{"id":3101,"date":"2016-06-27T07:25:47","date_gmt":"2016-06-27T11:25:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3101"},"modified":"2019-02-25T11:10:35","modified_gmt":"2019-02-25T16:10:35","slug":"sepulcher-of-the-mountain-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3101","title":{"rendered":"Sepulcher of the Mountain God"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"smg\"<\/a>
\nBy Paul Wolfe
\nPurple Duck Games
\nDCC
\nLevel 1<\/p>\n

Braving the hidden tomb of an ancient tribal king, the adventurers become embroiled in a quest directly from Ira, the Mountain God \u2013 find the Skull of Vyache and his magic club, Alceon, that were stolen by Bashkim and the twisted minions of Gelihedres.<\/p>\n

This is a 17-room mostly linear tomb\/cave complex. It makes an effort, but ultimately provides lots of text to little effect and the linear nature of the adventure detracts. It turns into a slog, facing room after room, with little for the DM to get excited about.<\/p>\n

I want to focus on the descriptions, which means the DM text and read-aloud. One of the themes I go back to time and again is the purpose of the text in an adventure. The purpose of the the text is to inspire the DM. This is, after all, a play aid. It\u2019s meant to be a crutch for the GM to use in their game. The DM, or, rather, the DM\u2019s imagination, is the single greatest ally the designer has in their attempt to provide value to the DM. To this end the designers text needs to be targeted to the DM, to inspire them, to plant a seed in head that can grow. The goal is, after the DM reads the entry, to have their mind racing. To have a fractal explosion of possibilities explode in their head. That\u2019s the impact of a good description: the possibilities it generates excites and inspires.<\/p>\n

If I was describing a room and wrote \u201cThe rooms is large\u201d or even \u201cthe room is big\u201d or \u201cthe room is huge\u201d then a sort of very generic room idea seed is transferred from the writer to the DM. In this case the idea is rather abstract. I was very specific in my writing so the idea transferred is pretty boring. Is any of that appropriate for a Lovecraft adventure? Cyclopean, echoing, the top lost in shadows. In fact, I would suggest that both Cyclopean and Echoing are better than large, he top being lost in shadows is better than both. The best descriptions show, instead of telling. \u201cEndless footfall echoes\u201d shows. \u201cThe top lost in shadows\u201d shows. \u201cLarge\u201d tells. \u201cCyclopean\u201d also tells, but it also conjures up more specific imagery than \u201clarge.\u201d And what\u2019s the key: specificity.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at one of the descriptions in the adventure. This comes from room 1: \u201cA larger, decorated corpse lies on a black stone bier at the back of the chamber.\u201d Corpse isn\u2019t the greatest choice, but my main beef here is \u201cdecorated.\u201d It\u2019s abstract. It\u2019s a generalization. Decorated, but HOW? Garlands of fresh Luna blooms drape over the dessicated skin? I\u2019m a suck ass writer but Garlands are better than \u201cdecorated.\u201d What\u2019s a luna blossom? Who cares (as far as the written text is concerned), the DM can make it up. The important part is planting the seed in the DM\u2019s imagination.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s another very good (negative) example later on. The heads and shoulders of a foul giant are carved into a wall. Why is the giant foul? Is it leering? Misshapen? \u201cFoul giant\u201d is generic and abstract. The key is to be specific. Not overly so, not three sentences where a phrase or better word will do.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve picked two examples out of the text but the general state is that genericism and lack of specificity. This is combined with overly long DM text. A decent college try is made with some item descriptions, but again they come off as long, full of things we don\u2019t need to know, trivia. Similarly the hooks are quite nonspecific and little more than generic crap. Your god calls you, rumors of treasure, you\u2019re related to someone who disappeared. That\u2019s not really an effort at all. When all of this is combined with the rather linear map, there\u2019s little to recommend here.<\/p>\n

This is available on DriveThru.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/104748\/AL-2-Sepulcher-of-the-Mountain-God-DCC?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Paul Wolfe Purple Duck Games DCC Level 1 Braving the hidden tomb of an ancient tribal king, the adventurers become embroiled in a quest directly from Ira, the Mountain God \u2013 find the Skull of Vyache and his magic … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3100,"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-3101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/smg.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101","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=3101"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5732,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3101\/revisions\/5732"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}