tenfootpole.org

by Matt Jackson
Chubby Monster Games
Swords & Wizardry
Level 1

A small group of goblins have taken command of a choke point along an old dwarven pass deep inside a mountain. The players will need to battle, or negotiate, their way while dealing with the goblins.

A short and conversational six-ish room cave system. It describes one feature: a decaying bridge across a ravine on an old underground dwarven highway system. The area now has goblins that ask for a toll to cross.

there’s not much too this, it’s really just one largish encounter area with the five or six related rooms/encounters. It has a very conversational style that adds to the text and provides only a little more color. The living quarters room takes up a little more than a page and amounts to almost nothing. “Around the fire are numerous bedrolls, likely festered with fleas.” Lots and lots of sentences like that. The designers is trying to add color, but is doing so in quite the verbose way. Further, the rooms are not very focused. There’s lots of scattered descriptions, almost haphazard, rather than descriptions which augment the action. or may too many descriptions? In any event, focusing on a couple of key details that augment and support the play would have been better than trying to do lots and lots of little things that distract from the attention.

Smoke bomb Potions. One goblin dips his ax blade into a quick acting poison (never mentioned again as loot.) Generic +1 ring of protection. There are not highpoints. There are, however, couple of interesting items what looks like one of throw away “f you search the garbage heap” rooms. An ornate halfling helmet. A clay vial with a potion. a small leather pouch that duplicates what’s inside of it. all of those are much better than the “silver ring of fire resistance, +3” that appears later.

There’s this vibe I get that this is not a S&W adventure. It feels like a hack adventure. It features a decent amount of silver and little gold. (S&W White Box is gold=xp, correct?) The entire thing feels weird, more like the vibe I would expect from a Pathfinder or 4e adventure or even a 5e adventure. Encounter areas, limited treasure, goofy monsters attacks (ax poison, smoke bombs) and so on. Most goblins are boring and these book goblins are no exception, with their entry at the end being unimaginative.

The bridge proper feels like a set piece and/or a “fight your way to the other side of the lair” encounter. I guess that’s one way to play Swords & Wizardry.

It’s only $1 at rpgnow, but still, …

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/174172/The-Bridge-of-Zheng-He?1892600

by John R Davis
OSR
Level 1

The party are travelling to the new frontier to help return an ancient Duchy to its former glory. A chance encounter with the legendary ‘Arisen Knight’, a very old hero, sets them on a path to adventure. Like most published scenarios there are some railroad parts, but enough choice to provide the feel of a sandbox.

This is an OSR conversion of a kickstarted 5e adventure that also has a Pathfinder version. It’s got 90 pages and could be considered a “sandbox” if one had never seen a real sandbox before. With respect to this adventure Sandbox means there are three or four places you can go. If all the world were sucky 3e/4e railroads then I suppose this would appear to be a sandbox. The inciting event of this adventure has a magnificent backstory. There is clearly a concerted effort by the designer for the adventure to be useful to the DM. Nothing gets close to the inciting event backstory (which will never come up, I suspect) and the high points of the adventure are when it reaches C+ territory.

This is not a good first effort. But dude DID run a kickstarter, raise about 1500 pounds, and get product out the door and is now running a sequel kickstarter. The secret to good writing is to keep writing. Keep producing, get better, and keep producing. As a human person I hope John continues. As a reviewer

Let’s cover the good part. The beginning has a lyrical and/or mythic element. I LOVE those. A knight rises from the dead when the land needs him, only to ritualistically kill himself to await the next need when the crisis is over. The party meet him as an old haggard man, being attacked. Which of the thousand faces can you count there? How many? I don’t care that it’s ripped off, its GUD. It preys on every subconscious feeling of heroes the players have heard. It brings back and summons those thoughts, feelings, and emotions they’ve had. It’s inspiring to the PLAYERS. That’s a singular quality of all of the best hooks.

That is my first and last compliment. The closest I will get is “they meant well …” Nothing much is done with that hook, except to get the characters to go to the first dungeon to return his body to his tomb. All of that sound and thunder in the players is lost. Further, the mystery is ruined. He’s got a rod of resurrection on him. LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME LAME. When you explain the mystery then the magic is lost. He should come back because it is by will alone he sets his mind in motion. Or he comes back, resigned at last, because his god keeps rez’ing him to do his work, putting off his last judgement, final rest, and reunion with his friends & family. A book magic item is behind the legend of King Arthur? Yeahhh… right …. fuck you.

There’s a … prescriptive? element to this adventure that’s embedded very deeply. Strong assumptions are made, espoused on at length, and others ignored. Early on, in the first tomb/dungeon, you meet a disillusion hobgoblin. He’s a prisoner. He begs for an honorable death. [Hobgoblins=Kingon and Orcs=Vikings in this world.] He goes on at length about what to do once he is dead, and who back home to contact to free his people. It seems like he goes on for a page between his read aloud and all the contingency data around his pleading/death. The only assumption made, in this or in the second dungeon (his people’s lair) is his death. OSR players have no monopoly on exploitation. ANY player would look at this and want to take advantage of the situation. And free him! What an opportunity! All of the information the dude would have about the power structure in the lair, the layout, who’s who. And freeing a fucking rebel leader to come back and help him in his homeland? AWESOME! And definitely the easy button for that second dungeon! Think of the roleplaying opportunities! “That’s Fred. He’s a little toady bitch who we can’t trust. [slit.]” Moral quandaries! Petty jealousies! Raw power grabs! Now THAT’S a real rebellion! That’s what happens when you take prisoners and talk to the monsters baby! Action & Adventure!

But of course that doesn’t happen. EVERYTHING is written as if the players kill him. And at length. The Tyranny of the Author’s Voice. This happens over and over again in the adventure and it’s disappointing. Less exposition, more contingencies. Or, even better, NO contingencies and just language that communicates the overall environment, giving the DM the ability to do their job. This shows up in explicit ability checks, and in reinforced by maps that small, cramped, and linear. Do X then do Y then do Z. Conform. Obey. Consume.

There’s a strong element of “detailed overview” in the town description that reminds me a lot of the nonsense in the recent WOTC harback adventures. A teen girl is being shown how to make the local drink by an old woman. (a different lame sentence after that one.) How about “Butterface Betsy being scolded by crone Carly as she milks a dirty cow directly into overly briney vinegar, trying to make Possett.” Fewer sentences. More detail. Communicates the vibe perfectly. Specificity is the SOUL of storytelling. Inspire the DM to do the dirty work. and fill in the details.

The town has a few people with too much description and a lot more with no description. And no summary sheet present. Make a fucking summary sheet people! Summative who, where, and their personality on one page for the DM to reference during play! The fucking adventure is supposed to be a play aid, not something to make more work!

A good effort is made in the wanderers table. “Giant rats feasting on a dead cow” is a good example of having the monsters DOING something when you encounter them. Most of the encounters are written in this way. Nine of the twenty are expanded upon AT LENGTH. Too much length. I can dig a paragraph or so to add some color, but two pages to describe a lot of detail that will NEVER come up? What’s described must be relevant to moving things forward, likely to be needed, and related to guidelines for the DM. Once the designer gets prescriptive (there’s that word again …) then the text drags on, the meaning of the encounter gets lost and WALL OF TEXT SYNDROME appears. This isn’t helped by the extensive, and boring, read-aloud. The authors cites their hope that they didn’t put too much in. You did. And it’s boring. Give the DM the facts. Give the DM the speaker’s personality (in one sentence. MAYBE two.) Omit the monologue. Done. Rinse. Repeat.

There’s this thing where trivia is mentioned for the sake of trivia. While on a longish journey there’s this line “if the party searches for an hour they find a dead axe beak.” Uh. Ok. I understand the intent. The next encounter is with some axe beaks enraged because of some hunters. But just dropping in some trivia is no way to go about this. It’s akin to saying, out of nowhere, “If a CN Cleric pronounces “DFWDFK:JD:L” correctly then a broken wagon wheel appears.” Uh. Great. And? Is that really likely to happen? I’m not bitching about the foreshadowing, or even giving a careful party a hint of what’s to come, but the way in which this adventure approaches it is a bit random.

Going along on this thread, the monsters entries are clumsy. They are quite lengthy, devoid of most stats, and rely on a standard format that is bulky and clumsy. The intent here was good: describe the monsters motivations and their tactics. But it’s done in a manner that obfuscates by being overly long and constrained by the mania to provide it in the same format every time. It’s like those dungeon that insisted on having a header to EVERY dungeon room describing the lighting, sounds, walls, ceiling,floor, etc. Or the overly long 3e monster stat blocks that insisted on listing EVERY detail possible. And there’s no fucking summary sheet! Dammit, go buy a copy of the Ready Ref sheets. I think they are still about $1. Look at half page of monster stats. Every fucking monster in existance described in half a page. But modern authors can’t be bothered to help the DM that much. Oops. Shouldn’t generalize. That’s my definition of evil.

Finally, this is supposed to be a few adventure. It doesn’t feel like a fey adventure. It feels about like an adventure that has “Elf (Subtype: Fey)” saying it’s a fey adventure. It’s devoid of life or imagination in that area. It tries in places, with lovers and special powers when holding a rose, and so on, but it’s not enough. It doesn’t have that otherworldly shimmery vibe that I’m looking for when I think of a Fey Adventure. Instead it would be labeled as “Several Subtype: Fey monsters!”, but I guess that’s not very good marketing?

Another of the little lost children that could have been.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/169495/The-Last-Prayer-of-the-Dying?1892600

by Lotheras of Gaiden
Self Published
Swords & Wizardry
Level 1

The Villagers of Iceshire are certain they are hearing the gurgling and moaning of the undead in the snow capped woodlands that surrounds their tiny civilization. Some of the citizens believe a Liche, spoken of in legends, is trying to acquire what he desperately seeks: the Gray Pearl. An amulet possessing the divine powers of creation.

I know that “What does OSR mean?” is a hot button topic in some circles. In a related note, is an adventure a “Swords & Wizardry Adventure” if it contains S&W stats? Are there any other requirements? I don’t know. It seems like there’s a Spirit of the Law and Letter of the Law thing going on. This is a linear scene-based adventure that uses S&W stats but does not follow the S&W treasure guidelines. Also it’s linear & scene based. It’s got some decent imagery, especially with the monsters, but 8 linear scene encounters, half with large groups of ghouls, half with “and then after you kill them 4 more come rushing in” just doesn’t seem like the spirit of S&W to me.

Adventures like this are why I write reviews. I have certain expectations and when they are not met I tend to feel cheated. This thing is not what I expect when I buy a S&W adventure. It may be fine on its own (it’s not) but you should know what you are getting before you buy. Especially at the $4 or $5 price point on RPGNoW.

A monastery/religious village is having trouble meditating at night because of the increasing moans coming from the forest. The Moans of the Dead! (It sounded better in my head, in a cheesy 50’s way.) There’s about a page of background before it jumps into the encounters, which are one page per encounter. The introduction is ok. it’s nicely terse and evocative, but is missing a few things. Like a map. (Remember, Scene based! in a village?) The name of the bad guy is buried further in the adventure, even though the priest briefs you at the start. A little more on the village would have been nice at the start, to get things oriented.

The eight encounters all have the same qualities. Props for consistency, even if they are not great. At least the review will be shorter. 🙂

There’s a section of read aloud. it’s about four sentences each, but quite long sentences. There’s usually one good descriptive line in it. “Pale white boney hands reach out from the earthy graves!” or “in the distance you hear the screams of the villagers and the moans of the dead.” This will be followed by a description of the battle about to take place. There’s ALWAYS a battle. “3 tentacles attack” or some such. Then there’s the monster stat block and description (again, nice monster descriptions!) and a couple of sentences on tactics (which usually has a good evocative line: “they claw wildly with their bony fingers”, or some such. I liked it.Then there’s a section on treasure. “A silver ring and 14 cp.” or “12gp and 22 sp.” There tend to be large groups of monsters, especially ghoul-like things with paralyzation abilities, and after you kill the first batch another batch then shows up.

You should be recognizing some issues about now. Not enough treasure. Forced combats supported by the scene-based and format and lack of a map. Lots of tough creatures. Lack of agency in the second group showing up in a programmed fashion. In addition there is another railroad with the priest showing up later dead. That’s a typical plot-based problem that doesn’t account for the party not following the plan the designer had.

I REALLY like the creativity of the non-book monsters. (I didn’t go into them, but they are really good, non-standard, creepy, and well described.) I like the sentence or two of evocative text in each encounter. But the rest of the text is just filler. Stylistically, this feels like a Pathfinder or 4e adventure than it does a S&W adventure.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/264114/White-Box-Quests–Moans-of-Dead?1892600

by Joe Johnston
Task Boy Games
Labyrinth Lord
Levels 4-7

Uh … DeRp? A one page hex crawl in a foul swampy region. It gives it the old college try but falls short in its lack of verbs … and content.

I usually try and avoid reviewing one page things, but evidently I’m too dense to understand what I’m buying. It’s hard to justify a review with twice as many words as the product you’re reviewing. it just feels like I’m picking minutia apart, which is unfair to the designer.

The language used in this is pretty good: “baleful vapours issuing from Mt Foul” is some great imagery, as is some of the laconic humor: “your party has been stranded here until the next ship from capitol arrives (17: chance; check once per month.) Ouch! That’s a mood setter, if a bit subtle. 🙂

There’s a distinct lack of content here. Repeats of the map take up a lot of space. Repeats of swamp travel take up extra space. Things on the map are unexplained. But the real sin here is the lack of verbs. The folks in the hexes just sit there, as nouns. To paraphrase: “There’s a dragon in this hex” or “there’s undead in this hex.” In this way the crawl is similar to Isle of the Unknown, which also suffered from this problem. The good parts of The Wilderlands, and Nod, etc, are where there’s some kind of verb involved. The undead are collecting heads to build a ziggurat, or the dragon tends his near mortal wounds with rare herbs. This turns the description from a static feature to a dynamic encounter with possabilities for the DM to expand upon.

This don’t do that.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/113026/The-Evil-of-Witches-Fen?1892600

by Joe Johnson
Taskboy Games
Labyrinth lord
Levels 3-5

A Stone Giant needs your help. His clan was slaughtered by a mad wizard who now lairs among its bones. He wants revenge. Can you survive the warrens beneath Fogbreath Peak?

This is a one-page dungeon assault of a mostly linear 12-ish room cave/dungeon. It’s got some nicely tight writing in places, with the more generic parts standing out in contrast.

I find myself questioning myself about the one page dungeon. The focus required to produce something viable on one page is admirable. The artificial constraint forces the designer to really focus on the core elements of evocative creativity. As a tool to hone one’s skills in design I think they are great. As a DM I can also appreciate the ease of use they provide. one page. Map on the same page. Everything on one page. Easy to grasp rooms (If it’s designed correctly, that is …) It harkens back to the days of just a map and some notes on a paper for running the game. IE: the way I like to imagine most people run their home games. What I can’t get past is the artificial constraint it imposes and the thought that it’s more of a gimmick. Stonehell got by this by providing support materials but keeping the “running the game” portion to the one page concept.

The opening of this is pretty good and is a great example of tight writing. It’s two sentences long. You’ve been hired by a Stone Giant, Jarl Drago, and in exchange for five large diamonds you are to return with the severed head of the blood-traitor Ironbones. It reminds me of the very short intro to Against the Giants. Specificity is the soul of storytelling and that specificity comes through. With just those few sentences you should be able to run a nice background encounter with the Jarl. The flavor comes through.

Similarly, a skeleton holding a sign saying “go away or stay for dinner”, a nice stone statue, and orgres and trolls who can be bribed combine with static ghostly images to provide decent flavor blasts to the adventure. There’s another nice little puzzle that has a clue earlier in the dungeon, something I wish more adventures with puzzles would do. A nice trapped chest (web blasts with a monster then showing up) is great, as is an evil book that is one of the primary treasures. “Ogre ‘Joey’ is in charge of security for Ironbones. It can be bribed at the LL’s discretion.” is a great example of adding colour while not droning on.

And then there’s the +1 shield and some simple “2 monsters in a room” encounters. These detract. A boring wandering table of just monsters on a page (“10 Morlocks” should instead be “10 Morlocks bringing tribute” or something like that.) The troll doesn’t have a nice or much or a personality, in contrast to Joey the ogre who comes with JUST barely enough to run him as a full person.

I like this adventure. I want to like this adventure? it reminds me of the things I like. it’s probably fine for printing out and running a decent little adventure at a con or as a last minute game night fill in. I’m not sure it’s a GO TO adventure, but certainly if it were included in a book of one-pagers it would be a stand out and i’d be happy-ish with it.

It’s pay what you want at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/107279/Under-Fogbreath-Peak?1892600