tenfootpole.org

By Dana Floberg
Self Published
5e
Level 5

A magical mishap occurs when a handful of freshmen enchantment students cast a modified version of the awaken spell on a fantasy epic in the university library, and now characters are leaping off the page – literally! As heroes, villains, and damsels come to life, the librarians need someone to restore narrative order to the unruly tales. But as the lines between fiction and reality blur, some of the characters begin to suspect their stories are cages they’d rather not return to at all.

This 19 page adventure details a few encounters in a library with fiction characters from books. It has a certain funhouse design aesthetic. The core encounters have interesting fundamentals, but lack in their implementation, both mechanically and in terms of presentation.

Our exploration of The Storyteller Collective Workshop continues, I assume, since this adventure thanks those folks. As with previous entries, there are some decent foundational ideas marred by a lack of experience. But, again with this one, that’s what being a first time writer is all about. 

We are once again in the default 5e setting of magical RenFairre, with this time the issue being in a large library. It seems that characters are coming out of storybooks and appearing in the real world. Someone has to get in there and, literally, close the books. I think I remember a Dungeon adventure like this? And, certainly, a room or two in old FunHouse dungeons. This, also, has a bit of the funhouse vibe to it, with contrived situations from fiction being the reason for the season. If you’re gonna have a RenFairre world then you’re going to have libraries, and they are going to have issues. Not my thing, but certainly A LOT of other peoples thing. Our hooks are short: maybe you’re here to research something and need to solve the situation efore you can, or, a buddy caused the problem and begs you to help out so they won’t get expelled. The first is the standard “I placed the McGuffin here” that can be relied upon in any adventure while the second at least has a sheepish student begging for help, both better than being hired. 

Chick from a romance novel gets out and starts reading her own book, bringing the villain and hero in to the world … and some self-awareness on her part. You go from room to room (about seven in total) encountering some situation, resolve it, and move on, until you close the last book in the last room and deal with the fallout of nulling out, or not, someones existence by closing the book on them.  Along the way you pick up a side-kick or two and deal with the asshole good guy from the novel.

The strength here is in the room encounters and the hints of personality that come with them. A troll asking a riddle, a wishing well that knows the absolute truth about the universe that you can use as a lie detector, a toad needing to be kissed that can gets larger each time … and can be used to solve a puzzle, or a band of merry pirates and their White Whale they hunt. Good concepts, solid and recognizable and good pretty for the cultural memories that can bring more to an encounter from the players and DMs own backgrounds. And a little extra here and there, n the way of words, a sly recognition or the tropes. Our pirates “Like many fictional pirates, they don’t actually do a lot of murder or pillaging, but they are extremely cool.” So, conceptually some good ideas with some hints of personality that’s unusual in a 5e adventure. Someone’s soul hasn’t yet died from writing. 

Fear not, gentle designer, the ennui will come. Until then, let me help you with the self-doubt …

The biggest issue here is one of parties ability to impact the adventure. Yes, the old Quantum Ogre and his pal the {fuck, I’ve been driking and can’t remember the name. The party has the ability to make meaningful decisions and their actions are not irrelevant. What the fuck is that called again?] So, major issue.

We need to deal with the doors unlocking when you defeat a monster. This means one thing: YOU WILL FACE MY ENCOUNTER THE WAY I ENVISIONED AND FUCK YOU FOR TRYING TO AVOID IT. Perhaps a little overly harse, especially for a new designer, but the ability for the party to use their own wit and abilities to avoid/overcome something is a key point in roleplaying. This shows up in myriad different ways in the adventure, including monsters that spor you as soon as you enter the room, Ye Olde Door Unlocyky, a disguised baddie who has no sign of ill intent on you Detect Deceit roll, and, worst of all … the goody goody guy who has been brought back to life if you kill him too soon by Sir Not Appearing In This Movie. I know, I know, you want to set up a cool moment. You want him showing up in the final battle. But you don’t get to write cool moments, as a designer. Oh, you get to POTENTIALLY set them up. But this isn’t the designers story and it’s not the DMs story. It’s the fucking players story. We do not take away their [fuck! Whats the word?]  As a designer I appreciate some tips on what to do if that happens (WHEN, if I’m playing) but you can’t rob the players. 

There are a host of other issues also. The NPC’s descriptions oculd be better, and come off as a wall of text. They need some trimming and more bolding/underlining, etc, to make it easy to scan their personality traits during play. Likewise, I get that they should be turned up to 11 (as advised by the adventure) but that doesn’t really come through. A few hints in that area could be appreciated. Supporting the DM in their efforts. Wall of text, in fact, comes up several places, most notably in three “interlude” rooms, one of which the party will experience, that come come off as three giants hunks of text that is hard to sort through. I could bitch about the other two unused rooms as well .. might as well quantum that n a plot based adventure like this, otherwise its wasted content. If I COULD explore it, and don’t, then its not wanted. If Im explicitly forbidden to explore ? of it then its wasted. And then there’s the “place what you want’ treasure list. Sure, you get to select from the appendix, but, that’s a cop out. Decide it and put it in. That lets you have puzzles that leverage those items later.

And then there’s a couple of things that just DO. NOT. WORK. There’s a polymorphed cat in the beginning that gets too many words and feels like a pet NPC from a DM campaign, the extra adding nothing to the adventure and the DM being explicitly told “but all this backstory is irrelevant since the party wont be able to grok it out.” Outhgt oh! No good that! Mildly related is the “take a bunch of damage each round while trying to solve a riddle” room. But you get to save for half! Again, this feels contrived, and not in a fun-house manner. No matter what you do you take damage. And no, “the trolls gets to decide who is attacked by the flying books” is not a solution to that issue.

Exposition Dump Wolf is out of plac3 and whatever the designer was going for just doesn’t come through with it. (And, I should not, nor tdo the hero, villain, or self-aware woman. I get where you want to go with this but it just doesn’t come through at all. You need to support the DM more in this.) 

And then there’s the final mechanic: getting pulled in to the books. Not only can characters come out but the party can get sucked IN to a book. But, as implemented, this is weak sauce. It feel like the parties actions have no consequences. It’s just a save DC that gets harder and harder, and doesn’t really have consequence since they can be sucked out again and there’s not really anything in the adventure to support whats IN the books they sucked in to. 

And, peaking of supporting the DM, the final battle has some storybook characters showing up … “Whatever the DM likes.” NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You, the designer, get to decide that. You get to pull in some appropriate things and make them relevant and support the DM in their usage. It doesn’t have to be complicated, but thats the value add that you are adding as the designer.

So, some decent ideas in the puzzles and set up, but not really supported well either for the DM or in the formatting of the text. But, it also doesn’t want me to drink until I’m blackout drunk. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/366213/Off-the-Books?1892600

By Marcos Lopez
Self-published
5e
Level 4

The Orb of Goodbyes is a magical item blessed with the power to extract and erase memories from a willing creature’s mind. When a Waterdeep lieutenant retires from military service, she seeks the Orb to forget a dangerous memory. Those who help procure the Orb from an enchanted cave discover the secrets behind this magical artifact and unearth its hidden memories.  The adventurers may then decide whether to deliver the Orb and help the veteran find peace, or use the item themselves to release burdens from their past.

This twelve page adventure has a small cave dungeon with seven rooms and three encounters, using four pages to do so. It’s neither as pretentious or as padded as the blurb or page count would indicate, and does a good job with specifics … when it goes there …

I’ve gotten a series of requests for 5e reviews lately. I don’t mind, and, in fact, am pleased that the 5e crowd is paying more attention to adventure design. But, also, I may have discovered why. This adventure is the designers first that they’ve ever written. Yeah! And, it comes from the Storyteller Collectives ‘Write Your First Adventure’ Workshop series. Ok, so, first, I throw up in my mouth a little every time I hear the word Storyteller, but, it probably comes the cynicism embedded in GenX. Who am I to shit on the younger generations Shining City On A Hill? Anyway, Marcos, congrats on your first adventure. Now, let’s rip it to shreds.

The adventure is not as pretentious as it might seems. “Unearth a haunting memory and discover the power to forget …)” says the marketing blurb on the cover. That really is the worst of it, by far. Reading that primes me to hate something, with memories of every edgelord adventure ever flooding back to me. But, it’s not that bad and it treads lightly on those issues … just barely enough to evoke a hint of it but not wallowing in it Well, ok, no I lied, it does get pretty close to the eye-rolling line with “two soldiers who have a memory from their past that they want to forget.” Again, hints of the edgelord, right? And it’s certainly true that my midwestern D&D values tell me that if you feel compelled to put a trigger warning on something then you probably shouldn’t be using that idea. Except … in this case the retired soldiers want to forget where they buried an evil amulet to no one can scry them and learn its location. It’s not actual trauma as much as its something more mundane. But that’s not what you thought, was it? Two soldiers, forgetting a memory? Yeah, we all know what the fuck that implies. And thus, a trigger warning … and some (brief) suggestions in the appendix on how to massage things to change the soldiers to something else. The inclusion of the soldiers brings to the forefront what that IMPLIES, but the adventure never goes there … leaving the vibe but thats it. It’s an interesting design decision (assuming it was one.) 

The cave involves three memories from people who have used the orb … and one of them is a sad one.  Young gnome sits on the edge of a forest stream crying, waiting for er friend to join her … who never did. Holy fuckballs, sad! The gnome needs the parties help deciding what to do, continue her journey alone, go home, or something else. Is a lost child a bad adventure design choice? No, it’s a trope. But here the similar scene is being framed and presented in the context of a memory someone wanted to forget … with all the baggage it implies. This should cement the power of framing a scene in every readers mind … it’s a very powerful technique. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that watching Precious is a fun time, but, I think we can allow just a little real feels in our game. I’m sure this is an interesting moment when groups encounter it … and its probably on the edge of the line, about to cross over to indie game nonsense, But, not over it, and bringing more to the table than the usual low-effort fantasy trope crap.

The designer also has a talent for an imagined scene OUTSIDE of the generic trope. There’s a tendency to just say “The village is having a celebration!” and leave it at that. Abstracted. Terrible design and writing. But here the designer does a little father. The town square is a dirt lot. The locals are having a community potluck, wooden tables and rough benches, a dancefloor, a handful of ok music performers. That FEELS like a real community event, doesn’t it? A little shitty, a pitch in, people just doing their best. And the stables, overflowing with horses and empty farmers wagons parked outside every which way. Or locals confusing the Orb of Goodbyes with the Goblet of Goobyes, a local everclear shot from the tavern. A rock wall with graffiti with people signing their name outside of the cave … a local custom. This shit makes sense.  It FEELS natural, as if it were imagined first and THEN someone stuck the fantasy on it. It even makes an attempt at supporting the DM in some interesting ways (beyond the trigger rethemes) If the party tries to get the old soldiers to come with them it has some advice for the DM on how to counter it … but also doesn’t explicitly forbid it and supports the DM a bit if THEY do get the soldiers help. That’s what supporting the fucking DM is all about. Or, some advice on how to handle a party that is overly suspicious of the mayor. A common theme in a village, and helps to handle players like me who stab the most obvious NPC first and lets Pelor sort out the damage. 

But were also facing a new designer here, and it shows.

There are lazy contrivances used in multiple ways. You can’t exit a room in the cave until you “finish” the memory, being blocked by an invisible barrier. Invisible barriers are lazy and nearly as bad as “the doors slam shut and lock when you enter the room.” Similarly, once you complete the cave the entire places swells up with water and forces everyone in the cave out from the torrential flood. Uh huh. To be fair, it’s handled fairly well, but the whole “closing time” thing is something I’m over. 

We’ve got three “memory” scenes in the cave, all of which must be completed. There’s the one I mentioned, the sad gnome one. Then there’s the “where we buried the amulet” plot hook one. (Which, gives the location of the amulet to the party … a floor up idea for DMs who want to use it) That leaves one more … a simple Yeti attack. When you’ve only got three encounters you need them to stick and while two do this third one does NOT, being a simple combat. I’m not necessarily asking for more edgelord stuff, but something more than a simple combat. 

There’s also LONG NPC descriptions, the in standard 5e format that make them impossible to scan quickly and water down the personalities of the people involved. And then … the read-aloud. 

The read-aloud is bad. It summarizes. It abstracts. “But, amid the festivities for the arrival of Brigita – it becomes obvious a mild disagreement is escalating between her and the retiring Townmaster, Anton Astorio. Both Brigita and Anton make an effort to smile and continue with the occasion, but perceptive people notice the friction growing.” This isn’t what you want to be doing. This is TELLING us what is going on. You want to SHOW it. You want to show a disagreement. You want to show the escalation. In this case, rather than read-aloud, perhaps through vignettes for the DM to drop in … which could be spaced in with some local color events form the yokals, to help the DM bring THAT part of the adventure to life more. “Once inside of the cave” says the read-aloud. Nope. You almost NEVER want to imply action in a read-aloud, at least not on the parties part. You want descriptions, not conversational writing. Ad meaningless skill checks to find the cave in the first placE? We won’t even talk about the useless rolling stuff, or the repetition in the background information which, while brief, still annoys the fuck out of me.

This is $2 at DriveThru. I’m willing to throw up in my mouth less when I hear the word Storyteller if their workshop continues to churn out new designers like this. Certainly not great, but showing some potential that is more than the usual DriveThru/DMSGuild drivel.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/366939/The-Orb-of-Goodbyes?1892600

By Craig Patterson
Momentous Malice Productions
5e
Level 2

The frontier village of Timberhollow is the kind of place no one had ever heard of until its fortunes took a turn for the worse. The timber and pelts which formerly flowed out of Timberhollow to the markets in the nearest towns have ceased delivery, and rumor spread by travellers is that the woods surrounding the village have become haunted by a pack of especially savage wolves – wolves who attack anyone trying to enter or leave the village. The villagers must be starting to get desperate – and the merchants who once sold their goods in the neighboring larger settlements are beginning to worry that their business has dried up for good. The call has gone out for capable adventurers – whether for gold, glory, or charity – to investigate and save Timberhollow. Little do those adventurers know that there are even more sinister forces at work in Timberhollow than rumor would suggest.

Thise eleven page adventure uses five pages to describe a werewolf in a village and the dumb-ass druid trying to stop it. It’s a short thing that is trying to bring in some roleplaying and more complex environment than usual for this sort of one night adventure. When it’s being specific it’s good and could use a little more build up and some additional clarity in its NPC relationships. And A Wall of Text overhaul. And, I believe, it’s on the list because of a request from its designer. 

Sometimes you can tell what a designer is going for, even if they can’t communicate it well. That’s the case with this adventure. You can tell the designer was going for this isolated in the woods village thing, paranoid villagers, a kind of claustrophobic feeling, no one knowing whats really going on, people afraid, and so on. That comes though, no necessarily primarily because of the writing, especially, but because of the elements layered on top of each other. You get that the designer wants that, they just can’t yet write/layout well enough to communicate that in a way that really supports the DM.

So, the town of Timberhollow is cut off. No pelts or timber coming out. No merchants going in. Viscous pack of wolves killing everything that moves in the forest and on the road that cuts through it to the village. This initial set up is, potentially, supported in two ways: the hooks and the journey to the village. 

We get five hooks. A group of merchants hire you to restore the flow of goods. The Church of the Goddess of Commerce hires you. You’ve got a friend in the village. An innkeeper hires you to check on his friend. These are each presented in about as many words as I’ve typed here, and as generic and throw-away as I’ve typed here. Yes, I know, hooks don’t matter. But when they ARE included I feel the need to comment, and, a good hook that is present is a bonus to the adventure. But these four, they are just generic hooks. With no real meat on them, or specificity to help bring them alive. But, there are hints, here and there. “By any means” is tacked on to the merchants hook. And, the extreme genericism of the Church of the Goddess of Commerce makes me want to play that abstraction to the extremes, for laughs. Finally, the last hook, a druid circle hires you  to dispel a rumor that an evil druid is behind the attacks …and quietly eliminate them if there IS a druid behind it. It’s the “quietly eliminate” that, like the “by any means” that starts to work on the DMs imagination. Its these sorts of things that start to lead the DM down a path. Rather than five aggressively generic hooks it would have been better to take one hook, say the merchants or the druids, and use the space to bring it alive with a little more specificity. Play up the “by any means” or the Shadow Merchants Council or the weirdness of the druid circle, etc. Better to do one thing well than five things terribly.

Then there’s the “1 to 2 days travel” to the village, through the forest. I’m sure you can see the issue with putting “ 1to 2” in the travel times. But, anway, you get four possible encounters to help foreshadow the situation, with a suggestion that the DM include one of them. First off, great idea. Use the travel through the forest as foreshadowing to set a mood. Play up the oppressiveness and claustrophobia of a thick forest. Get the players in the mood and jumpy. But, this is essentially unsupported. There’s a table of four possible encounters and just the words “As they travel they could encounter any of the following.” I might suggest that, in an adventure of this type, this section could have beenbetter supported. A little more in the way if the encounters, and the journey, words playing up the environment and the vibe and so on. Of the four encounters we get an abandoned wagon with corpses of humans and horses, bearing signs of wolf attack. That’s pretty good! And one about mysterious symbols carved in a tree, Abyssal or druidic, vague and ominous. A good idea, used to good effect in Blair Witch, but it could have used a few examples of that vague wording. The tree’d commoner and a simple “ambushed by 6 wolves” is less interesting. So, you can get the idea of what the designer wanted, but it’s not quite there.

This continues in the village. We get the following text upon arrival: “Their arrival is not only a special occasion, but a marvelous sign of hope to the beleaguered villagers, and they beg the player characters for reassurance that their ordeal is nearly over. All villagers whom the party encounters try to usher them on to the village inn, where a hasty gathering of the village council is about to take place.” Aggressively abstracted, no specifics. This is a key part. The village is isolated, the people scared, but little beyond abstraction. And no real overview of the village, of the weirdo house with all the wood carvings outside, or the junkyard, or the ostentatious church. We’re left to the individual descriptions of those locations to learn those things. 

There’s supposed to be relationships among the people in the village. SOme people hate others, others are in love, but, while these are explicitly stated, you need a vignette or two to make them come alive. A on-abstracted vignette. At a town council meeting we get a flew words about how two people shout at each other or another two have an awkward conversation, but without anything supporting it for the DM to riff on. Instead we get a village that approaches Wall of Text territory, with lots of words (in a small font) that don’t really deliver much. Again, you get where things SHOULD be going but its not really supported well. And, I think, the NPC situation is complex enough, with enough weirdo names, to need a dedicated reference for them. 

The village map could use a little more detail, some rises or piles of timber or some such, to make the village investigations more interesting. The Lord of The Hunt angle could be played up a lot more, for feelings of dread. There’s not actually much of a “timber” vibe, or forest vibe going on. Someone in the town meeting says “last full moon” which should set off all of the alarm bells … I’d leave that bit out. The druid is referred to as a a druid instead of a weirdo horned head/antler dude. One guy in the village is very friendly, which of course means the party should stab him immediately because he’s the bad guy. And, again, you don’t get much to help support you, as the DM, in making him friendly to the party. Other than “hes friendly and helpful to the party.” And there’s no real siege going on, at least not one that will be visceral to the players.

Ultimately the adventure is short and straightforward. Travel to the village. Sit in on the council meeting. Go in to the forest to confront the druid. Come back to the village to find a murder and kidnapped villager. Follow tracks to abandoned cabin and save victim. Folow tracks to church and kill werewolf (At level 2?! I have some mental block that doesn’t allow me to understand 5e power levels).

So what we have is an adventure that knows what it wants to do but is too bogged down in the mundane and in aggressive abstraction instead of specificity. I think it’s about the right length for one of these typical plot-based things, and shows some promise that many of them do not (they being by far the most common type of adventure in the modern era.) I don’t think it’s as bad as the 3 stars out of 5 at DriveThru would imply. I suspect the Wall of Text issue/font has a lot to do with that rating, but the padding and lack of specificity and support for key elements of the adventure are what is mostly interesting to me. A hard tune up would make this shine to a journeyman level.

This is $5 at DMsGuild. The preview is two pages and gives you a good idea of what to expect. The formatting/wall issues, and the journey through the forest and some of the town buildings.

https://www.dmsguild.com/product/366457/The-Siege-of-Timberhollow?1892600

By Marius Brunner
Self Published
5e
Level 1

Goblin Bathwater, a magical drug, has taken hold in a sleepy coastal town at the edge of the Empire. As the characters investigate the origin of the drug, they uncover an international criminal conspiracy, wild and ancient magic, and a threat to reality itself.

This 54 page adventure uses about 35 pages to describe some political intrigue in a town and a couple of dungeons around in, in the usual sort of plot based “investigate and stop it” adventure. The designer has an interesting ability to slot in some relatable and gameable details, although the entire thing ends up being too complicated to get a good handle on. Which doesn’t make it impossible to run, but rather hard to get the fully intended effect. Also, it’s one of those modern D&D worlds where no one is human and everyone is half-genesai, blah blah blah etc. It really has no impact on the adventure though.

New in town, the party shoots a man in Reno just to see him die. Locked up for the night, they are told the next morning to go look in to some ghouls that appeared in the local graveyard. The trail of which leads to a farm. At which time the party is sent to look for the farms missing kids. At the old wizards tower. Who wants them to go to some caves. [Interlude with some events that can happen in town while the party is investigating something] And in the caves the party meets the creator of all goblins, and a magical portal to Cthulhu-land … bringing in some of DCC “Meet Gods at Level 1!” vibe. I won’t ask if 5e players ever get bored saving world every adventure; whatever floats your boat man.

What’s supposed to be happening is that the goblins are selling the bathwater from their creator-god (which lives in their cave, asleep.) Some guy in town is using is to sell drugs and take over the town from the other boss in town who controls the other half of the town. This rivalry creates the initial bar fight in the first scene, as well as being the instigator the ghoul shit and is SUPPOSED to serve as what the party is investigating … which I guess is supposed to lead to the weirdness in the goblin caves. This sort of breadcrumb investigation and then base assault is the usual part and parcel of modern plot games and this one does go the extra mile, throwing in a few more stops along the way than the usual adventure. In principle, the idea is not too terrible.

But before I get in to it, let me note some of the high points.

The designer seems to have knack for putting in relatable things and or the farcical, or, perhaps, ALMOST farcical sorts of detail that a DM can leverage to really bring a game world alive. We get little one liners scattered throughout the adventure that really do a good job conveying things. Each 5e character background gets a potential hook, with the Nobles being “You won a sizeable plot of land in an auction in the capital. Little did you realise just how far south this ‘rustic farmstead in the foothills near an important local travel junction’ would turn out to be.” So, a little bit of wit which does a great job conveying information and tone. Everyonein town belongs to one of the two factions …with a dumpling town guard. Kids who will pass along information for a swig of booze (which then leads be say “or cigs! Or cigs!” Thats what good writing does, it excites you and leads you to other places.) A wizard who watches the town in his scrying and treats it like his own soap opera. Or a found note right out of Jr High where one kid is asking another to be his girlfriend. It seldom forces the DM in to the farcical, but it does tend make the mind leap to there, and the possibilities for play it implies. And that’s a good thing. When the writing is doing this its strong. The ANCIENT cleric who everyone discounts because he’s so old. And the kids that trick him in to creating new effigies for his Temple of the All Faiths. GOLD!

And now for the rest of this is (according to the ad copy) “beautifully made” adventure with “faceted intrigue” and “balanced and devious encounters.” I have noted, in the past as general advice, that putting adjectives and adverbs in front of verbs and nouns can spice them up. Used too often though, or in ad-copy, and it raises my cynicism eyebrow.

The maps are in a .rar format (Do people still do that? I guess they do?) that my on rar unarchiver can’t handle. So, I don’t get some of the maps I guess. The hooks, one for each background (Yea!) are a little open-ended. Like the sage coming to town to research an ancient civilization. They could be a little more self-contained. Don’t get me wrong, great idea … but just a bit LARGE. The read-aloud says things like “Newcomers, eh?” and does other things that betray players with more local characters. Read-aloud, especially around the first barfight, is a little bland and there are leaps of logic … like the ghouls travelling three hours from the graveyard to the “special” farm and a Pegasus showing up out of nowhere. That, combined with the goblins in the cave system having two captured basilisks to turn loose on the  characters, feels a little too 4e/5e to me, and not in a good way. I wish there were more examples, in the barfight for example. And, things like the local tax collector assessing a 50% fine BEG for some stabbing … which I guess is not a desired outcome since there’s no guidance in that area.

But, no, the big thing is that the plot doesn’t really come through at all. There’s supposed to be this faction rivalry in town, and some drugs stuff going on. That feels VERY disconnected from the surface level main plot. In a bar, a boxer goes crazy, the crowd goes wild, the ghoul uprising. Leading to the farm. Leading to the tower. Leading to the caves. You don’t even actually need to get involved in the faction/drug thing at all. And it might not even be obvious that IS going on. The adventure doesn’t push it enough. There ARE town sections, and there ARE mentions of it, but it just doesn’t come through in a coherent manner. 

But it tries. It takes ten pages to cover a barfight, getting failed, and looking in to the disturbed graves. That’s too much. There too much extraneous detail, background, and motivations. The adventure jumps back and forth at one spot, with the farmers sending the party to the tower, and then the farmers telling the party, maybe, about a dream that leads to the caves. But this isn’t in plot order it’s in location order … so he post-tower section is also in the pre-tower section … both under the farm. TO be clear, you COULD organize things this way, but if so it just needs to be clearer … and it’s not. 

This could be a delightful little thing. The jaunt in to the tower, or to the political bosses lairs, or little events in town …, there’s a lot here that’s not actually required but could be delightful spice to an adventure. But, when your rumors says “the city council is corrupt” then you need something about that. And the space that could be used to support that, or to make the adventure clearer, is taken up by a lot of padding. This thing really needed a lot of focus to bring its true possabilities out. 

It’s clear, I think, that I found some things in this to like. The little bits of local colour do a lot to liven it up and those little bits are what are missing in A LOT of whats commonly sold. And, along with this, little bits of relatable content, like one of the boxers drinking before the out, the bluster and bolster to psych up. And then there’s he extra effort this thing goes to. The additional vignettes and areas and the “not just Yet Another 4 Hours Adventure” length, going just a bit farther. And while 25-30 hours to complete, as claimed in the intro, seems a bit long I can see this being 16 or so hours without much trouble. And then, toss in the ending with both the goblin creator … which you can totally fucking kill, and some Guardians Of The Cthulhu Realm shit … yeah, I can take an element of the fantastic, dcc style. It just needed more clarity and more integration of the political element and the actual plot and a trimming of the BS.

This is $8 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages. I might suggest the fourth preview page (adventure page 8) as an intro to the writing style that you can expect. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/365528/The-Goblin-Bathwater-Incident?1892600