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By The Bugbear Brothers

The Bugbear Brothers

5e/OSR(!)

Levels 3-5

The bastion of the North, Xaefen Keep, has succumbed to darkness. Recently, there have been whispers of forbidden psionics that have taken root in the citadel. It is feared that this vile new craft is being used to torture the minds of young squires and madden them, thereby undercutting the Crown’s power. The renowned knight, Ervin Greystyle, also known as ‘The Axe’, has recently ventured North in order to investigate these troubling rumours. It has been several weeks since Ervin’s last correspondence, and he was due to return many days ago. The last letter Ervin wrote to the Crown contained a cryptic, macabre reference to a ‘gluttonous baron’ and his ‘mage juicer’, who reportedly dwelt in the lower crypts of the Keep. A reward of 500 gold pieces has been issued by the Crown to any who would confirm or refute the ravings contained within Greystyle’s last correspondence. There isn’t much time left now…

This 28 page adventure details a ten room dungeon in about nine pages. It’s got some good ideas and tries to be original in both treasure and descriptions. It also drones on too long in it’s read-aloud and DM text and is constrained by it’s smaller size. It’s notable for what it could have been.

This thing is so un-generic. It’s not using the generic fantasy tropes that are seen everywhere. It adds more detail to just about everything. It edges over in to Eberron territory, probably. There’s a fat cannibal baron. There’s a wizard addicted to potions. The local villagers are afraid of the Wendigos that plague their village at night, gaunt figures with decayed deer heads. They are engaged in pacifism, led by their local priest, in the hopes their god will save them. There’s a magic item that consists of a pair of of sow’s ears. And another that consists of a ghouls finger. And a pool of water around a column that if full of cloudy eyeballs, floating. It has a hut, underwater, of translucent glass, held down by “thick black tendrils and vibrant green roots protruding from the sea floor.”

And that’s only a sample. The environments here ARE interesting. They are new places with new things that the party has likely never encountered before, like the pool of eyes. The magic items are unique and well described. Mechanics are not overly emphasized in magic … that ghoul finger wants to return to its shelf … at a speed of 60’ and push 300#. Hmmm, now can I, as a player, exploit THAT? And that’s a good item. 

Haunting choir music, a woven meditation carpet, the scent of rot permeating your nostrils. Thick hemp straps. Note the use of adjectives and adverbs, the way these things are described. Not large or big or small or red. This is excellent use of language in order to add more to a description, to paint a vivid picture for the DM. “One of these paintings is molding and teeming with cream coloured maggots-some in the midst of hatching, others fully grown-chewing at its outer edges.” Sweet! Oh, did I fail to mention the cariboo skulls lined with nails that some prisoners affix to their own skulls in their madness… the faux-wendigos? This is good shit. It’s not all great, there’s are some “large” room contents and the like, but it’s got it where it counts.

What its also got is a case of Mouth Runneth Over syndrome. The read-aloud is long. The DM text is long. And long for interesting reasons. 

It’s not the usual irrelevant bullshit detail. There’s a thing that 5e adventures sometimes do where the read-aloud fully describes the room. If there’s a bookshelf with an interesting book on it, in a hyperbolic example, the initial read-aloud describes the bookshelf, the book, and also tell you what the books contents are. In other words it assumes a certain amount of follow-up and just infor-dumps the entire thing up front.The first room, that one with eyeballs, is a good example. The entire first paragraph does NOT describe the first room of the dungeon. It’ describes the ruins outside that you come upon. Oops, guess that should maybe be in a separate section, to make it easier to find, etc? Then it tells us of a room dominated by an obelisk. And it describes in detail the damage to the obelisk. ANd then the moat around it, filled with clounded eyeballs, with irises of various colours. From their state of decay it’s clear they’ve been here some time. The description goes on about some murals, but lets pause and just examine that obelisk and moat descriptions. The damage detail would be perfect for a follow-up in the DM section, as would the eyeballs, cloudy, and iris details. By NOT infor-dumping you encourage back and forth between the players and the DM. They ask about the pillar, you reply it looks damaged, They examine more closely. You describe more. (Someone, somewhere wrote an article/blog on this that was very good, but I can’t recall it.) The moat. I look at it, it’s full of something. I go over and look closer. Eyes. Ewwww! I look at the eyes, they are cloudy … with scintillating irises. Ewww! 

The adventure also engages in a lot of if/then clauses in the DM text. IF the players do this THEN this happens. Ray’s book on editing covers this, and other common writing issues, pretty well. These sorts of writing mistakes are common in this adventures and the designers would have benefited greatly by Ray’s book. The DM text proper is also lengthy for other reasons, mostly through some sloppy writing that takes a more conversational tone. That style is ok in places, all work and no conversational asides make DM Bryce a dull DM, but when it goes excessive it make the DM text long. And long DM text is hard to reference during play. 

There are also other missed opportunities. The village nearby, with the “Wendigo” problem, is given very little attention. Serving as a base and intro to the adventure it could have used quite a bit more. And better organization than a simple paragraph dump of information. It’s got good roots but needs more to bring it alive. A missed opportunity. Likewise … and I think I realize the gravity of what I’m about to say, this thing is constrained by size. Expanding it, a bit better design and integration of the areas, and you would have something that people would talk about the way they talk about Thracia. No, it’s not Thracia, not close, but it had that potential. 

On the nitpicky front, it’s got a random Big Bay Guy location chart. I don’t get why people do that, for multiple play throughs? In this case it can be a little justified since there’s a kind of map puzzle in one room that can show you locations … and creatures moving about in the place adds some life to the place. Generally though … it’s something that raises my eyebrows as a sign of ill things to come. 

It’s also got this weird System-less thing going on. It lists itself as generic/agnostic and OSR. And then mentioned exhaustion checks. And advantage. And lists DC’s for stat checks. That’s 5e. But is it, really? I suspect it’s just the designers home system which is a mash up of many things. The DC stats checks will wrankle the hard core OSR crowd, but it’s all easily ignored/converted on the fly by even an ok DM. 

And there’s no level range on the cover or in the product description, you have the buy the damn thing first to learn it’s levels 3-5. Not cool.

Nonstandard. Imaginative. Some decently evocative writing. But suffers greatly from Too Many Words. And, a couple of large missed opportunities. And sup with that title? It feels randomly generated.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $1.50. The preview is four pages and shows you nothing. Bad preview! Suck! Show us a room! Give us a sample of what we’re actually buying! Oh course, in this case it’s Pay What You Want, so you can get the entire thing, but, still. 

Cannibal?1892600

By Vagabundork
Self Published
Into the odd

This small dungeon combines subtle Egyptian and Mayan themes, weird fiction, non-Euclidean geometry and a touch of gonzo oddness.

This 24 page adventure details a fifteen-ish room dungeon  in about twelve single-column pages. It’s interactive, evocative, and tries hard to be useful to the DM at the table using a nested tree-like description format. Commitment to a vision is a good thing. Too much commitment to a vision is fanaticism and not good. You gotta know when to sacrifice. This don’t.

A great many of my positions can be thought of in terms of a spectrum. You’ve got two extremes and a middle point and I’m generally encouraging people to move off of their position near an extreme closer to the middle where a great band of “good enough” surrounds the “perfect” midpoint. This is usually confused as “Bryce wants everything spelled out for him” or “the reviewer favors minimalism.” No, neither. 

The descriptions in this adventure are pretty well done. They’re evocative. This isn’t achieved by droning on and on. This is achieved both by good word selection and leveraging a “less is more” attitude. Many things lose their wonder when overly explained. Magic items, Wonder. Magnets … how do they work? One interesting technique, used here, for being evocative is to remain mysterious. Our brains want to fill in detail. They want to explain. By giving them the right degree of detail, in the right way, they leap to explain and imagine and fill in. The main description for room nine, The Crypt, is “Scales cover the ground. An altar in the southeast corner. Murals of religious scenes: snake as deities, snakes as priests” It’s not much but revels, in a way. I’d summarize it, but it’s already essentially summarized for you with crypt, scales covering the ground, an alter and freaky murals. And note that the freaky murals are DESCRIBED. It’s not just “murals of victory” or some other abstraction, as many adventures provide for. No, it’s specific: as deities, as priests. It’s not the only way to get to an evocative description, but the combination of specificity and starkness does a great job.

It’s also fairly interactive, pillar two of the Bryce Watchwords. More than just stabbing things. There a great set of snake jaws that make up a door with gears to move them. More than trap, a trap wto PLAY with. An alter of snake bones (in that crypt, great detail, again) that releases toxic gas when disturbed. Jars hanging from an intertricate techno ceiling with fluid in them … and proto snake things as well.  A wall covered in lichen and vines … and a hidden power cable. There’s so much that reveals itself to further examination … and reckless play. Check.

[Note: this next part has some comments about Engligh as a Second Language. I would not say this adventure has language issues. Far from it. But some of the choices made in formatting remind me of non-Engligh Subject/Verb order … and I see things available in Spanish as well. It’s an academic comment, not a usability one.]

And then there’s the “Helps the DM run it”, of which a major part is the DM’s ability to scan the text and locate the information they need. This adventure is trying a format I’ve seen a couple of times before, with nested bullet points to describe things. Major thing. Then a nested detail, and then maybe a nested detail of that. It’s not a bad idea. The top-level bullets helps bring the eye to the important details while it’s then easy to find additional information about those things by looking at the nested/indented bullets. 

The adventure has a couple of problems in its specific implementation though. First, it’s gone overboard on the nesting. There are four or five levels in some cases. And three is pretty frequent. This end up making things harder to understand. I THINK I get what is going on. It’s almost like it’s one of those modern grammar teaching lessons where you break a sentence down in to clauses and make a tree-like structure from it. Now, let’s assume you did that for EVERYTHING in the adventure. That’s not the case here, but imagine it. It’s trying to follow some quite strict rules about nesting of detail … and has made that the assumption that this is good. Well, yes, it’s KIND OF good. But, by strictly following those nesting rules you’re loosing sight of the overall goal: usability. This reminds me of those adventures that always put a Sight, Sounds, Light, Door, Smell, taste, etc section at the start of EVERY. SINGLE. ROOM. regardless of if they need it or not. Too much implementation of a decent idea. Instead, focus on the overall outcome, usability, keep your general technique in mind, nesting, and sacrifice the technique when it detracts from the outcome. In one section there are some While Apes. That’s the top level. Ok. Second level nest: chained to the walls. Well, ok. Third level nest: they are food for the goddess. Uh … was that necessary to nest? White Apes-? Chained t o the wall, food for the goddess would have worked also. Even better: White Apes chained to the Wall-> Food for the goddess. Then the important detail “there’s fucking apes chained to the wall!” is immediately apparent. The adventure does this time and again. It needed to add a little, the obvious shit, to the top level nouns and combine a bullet of two. That would substantially condense the adventure. 

In other places the nesting looks backwards to me, with the important details deeper in the nest. A door-> Make a dex save to open it using tools->if opened make a dex save vs death->success: leap backwards to avoid being buried by snakes. The snakes falling from the ceiling is the important bit (so many they smother you!) but it’s buried. It should be moved higher up. Likewise there are other details that seem to be in a weird order as well, like a stone circle in room one that left dangling near the end. And for its attempt at usability, I still have no idea what “1g” and “1p” refer to in the monster charts, or which door in room one is stuck and which isn’t. Still, it’s trying, with cross-references and all.

I think it’s a great attempt. The format needs some polishing, but it’s got potential. And the evocativeness and interactivity are certainly present. 

This is free at the designers blog. Which is interesting in and of itself. 

By Sean Smith
Self Published
Quarrel & Fable

A harried messenger collapses in the town square with news that the king at Firefen has succumbed to a demonic parasite.  And where the king is ill, the land is ill. Will YOU rid the kingdom of this evil before the disease spreads?

This nine digest page adventure details a road journey from a town to the home of the king, through a demon-infested land. Nice little ideas are abstracted to a degree that they are no longer useful. It’s too short for what it’s trying to pack in, falling somewhere in between the abstracted nature of a hexcrawl encounter and the details of a regular encounter. It doesn’t do either any justice.

I accidentally bought this. All I saw was “OSR” and not “other OSR systems” on DriveThru. In my own defense, I tend to think of the OSR label as “compatible with B/X” … and many light systems are essentially NOT. They bear more resemblance to indie RPG’s then to B/X. System aside, the adventure bears the marks of being essentially a linear set of encounters, something we should all be familiar with from more modern versions of D&D play styles where they eschew the game element and concentrate on the experience. So I’m reviewing it anyway. Such as it is.

It’s Meh.

It’s organized in a kind of time-based manner. First you encounter this and then you encounter this. It’s not really laid out in a keyed format. There are some headings for different regions/areas, but then it just runs through the “first this and then this” thing. It’s still relatively easy to follow though, with paragraphs being clearly laid out and information contained within, even without area headings, blding, etc. 

The general format might be “first this little things happens and then you’re in this big situation.” First you meet a bandit on the road, jumping out of a copse of trees. “Your lupins or your life” he shouts. That’s your encounter. That’s followed up with about four sentences, in the next paragraph, describing a small starving village, the abbey in it that has closed its doors, they sell salt, and the villagers wants to eat an albino cock and black chicks running around. So, a LARGE situation. Farmers jump out to attack … and then run away. Small encounter. You happen to a friendly well-fed village of kind people … who are cannibals. Big Encounter. 

All of these are, essentially, underdescribed. The bandit and farmers are just people that jump out. There’s nothing to them, no soul. They need more than once sentence, maybe two, to bring the encounter to life. To give it some character and flavour. 

The bigger town/village encounters are essentially the same. It attempts to describe these huge situations but it doesn’t give enough detail. It turns in to an abstracted idea of an encounter, like one of those “fifty ideas for fucked up villages” garbage supplements on DriveThru. Here’s your three sentences to describe your new campaign world. Run it! 

I’m not arguing for things to be infinitely explained, or rigid beyond use. But a fun extra details, an NPC or two, a roving gang, some farmer details, SOMETHING to bring the place to life and help spark the DM. It’s as if it were “an exciting new campaign supplement!” and it only contained the words “the dark lord or Mordor is trying to take over the world.” Well, ok, sure, but there’s lots of possible shit in that. Maybe you could give me just a little bit more to work with? Otherwise this is just a roll on some random tables that’s put down on paper.

The wanderers are a great example of this. A short wandering monster table. Farm bandits. Slug fiends. Demon friar. That’s it, just a list. But each one can only be used once, it tells us. Well then why the fuck didn’t you include just a little more information about a vignette? The friar forcefully converting a flock through demonic executions, or the farmers, idk, doing a wicker man or something? It’s all so abstracted that it might as well be Wilderlands. Although, come to think of it, Wilderlands had MORE detail and was organized better. 

It does, at times, engage in a decent word or two. Fleeing across a river hiding in the “long reeds.” Long reeds in a river, fleeing, hiding in them, that’s great imagery and gives me something. I want more of that.

Also, while I’m not an expert in this system, I think combat is unusually deadly and the idea is to come at things sideways? But then why all of the forced combats in this with many encounters being a “they jump out an attack!” type? Maybe I don’t understand the system.

Weirdly abstracted. There are two roads between your start and finish, and you’re only ever gonna encounter stuff on one ,meaning half the book is wasted. Quantum Ogre don’t matter here, it’s bad design in a non-exploratory railroad. 

This is $6 at DriveThru. Of course, there’s no fucking preview. $6 for nine pages is pushing things. Quality deserves payment. But the reality of the situation means you’re just getting fucked over for these high price/low page count things … that don’t have a fuck preview.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/284980/QF3–Malady-of-the-Moor-King?1892600

By Megan Irving
Aegis Studios
O&O
Levels 1-2

Urgoblins are an all-male hobgoblin subrace who have limited regeneration abilities. Most urgoblins live among other hobgoblins with no issues; however, some believe their abilities are a gift from Ragnar and a sign that they should be leaders of their clans. Some of these urgoblins have split from their hobgoblin clans and come together to create an all-urgoblin clan, focused on taking over and ruling the Untamed Gauntlet. To further this goal, they’ve kidnapped hobgoblin women with the plan of breeding more urgoblins to join their power-hungry army. Mara is one of these women, and she has recently managed to escape their clutches, leaving four others behind in her flight to freedom. Mara wants to rescue the other hobgoblin women from the cruel urgoblins. A kindly centaur named Ronan has brought her request to the clerics at Chandra’s Haven, where the party can accept it and attempt to rescue the kidnapped hobgoblin brides.

This eleven page adventure describes ten room hobgoblin hideout. It’s small, simple, and tries to add immersion through trivia, which is never a good idea.

So, yeah, hobgoblin woman wants you to go rescue some other kidnapped hobgoblin women from some regenerating hobgoblins. Ignoring this, let’s talk difficulty. There are fifteen regenerating hobgoblins in the lair, and a few more on the way there. That seems like a lot for level one? I mean, you can stealth, run away, etc, but, still … this seems like a lot even for level two’s? And they regenerate?

It’s another simple map, looks like Dyson. Two ways in/out from most rooms. Nothing too interesting except maybe the two outdoor areas that offer some vegetation, porches, elevation, and other features to spice things up. 

The writing format is not very good. The rooms themselves tend to be rather plain, with trivia descriptions, which follows for most of the hobgoblins also. I mean, yeah, they do get some personalities, especially the women, but there’s this focus on trivia that embedded in to everything and FAR more prevalent than any interesting or evocative detail. One room has some columns. Underneath the paint of one, it’s cracked. Uh. Ok. An Frank the builder constructed it, but that also plays no role in the adventure?

The bad guys gets weird descriptions. Hair tied in a bun. Shaved heads. Mean expressions. One has a goatee, another has a scar across his nose. Another has a vest made of goat pelts. I guess this is ok? I mean, it helps the DM identify them to the players I guess. “The one with the nose scar walks over to the door” and so on. It just feels out of place because there feels like there is very little room for that sort of play.

The rooms are just full of this trivia, all squashed together. What they do when on alert and not would normally be good information, but it’s all mixed up in text form in this. Highlighter time! Except I won’t do that; that’s the designers job, to make the text easily navigable/scannable.

And the treasure is quite light. Almost no loot. I guess maybe Gold!=XP in O&O? Which means it’s a plot RPG? Which means it’s, essentially, a setting for 5e with OSR stats?

This is just another in the long long line of forgettable published adventures. Also, I guess “The Hobgoblin Bride” sounds better than “The Hobgoblin Multiple Gang Rapes Sexual Assault Victim.” Yeah, they put a sexual assault warning on it. And then they humanized her. If you’re gonna do that then calling her a “bride” is kind of disingenuous, eh?

This is $1 at DriveThru. There’s no preview, so just fork over your precious dollar and take what they decide to give you! Fuck yo for wanting a preview anyway! What do you think you are, an informed consumer making a logical purchasing decision?

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/288412/The-Hobgoblin-Bride?1892600