tenfootpole.org

By Aaron Gustwiller
Aaron's Gaming Stuff
S&W
Levels 1-5

As long as anyone can remember, Griffon Keep has been in ruins, with only vague rumors of strange rites performed in the dungeon below the keep giving any hint as to what may have occurred there and a possible reason for why the castle was eventually abandoned. But for anyone who lives near the ruins, it is believed to be a cursed place that is best avoided. There are other rumors though, that say the castle was once the home of a wealthy king and that his riches are still hidden away beneath the keep. 

This seventeen page adventure uses about eight pages to describe about 120 rooms across three levels of classic dungeon maps. Minimally described and with a seemingly random assortment of creatures and treasure, there are fewer specials than I would prefer, and thus not much going on other than stabbing and finding keys. 

As I wade through the filth in my kingdom of shit, there is a special place in my heart for the minimally described dungeon. I don’t particularly like them, but I do prefer them over the ones that drone on and on and on about a single room. There’s a balance, between the verbose monstrosities and the minimally described … and this dungeon isn’t it.

There’s not much lead-in here. Really just that intro text and a wandering monster table. There’s a small blurb about the dungeon walls being irregular fieldstone and the upper ruins, what there is of them,  and then off we go! I appreciate the context provided by the upper ruin … though it really falls down in practice, not hinting at all of the horrors that lay beneath through footprints and the ilk. And, of course, the wanderers don’t do anything. I can has sadz.

Inside the dungeon room are, in fact, quite minimal. “There are two chests in the room.” or “A stone pillar is located at each of the rooms four corners.” While the treasure room goes on to list treasure, both have nothing more to them. Nor do almost none of the rooms here. “There are ten zombies in this room.”  Vampire Queen at least saved the ink by just saying “10 zombies.” There is, quite rarely, just a hint of something more. Locked doors waiting on you to find the levels key to open them, for the treasures beyond. “Hanging from a peg on the wall is an Iron Key, which will unlock the doors at: … “ So, to it’s credit it tells you, at a locked door, where the key is and in the key room which doors the key unlocks. But it all feels more than a little crpg. We have a medium here, the written word, which is not limited to the coding rules of 1979. It’s a shame that is not taken advantage of. 

It’s trying, sometimes. “There are 3 Orcs in this room; one is wearing part of the tapestry from room 1 as a cape.” But, alas, this is just trivia. This is nothing special and leads to nothing. No knowledge to be gained. In fact, the roome one tapestry is “… and along the south wall hangs a tattered and faded tapestry.” So, not even a design to tell that the tapestry is FROM room one. 

In other places the little effort is counter-productive. A room with pillars (again) we are told has one “2 Ghouls hiding behind one of them; they gain surprise when they attack.” Well, yes, that might be the case. I think, perhaps, though, tha the wiser move is to take in account the parties alertness, their actions and so on before determining surprise, yes? Especially for such a mundane hiding spot?

The maps here, I’ll briefly mention, are by Tim Hardin, one of my favorites. Tim tens to do larger dungeon level maps and that’s on display here, with thirty or so rooms per level. There are some fine dungeon features on the maps, like all those pillars, as well as same level stairs, for confounding the parties, and hallways running under others. Porculli and statues and pits, oh my! These are excellent foundational elements that could have been exploited much better.

“Sniffing around the room is a Hell Hound.” is the entirety of one description. And this is quite the interesting little thing, the power levels here. Wraiths on level one (although they only attack if you fuck with a body.) and it would not be unusual to find 5 HD creatures about. I am leaning, hard, toward this being a randomly generated dungeon. The monsters and treasure and traps being placed at die roll. Which makes me wonder about the appearance of a Hell Hound. In 1e that would be monster level four, which technically CAN appear on level three of a dungeon. But, more to the word, it just feels really disconnected. The creatures, rooms, traps, and so on don’t really make sense together. As if all we did was take the random roll and let it stand. And, of course you CAN key a dungeon that way. But, then again, there are tons of online generators that will do that also. So what makes a dungeon stand out? It’s the ability of the designer to take those random rolls and put the thing together into something more than that. I know I harp on evocative descriptions, but, also, making the dungeon make SENSE. A slide trap on stairs with spikes at the end? Perfect. A book that causes you to forget your memorized spells? Great! (Although, i believe it’s traditional to give it a dumb name.) These are both examples of specials/traps in this dungeon, but, also, they are very few and far between.

I suppose that makes this a true throw-back. And shows you how far the hobby has come from Vampire Queen. There IS a happy medium between minimally descriptions and the reams of text wasted on some keys in some adventures. And this is closer than the verbose ones, but lacks anything to it to single it out as something other than Randomly Keyed.

This is free at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519650/beneath-the-ruins-of-griffon-keep?1892600

By Play The Pulp Productions
Generic/Universal

A quick minidungeon, visit a few floors of the mad wizards tower. OSR-system neutral. My first dungeon, made mostly to practice Dungeondraft and dungeon design.

This thirteen page adventure presents thirteen floors of a wizards tower, one per page. It’s one set-piece/mystery per simple floor in this, with the focus appearing to be on the dungeon map rather than the encounter proper. And, the usual abstracted problem with the Generic/Universal crowd. 

I’m still bitter about the Nystul thing, so I’m reviewing this. Plus, our nameless designer wanted to practice dungeon design, so, maybe we can catch this one before more mistakes are made. This has twelve pages with a dungeon level on each page. Most of the levels are a single room or perhaps one main room with a couple of closet-like rooms on it. 

The wizards tower has about a hundred levels above ground. One the top two and the first floor are described (as three of the ten thousand) with the rest being noted as looted and full of junk. TThen the rest of the levels presented are underground. A few are connected to each other with stairs, but other are reachable only by major portal, with the ever popular “put the magic jem in the portal to go through the magic gate” thing going on. Each level/room is, essentially, a set-piece. You’re going to be doing one thing on that level/room, generally. 

We can start with the most obvious of things: the pdf proper. It’s thirteen pages long. And it’s 171mb. It runs/pages like frozen molasses on my PC. This shouldn’t happen. You’ve got to get the page resolution down to an appropriate level. Nothing here requires an overly large resolution. It’s a very simple background, a paragraph or two of text on page, and a very simple dungeon map. The map does have some features on it, like a bed or a piano or such, but it’s nothing that would require the 171mb tha the PDF is. Which make navigating the PDF a major pain in the ass.

This is also a generic/universal adventure, and it shows. It’s seems a truth, universally acknowledged, that a generic/universal adventure will be afraid of its own shadow. SPecifically, it will abstract descriptions and content. I don’t know why this is. If someone writes one then they immediately seem to switch in to some mode where they are afraid to actually describe something. “There is a treasure behind the bookcase.” What is the treasure? It’s up to you to put it in. There is a monster in the shed. What does the monster look like? It’s a beast. And yet specificity is the soul of the narrative. But there is little here. You have to fucking describe shit. You need to be concrete. You can still be generic/universal, that’s just the stats. But put int the fucking treasure. Describe the monsters. Make us see and visualize them in our minds eye. 

I note, also, that we DO get stats for the beasties, so, not generic/universal after all. It would be far, far better to stat something for OSE or Labyrinth Lord and then label it generic universal than to just make up some system. T$R is dead. Long live Dancey and the OGL.

The overall adventure design seems to be derided from the crpg market. There is a lot of “find the green gem to activate the green portal” sort of thing. It’s based on linear design principals. You are blocked and can go no further up/down, until you can activate the glowing COLOR portal. And, then, on each level, some sort of challenge to overcome. Oh no! Spinning blades! Oh no, living statues! Oh, no, an indescribable beast! Defest the obstacle, get the gem, go to the next floor through the portal. This is then combined with a weird power level thing. You’ll fight some 1HD skeletons. After you fight the 66HP Indescribable Beast. The power levels of the critters are just all over place, with little progression. And, of course, it’s all linear. 

This is, perhaps, the best written of the rooms “The memory of death looms heavily on this floor, the screams still echoing through the walls.Taunts and threats can be heard from the guillotine.If approached, he will mockingly introduce himself as Murray, ordering the players to return him to his body,so he can continue his evil conquest.” We’ll ignore the Memory of death nonsense. The screams and taunts of the guillotine remind you, I’m sure, of every french revolution scene you’ve ever seen. Thats good. This reference helps brings to bear more than the written word can convey alone. And, that’s about it. Otherwise, the descriptions are pretty padded out, what there is of them, with little evocative text.

You got maps made and text attached to them and got it listed on DriveThru. That’s all a great accomplishment in the mechanics ot dungeon design and publishing. Now, for the art of writing and design …

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/521517/the-tower-of-10-000-floors?1892600

By Wes Stroud

Self Published

Cairn 2e

[…] Now, the once-mighty fortress lies in ruins, the steel and iron that once shined over the valley now tarnished and rusty. The spires that had greeted visitors and new residents now lie fallen and twisted. The spirits of the fallen citizens of Boccol, the mages, the guards, all roam the crushed and twisted hallways, seeking that which will let them finally cross over. Creatures have made their homes in the remains. Some venture here to retrieve the mythical treasure. Few come back, and those that do speak of stranger things still.

This thirteen page adventure presents a small ruined complex with about fourteen rooms. Dragons and ghosts and abstracted treasure compliment descriptions that are an absolute mess to wade through. Whatever was supposed to be going on here, the vision did not come through.

I am overwhelmingly confused by this. There was some vision for the vibe of this place but I don’t think it comes through at all. It is supposed to be a ruined palace/fortress type thing. A dragon shows up and wrecks the place and now there are a lot of ghosts/spirits running around. The ghosts show up in several rooms. I think we’re supposed to get a sense of melancholy, of them doing their daily tasks, and of horror. And they are everywhere. But they come off very perfunctory. It’s hard to really communicate that, but the vibe from the wandering table perhaps best relates the issues. “Skeletons, animated by Kuyyin” or “Wight, animated by a rune when Boccol was destroyed.” This is a reason WHY the undead exists. It doesn’t really communicate what they do, or hoor, or melancholy, or anything else. You just get the sense that they are illusions (and not very evocative ones at all) doing things that don’t really matter to the adventure. 

And then there’s the map. This is a pointcrawl, so a kind of flowcharty block diagram of rooms with lines connecting them. This loses a lot of the vibe that a real map would bring and, I think, sows confusion how things are connected. I know it should be si,plier, it’s just a line, right? But any sense of verticality or space is just lost via that block diagram map. At one point, the very start, we get “Stream – the stream runs some 30 yards under the earth before the cistern pool. 2:6 to find an air pocket. The water is cold.” I THINK cisterns usually have a top? They are like wells, right? I’m just left confused. I guess it could be an underground aquifer? I’m open to the cistern issue being a lack of understanding on my part, but then there are other places. Like “Spire – a massive chunk of metal pierces through the ceiling, nearly touching the visible

center of the lake. A door can be seen that, when entered, leads to (6) after a while.” A door, in the spire? Is this a tower that has collapsed? I just don’t get it. And this happens over and over again. Another room has “Pulleys, cables, and platforms are frozen across the span of this room. The East wall has a number of hatch-doors, small enough to squeeze a person through. A set of levers & cranks line the North wall. The South wall is a maze of gears and springs” Is this a chasm? Are we supposed to leap from one to another? I just don’t get the intent of the room from the description. Or the main throne room which says “As large as this space is, the vault below the floor is equally large” Can we see it? I’m not really sure what is going on.

I’m not hating on this. I do think that the map abstraction just doesn’t work. And that the ghosts thing just isn’t hitting the way that perhaps the designer intended. These work together, I think, to help sow some confusion with the actual room descriptions … it’s hard to figure out what the designers intent was for each room. You can get the basic here, that there IS something in the room, but, more than the vast majority of what I see, you can’t really figure out what the vibe of the room is supposed to be. It’s like many of the things need just one more sentence … which probably means that the existing text needs to be reworked, or framed in such a way to bring additional context to them (re: the map, for example.) 

This is free at Itch. 

https://alfalcon.itch.io/the-spires-of-kuyyin

By Ian Hickey
Gravity Realms
2e
Levels 1-2

Crashing into an unfamiliar world, the adventurers begin to uncover past events between two warring factions and a hunger that led to their downfall: a hidden cult dedicated to the return of the Great Toad, Father of Death and Rebirth, an ancient being responsible for birthing the universe! For many decades, the cult has been in hibernation. But now, a wandering tribe of ogres has awakened the cult, becoming its servants and capturing tributes to feed the Great Toad in preparation for an ancient prophecy. The stars are in alignment, and the hottest of summers is upon us; the way to RA’hala will soon open, and the father of death will consume everything!

This 117 page adventure uses about seventy pages to describe sevenish scenes, some of which are mini-dungeon and some full blown, in an interconnected set of adventures that don’t mean anything. Mostly stabbing, the great set up is marred by overly lengthy text, as usual, and problems with the encounters. It’s not a disaster, but not worth running. Except for that set up …

So I’m taking my first run through this and I get to the section on weather on page elevent and it says “Clean, fresh water will be hard to find as dead bodies fill the lakes and rivers.” What’s that all about, I think to myself. Then, I get further in: “The day of the falling, thirty thousand people fell from the sky. Screams and thuds broke the silence of the summer heat.” OHHHHHH! That’s fun! This is a whole Dungeons and Dragons ride at the amusement park, except thirty thousand people get transported to the sky WAY above the new realm. Bloody splats! A friendly wizard zips by to give you a levitation potion, so, you know, you’re safe. And others survive also. You come together, only to find that you are revolving in to neanderthals AND your metal is rusting fast. Oh, also, there’s disease everywhere because of all the bodies. And, also, it’s super hot and dry, so you need extra water. (That fucking shit is not my favorite. I assume there’s some game trauma buried in my past when some asshole DM took away all of our shit because of it.) Anyway, you see a tower nearby and fight the small group of cavemen goblins in it. You get a hint to the curse, and follow that to a manor, and then meet a paladin, and then that leads to a village thats been raided, and then to an old dwarf mine, and then to the titular Ogre Caves, and then to an extradimensional space where thousands of high priests of the toad god from thousands of planets are all sacrificing people to bring the toad goad, avatar of universal destruction, back so he will destroy the universe. There’s nothing you can do, so you save the paladin from YOUR evil high priest (which is not as great as it might seem) and then run through a portal to another world. As the adventure says, “without the adventurers entering RA’hala, Imhullu [the paladin] dies, and the Great Toad God, father of destruction and rebirth, returns and consumes the cosmos. Can the adventurers stop the coming of the Great Toad if they enter RA’hala? No! They can only save Imhullu.” 

So, congrats, Friendship was the goal the entire time. I guess, maybe, you leveled? It feels wrong. I’m down with meaningless adventuring. I may even be down with a plot. But to have the goal of the adventure be a plot and then not be able to impact things in any way?  I mean you collect things along the way in your mini-adventures/scenes in this adventure, but, if you don’t collect them, not to worry, the evil high priest has them all collected for you. The lack of any free will, of your choices matterring, is just nonsense. This is the bullshit of one of those adventure paths, except all in one adventure package.

Looking at the read-aloud, it follows through on the railroad theme, along with over-reveals. “By the sound of it, the tower is infested with goblins; their shaman leader stands on top of a pile of stone blocks in the tower’s centre. Waving primitive stone weapons and covered in fur they prepare for your attack” or “ Two large palisades flank the entrance outlined by the campfires. From behind the palisades, a hail of poisonous toads rains down on you.” It doesn’t matter what you were doing, the designer has deigned that you must now be attacked. Nerfing any of the parties actions. You have no free will, you are but a pawn. This is not fun. This is the kind of shit that causes players to disengage. Don’t fucking do this! We can also see in places an over-reveal in the read-aloud. The RA telling the party things that they should only really be aware of after a deeper examination of the rooms. Not to mention, some of the re-adloud is just confusing. “A faint glow of light spills in a doorway at the far end of the room.” … uh, that room has no doors? I guess maybe a hallway?

This all extends to the DM text where things are padded out through some sloppy writing. “This large kitchen has an entrance into the dining hall and pantry and, a corridor connecting it to the reception and ballroom.” It’s the old wound, my lord.  Which is frustrating because in places there ARE hints of things being done correctly. “The large wooden dance floor, once polished and intact, now warped and buckled, covers the room. A large wooden piano dominates the southwest corner of the room” Getting near the piano can cause the floor to collapse. And we’re told that, or its hinted at anyway, by the warped and buckled floor. That’s the way you telegraph a graph in read-aloud. 

There is a disconnect in this adventure in places. We’ll get mounds of text but then that whole “falling through the air” air just comes out of nowhere eleven pages in. Likewise, there’s this paladin that things hinge on, supposedly the only reason you exist in this adventure, and yet here’s what we get “Shortly after the adventurers clear out the Duke’s Manor and attain 2nd level, they will encounter Imhullu in the wilderness, possibly near the kitchen gardens. Alternatively, she can show up near the adventurer’s camp. Imhullu is with a handful of survivors. They are being attacked by an ogre raiding party riding giant toads. Shouts for help attract the adventurer’s attention.” That’s the ENTIRE adventure section. Mountains and mountains of text, and then this. That fucking paladin gets almost nothing in the adventure. And yet thats who were supposed to be focused on saving at the end. (Again, for no fucking reason other than doing it.)  Tonally, this follows as well with things like “The Shamen of the Crow and Chief Mayor Randy Adams.” Uh … ok, it is 2025, I guess. If I’m not mistaken, he runs the inn that “The inn has turned into a hub for drunken Neanderthals” Sure thing man. It’s just got some weird tone to it in places. More of a Gamma World vibe, but in a weird way. 

Did I mention the challenge levels here? Level one? AT the dukes ruined manor, the second location? It’s got a garden. Want to check it out? “The adventurers will be randomly attacked by ankhegs if they wander around the garden” Uh. Sure. I don’t know. Doesn’t feel kosher. Hydras in the wilderness table? Ok, I guess. Maybe. But, also, you WANT the party wandering in the wilderness. It feels like punishment for playing the level one adventure instead of real world verisimilitude. I’m up for high level shit, but not being FORCED on the party. It’s as if the level one party must travel through Tarrasqueland for two weeks where every 30 minutes a tarrasque shows up on a 1-2. Uh. Ok. You TOLD them to do that! In another place there’s forty ogres. As enemies you are supposed to kill. I’m not even sure this is kosher in a 5e adventure? And, on that front, almost ALL of the interactivity in this is just stabbing things.

So, I went on a lot about hating this. And I don’t like it. But, also, it’s not as bad as most things. If you wanted a plot based adventure where most of what you do is stab things then this would be ok. You can see hints of decent things. Yeah, it’s padded out. And I hate the RA. But it does manage to do a plot based multi-location adventure in a less cringy way than most. Plus, you know, it starts with all those splats and that ending where no matter what you do the toad god shows up to start consuming the universe. There’s something you don’t see every day …

This is $14 at DriveThru. Fourteen dollars and no fucking preview. Great. Sucker

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/513622/ogre-caves-of-the-toad-god?1892600

By Newt Newport
D101 Games
S&W
Levels 3-5

[…] So, at the end of a long trek made at your own expense northwards, you find yourself outside the door of an inn where Dr Dee has paid for your lodgings, according to a letter you hold that details your current employment. It’s an ominous missive that details Dr Dee’s precarious position as Warden of Christ’s College in Manchester, and worst still that he has divined that your journey north from Chester will take you along a “Road to Hell”.  Its nine in the evening, there should be music and sounds of revelry from within. It’s strangely silent. You look at each other expectantly. Someone is going to have to take the lead and open that door and go inside.

This 74 page adventure uses about forty pages to describe four environments in an interconnected plot of an (evil) NPC to travel to hell to save his (evil) sister. Mountains of backstory for everything and meaningless window dressing encounters aside, it’s just a hack with nothing more interesting than stabbing going on. 

The adventure is in four parts. Following VERY explicit instructions, you end up in an inn. It’s a  bloody mess with headless zombies and ghouls and shit running around, as well as a few survivors of what happened. Which was a portal to hell being opened. You then go to a village nearby, to a church. To find the town on fire and the undead and devils and cult mobs running around. From there you go to a clearing, meeting some dudes along the way you turn out to be good werewolves who want you to clear their manor of undead. Stopping, or not, you end up in the clearing, transport to pocket hell, and meet the dude who opened the portal who has traveled there to save his sister. Lucifer would like you to do that also, for it seems that this pocket hell was created by John Dee to imprison the wickedly evil sister, and Satan don’t like the competition for Hell space. Or you can side with the devil in charge of this place, which is what John Dee wants you to do, and save him and kill the evil knight NPC dude so his sister remains imprisoned. I note that there are no real consequences outlined for either of these scenarios, as follow ons to your campaign. 

Nor is there any real treasure to be found for your level fives. While listed as a S&W adventure it’s got a VERY LotFP vibe with the whole post-Elizabethan England thing, John Dee, etc. But, also, the treasure seems VERY light for even LotFP. It’s basically non-existent. So, good luck leveling. Someone will, I’m sure, tell me that’s not the point. Then why was it written for a Gold=XP system? 

Let us, though, move on to the actual adventure. Do you like backstory? Well have I got good news for you! “Chester is near to the border with Wales. The city was established during the time of the Romans, when it was known as Deva, and was to be a strong base for the conquest of Wales. After the Roman withdrawal, the city was further fortified by the Anglo Saxons, against the invading Danish, and was the last city to fall to William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest. During the Middle Ages it became great trade centre, not only with the local North Western region of England but also with neighbouring Wales and internationally via a port just north of its Water Gate.” Note: the party doesn’t Chester. The inn they stop at is nearby Chester. This is CLEARLY just padding out the word count. As is the ELEVEN pages of title and backstory before we even get to the players introduction read-aloud shit that begins the adventure. Absolutely none of this is needed. I can see, though, that you are not convinced, so please allow me to continue flogging this horse. “Five past eight. Mrs Weston, who is in the main bar, goes mad, runs screaming into the entrance hall (see room 1) and bolts the main door before sitting down next to the headless body of one of the customers, John of Rochdale. Mr Weston, who is in the bar initially, flees upstairs pursued by a headless zombie, who he pushes onto a large hanging candelabra from the first-floor landing, leaving it impaled there. He then hides in the upstairs water closet.” Ah! A timeline! No, not exactly. For the party arrives at the inn at nine. These are all past events. A detailed timeline of past events to explain absolutely every room in the inn portion of the adventure. THIS IS FUCKING MEANINGLESS. The inability of designers to focus on ACTUAL PLAY AT THE TABLE is maddening to me. It seems so fucking obvious. But, then, that’s not a kickstarters goal, is it? Designed to be sold to be read is a far different thing than designed to be played. 

“As well as being headless he is missing his trousers (which he left in his room, see7a upstairs). John was getting dressed at the time of the miscast spell after sleeping off the worst of the afternoon’s drinking (he took to his room at three in the afternoon) and ran downstairs, to see all the commotion. He made it across the bar, saw all the head exploding mayhem and decided to flee the inn via the front door, at which point his head exploded, thus ending his escape”

Hey, in the inn you can meet a Level 23 time and dimension travelling elf. Who doesn’t really talk to you much, and certainly not about anything relevant. He’s been asleep. Then he disappears. That was great, eh? Oh, hey, yeah, there are also two irish demi-gods hanging out in part three in a small cottage. No, they don’t get involved in anything. They are just there, pretending to be old people, with no sign that they are demi-gods. This is all self-indulgent shit. “Oh, tee hee hee, look! Demigods in the cottage! Isn’t that cute” says the READER. 

Of the actual encounters? Here’s one. This is in the satanic church in the burning village in part two: “This area is filled with twelve wooden benches, arranged in two columns of six rows

Crammed in to this area are twelve cultists, dressed in fine clothes. They follow one of two paths: one of Black Magic (Sorcerers) or one of arms and force (the Warriors).” And then some stat blocks. Do they attack? Are they hostile? Is there ANYTHING to this encounter? No. There is not. Almost every single encounter in this is a stab. Just mindless attacking. A very few are someone appealing to you for help/to join their side. With no real information as to what happens if you do. 

It’s a fucking hellscape of an adventure. Mountains of backstory, no interactivity to speak of beyond stabbing. Swords & Wizardry my ass. And to top it all off, a long myth in italic that takes up a good deal of a page. 

This is $11 at DriveThru. The preview is eighteen pages, most of which is that shitty long backstory. You do get to see two pages of inn, to bask in the padded out encounters. It could use more sample pages of actual encounters, to help folks make an informed purchasing decision.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/270306/the-road-to-hell?1892600

By John Abner
Lichyard Games
OSE
Level 1

Kragnuk and his band of goblin rebels had been traveling for days and their stomachs were thin. He knew it wouldn’t be long before they turned on him. But something told him his luck was about to change. A new lair was near – he could feel it, almost see it. The Watcher had borne witness to the birth of technomagical marvels, observed their inevitable abuse, and recorded every fiery detail of the fall of an ancient empire. It could bear no more and sought for release. But to whom could its burden be passed?

This 26 page adventure uses ten pages to describe twelve rooms. It’s using a “Read Aloud+Statblock” format for most things, meaning not much in the way of interactivity. Random trivia abounds … to no real end.

Ohs Nos! Some goats have gone missing! And now a local family is missing also?! The village decides, rather than mobbing it up and no information to go on, to send a small group of village n00bs to the local evil ruins. We don’t get the missing families name until way late in the adventure, the rumors have nothing to follow up on. If you prod me to tell the party that Frank and his boys been up to the ruins, then you damn well better give me a sentence on what Frank and his boys know. Because the fucking party is going to go asking around for Frank and his boys to get some information. There is this disconnected nature between whats written in the text and whats implied by the text that is prevalent throughout this. As if things were written down without really thinking about the implications of it. I’m not saying we have to agonize over it (thats reserved for the room description, which I want you flog yourself over for each and every one) but just a quick lookover for dangling plot threads would be nice. Like ol Frank and his boys.

Ok, so, evil space empire fell a long time ago. Buried in these ruins is The Watcher. He’s dying and needs a replacement. He’s using the goblins to lure someone in who he can transfer, in not a nice way, his duties to. I’m not a fan of the lure you in” pretext adventures, but, ultimately, it’s just goblins in a ruin with a couple of techno looking rooms. 

Ok, so, we’ve got twelve rooms. Let’s look at one of them: This chamber is empty except for debris, dust, and cobwebs. Many footprints can be seen arcing toward the far-right corner.” Ok, so, nothing really there. It’s a lame description though. Instead of saying its empty there should be a description that leads the party to say that its empty. I wouldn’t not even imply anything about the footprints, unless they are SUPER obvious. I might mention dusty or dirty in the description and then wait for the party to follow up with questions, at which point I can mention footprints to them, as the DM. A good room description delivers a vibe of the environment to the party, and inspires the DM to riff on it, expanding upon what the designer has actually put down on paper. It also teases a bit. You want to kind of hint at things in a read-aloud. It’s up to the party to [ay attention and follow up with questions, about things like looking at the dust. It’s this back and forth that is at the heart of D&D, the back and forth between the players and the DM. The DM providing a description and the players following up on what the DM has said and then the DM following up on that and so on. By just outright stating, in the read-aloud “You see footprints” then you are destroying this experience. Again, unless it’s super obvious.

A second example, if you please! “

This column-lined hall is dominated by a fearsome sculpted demonic face at its far end. Its open mouth forms a portal into an adjoining room. Its tongue unfolds into a 3-step dais. Goblins sit around a softly glowing pile of embers, jabbering in their high-pitched tongue.” In this we see just a read aloud description followed by only a stat block in the DM notes section. Nothing more. Which is too bad, the whole demon mouth and tongue thing could have been cool. 

For All Sad Words Of Tongue And Pen, The Saddest Are What Might Have Been, as they say. It’s just a fight. 

And, I note, another oom tells us that the goblins in it will react to a fight in that demon tongue room. Better, yes, to put that information in the demon tongue room? The DM needs that information there so we put that information there, not buried in an appendix in small print? Or in the next room. There are other missed things as well. At one point you have to climb up handholds in a piller to reach an upper room, coming up through a small hole in the ground. Thee are two goblins in the room, with spears, who stick you as you come through. And absolutely NO notes about that. Just tha they have spears and stick you as you come through. COME ONE. Falling advice? Can’t clamber up advice? Takes three turns to get out? ANYTHING? That’s a nice setup, but it’s implemented so piss poorly that in the end its just another boring old fight. 

“Hidden among the rubble is a wooden chest containing the clan’s booty.” Worry not, gentle reader, the treasure in that chest is not detailed. We are told, in the beginning of the book, to roll on the appropriate tables in the OOSE rule book for treasure. Well fuck me sideways. What the fuck is the fucking point of buying this fucking thing then?

“The door to this area is made of an unknown metal and secured with a bar. It appears to have been airtight, for when it opens, there is a noticeable hiss.” This is a travesty. It’s a barred door. You don’t do read-aloud for shit like this. You tell the fucking party that its a barred door and let them describe opening it, only to respond with the fucking hiss. “We go through the south door” Oh, it was barred and made of a strange metal and it hisses as you open it.” Remember when I said that the implications of what was being written were being ignored?

Finally, I want to talk about the control room in the dungeon. It’s got the required crystal things to play around with to make different things happen. AND ITS TOTALLY RANDOM. There is no pattern to figure out. There are no clues. You just insert shit and roll on a table. Maybe you see some colored liquids flow through pipes. Other than that you have NO IDEA what the impacts of what you just did were. Not that it would matter anyway since it’s completely random. This is not interactivity. This is random for the sake of random. 

Just a hack.

This is $4 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages and you get to see several of the rooms. Good preview!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519369/eye-of-the-watcher-for-old-school-essentials?1892600

Adventure Squared
General/Universal/OSR - But really 5e
"Low Levels" - Ha!

Who are the Snake Monks? What is the Blood Cradle? Why are the villages being terrorised? Uncover the answers to all of this and more when you explore the Blood Cradle of the Snake Monks!

This 36 page adventure uses about nineteen pages to describe fifty rooms in dungeon full of … serpent people! The rooms contain a variety of challenges, classic and not, with conceptually decent, if fun house, ideas. But its all done in a weird flat bullet minimal format … that is somehow also quite long? Also, someone REALLY liked the snake scene in Raiders.

“It’s art if the creator says it’s art!” No, it’s not. This is labeled as a generic/universal adventure compatible with OSR blah blah blah. It’s actually a 5e adventure, mostly. Just because creatures have HP and AC doesn’t make it OSR. Even if, tonally, you can manage something akin to the OSR, and even if you dump in enough cash for a gold=xp payoff, there is a WILDLY different power balance going on. The boss here has like AC18 and 180HP. A far cry from the 20HD monsters of B/X and 1e. What is that, like, forty or fifty HD? “Low levels” my ass. This is 5e. Oh, oh, but it also says things like, in the monster appendix “We put in some modifiers for you to use if you wish”, which means creatures have a line that says something like “+3, +1, -1.” This is just a fucking dystopian hellscape. Write it for 5e or write it for the OSR. Fucking christ.

This thing sucks ass in every single way. Except one. It’s got some pretty decent room concepts. A room with a valley/put that is LOADED full of snakes down there. A room full of treasure chests and urns and things that rearrange themselves to block the exits. The room with three apple trees … with apples … A room where you move some portable walls around to literally wall off a deadly fog. The super dark room where torches only light 1 foot around you. A room full of ethereal whisps swirling around … which are snakes. There are quite a high number of these ‘specials.’ Certainly no one can accuse the designer of just having a room with a monster in it to stab. 

I don’t know what to say about them. They suck? None of them really realize their potential. This takes a variety of forms, with things sabotaging the rooms concepts, but in its most fundamental form, they are presented as nothing more than concepts. Imagine sitting around with your friends, drinking, brainstorming ideas for a dungeon. “There could be a room with a pit in it full of snakes!”  or “How about a room that sucks up the light full of shadow monsters!” or “You could get trapped by the treasure you want”! This is what this adventure is doing. The opposite, I guess, of trap and door porn. You can go too far, and most adventures do, in the mechanics and descriptions of the effect of an area. You want just jus the right amount of detail, of the critical pieces, to help the DM run the room without being prescriptive. And then there the opposite end of the spectrum, where this lies, which only gives the BAREST concept of a room concept. These are essentially one liners of each room. And relatively short one-liners at that. 

This is not to say that the actual room keys are one line long. Oh no. They are going to take up about a third of a page to half a page each. How can this be?! Well, the formatting sucks ass. First, it’s single column. And it’s using a very terse bullet like formatting for the rooms. This means A LOT of whitespace for something like seventy to eighty percent of a line. Then, it’s padded out. A room name, A three word description. Room dimensions. And a bullet system that only a mother would say is good. 

22- Crystal Caverns 
Natural cavern approx. 70x100ft. High ceiling (70ft). 
Uneven natural rock floor interspersed with stalagmites and stalactites jutting from the floor and ceiling.
-Crystals 
• Grow from all of the surfaces but mainly concentrated on the walls. 
• Refract light in mesmerising patterns.
• Valuable- 1KG is worth 50GP. 
• Extremely sharp when broken and can be carved into cutting tools or weapons.

You can see, from that, two types of bullets, a hyphen and a traditional round one. The hyphens are the major headings with the bullets containing additional information for the hyphen item. What’s missing is the indent. And we can see, here, from this room key, the three descriptions of the room. “Crystal Caverns/Natural Caverns” and then the “Uneven natural rock” line, and then the “refract light” line. These are all very business-like descriptions. There’s no real joy or inspiration in them. Yes, on some level you have described the room, but the room isn’t sticky, there’s no firing of the imagination. It’s a fucking giant crystal room full of dazzling lights. You need to witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational english language. Oh, and sections are hyperlinked. That room full of chests? It’s hyperlinked to a “Chest Table.” Which actually takes you to the “effects of the fog” table. The actual chest table doesn’t exist, but there is a “treasure table” full of things like “50sp” and “200cp” and “shovel” or “flask of oil.” I think, perhaps, we differ on the definition of the word avarice. And, of course, the improper use of randomness is prevalent throughout. “Here are six things that could be in the drawer!!’ is not the proper use of randomness

Rooms in concept only, no real room descriptions of note, and a format that makes no sense at all. Triple word score for AVOID.

This is $4 at DriveThru. There is no preview Sucker!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/519371/blood-cradle-of-the-snake-monks?1892600

By Dan Collins, Paul Siegel
Wandering DMs
OSR
Levels 1-3

Something is poisoning the land – livestock die, their bodies riddled with parasites, and a foul stench drifts from an ancient, long-abandoned temple. Locals whisper of a monstrous hatchling, born from a tainted egg and rotting from within. Treasure-seekers speak of a golden idol hidden in the depths, but none who entered have returned. Whatever festers below is spreading, and ifleft unchecked, it won’t stop with cattle.

This five page adventure uses just under two pages to describe an eleven room dungeon based on a small Dyson map. It was a youtube broadcast to create a dungeon in two hours. It’s better than most of the crap put out, and shows a certain flair for an interesting situation. This places it solidly above average, but that says more about the adventure market in general than this one. In the end, it doesn’t suck.

I’m going to hit this one extensively. It’s five pages. The front cover and back cover are two, and contain nothing of note. There’s a page of background information that also has the map and the wandering table. I might remove the back page and/or put the fluff on the back cover or front cover. This would free up room on the map/wanderer page. In particular, the map and wanderers are reference material, but the background information and notes about 1sp=1xp are generally things you only ever look at once, hence the move off of the reference page. The wanderer table is a little bland, just monsters, although “evil pixies” gives a hint of whats I’m suggesting: uses the freed up space to put in something that the wanderers are doing. Just a little nudge for the DM to riff off of. And then, maybe, put in some dungeon dressing, what the walls/doors/moisture is like; something for the DM to look at during play to beef up and nspire the room descriptions they will be riffing on. FInally, I note the Dyson map. It is what it is, but, also, I doubt it’s sacred; slap on an asterisk or a little monster label for those rooms that might have a monster in it making noise or that could react to the parties noise. IE: the reference page should be a great reference page.

The eleven keys take up just under two pages. But, also, there’s a lot of whitespace there. If you are married to just eleven rooms that’s not bad. The first room reads “1. Eight human veterans stagger toward the exit, their bodies ravaged by infection. Half are weakened (-2 to attacks), while the others are too sick to stand. Their eyes are fevered, and their treasure weighs heavy in their hands – 2 gems (20 sp each).” (then a terse stat block) I like this. I might give it a room title, llke “Boggy hallway” or something, to anchor the description to come. You want the DMs mind the right place, oriented and preloaded, for the description to come. I know that you’re using “veterans” as the monster type, but I might riff a word or two more to make them a hdge-podge of military uniforms, deserters, or something. Not evil, just a ragamuffin band. I love the ravaged and staggering words, staggering in particular gives great imagery. Eyes fevered, great. Maybe “yellowed eyes” or something also. I’m not sure “treasure weighs heavily” and “two gems” match up there, but I like where it is going. Barely able to lift their gems or something? But a pretty good job overall. Lso, 2 gems? Come on, there’s a ge table in the back of the DMG; use it.

Room 2. “A massive nest formed from a tangle of branches and debris fills this chamber, crawling with giant centipedes. Shattered remains of giant eggshells litter the floor – one among them is somewhat more intact, its occupant having successfully hatched.” Massive is a great word. I like the “tangle of branches”, that also is great imagery. Shattered remains of eggs … perfect. The next crawling with centipedes … oooh! Great! I might add a smell or a moist floor also; you want them quaking in their boots when they walk in that place. 

Room 3: “Two towering statues stand in alcoves along the western side of this hall. A near-invisible tripwire stretches between them – disturb it, and they will crash down in a shower of stone and dust. “ Towering! Great! Some argonath imagery there! I’m not usually a trap and door porn guy, but I might add a peg description or just a BIT more in the statue descriptions. Both holding out their hands in a “STOP” sign or something? Just a few words more to cement things. The top in shadows?

Room 4: “Steps lead down to a shallow two foot deep pool of murky water, fed by a cracked and blocked fountain in the center of the room. The cause of the blockage – a small pouch of 12 gems (100 sp each) – lies wedged in its spout. Swarms of flies buzz across the damp stone walls.” A few mpre adjectives. Crumbling steps down? Slick? Moss-covered? See how the water is “murky”? Why arent the stairs something? You can go too far with this, but I’d dump something in. Also, a small pouch? I think not. Small is boring. Cracked leather? Furry sealskin? Something more interesting. I like the swarms of flies, but, also, I might do a little more. There is little implied risk here. Why not put the flies around the spout? Maybe it’s a dead rat filled with gems? Hence the flies? Something to give the party just a little pause in the spout situation. Make them adventure with trepidation … even if it doesn’t play out every time.

I’m going to stop here. These are all general pretty good. A plague mask poison gas magic item also, so, some nice theming in places, although another couple of words would be in order. The rooms are a little disconnected from each other. A more consistent overall design, with things leaking over from room to room, would have been nice. Overall though, not bad. I might have given it a Ne Regerts if it were just a longer and/or the room descriptions were just a bit better or the design was bit more intentional. Pretty decent effort though; I would not be angry if this were likt one of those old 3e era pamphlet adventures. A little generic, but chill.

This is $1 at DriveThru. I know there are only two pages of rooms, but the preview is only two pages, one of which is the cover and the other the generic intro/reference page. Stick in a page of the keys so we know what were buying.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/518555/wdm05-dungeon-design-dash-5-infested-perch-of-the-mammoth-egg?1892600

By Will Jarvis
Inverted Castle Games
WWN
Levels 1-2

Lightning cleaves the sky. High above, a vast city emerges from the clouds. Is it the ancient temple-city of Mitosu? Has the Veiled Emperor returned? This starting adventure has players venturing into a ruined tower that fell from the mysterious city in the sky, crashing into the remote mountain valley of Glynmoor. Explore the charming town of Squabville, subdue the restless spirits awakened by the floating city, and discover the secrets of the fallen sky ruin.

This nineteen page adventure presents a small four level tower with about eighteen rooms in a fallen fragment of a floating sky city.. It captures the drama of small town life a bit, as well as supporting the village with a couple of sites. The phrasings, descriptions, and interactivity is almost enough to make me like it … a rare thing indeed!

Dude is doing some interesting things with this adventure. Right off the bat, we notice this is for Worlds Without Number … but can be used with any OSR system. What’s that mean, in practice? Truly? How do you take an adventure for a system you know nothing about and then convert it YOUR system of choice? Most OSR systems are some derivation of B/X, so it’s pretty chill. But, then, when we get to one of the more niche systems, how does one convert that? Are you an expert on Worlds Without Number? I’m not. But, also, the designer stuck in a note: “Hey, this is designed for 1sp=1xp.” Well Howdy Doody there! That’s actually something I need to know if I’m going to run this in B/X! Dude actually put some thought in to how HIS system differs from the more mainline systems and told us about that! 

Moving on, there’s a small town to support the adventure, and, for what it is, it’s interesting. The various businesses all have some local intrigue, a lot of small town stuff. Ostensibly, a dude on the town council wants you to take a look at a rumored sky tower that has fallen nearby. Secretly, he wants to control the whole valley and is hoping you’ll find something in it to help him. Also, he’s got the last kings regalia in his house, looted from the nearby burial mounds. Also, he’s blackmailing some local bandits to hit some trade caravans to better his own business position. Also, his daughter has probably swindled a local rancher out of his stock. He’s bitching in the local tavern. Also, one of the wandering events has three thugs drag the rancher out in to the street and give him a public beating. It’s not overdone. This isn’t a cartoon villain or Boss Hog. This is all great. The NPC summaries are terse, laid out in a small personality/goals/wants things. Easy to reference and you get exactly what you need to run them … and, more importantly, the situation they are involved in. One dudes wife is missing and the ocala are getting up their courage to go pitchfork mob out. The tavern dude has some shit to share, a quirk that he flies in to a rage if the food at the other place is mentioned. This all makes sense. You can run it. Situations, and just enough about them and the people in them to riff on them and make them your own. I’m pretty fucking happy here. Help the herder round up his cattle that got loose and get a rumor and friendly face out of it. That’s how you do rumors! Fix that fucking sidewalk in front of my house, councilman, if you want my vote!

Magic items are at least interesting, if not well described. “Horn of the Valley (carved from a gwibber skull, blowing it forces a moral check for 1 HD enemies, usable once per day” A very nice minor effect with some local color. Later on we get a suit of plate mail you can  wear … which is actually a kind of broken automaton … so you do feel compelled to kill al ot of vermin. Also, you could repair it and get a new buddy to help you out. That’s some interesting stuff. Magic item? Ally? Curse? It’s just a thing, with all of those aspects to it. 

Descriptions here are serviceable, for the most part. “Rubble has been cleared to open a passage inside. It is completely dark. Sounds of mechanical clanging can be heard coming from within.” It’s not going to win any awards, but it is also not so bad. I like it, but don’t love it. In another place “Piles of rusted tools and machinery parts. An inky black puddle of oil covers most of the floor.” Decent vibes. “The roof of the uppermost chamber has partially collapsed, and a heavy rain is falling through the opening, leaving the floor slick. A large amber crystal is built into a gleaming steel apparatus in the center of the room. It flickers intermittently” Broken dome, rain coming in, amber crystal, flickering. I don’t like the ‘large’ word, it’s boring, and I don’t think the overall vibe comes through that the designer was hoping for. I don’t get cavernous, or wondrous out of this. Certainly not a throw away meaningless/useless description, but it doesn’t really cement the scene either.

The dungeon does not quite that potential energy that the village does. You are, essentially, looting a mostly vacant structure, scrounging for a couple of treasure and dealing with some vermin. The final room has a weather control device, and a puzzle around its use that is the right kind of puzzle, with a few clues scattered throughout the complex. A trap or two is well telegraphed, with a burned body in the room and so on. These are all great, but, the situations that made the village good are just not present in the dungeon, and the environment, proper, feels static and dead. I suppose that’s true to life, but, also, this is a D&D adventure. We want to be doing things. It’s got that same vibe as Tower of the Stargazer, you know, the static environment thing?/ 

I’m a fan of the village and the (VERY small) regional encounters. The writing is serviceable and the formatting, with the word count, is fine. The dungeon proper is a bit of a let down from the highs I was looking forward to up to that point, but, also, I think I’m looking forward to the designers next effort.

This is free at DriveThru. Good job on making the first adventure free.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/518942/fragments-of-the-floating-city?1892600

So, I’m in Charlevoix yesterday, intending to stop by the Dairy Grill I drove past, but I need a few days worth of groceries so I stop in at some local grocery. Looking for local products, I see Michigan Cherry BBQ chips, skin on! I’s in the deli and a giant bag. 160 cal per serving and nine servings. I wander on, not wanting a bag that big. I eventually see the chip aisle and think maybe there’s a smaller bag. And there is, so I get it. I just looked. It’s about half the size of the big bag. And there are eight servings?!?!?!?!