Dungeon Magazine #110

Posted on November 25, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

d110
The Buzz in the Bridge
By John Simcoe
Level 3

Thisfifteen page adventure has the party getting rid of a giant bee hive that’s been built in a covered bridge near a halfling town. The adventure has, maybe, two encounters, or three if we count some roleplaying in the town. It’s amazing how Dungeon can stretch out a nothing adventure in to reams of paper. In spite of the volumes of pages, the adventure has some decent ideas. The halfling kids run to the party saying things like “We picked these flowers for you!”, along with some other guilt-trip shit. Perfect! The party is also NOT forced to fight the giant bees when they attack a local winery. Finally, how the party removes the bees from the covered bridge is not dictated. They are free to come up with whatever plan they wish … keeping in mind they’ve been admonished not to damage the bridge. The village has a nice little map overview which provides enough detail to run the village fairly well. The map just lists various businesses without the text going in to detail. The ACTUAL village text runs long, as one could expect a fifteen page adventure with two encounters to do. ALso, there’s no actual map of the winery or the bridge layout/hive. Well. Mostly. There’s an insert map of the bridge. It is four squares wide and 32 squares long. It’s clearly MEANT to be a tactical hack-fest, from the battle-map provided. Not being FORCED in to that makes this worthy of more than my usual diarrhea diatribe.

Last Stand at Outpost Three
By David Noonan
Dark Sun
Level 1

The majesty of Dark Sun reduced to crap. This is a kick off adventure for a Dark Sun campaign. The party starts off as rando’s at an outpost that’s been surrounded by elves and faces nightly elf attacks. The adventure starts at sunsset of the third day, after two nights of attacks. The randos are assigned to guard one section of the wall. Four “waves” of attackers come in, with a wave being defined as one or two attackers. The next night the randos are assigned to guard the inside of a warehouse, during a dust storm. Three waves of zombies attack. There’s your adventure! Welcome to Dark Sun! There IS a page of adventure seeds, for continuing the campaign, based on what the party does after the second attack. IE: some ideas on where the DM to take things based on what/how the party leaves the compound. Did I mention the NPC descriptions/stat blocks take ¾ of a page? Member when Dark Sun was good? Member?

Posted in Dungeon Magazine, Reviews | 1 Comment

The Golden Four

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

goldenfour

By Steve Willett
Polyhedron Games
AD&D 1e
Levels 5-7

A lost compound for four enterprising adventurers has been recently uncovered and the party must travel to it and plunder its wealth whilst looking for papers and articles of historical interest.

This fifteen page adventure is a bit different than the other Willet adventures. It’s a brief overland journey followed up a two-level minimally keyed castle with a dragon in it. The minimal keying keeps the stream of consciousness/wall of text to a minimum. While minimal keying can work, it goes too far here.

The entire intro and overland, as well as a general castle overview, fits on one page with the 43 room keys fitting on a second page. Three pages of maps round things out with the rest of the pages being devoted the dragon’s treasure (one page) and the rest being an appendix with monster stats. So, without maps, about two pages of content.

The intro, overland, and general castle description are in the style that Willet generally uses. These are large free form paragraphs full of a kind of abstracted outline for the adventure. “Set encounters before reaching their goal include brigands, a pair of owl bears, a band of bugbears, a dryad and a mother bear.” Those encounters are then followed up on in the next paragraph with a couple of sentences about each. It’s very stream of consciousness and conversational and not all all in a format conducive to running at a table, live.

The keying takes “minimal keying” to the logical extreme. The two level castle is essentially a ring road corridor with rooms off of either side of it. Typical room descriptions are “Officers Quarters”, “Water closet”, “Stables”, and “Bath.” Props for including the room name AS the description. That’s something I wish more adventures did. After all, I think we all know what a Stable looks like and don’t need the adventure to provide us wither read-aloud or a DM description of a stable. The descriptions, the content added, should focus on what’s unusual about this stable, and by unusual, I mean actual contribute to the player’s experience. Steve ‘Bloodymage’ Willett’s descriptions take this too far though.. When ALL of the room descriptions are simply a room name, maybe with a treasure description ot “(behir located here)” then we need to ask: what’s the added value? Randomly printing room names and randomly assigning monsters is something that can be done with a dozen online generators, as well as the 1E DMG.

I expect an adventure to be more than that.

I think I’ve now reviewed all of Willett’s adventures. This is by far the most coherent of them. Folks interested in BloodyMage’s work could read the “main” page of this and get an idea of what his other adventures are like and, if so inclined, have a minimally keyed dungeon.

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/103120/The-Golden-Four?1892600

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The Quirtion Affair

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

quirtion
By Steve Willett
Polyhedron Games
KISS
Mid-level?

WoW! Seldom have I seen the likes!

This twenty page adventure is more like an outline of an adventure. And I’m being quite generous by using the word “outline.” The twenty pages have about eight-ish pages of content, single spaced single column with long paragraphs, with the rest of the adventure pages being a kind of monster manual for mostly “standard” monsters, like griffins and owlbears, but in the KISS system. Not only hard to read, but both overly abstracted AND very specific. This is more of a stream of consciousness “let me tell you about my character” story from a convention, except it’s “let me tell you about my adventure.”

I don’t even know where to begin. You’re hired by a guy who wants you look in to some abductions, which are suspected to be attributed to another kingdom. There’s not detail on them except “some press gangs.” That’s it. Nothing else, for the DM or players. You’re expected to go seek out sages in far away lands to learn about the other kingdom. There mountains of details about the Bloody Crag” and “The Sanguine Mage”, an offworld archmage/sage. This is the DM’s character, “Bloody Mage”, which is why his lair/fortress gets half a page of detail. Travel to the evil kingdom gets about half a page. The bulk of the adventure, taking place in the evil kingdom, gets one page. Here’s the sea “adventure:”

“Out on the high seas, before reaching Denga?l, they will fall prey to a sea hag one moonless night. Their final encounter at sea will depend upon their route. If they track through the strait, they will fall prey to Kraeldonian raiders. If they head for open ocean west of Denga?l, they will be beset by a kraken!”

That’s your sea adventure. The details for the evil kingdom are likewise at this VERY high level. Vampire Bob is found in the capitol. The undead armies are found in pens. Three vampires guard the pens. If you kill Bob you must also kill the other three to keep one of them from taking his place of leadership. That’s not exactly word for word, but it’s pretty close. That’s the detail of the capitol of the evil kingdom and their undead armies. Everything is like that. Just the barest outline. There’s this emphasis on explaining travel routes and kingdoms, but no map to support it, meaning it comes off as a confusing mess, almost to the point of being incoherent.

This review makes me uncomfortable. The author passed away awhile ago. This feels like kicking a man while he’s down. This, and the next adventure popped up in my queue so I bought them, not making the connection. I’m going to review the next one also and then probably remove the rest of his adventures from my queue. There’s no value here, either in the adventure or in reviewing it.

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/100108/The-Quirtoin-Affair?1892600

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Dungeon Magazine #109

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

d109Secrets of the Soul Pillars
By Jesse Decker
Level 12

Adventure Path! Which is synonymous with linear adventure and forced combats! This starts with a forced combat; an assassination attempt. It moves to overly detailed text, another forced combat, a forced-combat assault on a temple and then a linear forced combat dungeon crawl. So, the usual shit show. Except this time the rooms have mountains of text about what they used to be and who used to live there and how they used to be used … none of which contributes to the adventure. This whole thing is just a Star Fleet Battles campaign, which, while fine for some people, is not the definition of D&D that I know and love.

The Devil Box
By Richard Pett
Level 2

CLose to a real adventure. The party stumbles upon an attacked wagon, with two kobolds looting it. They want to parley though, and have a letter from their chief. An injured merchant nearby indicates the attackers were imps, not the kobolds, which backs the kobolds story. They need to go to the nearby town and find a kobold in a sideshow so he can activate a coffin they have that traps devils. The town portion consist of the kobolds trying to stay disguised and getting in to trouble, and the party getting them out, during a masked sex festival in town while everyone looks for the sideshow kobold. Eventually the imps get wererats to attack the party and are tracked down to a building where the wererats, slaves, imps, and chained devils are holding up. Not as impossible as it may seem, since the coffin can trap devils. The setup is a little strained and relies on the time honoured fish out water monster in town trope. It’s not a bad outline for an adventure, but some more specifics of encounters with the kobolds and the sideshow or the festival would have been a better way to organize the adventure. Compared to the rest of the recent Dungeons, this is Lear.

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Temple of the Ape God

Posted on November 16, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

apegod

By Mattias Nrva & Terje Nordin
Svard & Svartknost
1E
Levels 2-4

In the depth of jungle, a terrible and ancient foe has awakened.
There are rumors of gold to be won there, but it will take more than luck and a sharp sword to survive after daring the savage forces of the wilderness. The lost temple of the Ape God awaits!

This 21 page adventure describes a temple to an ape god in a jungle. It houses sixteen pages in a two column layout with Old Man Eyes font size. It has a decent mix of encounters on a somewhat simple map that FEELS right for the adventure. The writing quality is right on a knife’s edge, with the ideas presented being decent but need a little more umph to evoke the imagination.

The adventure is pretty simple. There’s a background, rumor table, a small wandering table for the area around the temple, and then the outdoor upper level of eight areas and the underground portion of eight areas. The outside area is small, with the major features being a giant ape state, a couple of one room buildings, and a hill full of degenerate apes. It reminds me, for all the world, of that scene in Around of the World in 80 days with the Kali temple. The idea that there’s this area you’re trying to get into, guarded by a lot of creatures hanging around, and you’ve got the entire area to exploit and come up with a goofy plan is one of the key elements of D&D. Since this probably involves kicking around the jungle a bit, there’s also a pretty decent jungle wandering monster table full of lotus traders, giant ants eating mules, a tiger crossing your path, and other encounters straight out of a stereotypical India … which is exactly what the fuck you want for something like this.

The encounter text, and the interior rooms, continue this theming. A dead adventurer impaled on a spear trap in a hallway is straight out of the first Indiana Jones, and no jungle temple would be complete without lotus flowers on a pond … and a buried monk in lotus position with writing on palm leaves, in this case. The concepts for these encounters are strong. The writing for them much less so. “The skeleton of a dead adventurer is impaled on a sprung spear trap.” Well, ok. Factually correct, terse, and a classic for a jungle temple, all of which are plusses. Pumping it up a bit, to install a stronger image in the DM’s imagination, without growing the description in a second or third sentence is the real challenge. A lot of writing in this adventure is similar; great ideas, terse, but lacking a bit of the evocative nature that would really push it over the top in to greatness.

The set up is pretty bare bones, as well. Other than a fact-based rumor table, there’s no real hook, starting location, overland travel, or any place else. That doesn’t have to be bad; I have a fondness in my heart for places that a DM can just drop in to a game to fit in to their own campaign.

This is a decent small adventure for drop in. It’s not a home run, but few things are, and it DOES bring a nice jungle flavor, but the DM will need to expand on it greatly.

Ps: I apologize. It takes 6 clicks in google docs to get extended character stats. No umlauts for you!]

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/188523/Temple-of-the-Ape-God?1892600

Posted in Level 2, No Regerts, Reviews | 1 Comment

Adventure at Goldmarsh

Posted on November 14, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

goldmar
By David Dolph
Lupes Rex Games
1E
Level 5

This is a plot based adventure in four acts. There is an investigation of a murder & kidnapping in a village, with strong social elements. There follows a scene-based overland journey and then a small linear dungeon crawl. Finally there is the big showdown, taking place in the middle of two armies clashing. The choice to run this as a plot-based adventure, with scenes and linear dungeon, detracts from the whole. It also suffers from some organization choices that were not good.

There’s no real hook or motivation to the adventure othan than Do Gooders. The sheriff is murdered and a baby stolen and it’s just kind of assumed that the party will do good. A little more pretext would have nice for immersion purposes. SOMETHING. The village description, included in this section, has both general rumors and rumors related the murder/kidnapping, depending on if the party is hanging around beforehand or questions folk as a part of the quest. The business description, the NPC description, the two types of rumors, and some general background of the NPC’s is all included in the “room description” for each business. Something here rubs me the wrong way. I like the NPC’s, and in particular how some of them have relationships with others in the village and they have some very human motivations for things that make them far more relatable to the party than the usual generic fantasy villagers. The entire adventure uses a single column layout, combined with a horrid “faux paper” background image. Either the combination of those two things, or the NPCs, business, and both types of rumors AND background data, combined, is turning me off on this section. The CONTENT is good. The choices on organization give me a headache when I’m trying to look through/read/run this section. This organization, and the lack of a pretext, are really the only things wrong in the village section, although the organization thing is a big deal for me.

The wilderness crawl, through a swamp, makes some interesting choices. It has three scenes that take place in the (abstracted) journey through the swamp. A six day journey. At the end of it they have a 12% chance of finding the ruins in question, with a +2% each day after that. So you wander around the swamp, having random encounters until you roll under your chance, and/or encounter one of the “timed” three encounters that occur on specific days. But the wander table only has ten entries, four of which are “gill men.” I’m not sure that’s enough variety to support the long-ish, dangerous journey. The dungeon is in the tower follows, which is really just a linear crawl with a couple of side rooms. There’s something about some magical traps resetting, so even though the killers have been through the dungeon our heroes still have to face some forced fights. Such is life in linear plot-land; linear dungeon is linear and combat forced upon thee. This section, along with the swamp, are both quite weak with little to nothing to recommend them.

The final section has the party going through a time gate to a big battle between two armies. The evil NPC’s the party have been chasing are trying to stab an old king with the sheriff’s sword, in order to make it magical again. The idea is that there’s a very big chaotic battle with both eh party and evil NPC party both separated from each other and themselves. Each turn you can find your buddies, go looking for the evil NPC’s, or try not get attacked by the battle going on around you. There are a few random encounters that can happen like “a group of 3 militia soldiers attack the PC’s”, so … the barest of encounters possible.

The adventure does a good job with new monsters, with both an undead and the gill people being nice new ones, and both getting JUST enough description to make them interesting and inspiring without being verbose. I wish the rest of the encounters had this more … evocative writing style.

Both the village and the battle have an author’s vision that you can recognize, even if they didn’t exactly execute the vision very well. The swamp and dungeon seem like tack ons without a solid vision to support them.

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/131573/Adventure-at-Goldmarsh?1892600

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Dungeon Magazine #108

Posted on November 12, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

d108The Iron Satyr
By Scott Stearns
Level 11

I have no fucking clue why this adventure exists. None. A small village has a giant statue in the middle. A local artist goes missing. One day the statue disappears, along with the head of the workmen and the local priestess. That’s it. That’s the adventure, from the parties point of view. WTF? There’s hardly any pretext at all for lifting a finger. The head of the workmen in the village is actually a disguised hobgoblin and the priestess a succubus, neither of whom give a shit about the village. The missing artists have been carving stuff in order open a portal to another plane so the hobgob can steal the statue and then animate it, on the other plane, for use in some planer war. …. And? …. Why does the party care again? The adventure gives some pretext to be in the village, but confuses that (being in the village) with a “hook.” There’s no actual motivation at all here. I guess there’s an investigation portion, if the party gives a shit, but the fruits of that investigation are worthless. “Bob wants the statue. …. Uh. Ok.” Added on top, the two villains use magical disguises, which is always a shitty thing to do in these things. And then the DM is given instruction to use fiat to let the hobgob escape from the party, on the prime plane, so he can steal the statue. He’s got ethereal jaunt AND invisibility. Uh … why, again? Oh, so you can go to the other plane and experience the linear combat shit-fest that the designer thinks is “adventure.” Monster zoo, with weirdly allied trolls and other creatures. No motivation. No goals beyond killing things and the barest pretext of “a missing guy.” I guess, the beginning is not linear? At least it’s got that going for it?

Challenge of Champions 5
By Johnathan M. Richards
Any Level

Episode 5 of the popular Champions series. The adventurers guild runs a contest, all weapons and spells are provided, which is how it gets its Any Level designation. This is essentially the same scenario as the other four, just with new encounters. Each is a little puzzly, meaning that there are obvious and non-obvious solutions that the adventure is written for. Go in the room, solve the encounter, go to the next room. I, personally, find the programmed solutions and artificial nature of these quite off putting … .but can’t deny that there’s a certain similar playstyle in “real” dungeons that appeal to me. “Hey, here’s a situation. Exploit it, ignore it, do what you will.”

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The Stealer of Children

Posted on November 9, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

stealer

By Peter C. Spahn
Small Niche Games
Labyrinth Lord
Level 1

Leandras Row is a peaceful farming village that lies on the border of a mystical forest known as the Tanglewood. The villagers pay homage to St. Leandra the Lady of Blossoms and the village is famous for its ripe cherry orchards and religious festivals. When an ancient evil awakens and children start to disappear, the village is thrown into an uproar. Can the PCs enter a crumbling ruin, deal with the faerie creatures of the Tanglewood, and solve the mystery in time to stop the Stealer of Children?

This 31 page sandboxy adventure pits the party against a mystery in a village: children are going missing. It has a nice folklore vibe thing going on, and really does a decent job providing both some sticky encounters and, in places, an otherworldly vibe. It’s a great starting adventure that feel DESIGNED and only has a couple of organization places it could be improved upon.

Starting in medias res, a farmer is being chased down the road by a figure in a rusted knights armor. Saving him, the party find the body to be already dead. Back at the inn, the tale gets spread and rumors abound. That night, a child goes missing.

The party is, essentially, dumped in to this chaos, with events unfolding around them and NO assumption that they will do ANYTHING. I did type “saving him” above, but that’s not assumed. If they don’t then there’s a small section about what happens. And If they don’t follow up with the missing child there’s a small section about what happens. Otherwise, there are just places to visit and people to talk to. A full three pages of people in the back of the adventure for the party to interact with. And four or five locations to investigate, from a monastery to ruins to a couple of weirdo red herrings. There’s no assumptions of party activity here, although its pretty obvious what should happen, and the various parts and locales of the adventure have good ties between them. From the standard on the knight’s armor to a weathered inlay on a old bridge, to herbs in the monastery, there are connections that players that pay attention can take advantage of.

The folklore vibe of the adventure is pretty strong without it going off the rails in to lala land. There’s a magic acorn, an evil leprechaun-like fairy that steals the life force of children but keeps them in a nice bedroom in his vile hole in the ground. Evil little “maggots” that resemble the main villain, and a climax that has the party transforming in to children, via a potion, to combat the evil fairy. This is all supplemented by an “enchanted forest” that actually FEELS a little like a enhanced forest, a very rare thing indeed. Tree paths opening up, magical feasts, werebeasts transforming next to a stream, and other weird stuff like one giant boot. I like adventures with a basis in folklore; I think they prey on that almost ancestral memory we have of such things, and the good ones leverage that to create vibe in the DM and players. A jagged shard of glass with an image trapped inside, asking for release? Sign me up! [And no, I don’t believe in ancestral memories.]

Going back to my summation of the intro encounter, you can see how a rumor table gets integrated in the adventure. What better place than inn, right after something weird happens, for rumors to fly? And so much of the adventure is STICKY. At 31 pages it is a bit heavy on text but most of the adventure is pretty sticky; the encounters, like that intro one, stay with you, ar at least the platonic version of them do and that’s enough to run them.

There are only a couple of issues I have with this one. The motivation to get involved is really one of being a goody goody. It doesn’t force that on the party but it doesn’t really provide a motivation other than that. It’s pretty clear what the adventure is, and the players WOULD be tools if they didn’t follow up, but somehow integrating another motivation (other than “your related!” or some other nonsense) would have been cream. It’s also the case that some of the information gets lost in the wordiness. A lot of the locations are quite sticky but sometimes information is lost in the text. Important information. The best example is probably the information the nuns know, which is buried in paragraphs near the bullet-point rumors table. Some bolding, or bullets, in the nun section, for example, would help the DM much more readily pick out what they need.

These relatively minor quibbles though. This is a fine example of an adventure worth having. These solid adventures can sometimes be overshadowed by the gonzo or grim-dark, but are the workmanlike backbone of good supplements. Again, my highest compliments: meets expectations.

Ps: I really like that so many things in this village are called “cherry.” Cherry stream. Cherry stream bridge. Cherry groves, Cherry ale. Cherry Blossom Festival. There’s not so much as to make it silly, but there’s enough to make it silly if you so wish … and I do! “Yessir, we use genuine cherry hay for the beds! And the sheets are 400 count cherry thread!”

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/112667/LLA005-The-Stealer-of-Children?affiliate_id=1892600

Posted in Level 1, Reviews, The Best | 2 Comments

The Lair of Largash the Lurid

Posted on November 7, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

largash
By Michael Mills
Canister & Grape
1E
Levels 1-3

Largash the Lurid, scourge of the common folk and self-appointed king beneath the rocky hills, lurks deep within his lair. Who dares enter his realm to unthrone this most evil of monarchs? Can your brave party of adventurers defeat Largash the Lurid and his evil minions once and for all?

This is a twenty-one room eighteen page two-level dungeon. The first level is a former monastery taken over by humanoids while the second level are caves with random stuff in it. It’s plagued by too much read-aloud, overly detailed DM notes, and a writing styles that tells instead of whos. The catacombs have two particularly interesting encounters that, nonetheless, do not distract from the fight fight fight dungeon style.

The idea here is that the party stumbles upon a poorly worded sign advertising a “kingdom” nearby. Following up they find an old hidden monastery. This all happen in about a paragraph or two. What follows is about ten rooms on the first level populated by the usual mix of monster zoo humanoids. Some kobold entrance guards. A couple of goblin assistants, A few orc elite guards. The “king” ogre. A captured prisoner. The layout is a central corridor with a couple of rooms hanging out on either side and the “kings chambers” at the end. The second level has this similar, branching, layout, but in cave format.

The read aloud here can be extensive. Three paragraphs per room with the usual suspects being present: descriptions of how large the room is, far too specific descriptions, detail that adds nothing to the play. The read aloud for the second guard room stats there are kobolds sitting on benches, even though they may have responded to the fight in the FIRST guardroom and therefore not be present. I realize this is a bit pedantic, but it illustrates the issues with the too specific descriptions. The room dimensions are on the map. The monsters are generally dynamic. The extra words, generic and boring, add nothing to the imagination. Instead of focused feelings we get unfocused genericism. “This room evokes a sense of wonder of those who view it …” NO. No it does not. The text tells the players what they feel, which is NEVER a good thing. This is a classic example of telling instead of showing. Instead the room description should focus on evoking that sense of wonder in the players. Or, better yet, in the DM who can then transfer it to players. The adventure does this TELLING instead of SHOWING repeatedly.

The caverns underneath do have two more interesting encounters that differentiate them from the fight fight fight style of the first level. The first is a side cavern with a basilisk(!) in it. And laying in the middle of the floor is a petrified body. With a crystal amulet and a +1 sword, among other items. [Note: I usually play that they are turned to stone along with all possessions. The text implies the designer plays this different. To each his own.] This is quite interesting. The glow of the sword and/or amulet luring the party in to face the 6HD basilisk … these “temptation” encounters are classics and something I wish more adventures did. Playing the rope out and letting the party hang themselves is always fun. Likewise, later on there’s an encounter with a crystal golem of a strangely similar crystal … which should send the party once again back to the basilisk room to try their luck and get that crystal amulet … at least that’s how I would play this.

This is available at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/139112/The-Lair-of-Largash-the-Lurid?1892600

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Dungeon Magazine #107

Posted on November 5, 2016 by Bryce Lynch

d107Mellorn Hospitality
By Russel Brown
Level 5

Hired to escort an elf to a magic fair, the party sees their ward runn of screaming in to the forest once they are there. Asshole elves have made a pact with a night hag for protection, and eventually hire the party to “take care of some nearby grimlocks in a cave.” The core of the adventure is a short thirteen room lair complex. There’s too much straight up combat/forced situations for my taste. I wish also that the magical fair had a table for NPC’s personalities, in order to give it some life other than a paragraph of pretext. But that’s not the era we’re in. ROLL FOR INIT! The lair map has a twisty cave complex, which is unusual to see, and has a nice side passage in it with a couple of scavengers. That, in particular, is something I’d like to see more. A little area, kind of hidden, with some challenge involved, with a SECRET in it. In the deep chasm under the bridge. Up the top of the underground waterfall, and so on.

Test of the SMoking Eye
By David Noonan
Level 10

Adventure Path! And there’s not much pretext to the adventure here. Or, rather, there is A LOT of pretext to justify what is a linear “tests” adventure. Lots of “challenges” strung together. There’s a lantern which shows the way, and hidden paths, which is a nice touch, as are the CONCEPTS for the demi-plan and giant skull you sometimes adventure in. Put the execution of those areas is really just “difficult terrain” or “-2 attack rolls” kind of stuff. And it doesn’t make up for the linear combats.

Deadman’s Quest: An Adventure in Freeport
By Graeme Davis
Level 1

Technically, I think this is a Polyhedron adventure. The party is attacked by “insane pirates” and then contacted by a ghost captain, urging them to retrieve stuff from a sunken ship to put things right. They do so, only to be led to a sahuagin lair, and then to a temple in Freeport to turn over the retrieved objects. Which are then promptly stolen and require a visit to a warehouse and cult temple underneath. Massive amounts of text and read-aloud all over a shitty shitty background image to ensure it’s all quite hard to read. The initial sunken ship explore is interesting because there’s no water breathing available immediately, so it’s dive after dive, which should make things interesting, and signs of a giant shark. The party eventually find some potions in the wreck which allows further exploration and them to hit the underwater lair. From this point there’s ANOTHER blast of massive text, and the warehouse part just feels like a pretext to do something in Freeport and is not very interesting. The ghost Captain hans around a bit during parts of the adventure, which allows for some great hamming it up, which I ALWAYS approve of. I wouldn’t say this is a good adventure, but the “diving on the wreck” and “ghost captain” are highlights and nice things to steal.

Posted in Dungeon Magazine, Reviews | 4 Comments