{"id":3664,"date":"2017-06-21T07:14:01","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T11:14:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3664"},"modified":"2017-06-14T09:25:26","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T13:25:26","slug":"trouble-in-waterdeep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=3664","title":{"rendered":"Trouble in Waterdeep"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>
\nBy Eugene Fasano & James Hutt
\nArcana Games
\n5E
\nLevels 1-3<\/p>\n

An urban Waterdeep adventure.<\/p>\n

21 pages of linear crap (with sewers!) that dips in to \u201cbarely comprehensible\u201d territory wrapped in lipstick art & formatting to make it look decent. It embodies the more recent design style that calls for scenes instead of relying on player-driven interaction. Hackneyed, barely comprehensible, sudden scenes springing up, and poor DM support round things out. <\/p>\n

The cities poort section is suffering from a plague. The players enter, have a couple of scenes to find poisoned grain, get led to the sewers to find zombie workers digging tunnels, and are led to a noble house to learn everything is masterminded by a bastard son who is killing everyone there to cover up his tunnelling for a longevity amulet. <\/p>\n

The very first \u2018scene\u2019, past the hook, exemplifies the style of design. Two guards stand at the gate to the poor district. They have no personality, or even stats. You can\u2019t bribe them. You can\u2019t intimidate them. You can\u2019t get in. You HAVE to go to the next scene, which has a merchant with a stuck cart. Helping him gets you his papers to let you in. This is SHIT for design. Linear, doing exactly what the fucking designer tells you to do. D&D on autopilot. Just sit at the table and roll your fucking dice and keep your ideas to yourself you POS player scum! It\u2019s the DM\u2019s story! Fuck. You. Real design would have given us a few details about them, supporting the DM in roleplaying them. It would have allowed you to stab the fuckers. Or put a building nearby to climb on to get in. Or Let you bribe them or intimidate them or befriend them. It would have ALSO provided the stuck cart. Then the PLAYERS get to decide how they want to approach the entry to the district, with the designers having provided the supporting material for the DM to respond. <\/p>\n

Worried about catching the plague? Have no fear! The characters CAN\u2019T catch the plague, according to the text! Recall folks that this is consequence free D&D; you have to eat the poisoned grain for WEEKS to get sick! Yeah!<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a nice vignette where a couple of noblemen retainers are handing out bread to the crowds. There\u2019s a pickpocket, and a cream, and one of them chases after. The crowd rushes forward to get their bread, women and children in danger of being crushed \u2026 and that\u2019s it. It\u2019s a nice scene, lots going on, lots of potential for improvisation (completely unsupported by the DM text, of course) \u2026 and no consequences. There is no payoff. This is followed by a family wanted to get past a barricade guarded by two retainers. It\u2019s just left hanging, with their stats. It\u2019s so poorly supported that it\u2019s almost minimalist. Imagine the four paragraphs of text were \u201c2 guards won\u2019t let a family carrying bread through a barricade. Their son is sick on the other side and the guards say everyone inside is DOOMED.\u201d That could be an interesting wandering monster encounter in another adventure. In this telegraphed thing though it’s clear that it’s so poorly written that things have been left out and assumed. Of COURSE the party will attack, I mean, stats were provided and everything!<\/p>\n

The next section starts the party in an infirmary; it’s just assumed the party is there. This sort of \u201cnow you are here\u201d stuff happens all the time. The bad guys are all half-orcs. I\u2019m not a paragon of social justice but fuck man, why? It\u2019s the fucking laziness that gets to me. Like the exciting adventure (linear) in the sewers! Yes, the next section is all about sewers! One room the party overhearing a bad guy talking to some half orcs from outside. Stats are provided for \u2018Gar\u2019 a half-orc. Is that the dude? No, it\u2019s supposed to be a human and the stats are for a half-orc. Who the fuck is the \u2018Gar the half orc\u2019 stats? It\u2019s both linear AND incoherent, a great accomplishment!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s $4 on DM\u2019s guild, or if you go look on Reddit you can find the designers pimping a free download version. This thing has all the trade dress of a WOTC adventure and doesn\u2019t even reach THEIR low standards of quality. The preview is three pages and will get you a view in to the guard scene and the pickpocket scene. It\u2019s a good preview in that it shows you what’s typical for what you\u2019ll find inside.
\nhttp:\/\/www.dmsguild.com\/product\/205194\/Trouble-in-Waterdeep–An-Urban-Adventure<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Eugene Fasano & James Hutt Arcana Games 5E Levels 1-3 An urban Waterdeep adventure. 21 pages of linear crap (with sewers!) that dips in to \u201cbarely comprehensible\u201d territory wrapped in lipstick art & formatting to make it look decent. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3665,"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":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews","category-the-worst-evar"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/trwa.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3664","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=3664"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3666,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3664\/revisions\/3666"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}