{"id":10273,"date":"2026-02-11T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10273"},"modified":"2026-01-21T09:51:53","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T14:51:53","slug":"trouble-at-turnip-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=10273","title":{"rendered":"Trouble at Turnip Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Stephen Smith
Mr Smith Design
B\/X
Levels 1-3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
The farms and fields around Turnip Hill are being plundered. Desperate locals need heroes to investigate\u2014and stop whatever\u2019s threatening their livelihoods. A straight-forward job\u2014but things have a way of getting complicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This four page adventure features a fourteen room dugout cave\/dungeon\/warren under a hill. Nicely evocative but it\u2019s just a hack and doesn\u2019t really lean in to the Bone Tomahawk aesthetic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fuck you. It\u2019s my blog and I\u2019m clearly intrigued by the possibilities that a shorter page count could imply. We all know it\u2019s not going to fulfill all of my hopes and dreams (well, I don\u2019t \u2026) but we must carry on anyway, the search for meaning in a word cruelly devoid of it. I mean, how many fucking pages do you need to stab shit if you\u2019ve got a dozen rooms and are getting eight or so to a page? Maybe six, I\u2019ve decided. If we accept six to eight to page, with a page of monster stats and shit, then a couple of pages of Village Investigation and\/or Overland Travel. Hmmm, no, I should think more about the perfect ratio of leadin\/support and appendices to encounters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at our wit\u2019s end. For the past few weeks something\u2019s been making off with livestock and supplies. No tracks, no broken fences\u2014just gone. Folks around here say they\u2019ve seen shadows in the fields after dusk\u2014the unnatural kind. I don\u2019t know if I believe all that, but if we lose much more, our families won\u2019t make it through the season\u201d So we\u2019re framing this as Heroes rather than adventurers, but, whatever. This isn\u2019t bad at all, but that\u2019s all that there is. No one to talk to, and no guidance on investigation in order to eventually find an entrance to a warren. Well, there\u2019s a wanderer table for above ground which will lead you there, but each of the four entries literally leads you there. \u201cYou hear wind whistling from the entrance\u201d or \u201cYou see a druid observing a hole.\u201d And why the fuck doesn\u2019t this fucking druid do something? Oh, because he\u2019s a druid. Fucking neutrals. Anyway, it\u2019s clear that I\u2019m a little disappointed in the above ground portion. It feels like there was a page available so something was tossed in to fill it. Which means I feel like this was a stunt dungeon: majesty revealed in four pages! Look, use the page count you need to bring the work alive, just don\u2019t fucking pad it out. That seems simple enough. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The map here is above average for being so small. A little isometric, it gives a nice \u201cwarren under the hill\u201d vibe via the map\/art style used. There\u2019s a great number of ramps, same level stairs, columns and such on it. It also fails somewhat in being a map, with some of the room exist not being shown in the best way, as well as a lack of walls (doors imply walls, I guess) that would get in the way of the visual impact. How close to a Rothko can you get before your patron starts to question if you\u2019re doing a portrait of their spouse? This one is probably ok if you dig through the rooms first to better marks exits, Yeah, I do like the map even though its simple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s some decent descriptions inside. The rooms all have these tree roots and things growing through the ceiling. \u201cThe air is damp, musty, and smells of soil. Footing is uncertain\u2014shifting between eroded flagstones, soft patches of earth, and scattered debris.\u201d or \u201cThe floor of this wide corridor is extremely broken and low-hanging roots require frequent ducking. Loose stones make the uneven stairs somewhat precarious..\u201d That\u2019s not terrible. \u201cWide\u201d isnt great, but we\u2019ve got low-hanging roots and loose stones on a set of stairs. It\u2019s the modern style of presenting something that COULD be called read-aloud but isn\u2019t labeled as such so could be DM notes. It does, in places, lead to over-reveal if used as read-aloud. \u201cThen don\u2019t use it as rad-aloud.\u201d Ok. Another point toward that is the lack of creatures in the faux-read-aloud. These come later. So, in essence, this kind of room overview up top, then a little listing like \u201c3 Giant Centipedes drop from the ceiling\u201d and then a mechanics note or two like \u201c-1 hit from swinging weapons\u201d or a list of treasure to be found or something else. It\u2019s not a bad format. The weakness, in all formats, being that they ARE formats and the designer always needs to keep a little willingness around to deviate from it in order to achieve the needs of the room\/encounter\/adventure\/whatever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a hack. Monsters in the room attack. Not much in the way of interactivity beyond that. D&D has a long history of hacks, but the more interesting play expands upon that a bit. The hack as a fail condition is also a meme, but something closer to that. Things to explore and play with and so on. Something to discover, if only a hidden treasure behind a waterfall. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But is it a GOOD hack? Well, there\u2019s little in the way of an order of battle. Which means essentially no order of battle. And while the adventure makes a point of the lack of lack in this place the monsters also don\u2019t seem to recoil to respond or get warned by light and react appropriately. Circle the wagons, do the defensive thing, use the halls to get behind people \u2026 nothing of any of that. Well, there is this: \u201cIf Chieftain loses 3 or more HP, he sends up an alarm-whistle. Any remaining Grimlings will add to the fray in 3d6 rounds.\u201d There\u2019s the extent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This thing is certainly moving in the right direction, much more than most of the endless line of adventures coming out. It\u2019s tight, the writing tries to be evocative, the map is nicely evocative and things are least themed to a non-generic degree with the burrow\/tree root\/dugout thing going on. Slave to the format, be it the encounter format or the page count, means having to focus more on form over function, to the detriment of the adventure. Also, loot feels lite for B\/X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $2 at DriveThru. There is no preview. I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s $2 and four pages, I still want a decent preview. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/548444\/trouble-at-turnip-hill?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Stephen SmithMr Smith DesignB\/XLevels 1-3 The farms and fields around Turnip Hill are being plundered. Desperate locals need heroes to investigate\u2014and stop whatever\u2019s threatening their livelihoods. A straight-forward job\u2014but things have a way of getting complicated. This four page … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/548444.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10274,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10273\/revisions\/10274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}