tenfootpole.org

By Daniel Kingsley
Ripped Tabard Adventures
Castles & Crusades
Level 3

The goblins have killed Sam the Spear, the mayor and leader of the village of Sounding Grove. They have been quiet for a very long time, but no one is wondering why they are active again.  The foul creatures have started causing problems again, and no further thought is required!  What better way to have them dealt with than send an adventuring party to deal with them?  They are only goblins after all, how dangerous could they be for professionals?

This 25 page adventure is pretentious garbage with two combats. And long read-aloud. And terrible everything. A monument to the folly of man and  hubris of conceit.

Everything is wrong with this adventure. Everything. Ok, so, it looks nice. I guess the marketing has succeeded. EVerything else sucks ass. And not in a good way. 

This is a complete railroad of an adventure. (Which, I would assert, means it’s NOT an adventure, but I know there are fuckwits who disagree with that assertion.) You show up in town and a dude lies dead in the town square, a bolt through the eyeball. The townfolk have gathered and are lamenting. The DM notes tell us that “The party has been traveling for days and living rough. They are tired, hungry, and dirty.” O, really? This is the first clear indicator that this adventure is going to be shitty. It tells the party what they are feeling. We don’t do that. We can set up a description. We can lean that way in our manner, as the DM, but we don’t tell the party what they feel. Or, dictate, to this degree, their own personal conditions. Eight pages later we get through the hook, and town description, and can go fuck up some gobbos that did this to poor Sam the Spear. Well, I mean, after this quick note “The party can go now and suffer exhaustion and poisoning from drinking too much ale” So, I guess, they drank too much? Cause the flavor text says so, that’s why! For the second time, now, we are being told what happens, removing the player agency. Plot. Railroad. And not, I mean, even GOOD plot. ZThis is is just trivia shit. It doesn’t matter. It’s just that the designer has dictated that the thing will go this way so it’s written this way. 

The encounters, likewise, are dictated with predetermined results. The intro has some DM advice which goes something like you should talk to people, rushing in leads to dead characters, blah blah blah. And, then, we can look a tthe three creature encounters in this adventure. The first is with bandits in the forest. Four of them, desperate. We are told, without too much more info, that they attack. That’s because the designer has determined that this is a combat encounter and thus they will attack the party. They get no personalities, or detail, because that would be useless … they are attacking. Then comes the one goblin encounter, with the entire tribe. And a matriarch who speaks to the characters, explaining that this is all a big misunderstanding. There’s a LONG read-aloud here. And a predetermined sentry encounter to ensure that the matriarch monologue gets read. This is NOT meant to be combat, so, it gets a fuck ton of detail. Finally, there’s an ogre, bullying the goblins, which is meant ot be a combat. So he gets no personality other than he attacks. Because … that’s what the designer has decided should happen. 

No bueno. The designer doesn’t get to determine these things. The designer creates a scenario in which things can happen. Sure, there are percentages here, but when things are written as a railroad plot you have fucked up. I note that, this tendency here, in this adventure, include a completely linear map. No deviations from the path, lowly player! Did I mention that, if you don’t attack the ogre then the ogre smells your horses, on the way back to town, and he attacks you. I guess you have horses. You WILL fight the ogre!

Read aloud is Looooooong. Which is, of course, bad. And, weirdly, the town is described in a combination of locations and actions. One site, in particular, is called “Stealing from the pyre.” I thought dude was laying dead in the middle of the town square? I guess he;s on a funeral pyre now? Who the fuck knows. You can, however, look forward to amazing room descriptions like this one from a ruined temple “Empty Storage Room: This room was once storage for the worshippers of the temple above” ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?! Clearly, value added! 

The adventure does do something I like … but, I think, by accident. Maybe. When you meet the gobbos the matriarch gives a speech about how this is all a misunderstanding. I reproduce it here: “I think there has been a terrible misunderstanding. You see, we went to Sounding Grove to ask for help with an Ogre. We have worked very hard at making peace with the other humanoids in this valley. We do not steal from you, eat your babies, or put a curse you, making you break your hoe. We are not evil creatures who lurk in the night to cause you pain and suffering. Instead, we are peaceful creatures who have been persecuted since the dawn of time. We do not match your description of beauty or ethics. We have different gods. We eat different foods and wear different clothes. But does that mean we deserve to have to live in caves for fear of being slaughtered? Simply for being? So in response to how we are treated, we made a home here and removed ourselves as much as possible from your kind. So, brave adventurers, members of the more “advanced” races, before you kill many of my children to make a point, how about you help us stay peaceful and rid us?” Indeed! The poor, much maligned gobbos need your help! I do this shit all the time in my games. To quote my favorite line from the 4e rules “Talking is a free action.” Absofuckinglutely it the fuck is! Meanwhile, my gobbos would be fileting human babies in the back room and maneuvering to ambush. But the designer is, I think, serious. In the monster description, in the appendix, for gobbos it says “They are like any other sentient race, but the bias against them runs very deep. A clear case of socioeconomics and bards telling tales about them.” The socioeconomics line makes me think its a joke, but, I’m not so sure. Because the fucking adventure is WRITTEN for the players to take the gobbo monologue seriously. Fucking weird. Also, to answer the hanging question: yes, it’s time to kill many of your children to make a point, lady.

Also, all that gobbo socioeconomic shit is right below “ALIGNMENT: Lawful Evil” and the gobbo plan is to breed up until there are enough of them to wipe out the human village. Heh 

Just another garbage adventure. Disappointing.

This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages. Enough to see the read-aloud issue, ad the read-aloud of the dude that doesn’t seem to care Mayor Sam is dead. Heartbroken, that one is …

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/432010/Goblin-Gobbler–A-Castle-and-Crusades-Adventure?1892600

By Scott Craig
Cutter Mountain Simulations
Shadowdark
Level 1

Life is hard for the clans of the wold, a life of toil and sacrifice. But there is joy as well. A marriage festival is underway; kith and kin have gathered at the homestead. But harken! The bridegroom has been captured; his retainers slain in cruel ambush. After a violent change in leadership, the Blood Blade goblin tribe has turned its face from peace and now threatens war. Can the raiders be caught, and the bridegroom returned to his family? Four heroes give chase, hoping to overtake the raiders. But when this hope is dashed, only one path remains to effect a rescue of their friend.

This 29 page digest adventure presents a dungeon/cave with about eighteen rooms. It would be a decent introductory adventure if it didn’t follow its own formatting standards so well. A tough edit and it would be a nice GoTo for starter plot adventure. And without that edit it shall also die and be forgotten.

Ok, so, Frank is getting married tomorrow so he thinks it would be a great idea to go to the local (Friendly) goblin tribe and do some trading. His buddy Bob comes back, wounded, along with a gobbo on a wolf. Gobbo says there’s been a coup and Frank is now held captive. But … he remembers that, years ago, the gobbos found a barrow on the other side of their hill warren. It was full of undead so they left it alone. But, eventually, a gobbo shows up in their warren from the failed barrow expedition … having come through it in to their caves. So, Gobbo the Gobbo thinks you can sneak in through the barrow and rescue Frank. There’s a very “clans of the steppe” thing going on here, which I can dig. At least I can dig the commitment to it in the writing; it’s not perfunctory. Well, it is, but its also consistent. Also, this seems like a good place to note that the designer drops the word “Verisimilitude” a couple of times in the intro. 

The dungeon, proper, is supported by an ok map. We’re not really getting loops in an eighteen room map. It’s more of a tomb map with a couple of caves attached to the back … the forgotten back way in to the gobbo warrens. But, it shows features on the map, which helps a lot with the DM immersion needed to riff on an adventure and make a good player experience. Lots of same-level stairs, cave ins, boulders, statues, water features and so on. And … monsters are noted on the map. I appreciate this, for reaction/noise purposes. I do note, with pedantic interest, that in a section of worked stone dungeon, there is a side passage, a tunnel, hand dug/collpased, etc, that you can use to bypass the hallway up ahead. Excellent! Except, the bypass saves you five feet. You are literally just cutting a corner. Sadz! Better, I think, to have an obstacle and tempt the players with a dark dank tunnel that they have to crawl through to bypass it … IF THEY DARE! Anyway, lost opportunity.

There are things to do in the dungeon. Undead that rise out of the water, gobbos taking a piss that you can sneak past or gack. Traps of various sorts, from designed to natural. Statues and alters. And the ever-present (in good adventures) water features that gurgle, rise up to your knees, have waterfalls, and so on. So, pretty decent interactivity, including some role play/talking to shit if you so desire. Nice variety. Nothing outstanding, but the college try was given to the interactivity checklist … in spite of a waterfall noting that “it is unclimbable.” Ha! Obstacle, meet party!

The major fucking problem with this thing is the formatting, and what it does to comprehension. 

Let us imagine, if you will, that we are in a series of dark caves. A thousand feet underground, with a thousand rooms behind us. All dark. All caves. Do we need to be told that the next room is dark, and a cave? In a dedicated heading section for each … in every room? This pops up occasionally. Someone decides that rigorous application of a format will bring extra clarity. SOmetimes it is using so many coloured boxes that it looks like a rainbow barfed. And, sometimes, as in this adventure, there are a multitude of section headings, the same section headings, in every room. Light. Smell. Sounds. Danger. In every room. You don’t need this. It wastes space and it distracts. Yeah, absolutely, I appreciate smells, etc. But integrate it in to the description. 

Further, there are an abundance of bolded section headings here, which essentially serve as bullet points. A lot of them. In one room you are looking at: Trap, Light, Smell, Sounds, Danger, Sundered floor, wall fissure, mortared brick walls, five alcoves line the walls, north door, east door, west door, wester half: wait-deep water, wester half: uneven terrain, examine the north fissure, examine submerged debris, search the alcoves, examine west door, examine north door, examine east door. Is that it? I think so. That’s too much. You are obfuscating the room contents in your effort to bring clarity. Bullets and bolding are not the answer. If, by using them, you are making the adventure HARDER to use, then you’ve not accomplished the goal. These, like all Tenfootpole criticisms and remarks, are guidelines abut tools. We can’t lose sight of the end goal: runnable at the table … which generally means easy to scan and locate information. 

And this thing is SO thick with this shit that there is no way I would ever run it. Not even close. Edited/rewritten, to condense it and focus more on the rooms, individually, than the overall adherence to formatting … then maybe I would. It would be a decent starter adventure for a 5e-like game. Or Shadowdark 😉 

And, while we’re at it, let’s look at the evocative writing. I was gonna be done with the review, but I want to piss about a bit more. We’re told:

Exposed megalithic stonework. Revealed by a rockslide.
Stone portal. Cracked and leaning.
Stone double doors. Stand ajar; sundered and pitted with age; crude knife symbol hastily painted in faded red.

So, made out of stone, yeah? 😉 Megalithic blocks, cracked and leaning, frame two pitted-with-age door slabs, sundered, with a crude knife painted in faded red. How about that instead?

This is $3 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/431649/Sepulchre-of-Dusk–compatible-with-Shadowdark-RPG?1892600

By Todd Leback
Third Kingdom Games
OSE
Level ?

The world of Absalom is one of constant change, where Law and Chaos are more than abstract philo sophical ideas but are instead metaphysical realities that shape the very world itself. Absalom is dominated by Cycles, each lasting between two to four hundred years. Each Cycle is divided into an Apex – when Law holds sway – and a Nadir – when Chaos sweeps over the lands, driving back the light of Civilization Cycles are marked in the beginning by the Apex and ascent of Law, and the end by the Nadir. During each Apex the civilizations of Man do their best to expand their domains and bring law to the land; these civilizations often shrink, or even crumble, during the Nadirs as barbarians, beastmen, and worse fall upon the kingdoms of Man

This 52 page adventure presents four hexes in the land of Faery. As in old school/Narnia-ish faery. I get where dude wants to go, but, I ain’t on board for this entry in to his hex crawl series.

Dude has a series of hex crawls, it looks like. Maybe two regions out and a magazine/zine with some more in it? Looks like, in the existing crawls, there are two locations that can teleport you to Faery, so this thing details that: The Pallid Fields. You have to think of a kind Narnia, including the snow. So, folklore fey. 

I’m not sure this was the correct first thing from this dude for me to review. It being a pocket dimension sort of thing, it might, perhaps, not represent the bulk of his work. But, it’s what I’ve got, so let’s use this to generalize the fuck out of everything else instead of merely checking it out!

The designer does a couple of interesting things for a hex crawl. First, he explicitly notes which features in the hex (6 mile hex) can be seen from a distance. Not bad. As I’ve mentioned many times before, seeing something far away gives the players a goal to work towards. “Whats the glowing red in the distance at night?” It’s accomplished here by a second, players, map. I’m not sure I’m down with all that, but, at least letting the DM know what you can see is a good idea. Secondly, he lists resources in a hex. “(Rare woods, 1) and (ore, 2)” A little flavourless, but, I get the intent in a hex crawl game as you dig around for resources. 

And that’s about it for the good. 

There’s an overall lack of cross-reference in this. Folks names and interactions in hexes are tossed around pretty freely, but the DM is left to themselves to find the person to get more information about them/the situation. Not cool. I’m down with a living breathing world with lots of interactions away from their homes, but that needs to be supported. And, then, in an opposite way, things that can show up everywhere are noted … in their own hex. The chief example is the wise owl. At the end of his description, in his own hex entry, it notes that there is a 1-2 chance that the owl comes to visit you, no matter the hex you are in, if you are a newcomer. Absolutely not! We put that shit on the wanderer table, or as a note or something. We dont’ fucking bury information about other hexes in some rando hex. Let us imagine a megadungeon. A thousand rooms. Room 876 has a minotaur in it. The description notes that if anyone enters room one of the dungeon then the minotaur teleports there immediately. Well, how the fuck am I supposed to know that while running room one?

There’s other things. You can run in to lots of random fey, knights, or nibbles. There’s an in-depth generator but no real handy list to run to. The wanderer table is frustratingly confusing. “12 guards.” Uh … more info please? What the fuck is a guard? 

But, by far, the main attraction for a hexcrawl, and main issue, are the hexes proper. They kind of suck balls. And not in a good way. If you like a bitter acrid taste, then they are sweet and lavender. Make up your own description of sucking balls that you don’t like. Go with that.

I covered this in depth in my Wilderlands/Isle of the Unknown review. You need a situation in a hex. You need to describe that well, in such a way that the DM can riff on it. More than any other type of writing, the hex crawl description MUST be riffable well. You can’t describe an entire hex, an entire situation, in one short paragraph. That’s what adventures, proper, are trying to do. But, in a hex crawl, you are essentially describing (potentially) dozens and dozens of adventures. Little summaries of the,, anyway. SO, you need to give the DM enough information so they can spin something up from the description. Something that the players are gonna get involved in (or, that is going to get involved with the characters) and also something that inspires the DM to expand it. And, maybe, links in to other hexes, potentially. And you need to do that over and over again. 

This don’t do that. One hex has a tree. You can use the wood to create better magic wands. Yeah. Here’s a hot springs. Sometimes people show up to camp there. Here’s the stone circle you teleported in to. Here’s the salt lick that elk sometimes hang out at. Here’s a spring. If you drink from it you might lose your memory. 

These are not situations. At best, these are little diversions. There’s no real interactivity here, and you can almost entirely count of cross-hex situations or possabilities. One hex has te owl, who has a berry that lets you in to the fey dukes palace and another has an ent that has the fey dukes heart hidden in a box. 

There are really no situations to speak of in this. And, thus, no adventure to speak of.

This is $7 at DriveThru. You get no preview, Bill. Use your Standard Oil money on that!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/422121/The-Pallid-Fields-Hexcrawl-Second-Edition?1892600

By Stuart Robertson
Robertson Games
OSE
Levels 1-2

An expedition to the ruins of an old monastery uncovers hidden mysteries and monstrous peril. 

This 36 page digest adventure uses 24 pages to describe forty rooms. And ok map and occasional evocative phrase stick out in what is otherwise just another rando first level dungeon.

“… a massive bipedal frog looms out of the darkness at the far end of this large column-lined chamber.” So, “looms out of the darkness” is a pretty good description. And, there’s almost an interesting encounter or two. A room with a water-filled floor/sinkhole/collapse, zome zombies come out to attack. And in some kitchen you meet Seth, who is looking for food and will join the party. Turns out he’s a cultist out foraging in the dungeon. There’s a few other phrases of bits of encounters that are ok.And the map is, thankfully, non-linear with some features on it. Thank Nergal for small blessings. 

But everything else? Meh. At best.

The first six pages of this adventure tell you nothing. A meaningless generic background in a column. A section on how to roll up a character. How to start the adventure. Nothing interesting. Nothing evocative. Just the usual blandness found in most generic adventure settings. Oh no, trade wagons have gone missing. No expectant mothers with children looking longingly in to the distance. *yawn*

And then, Forward to Adventure! The adventure proper is more of the same. Descriptions that generally take a column or so. Multiple paragraphs. Nothing of interest. No real descriptions that are meaningful. A kitchen is a kitchen is a kitchen. 

Even the better things, that I mentioned above as some prime examples, are lacking. Those zombies? How much better to have them grab people and pull them under, rather than them lumbering out of the water to attack? A dead face staring up at you from under the water, all Dead Marshes style? THEN they can lumber out. Seth? Seth is a fuckwit. He does the usual attack the party, run away, lead them to danger thing. Just a bland cultist cutout. How much more interesting if we made Seth a real person? Yeah, he’s a cultist, but he’s fucking hungry. Give him some food, let him be ravenous about it. Maybe both wary and gleeful, eating like a ghoul cross legged on the floor, wide grin. Stick him in the fucking the fucking with some questionable morals. But, maybe also, some contacts and shit. That’s such a better encounter. Seth as a real fucking person. You know, in another room there are some bandits. They are looking for loot and interested in knowing more about the dungeon. You know what that makes them? Fellow Murder Hobos, that’s what. Treat them like that. I don’t know. Nergal forbid anyone go beyond the surface level tropes of D&D. 

“Large chamber.” That’s great. Large. Maybe a Big room next? Stick in some better words. “As the door opens you see …” We don’t do this. I mean, it’s not read-aloud anyway, so I’m not sure why we’re using second person. 

Further, the dungeon lacks coherence. It’s more of a random assort of monsters. Goblins. Bugbears. Bandits. Cultists. Dwarves. Zombies. Skeletons. Giant Bees. It’s like you took every level one monster and chucked them in. Each in one room. No real zones. No real story behind the current state of the dungeon. And I don’t mean an actual story, but, rather, the dungeon as a place that kind of makes sense. Not in a realism or simulationist way, but in a way that is meaningful to the adventure. The bandits have explored blah, blah, and blah, lost a dude in a trap room, hes on the floor there, and so on. Instead we get lots of monsters living in their own little rooms. Meh.

“Ruined tapestries and broken furniture litter this dark and decaying room.” I asked Ray Weidner once what this kind of sentence was and he didn’t have a strong answer. So, let’s call it “cumbersome and not effective.” I’m not sure what’s going on here. Well, I do, but, I mean, motivation wise when writing it. There seems to be an tendency in this to write … I don’t know, like a novelist? But it results in these sentences that are trying to be thematic and evocative instead just coming off as cumbersome. It’s … putting the modifier as the primary thing in the sentence (which, I think, is similar in concept to passive writing. A big nono) And, what it’s modifying, dark and decaying, isn’t really any description at all. They’re all fucking dark. 

I should note that this room description (thats the leading sentence) goes on for three paragraphs. To describe a room with six goblins in it searching it. I get what you want. Dank and wet, heaps of moldy tapestries hanging from the walls and on the floors, rotted couches and broken plush chairs turned over, with goblins poking through the piles and digging in to them. But that doesn’t come through in the column long description. 

Just as the room intent, the interactivity and the evocative setting, doesn’t really come through in any of the rooms. This was a one pager, expanded to 36. It’s not a terrible job at expanding, but, also, it’s not a good one either. Half the page count would have been better, at least.

This is $10 at DriveThru. No full size preview, just the mini quick preview. I has sadz. 🙁 Also, I paid $10 for this?!

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/429427/Advanced-Ancient-Academy?1892600

By Olle Skogren
Self Published
ACKS
Level 6

The Cloud Leopard Tribe lays siege to a mysterious mountain fortress – to claim The Cup of Wonder! Will the players aid in the defense of the relic, or steal it for themselves? Infiltrate the barbarian siege camp to assassinate their officers, recruit an army of disaffected mercenaries and break the siege, or break into the well guarded Temple of the Cup!

This fifteen page adventure details the siege of a holy site by a barbarian army. Flavour abounds in this Mass Battle potential adventure, but, could use a little more in the way of … event triggers? Things To Do In Denver While You Raise The Siege.

Ok, so, Frank steals the Cup of Wonders from the Cloud Leopards, like, twenty years ago. He settles on a hill in a valley and starts a holy site thing. Seems genuine. Pilgrims show up, and a small town pops up. The barbarians, though, did not forget. They have an army and are marching on the site to give siege and get their cup back. Enter The Hobos! Help the holy site, help the barbarians, or grab the cup for yourselves. And, let me say, the cup is indeed worth grabbing. Not quite artifact level, per the DMG, but a VERY powerful item that also fits well in the domain level play that should be popping off right about level six. Well worth the effort by the party.

I’m not the most familiar with the ACKS mass battle stuff, but from what I remember, it looks like you’ve got what you need to run a mass battle between the two sides, from a documentation standpoint. In addition, both sides camps/fortresses are lightly described to aid in negotiations or infiltration missions. A little light layout, some major NPC’s, some light wanderer shit for people coming up to the party, etc. The basics are all here. An outline.

And, it’s got some decent flavour in it. The barbarians, recruiting in a nearby town as a hook, are “Seeking heroes & villains to perform a mighty deed for a handsome reward!” Sweet. Another hook, some flower children on the way to the holy site … with 75 children in tow  … are stated out and noted that they have 2500gp in household goods. Take whatever side you want, man! The town is full of people that “In any crowd you see glowing halos and people who nearly float when they stride.” Yup! This is a fucking adventure for sixes man! No mudhole here! The dyadic sorcerers in the barbarian camp get this description “Twins? Lovers? This sinister and sharp featured pair are bound together by a strange pact. The woman Leits’ face glows with an inner light, shadows drip from the man Riqizeins’ face.” while the rank and file barbarians get “All dressed in their finest yellow and jade, this war is the most important event of their lives.” This is shit you can run. The detail is specific and oriented toward actually being run by a DM at he table. Detail the DM can use to riff on. Most of the wanderers in the two camps are the same, meaning they are interesting little things to take advantage of. Perhaps a little … implicit? 2d4 heavy infantry admiring some freshly repaired chainmail. That’s what you get. We can add some “whats your opinion friend?” or “Lets test it out on that dude!” kind of shit. 

This, then, is going to be my primary complaint. And, I note, I’m considering this a Substantial Adventure and not something that’s over in two hours. 

There’s a lot of latitude in an adventure like this for how a party approaches things. Especially level sixes. And that’s hard to deal with. You can’t spoon feed a DM because you can’t account for every situation. I’m cool with that. And yet … there are, I think, some common situations that can come up. And, for those situations, a sentence or two, especially given the designers penchant for flavour, is in order. There are SOME included. 

For example, the guru might, if they trust the party, send them off with some gold to hire an army to help raise the siege. The designer, rightly, includes a few details about this. The nearby kingdom, whats going on in there in the realm of “mercenary army”, with the flavour and NPC’s that are a strong point with this adventure. And, at times, we get some lighter content like fucking with the barbarians war flags to lower morale. Just a “guarded by two dudes and -1 to loyalty checks”, but, you get where its going.

Given that the timeline (and, there IS a good timeline) is about ninety days in total, I think I’m looking for a little more. What does the guru trusting the party mean? FOr that matter, how about the barbarian warlords trust? A sentence or two about a mission and difficulties in it would seem appropriate. Likewise, there’s a note about the difficulty in smuggling a large amount of loot (to hire the army) out of the siege. A few words about that would seem to be in order as well. And, perhaps some camp and holy site intrigues as well? Its a long timeline and I’d like to get up to some shit. And, on this point, let’s talk about Opportunities For Fun.

I’m not bitching at Olle about this, just pointing out something. If you’ve got a bunch of named NPC’s, with personalities, and stuff to do in camp, then, we want to make the camp an adventuring site. What I mean by this is that we  want to make sure the party can get in to it effectively so they can experience the fun. If it’s too hard to get in, via disguise, sneaking, whatever, then you don’t get to have the fun the camp offers. Which is a major part of the adventure, I think. This is akin to a Roll To Continue … putting the entire adventure behind a secret door or a tracking check.If you fail that check then you don’t get to go on the adventure. 

I’m not saying Olle fails here. But, there are a lot of things to throw a party off … and I don’t think in necessarily a fun role-playing way. The fails, on infiltration or disguise, feel more like a Complete Fail then they do A Complication That Could Be Fun. And don’t go all fucking nutso on me, absolutely you can have a complete fail. But we want the fun also, right?

So, a little more in the way of situations and vignettes. A little more intrigue, maybe. Perhaps a one page summary of the timelines and Things To Do for the DM. This is VERY open ended, as it should be for something like this, and if you’re open ended then you need a little more reference for the DM to riff on and cross-reference. 

It’s certainly not BAD, I don’t think … although I’m not certain there are enough mass battle scenarios to to understand yet what bad and good are. 

Did I mention how handsome and intelligent Olle is? And how he’s a member of the Tenfootpole Adventure Design Forum? 

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2. Pay what you want, and the entire thing is in the preview. So, no excises for not checking it out. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/430322/Sudden-Siege-for-the-Cup-of-Wonder?1892600

By Rodney Nedlose
Self Published
Shadowdark
Level 1

The Village of Wealton is a peaceful hamlet in the northernmost reaches of the Green Valley.  It enjoys natural terrain to isolate them with a swamp to the north, mountains to the east, and an enchanted dark forest to the west. Now strange things have been happening in town, and the farmers and peaceful folk need help!  Some think it’s the doing of the local witch-woman, who lives in the swamp.  But is there more to this picture than immediately meets the eye?

This 21 page digest describes a fifteen room tower with about four levels. There’s basically nothing going on here. At least nothing that couldn’t be done in a single page. A single digest page. It’s just a padded out almost-empty tower.

As of this writing, Kelsey’s kickstarter is closing in on $1mil. So, a) Congratulations! And b) I’m so jealous! To mollify my feelings I’m reviewing some third party stuff for Shadowdark. It don’t matter how good your game is, someone with more enthusiasm than talent will show up to publish something for it.

So, small idyllic village. Been that way for a long time, even though Evil Undead Kingdom is to the north, separated by a menacing swamp, where the Swamp Witch lives. Some evil shit goes on in the village. Youget sent to the swamp witch. You find her tower. It’s made of obsidian and its been damaged. Inside you fight a couple of shadow-things on some stairs, before fighting a couple more in front of a locked door where the witch is holed up. Also, there’s a wight on the roof. Witch needs her tower repaired to recharge the spell that keeps evil away from everyone. Thus the end of the adventure is the hook for the next part. That’s it. You can now run the adventure.
But, Bryce, there are a lot more pages here?! And rooms! You said fifteen rooms! Yeah, man, but, there not adding anything. The rooms take five pages and are full of exciting descriptions like “Hallway from east to west. Foul smell fills the enclosed space” and “The door from the lavatory opes into a hallway” “There is a broken door to the east and a closed door to th west, which is locked” Ok, yeah, so there’s more. But, this, the boring mundanity of life, is AT LEAST 50% of the adventure text. Text explains the mundane. Text repeats. The “really” clean lavatory smells of lilacs and elderberries. Nothing more. We’re told where doors exit to. The witch is withered, 85#, and impossibly old … we’re told several times. Padded out. No real interactivity at all. Just stab a couple of things and break down a door.

There is, I think, a good monster description in the monster stat appendix. For the Hexling: “A whispering, writing shadow that coils and snaps like a whip.” Not bad! The others, though, tell us things like “Shades created by the ritual Mirena performed to ward the southern lands against the Bonecrusher’s hordes.” Great. A backstory but no description to use when the party encounters them. 

Just use the four sentence description I provided if you need to. There’s nothing else here. All if bleak. Not dark. That would be scary. Just bleak. 

This is $2 at DriveThru. Ain’t no preview. That sucks balls.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/429890/Mirenas-Tower?1892600

By Joseph Mohr
Old School Role Playing
S&W
Level 1

For as long as anyone can remember the ruins stood at the top of the hill overlooking the valley below. They had stood there longer even than the village at the base of the hill. A band of warriors stood in battle there long ago fighting off the Orc invaders who swept through from the wild lands to the east. It was said to have been an epic battle: A last stand of a small group of men against a massive group of invaders. It was the stuff of legends. But that was ages ago. No one now even remembers their names or why they chose to fight when so many others ran before the invading hordes. Now all anyone remembers is that the walls are crumbling and are dangerous. A few children have climbed up to the top of the hill and found themselves trapped in the falling stone walls. Parents in the village are careful now to keep the children away from this dangerous place. What mysteries might be found there? What forgotten treasures might still be left? Brave young adventurers might cut their teeth exploring ruins like these.

This twelve page single-column adventure uses three pages to describe six rooms. It’s the reason I started reviewing. It has the distinction of having a one star rating on DriveThru, Something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Mohr just keeps cranking them out. Old School Role Playing! Starter Adventure! Free! All the right words to suck in a new person to the hobby and crush their dreams. When I came back to the oSR< all of the forum people were listing all of these great adventures. Best Ever, they’d say. You get excited. Dreams of all of the great times you’ll have. Laying awake at night. You go grab a few, and then a few more. Paying money for some. Others are free. You take a look at them and you think Is That It? This Is Good? But, everyone is saying how great they are. You shake your head a little. You adjust your expectations a bit, maybe. This must be what a good adventure is? But, of course it’s not. Not even close to being good. It’s just fanboys. And forum friends being supportive of each other. And reviewers softballing shit so they don’t make anyone mad at them. 

Note that in the publishers blurb there’s nothing about level ranges. Or on the front cover. Or in the title page. Eventually we get to something buried in the text that says “starter adventure” and “low level characters.” Perfect. We’re starting strong out of the the gate.

There’s a village at the bottom of a hill. On top of the hill is a ruined castle. Like, 100 feet away? No details on the village, which is explicitly called out in the text. Great. Nothing but the village ruin. Got it. And two crocs, with 3HD each, live, like 50 feet from the village. Sure thing. Absolutely. 

Up the hill and in to the ruin. Which has three rooms. Fight two goblin lookouts. Then fight like 2d4+2 goblins inside the room they are guarding. There’s also a giant spider in a ruined tower. Which you already know if you’ve ever played D&D before. There is ALWAYS a giant spiderman the ruined tower. Let’s see, you get a magic battle axe, a magic ring, like four magic potions and about 500gp in loot. Off to your next adventure1

“Bryce, you always swear off Mohr” I know, I know. Dude has some kind of genius level marketing skills. Between covers and marketing descriptions. 

This is just junk. A quick write up that no doubt took an hour, seemingly, and he pushed out. It’s 

This is free at DriveThru. The preview is six pages, which lets you see like four of the encounters. Good luck with those.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/430208/The-Stonehill-Ruins?1892600