tenfootpole.org

by Frank Mentzer
Eldtritch enterprises
Generic
Any Level

Adventures are easy to play; usually, you just fight your way through. But here, there is a mystery to be solved. Eleven key people work at the Acaeum complex. One of them is a criminal. None of them can be removed by combat.

This is a mystery adventure requiring the players to figure out who’s stealing stuff from a magical research society. It is AT LEAST three times longer than it should be. It does set things up so the mystery can’t be solved by magic, which is less forced/a better pretext than many of these adventures. It’s one of the better EE adventures … It is left as an exercise to the reader to discover the weaselyness of that last sentence.

Most mystery adventures in fantasy-land don’t work. The characters have access to too many divination type spells to check alignment, question the gods, etc. This adventure has a set up which makes the mystery work and doesn’t feel TOO forced. There’s a magical research society in a city. Because of their work magic doesn’t function inside the building. It’s also impossible to sneak stuff outside of the building because of wards, etc, that are well described. And yet some items have gone missing. The mystery will be solved in 4 days time when the Security Department runs their quarterly magical investigation report. But … the admin group is jealous of all the accolades that Security gets. They want some accolades. They hire the party on the down low to find the items/culprit so THEY can get some accolades and appear to be more competent than they actually are. That’s a very human motivation and i quite relatable and therefore plausible. If you take the environment as a given then the set up and pretext work well. That’s a job well done.

It’s hard for me to get past the setting though. It’s a magical multi-ethnic society for magical research where everyone lives together in harmony and elves and faeries hire themselves out and the streetlights are continual flame spells and blah blah blah. A magical ren faire. Bleech. But, maybe you like tat shit. If you were in to a later time period of play or some spelljammer type stuff then it would probably fit in quite well. Spelljammer makes everything better. Speaking of settings: some detail on Aquaria is shared. This is the campaign world that I THINK got a limited GaryCon release a couple of years ago. Giant squids run the world and there is some kind of weird Fair Witness/Strange in a Strange Land memory/object recall stuff going on. It’s all described in many words and has absolutely no impact on the adventure at all.

It’s all just fodder for the size 14 font. The margins are generous, the fonts big, the text verbose and conversational and the extraneous detail glorious in its mundanity. Seriously guys, What the Fuck? I know we’re all getting older but, hey, get some bifocals if you need to and pay someone to do some decent layouts for you. Fullerton or Kramer maybe. The lack of focus brings the whole adventure down. It reads more like some stream of consciousness ramblings than it does a tightly edited manuscript. It makes it hard for the user to pick out details and focus in on the important things in the adventure. For example: there are only about 20 relevant pages in the adventure. This amounts to the description of the basement and a page-long description of each of the major NPC’s. The focus of the adventure is to ‘find’ and question the major NPC’s in the adventure, the subject matter sages, and work out from there the culprit. That can be augmented by a trip to the basement. Everything else is just an after-thought, and it shows. The NPC’s are well described with lengthy personalities, histories, etc, which is absolutely correct and required for an NPC driven/social adventure. page each os a bit excessive, IMHO, and I could have done with a single page summary, a kind of tear-sheet, for reference. I find it hard to believe that the EE folks are being paid by the word, so it must just be a hard habit to break. The rest of the 40 pages of content is really disappointing. The magical research society is described generically with none of the magic or wonder that one would expect to find. There’s no flavor. Let’s be clear: I believe that when I buy a D&D product that I’m paying for someones imagination. If you give me generic and boring and mundane and the like then I’m being ripped off. I was ripped off here. There needed to be tables of weird shit, or tables to create your own weird shit, or SOMETHING like that in order to fill in the actual details of what goes on in the upper three floors of the building. And No, that’s not the DM’s fucking job. I mean, yes, it is the DM’s job but you’re ignoring the fact that I just paid you for YOUR imagination. expect you to give me something interesting for my cash and “Room 148-151: Consultation Rooms for visitors.” doesn’t get anywhere CLOSE to cutting it. I know that point of the adventure is the NPC’s and the basement, but if you are going to include forcing four security guards on the party then YOU need to describe them, not explicitly leave it as an exercise to the reader. It doesn’t have to long. That’s where actual skill comes in.

In the end, solving the mystery comes down to a single clue buried deep in the 60 pages of text. Fred says “I heard Bob was missing something” and Bob says he told no one his item was missing. How did Fred know the item was missing? That’s not enough but, as they say, the fun is in the journey and not the destination.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/108959/The-Case-of-the-Missing-Magic?1892600

by Stephen Newton
Thick Skull Adventures
DCC RPG
0-Level

When strange creatures prey on the innocent, the meek must become the hunters! Panic is mounting in the isolated settlement of Sagewood! Frightened villagers speak in hushed tones of “walking frogs the size of men” peering at them from within the woods. And now, a severely wounded local trapper has barely managed to return from Dead Goblin Lake; the fate of his partner known only to the foul creatures that so savagely attacked them. In a small village without heroes, the townsfolk look desperately towards each other for salvation from this terror. Those who face the creatures will almost certainly pay with their lives… Are you brave enough to risk it all?

This is meant to be a linear outdoor adventure with fifteen or so encounters. It tries to bring some atmosphere … but falls short. It feels more like a 4e adventure in style than a DCC RPG adventure. I hate reviewing these sorts of adventures; they are uninspired even in their suckiness.

The townsfolk are all drinking in a tavern when someone bursts in reporting an attack. Everyone rushes out to pursue the attacking menace. And thus your 0-level mob is born. You rush down the trail to the west of the lake and have fifteen encounters before finishing the adventure. That’s the 4e feel. You WILL have these encounters. Suck it up and play the game the way the designer meant. It’s not even clear to me why the group rushed out of the tavern or why they are following the trail to the west. Because it’s there and that’s the adventure we’re playing tonight, I guess.

On the way around the lake … which you are circling because this is the adventure you are playing tonight fuck you very much … you to get fight giant beaver-things, get stuck in traps set by trappers that hunt giant beaver-things, and fight generic humanoids who look like bullywugs. There is a certain rustic charm in infusing the adventure with the trappings of the frontier: trappers, giant beavers and the like. But the entire thing is just so BLAND that it feels like a colossal waste of time. The final encounter is the only one with anything interesting and it feels more like a 4e set piece, with the frog-mother laying eggs in to water as the party fights her.

This is an EXTREMELY disappoint DCC adventure. It reminds me a lot of the 3e stuff that some of minor publishers then converted the monster stats to OSRIC or Labyrinth Lord and slapped an “OSR” sticker on it in order to milk the market for a few more sales. Different games have a different feel. DCC is about freaky shit, horribly things, unique monsters & magic, and those awesome moments that we tell stories about forever after they happen.That’s not this. There’s a cave behind a waterfall. I love that meme. It’s takes something wonderful and unusual, the waterfall, and then adds a secret to it that the players will surely discover. It’s the kind of whimsy and wonder that appeals to us. And it’s fucking boring as shit in this.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/103335/Attack-of-the-Frawgs?1892600

by Bill Barsh
Pacesetter Games & Center Stage Miniatures
AD&D
Levels 7-9

This adventure is a tie-in with a line of demon mini’s from Center Stage. This is a simple 30 room demon prison with a hub/spoke layout. The party is sent in to kill the demons since the magical wards that hold them in place are weakening.

There are some hints: the pit fiend section has pits in it. The Type V section has a lot of sword art. The type VI section has a flaming sword. My favorite part is a large group of manes that rush out when the the party is trying to open a door. I find that amusing. There are the usual murals of good battling evil and a jumping from pillar to pillar room, and an anti-gravity pit. Generally it’s not much that hasn’t been seen before and there’s little to lift.

There’s not much to this review. That’s because there’s not much to this adventure. Let me give you an example. In one room there’s a transparent casket filled with a pink swirling gas. It does nothing. That’s both an opportunity lost and an amount of detail that is unusual for the adventure.

I need inspiration that I can riff off of during play. This isn’t it.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/263898/D5-The-Darketst-Pit?1892600

by Joseph Goodman
Goodman Games
Castles & Crusades
Levels 3-5

(This is the C&C version, although I understand it is based on DCC #3.)

The characters come across an ancient wizard’s tower. The nearby keep has been reduced to rubble over the ages, but the tower is in perfect condition. It is surrounded by an impenetrable force field that cannot be breached – not even by the ghost of the long-dead wizard, who has been trapped within for centuries. Surely there must be great treasure within this magical abode. But how to get to it?

This is an attempt to get in to, and then explore, and old wizards tower. A decent vertical dungeon layout, ruins levels, and overall theme but falls short in many of the rooms and in the monster department. Shades of what’s to come in the DCC RPG but mired in the usual problems of the old DCC module line.

There are some small ruins, say of a keep, and in the middle stands a tall wizards tower surrounded by a force field. There’s no visible entrance, but there is a ghostly mage sometimes seen inside the force field. The party explores the ruins to find caves and explores the caves to fine the entrance to the tower and then explores the tower. I have now covered two of the three interesting parts of the adventure.

The first part is the whole ‘find the entrance to the tower’ thing. You have to go explore the ruins around the tower and then explore the caves underneath in order to find the entrance the tower. This is a pretty nifty warm-up to the real adventure and I wish more adventures did it. There was this whole ‘transition to the mythic underworld’ meme that was going on awhile back and it’s worth repeating here: there needs to be a transition from the real world to the world of D&D. From the shopkeepers and farmers and the like to the realm to slimes, weird effects and strange creatures. When the players see their characters cross over the threshold from one to the other it add gravitas and a special feeling to what’s going on. This place is different. The rules in the real world don’t apply anymore. That’s what the search in the ruins does and the exploration of the caverns reinforces. You have to have an adventure and explore before you get to the goal of the adventure.

The vertical map is the second great part of the adventure. There’s a great cross-section map that shows the tower in the ruins, the various levels under the tower in the caverns and the various ways to get from level to level. A sinkhole to level 2, a trap door to level 1, a secret stair form levels one to three. it’s exactly the sort of strong vertical that I like seeing in a map. I love it when players don’t really know whee they are or where the stair leads. That kind of uncertainty supports a play style where the party are fearfully exploring, trying not to get killed, while getting as much PHAT L00T as possible.

The room encounters tend to be less than impressive. Mostly just a monster in a room that attacks as soon as you open the door, as supported by the copious read-aloud text which invariably ends with “It Attacks!.” Boring. There’s a puzzle/trap or two but the “It Attacks” is is singular take-away. This craptasticness is further supported by the linear nature of the individual level maps. They are really just a linear map of rooms connected by a single hallway. This is the old DCC style that I remember: one way forward and everything attacks. Not my style. There’s a couple of standard tropes in the wizards tower, once the party reaches it. Two creatures pretending to be good, one of which is not. A reluctant guardian ho is otherwise nice. And then the inevitably “Weird wizard stuff” room. This, and the treasure in it, are one of the better things in the adventure. A room full of non-standard magical stuff to play with and loot will always get my attention. There are hints here of the (far better) DCC RPG play style.

The adventure is good when it channels DCC RPG and the more … idiosyncratic.. play style that it invokes and not as good when it’s just cloning crappy 3.0/3.0 adventures.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/3259/Castles–Crusades-The-Mysterious-Tower?1892600

by Bill Barsh
Pacesetter Games
AD&D
Level 1

The story of the Vampire Queen is as enigmatic as the woman herself. Her palace, the dungeons beneath a ruined castle beckon those who would seek to end her reign of terror. But before the dungeons can be entered, the Castle Blood must be cleansed. Palace of the Vampire Queen: Castle Blood is an adventure for first level characters that are destined to meet the most powerful vampire under the crescent moon.

This is a kind of prequel to Palace of the Vampire queen, taking place in the ruined castle above the dungeons. It’s got a great map and some good encounters and personalities. The designer has really stepped up his game with this one and it hits a lot of high points.

Palace of the Vampire Queen is full of dungeons. This adventure takes place in the ruined castle ABOVE the dungeons. This is a little bit of story-based introduction, a page or so, but then the goodness starts with some great hooks. Rather than the entire adventure being focused around a single goal instead it’s been laid out more like a location. There are certain things at the location that could get the party involved. Someone could pay them to burn down/destroy The Black Arch which is found inside the castle. Or maybe they are involved as a rescue mission to save the daughter of a merchant which is held captive in the castle. From the very beginning then you get the feel that this is just a place that exists outside of the characters involvement in it, and that carries over in to many of the encounters. I think that gives the adventure a uch more natural feel and its therefore much easier for the players to suspend disbelief.

The map for the castle is kind of cool. I’m not sure if its a creation of the designer or if he’s lifted it from a historical reference, but it’s nifty. It looks like the layout of a real castle. It’s on a hill with a drawbridge over a ravine and a barbican that backs up to a courtyard with the castle behind it. Portions of the castle (what’s the difference between a castle and a keep?) are ruined and its three-ish levels high, with ruined rooftops, flat rooftops, collapsed towers and room sections. It’s a pretty nice environment to have an adventure in. The 3d/vertical nature of the environment could have been emphasized more, maybe with additional ways between levels, or weakened floors or specifically calling out a summary of various level entrances. It IS a really nice map though.

Encounters are much more interesting than many OSR products, at least with respect to monster interactions. These guys are not just hanging around waiting to be killed and they usually have some indication of being willing to interact. There are some kobolds at the barbican gates that can be paid to extend some planks over so the party can cross. There’s a group of evil dwarves in the barbican that are smiths/armorers and while its stated they ambush there’s also enough information to build something more social out of it. There are orcs, kobolds, and gnolls in the castle proper that all have a reason for being there, a set of motivations, and potentially a reason to work with the party. I think this is MUCH more interesting than a bare room description or a simple “they are guards and attack!” description. Yeah, maybe they DO just attack, but at least this way there are other options as well. There’s a lot of sparseness to the rooms; the castle is not packed full of enemies. There’s a thing or two to interact with and some unique magic items scattered in with the normal book items. There’s also an encounter with The Vampire Queen herself. Taken by itself it seems out of place. But if you think of this as the prequel to the Palace of the Vampire Queen then its a great introduction and foreshadowing of the main villain, as are the various npc/monster social encounters. They can all be used to build up the Vampier Queen in the players minds to something more than ‘Just Another Monster’. I love that.

The map design seems much more real and taken alongside the more ‘social’ encounters with monsters, or at least the possibility thereof, it really hits on things I like seeing. I could quibble with more but it would be backseat designing.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/264077/V5-Palace-of-the-Vampire-Queen-Castle-Blood?1892600

by Michael Curtis
Goodman Games
Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG
Level 3

Evil lurks beneath the ocean! For years it has slumbered, but now it rises once again, threatening to wash over the surface world like a monstrous wave. Only a handful of stalwarts stand between the nefarious schemes of the deep and a world drowned in sorrows, but first they must navigate a wizard’s sanctum, a magical prison, and the most unusual dungeon they’ve ever faced! Can they stem the tide in time or will they lose themselves forever to the Sea Change curse?

This is a small collection of set-piece encounters themed around the sea without actually being underwater. It has the usual DCC emphasis on unique monsters and treasures and the locations are decently evocative … if a bit predictable. A decent journeyman effort in a field full of beginners.

DCC’s Might Deeds seem to encourage a kind of set-piece play in a non-forced way. When the modules and DM supports that play style by putting lots of stuff to interact with in the rooms then they are doing a good job. At some point there’s a line between encouraging the play style and designing set-piece encounters. Swinging from flaming chains to get across a room is cool. It’s less cool though when its clear that the DM has put the flaming chains there so the group will swing across them and more cool when somehow the party does something to put chains across the room. Hmm, a better way to describe it may be an appeal to open-ended problems. The group comes across a 50′ span they need to cross. If the DM puts chains across it from the ceiling then its clear what the party is supposed to do … and less fun in my opinion. If the party tosses a couple of ropes over rocks on the ceiling or builds a rickety bridge or gets a giant to toss them or a dragon to put its tail across it or uses a spell to create a rainbow or some such then I think its more fun. But there has to be wood planks, a giant, dragon, or rocks on the ceiling to throw ropes across. Some linear adventures have generally felt like a collection of set pieces to me and I find those less interesting. Funhouse and tournament style dungeons like C1 and C2 are a good example. Where’s the line between the DM putting in a slick wooden bridge over a lava pit and NOT putting a bridge over a lava pit? I don’t know. Both are fun, but, maybe, only fun when used in moderation. I’m probably being too harsh and compounding it by spending so much time on it. The rooms here are full of stuff: eggs, dead fish on rusty hooks from the ceiling, a jumping across a big chasm on stepping stones room, slime (the normal kind), tar (both kinds) and the like. There’s something going on in just about every room … sometimes in a good wy and sometimes in that forced 4e way.

Pontificating over. The party finds a trinket in a different horde and they start getting dreams from a sea princess who needs rescued from the jail an evil mage put her in. You go get a horn on a cool place. The horn lets you summon a dragon turtle dungeon that gets you a key that lets you get entrance to a third site that has the princess. Who then eats your face off. Yeah, you knew it was coming and so did the party. The locations themselves are pretty cool. A sea cave reached by an arcing stone bridge, and a dungeon on top of a giant turtle. The turtle dungeon, in particular, is cool because of the kind of ‘just drained’ aspect of the dungeon: all of the water has just flowed out of it so you get this kind of ‘walking across the bay after the water has gone out’ kind of feel. Or, in Indiana: walking across the old reservoir after the damn was allowed to drain it. It’s like a vision of an alien world and is done much better here, dry, than any undersea descriptions I’ve even seen in another module. I’m sure this harkens back to some Mythic Underworld theory or some such, but, it’s clear, the party is Someplace Different. The other aspect I like here is the journey to get the dungeon. Find the horn which summons the dungeon which gets you the key to the prison on an island. This is the kind of quest/journey thing which was always alluded to in the DMG, especially as I think back to the Artifact Destruction section. It was never simple, it was always a journey. It is totally present in this module but the module could have done a bit better in reinforcing that aspect … You journey to different places to do different things. The travel is glossed over, which is fair especially when you have page count to worry about, but a column or so of ideas and concepts would have been nice.

The monsters are treasure are of the good ‘New DCC’ style. Meaning they have A LOT more in common with OD&D than with any version after that. It’s all magical and mysterious and new, exactly the way a monster or magic item should be. Players should be afraid of monsters. Who knows what the fuck that thing does? You can only once discover that a troll is killed with fire/acid. A Lamprey-man?!? WTF that does that thing do??!!? That’s what I want my players thinking and that’s what the DCC RPG, and this module, deliver. Treasure too. A bit of coral you hold in your mouth to breath underwater. A intricate rope bracelet (like summer camp!) that gives you a bonus to underwater activities. These are cool items. Unique items. Not out of a book. Players hang on to the cool and unique and sell crappy generic “Sword, +1” items.

This is available on DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/113323/Dungeon-Crawl-Classics-75-The-Sea-Queen-Escapes?1892600