{"id":3402,"date":"2017-01-09T07:17:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-09T12:17:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3402"},"modified":"2017-01-03T09:19:07","modified_gmt":"2017-01-03T14:19:07","slug":"troubling-events","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3402","title":{"rendered":"Troubling Events"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nBy Shane Ward
\n3 Toadstools Publishing
\nLabyrinth Lord
\nLevel 1<\/p>\n

Set in the city of Yahleui, the heroes have only recently come to the continent of Crimhuck, seeking adventure. The heroes are met by a large comely woman in a tavern called the \u201cWinding Trail\u201d, her name is Hilde. She tells them that if they can safely get a magical ring to her employer deep in the sewers under the city they will be rewarded with precious gemstones.<\/p>\n

This is a free 24 room dungeon crawl, ostensibly in the sewers. It\u2019s above-average in the variety of encounter options and doesn\u2019t drone on, keeping its text generally tight and focused. As a cohesive whole it fails to deliver. A good hard hitting second draft of this dungeon could pack & deliver like UPS trucks. As written, it\u2019s a bit random and disconnected but with decent variety and a style that is not odious.<\/p>\n

The designers notes (GOD how I LUV designer’s notes! I really do!) indicate the core of this was procedurally generated from some random tables. The designer then took the results and massaged things in to a story and more coherent dungeon. This is all true. Once told this you can see a bit of what must have come up on the tables and how it was then twisted in to a more coherent whole. I\u2019m reviewing this primarily because of that methodology. This sort of \u201croll some dice to get some inspiration\u201d thing is something I believe in and I wanted to review something that fell clearly, explicitly, in to that category. The designer has done a pretty good job of taking those dice rolls and turning them in to rooms. They\u2019ve done a less great job of turning the entire thing in to a coherent whole. <\/p>\n

There\u2019s not much lead in, essentially it\u2019s just what\u2019s in the intro paragraph at the start of the review. The only additional details are that a guardsman overheard your conversation with the woman and that some thieves, who originally stole the ring and then in turn had it stolen from them, as are on the track. This is the wandering monster table. On a one the thieves track you down and on a two the guards track you down. <\/p>\n

The map is a decent mix of loops, hallways with rooms off of them and hallways that run in to rooms. Certainly it has enough complexity to run a decent exploration game and provide that darkness and sense of the \u201cblack unknown\u201d that influences a good exploration dungeon. It\u2019s supposed to be an unused sewer, but doesn\u2019t really resemble that at all and once you get past the room one entrance \u201calong the riverbanks with no sewage flowing from it\u201d then I don\u2019t think \u201csewers\u201d is ever mentioned again. Thank God. (But Wait! Don\u2019t forget I\u2019m a hypocrite!)<\/p>\n

The encounters proper are ok. Not great and not terrible. There\u2019s a sentence or two about the room, first impressions and the like, and then a couple of more sentences, set apart is a second paragraph in italics, that is DM\/secret information. It\u2019s a decent enough format. The \u201cnormal\u201d text could be used as read-aloud, if you were pleased to do so. Maybe that was the intent since room dimensions are included at the end of each one. \u201cThe room is 15×15.\u201d As read-aloud that\u2019s ok, I guess, if you\u2019re more interested in a fact-based approach (yuck!) than artistic license impressions (Yeah!) If it\u2019s not meant to be read-aloud then it\u2019s duplicative and should have been removed since that information is on the map. The descriptions proper are not terrible interesting. \u201cTwo human guards are asleep in chairs, an empty bottle of wine sits on the table\u201d is pretty much the highpoint of the descriptive style in use. It\u2019s not overly long (yeah!) but also not particularly good\/interesting\/evocative writing(Boo!) The DM text is similar. Straightforward, not laser-like focus but still ok. \u201c There is a magical trap in this room, when the door is opened and the PCs walk into the room it fills with black smoke. The smoke is harmless and is meant to keep the guards from eating too much.\u201d That\u2019s not a bad. Maybe a bit clumsy at the start, and maybe I\u2019d choose different adjectives and adverbs, but with a little thought it\u2019s pretty easy to see how it can be used to decent effect. Most of the rooms are like this; they have something beyond just a straightforward hack\/combat, most generally towards the more mundane but still interesting side of the spectrum. Decent variety, some weirdness, a few traps, people to talk to sometimes.<\/p>\n

The rooms, put together, is where things fall down. Individually they generally work ok. Put together as a whole they make less sense. The guy you\u2019re delivering to is pretty close to the entrance. Some of his allies are scattered around in other rooms, but he hasn\u2019t told them you\u2019re coming and reaction checks determine their desire to kill you on the spot. (not to mention his reveal that it was all just a test … UG!) The rest of the dungeon is just THERE \u2026 not really working together in any way, not really related. I may hate sewer themes but saying it\u2019s in a sewer and then having virtually NOTHING to do with a sewer is a bit of a let down also. Level theming can be great thing. <\/p>\n

The entire thing needs a serious rework. Moving things around, bringing out the sewer theme more (or eliminating it) and making the rooms relate to each other more instead of just being, essentially, unconnected to each other.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like to suggest that a mistake was made with this adventure. The background, and then the core conceit, is that this is a large old city and the ruler may be some kind of evil vampire lord. Combined with the decent map and keys, I think a significant opportunity has been lost. If level one was MORE of a sewer (I know! Heresy! Especially from Mr \u201cI-Hate-Sewers\u201d Lynch!) and there were MORE entrances from the surface and some entrances to lower levels then this could serve as the kicking off point for a megadungeon! Level after level underneath, each themed. Level one\u2019s map would need some tweaking, and the keys need an overhaul, but they need to be put together better anyway, so not much loss there. The background with the city & vampire rules has potential. The map and keys show potential. There\u2019s not may adventures that suggest there should be more, or even could lead to a megadungeon \u2026 even some megadungeons. I think this one does. But, not in it\u2019s current form. <\/p>\n

You can pick it up at the 3 Toadstools website.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Shane Ward 3 Toadstools Publishing Labyrinth Lord Level 1 Set in the city of Yahleui, the heroes have only recently come to the continent of Crimhuck, seeking adventure. The heroes are met by a large comely woman in a … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3400,"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-3402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/troubeve.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402","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=3402"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3403,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3402\/revisions\/3403"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}