the roof and door in one night, so it must be pretty small. 1000gp for a hovel when you own a tavern is pretty rough! But, enough sillyness!

Encounter one. You hammer in the last few nails to finish the framing. It’s a DC17, with failure meaning it takes five blows to drive the nail. Five hammer dings will summon an angry spirit that attacks. (Seems the build site is on a graveyard …) The spirit isn’t stat’d, instead the DM is given the advice of “use whatever stats are appropriate to the level of the party.” Uh, No. That’s your job, Mr. Designer. I “bought” this adventure because I didn’t have time. It’s your job to provide me the tools I need to run the adventure. Uncool, not stat’ing the thing. Further, the DM is supposed to have a number of undriven nails appropriate to the parties APL. Again, no advice given. YOU DON’T GET TO FUCKING DO THIS. Just stick in a small table telling us how many for what APL. It’s your fucking job as a designer!

Oh, oh, the main villains identity can change! The woman is, of course, and evil witch. Unless the party catches on too fast. Then it’s the mason that’s evil, or … and get this … it’s her husband who’s been gone for six years. Yes, Mr Not-appearing-in-this-adventure and never mentioned before is the bad guy who swoops in at the last moment! Nope. Again, a TERRIBLE design principal. You don’t get to change the ground under the party. You don’t get to run an encounter “until the party is almost defeated.” You set the fucking scene and run it in a neutral manner, with an eye towards fun. The players HAVE to be able be make meaningful decisions and they CAN’T do this with the DM just doing whatever the fuck they want whenever the fuck they want.

The inn’s rates and services are scattered through the adventure. The inn appears at the beginning. And then after day one there’s another little section on the inn and it’s pricing and services. And then at the end of the day two section there’s another little section on additional prices and services. Perfect. Make the DM hunt for information.

At one point the characters fall through the ground in to a little crypt complex. There’s no room/key format, the first couple of rooms are described in one big text block that you have to dig through to figure out what goes with where.

This shitshow does, however, do a few decent things. There’s a flowchart at the beginning to tell you how the adventure works. That’s a good choice for an event based adventure … even if it is unneeded here. It also has a pointer to some free resources, for an inn layout and NPC’s, which is a nice little touch. That’s a good value add. Finally, it offers some advice on the hook. “Building a house may be the least sexy thing your party would choose to do.” No shit. But, it does present some advice to get the party involved, a couple of NPC’s talking about eerie things at the bild site, etc. It’s a nice nod to trying to provide resources for the DM at the table.

I know it’s $0. It’s not worth it. I like the absurdity of the telegraphed villain … because I like shit like that. But the rest of the adventure, man .. .I don’t think I could ever run something like this for people.

This is PWYW at DriveThru, with a suggest price of $0. The preview gives you the entire adventure, since it’s free. Note page 13, which shows the “free text” room descriptions.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/230039/Hammer-Haus