{"id":2830,"date":"2015-11-04T07:17:40","date_gmt":"2015-11-04T12:17:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2830"},"modified":"2019-02-21T10:21:31","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T15:21:31","slug":"no-country-for-weak-men","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2830","title":{"rendered":"No Country for Weak Men"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ncwm\"<\/a>
\nby Anders Lager
\nLazy Sod Press
\nSwords & Wizardry
\nLevels 3-4<\/p>\n

Somewhere in Frostreave\u2026 \u201cEver since we left that so-called town at the edge of the land of eternal ice, I\u2019ve been freezing my butts off! And no trace of that were-whatever-thing we\u2019re supposed to hunt down. Our best scout, Halross, says she\u2019s been passing here, into this valley, but I get a bad feeling from all this silence, frost and snow. It\u2019s empty here. No animals. No tracks. No nothing, but ice and snow. It\u2019s not natural\u2026 And now we\u2019re stuck in this cave. The blizzard has lasted two days now, and our supplies are almost gone. Hell, I\u2019d give a sack of gold for a cold ale and a hot wench in my lap right now. I can smell the fear of the others \u2013 die of starvation or disgust here, or freeze to death out there. And some other not so pleasant smells too\u2026 Some choice, huh? Maybe we can roast that gnome\u2019s pony? Would have been nice with some food now\u2026 Or, we just roast the gnome\u2026 Everyone\u2019s on the edge. No sign of the blizzard waning either. I reckon someone will snap soon\u2026 Well, not me. Guess it\u2019s time we get moving\u2026\u201d
\nThis is a short fifteen room tomb complex, mostly linear, in the frozen north. It\u2019s got some decently unique monsters and magic, but it resembles some cross between Tomb of Horrors and Grimtooth more than a dungeon adventure. The adversarial vibe from Tomb of Horrors is present here as well, and it\u2019s something I\u2019ve always had a hard time getting into.<\/p>\n

It starts off well enough: \u201cGeneral feel: Dark, cold. Everything is covered in a thin layer of frost. Not disturbed for ages. Faint smell of decay in the stale air. All areas are either cut out of the bedrock or natural caves. The doors are made of hard wood and locked or barred. All scribblings are in an archaic form of Old Elvish.\u201c That\u2019s some pretty good inspirational text. It sets mood in a very good way. You can build off of that, getting into the right frame of mind to expand the room descriptions. Then it immediately drops off at the first room. About a half page of text to describe a cave with a body in it and a secret door in the back wall. And it\u2019s not good description either. It has advice like \u201c(easy perception roll)\u201d and \u201cClose to the corpse there\u2019s a small triangular opening in the stone wall, leading into the depths of the rock. (average perception roll)\u201d It goes on. A lot. This is a really great example of an unfocused writing style. It\u2019s very conversational. It\u2019s trying to provide atmosphere, and rules, and facts, and inspiration, but it\u2019s not really doing much of any of that very well. Spurious text like \u201cclose to the corpse\u201d doesn\u2019t really give us anything to work with, it\u2019s more like a boring fact. \u201cEmbedded in its bloody hand\u201d does a much better job, if it is even required. The description is more like a stream of consciousness outpouring from the writer. It\u2019s a decent start, for a first draft, but needs a polish to focus the writing, to dig into what\u2019s important and improve it and drop the rest. Most of the rooms in the adventure are like that.<\/p>\n

The grimtooth\/Tomb of Horrors vibe turns me off also. It\u2019s a pretty strong reaction from me, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019m prejudiced against this sort of dungeon. A pool of water in a natural cave that\u2019s actually acid, or a sodium ball that drops into a pool of water to explode. Lots of levers to pull to make certain things happen. I like all of these elements, separately, but when put together in a \u201cChallenge\u201d style tomb I start to react badly. I think it\u2019s the whole \u201cthe dungeon builder\/wizard wants to test you\u201d thing that I loathe, and this resembles that if you squint enough.<\/p>\n

The dungeon is pretty linear. The map looks like a Logos-style map, but is\u2019 pretty linear with a couple of offshoot corridors with more empty rooms and \u201cchallenges.\u201d It\u2019s not really large enough to stretch your legs in or to get that feeling of dread from not knowing what\u2019s down the road not taken.<\/p>\n

It does a decent job with the monsters and the treasure. It\u2019s new monsters and treasure, which is always nice to see. The descriptions are a bit wanting though. \u201cAs normal skeletons, but armed with norse weapons.\u201d Not exactly inspiring. Spectral skeletons dripping with ectoplasm (a different monster) is a bit better.<\/p>\n

The ending has the undead king arise, 10 turns later, and begin to summon an army of the dead. The beginning has the party find a cross that is used as a kind of key to open some of the doors\/traps in the complex. Both of those elements are pretty decent. It\u2019s the middle that suffers a lot. The conversational style leads to the lack of focus in the descriptions, resulting in boring instead of inspiring.<\/p>\n

$1.99
\nThis is available on DriveThru.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/158772\/No-Country-for-Weak-Men-SW-version?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Anders Lager Lazy Sod Press Swords & Wizardry Levels 3-4 Somewhere in Frostreave\u2026 \u201cEver since we left that so-called town at the edge of the land of eternal ice, I\u2019ve been freezing my butts off! And no trace of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2829,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/ncwm.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830","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=2830"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5670,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2830\/revisions\/5670"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}