{"id":5883,"date":"2019-03-18T07:15:04","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T11:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=5883"},"modified":"2019-03-16T11:06:43","modified_gmt":"2019-03-16T15:06:43","slug":"off-track-the-uncharted-swamp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=5883","title":{"rendered":"Off Track: The Uncharted Swamp"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Brian Cooper
Off Track Games
Labyrinth Lord
Levels 1-5<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
From the blurb:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This adventure aims to solve the problem of dealing with random overland movement through a swamp by offering the referee a really really good random encounter table that doesn\u2019t feel random, but instead hangs together in a meaningful way.  In addition to true “wanderers,” it also describes a few lairs whose location is not pre-determined, but fixed in the course of play.
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This forty page thing is wandering monster table meant to be used in a swamp. Which blurs the lines between wandering monster table and a hex crawl, which is why I\u2019m reviewing it. Is a hex crawl an adventure? After looking at this, I don\u2019t know. Brian asked me to review this, luring me in the promise of \u201csomething new under the sun\u201d, a sure fire way to hook any reviewer. I\u2019m going to talk about the tables, proper, near the end, but first I\u2019m going to talk about play aids, adventures, and things in between.
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So, you\u2019ve got his description, above. This is a wandering monster table for a swamp. Each of the entries has four possibilities: day & night and a \u201chint\u201d of the encounter followed by the encounter. Many of the table entries are linked even beyond that, such as multiple table entries or different types of frog-licking drug addicts, and the frogs proper, and so on. Each entry takes about a page to describe the four possible encounters for that one line item: day hint, night hint, day encounter, night encounter. There\u2019s also a couple of \u201clairs\u201d that one of the encounters could lead you back to, for example if the druggies invite back to their base. 
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Let\u2019s say I make a map and key it, randomly from the 1e DMG, minimally. \u201c12 skeletons\u201d type shit. Is that an adventure? For the purposes of this argument we\u2019re going to not quibble and say Yes \u2026 although we may come to different conclusions by the end. What if I put a lot of work in to it, and, while the random rolls inspired me, it eventually gets a lot added by me and there\u2019s additional context and the entries kind of work together? Sure. that\u2019s easily an adventure. What if I don\u2019t key it. What if I instead provide a wandering monster table and tell you to key the rooms as the characters enter it? Hmm \u2026 I\u2019m getting suspicious it\u2019s not really an adventure \u2026 maybe a toolkit? Let\u2019s say I add a table of monster motivations and\/or I make the ability to roll on the 1e DMG tables a lot easier during play \u2026 adventure then? Probably still a toolkit?
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What about a hex crawl, given the same scenarios? I just provide a map and a wandering monster table to populate it. Is it an adventure? What if the wandering monster table works together REALLY well, with additional context, etc? How\u2019s that differ from a traditional hex crawl, which, if memory serves, was pretty minimally described (from Wilderlands1 memory.) What if Wilderlands1 didn\u2019t have a map, but had all of those entries on a table to roll when you enter a hex? Maybe with a blank map added? 
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I\u2019m not sure I know what the answer is, but I think there\u2019s a nugget of pure truth hiding somewhere in all of that, and, if understood, would provide some guidance to adventure design. The map, the \u201cminimal\u201d encounter, the extra context for an encounter, the encounters working together, stuff done ahead of time \u2026 some mix of those makes something an adventure rather than a play aid. And if it is a play aid that\u2019s close to the line then maybe that has value as an adventure also? And so far over the line you\u2019re just mechanics at that point? 
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This has no map. It has a series of swamp encounters that can be random and are interrelated, both to the other entries in the table and to \u201cthemselves\u201d via the hint\/day\/night mechanic. This strikes me as both an alternative format to a hexcrawl and an alternative format to a wandering monster table. So it could be a \u2026 true(?) DM aid, in that its a wandering monster table, or something close to an adventure, depending on your view of hex crawls like Wilderlands. As something different, in concept, the possibilities are intriguing.
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The product, proper, has issues. First, it\u2019s 40 pages long for a ten entry wandering monster table.  That, alone, pushes it in to Hex Crawl territory and away from Wandering Monster Table, at least in how this product instantiates the concept. The entries have a lot of italics, which I find hard to read during play. The writing is a little loose, if a lot of if\/then statements. Most of the encounters are more prescriptive than \u2026 open ended? \u201cWhen the men are within 30 yards they spot the party, point at them excitedly, and greet them\u201d There\u2019s another part of this that says that if a druggie is deprived of his frog he will get aggressive, at first half-jokingly, but soon violently. That\u2019s good detail, especially the second part, but I think, somehow, I\u2019m looking for something a little more \u2026 abstracted? They are happy jovial, excited, willing to share \u2026 but turn to violence if separated from their frogs. I willing admit my second phrase doesn\u2019t capture the designers. I\u2019m also willing to admit that the text Brian provided DOES capture the spirit of what I\u2019ve (re)written, but I think maybe the paragraph presentation muddles and diffuses some of the impact of the writing and scene. 
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So, as a hex crawl, it\u2019s ok to good but a little hard to pull the details of an encounter out of it. If it were condensed to a minimal number of pages (6?) without loosing much flavor, you\u2019d have a different thing, a kind of \u201ctailored wandering monster table\u201d that I think could be a product type in and of itself. Value-Add Wanderers table?
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It\u2019s Pay what You Want at DriveThru, with a suggested price of $0. I\u2019d check it out, even if you don\u2019t want it as an adventure. It\u2019s an interesting concept, raises questions to think about, and may spur additional things to riff off of.
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https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/265138\/Off-Track-The-Uncharted-Swamp?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Brian CooperOff Track GamesLabyrinth LordLevels 1-5 From the blurb: This adventure aims to solve the problem of dealing with random overland movement through a swamp by offering the referee a really really good random encounter table that doesn\u2019t feel … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5881,"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-5883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/uncharted.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883","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=5883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5884,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5883\/revisions\/5884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}