{"id":6009,"date":"2019-05-20T07:15:54","date_gmt":"2019-05-20T11:15:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6009"},"modified":"2019-05-18T08:57:46","modified_gmt":"2019-05-18T12:57:46","slug":"the-crypt-of-rokar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6009","title":{"rendered":"The Crypt of Rokar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Michael Mills\nCannister & grape\nOSR\nLevels 1-3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Buried deep beneath the barrow mounds of the Wild Wood, Rokar the Terrible slumbers fitully in his sarcophagus, his bride beside him. What terrors protect Rokar as he dreams his fevered dreams? Do you dare enter The Crypt of Rokar in search of treasures and knowledge beyond imagining?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This ten page adventure describes a small tomb with fourteen rooms over four pages. Giants rats, yellow mold, zombies, and a ghoul make up your opponents, all found in their usual environments. Read-aloud is not overly long, in general, but not very interesting either. There\u2019s nothing to separate this from any other low level small dungeon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What if you don\u2019t do anything bad, but you don\u2019t really do anything good either. What\u2019s the measure of a man in that situation? How do you make a determination, a decision to choose one thing over another? That\u2019s easy for me; I expect more and in a crowded marketplace don\u2019t settle for anything other than the best. Well, except for the fact that I bought it in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A damp library? What could it contain? Yellow mold. A storeroom full of crates and barrels? That means rats. I do indeed like the classic, but there\u2019s a difference. You\u2019ve got to do them well and they just are not done well here. Let\u2019s examine this from the standpoint of last-minute adventure prep. The players just exted you from the liquor store, asking ifyou wanted anything else other than Krystal and japanese single malt. They are about three minutes away from arriving. If I provided you this map and said \u201cyou\u2019ve got three minutes to key the adventure\u201d then you\u2019d come up with something that said \u201c2. Library – Yellow Mold. 3. Storeroom – Rats.\u201d If that\u2019s expanded in the most obvious way possible then you have this adventure. It brings nothing new over you writing \u201cLibrary – Mold\u201d or \u201cStoreroom – Rats.\u201d That might be ok if it did it really REALLY well, but it doesn\u2019t. It\u2019s drab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will note a few of the more interesting things it does do. At one point it notes that zombies, locked in a room, fed on the canopic jars kept within. This is the old zombie trope, and one that I\u2019ve seen reintroduced lately. I\u2019m quite fond of it. It seems like the 80\u2019s and 90\u2019s and 00\u2019s had zombies that were just lifeless bodies swinging swords. This new trend of flesh eaters brings so much more than that, being able to immediately leverage forty years of pop culture zombie imagery. \u00a0There\u2019s also a little bit of hints captured in the read-aloud. That storeroom read aloud notes the smell of decay and faeces.  The library notes a smell of damp and mold, hinting at the yellow stuff. It\u2019s not consistent, but when it\u2019s there I appreciate it. There should be a back and forth to D&D. The DM mentions something, the players, the smart ones anyway, dig deeper asking follow-up question. And thus player skill is rewarded. It\u2019s got a couple of rooms that do this and I\u2019m happy to see that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s also inconsistent in its logic. The front doors are busted open but some statues nearby retain their bejeweled eyes. Those zombies that fed on the canopic jars? That\u2019s backstory, the read-aloud gives no hint of a room in chaos, jars smashed and bloodstains on the floor, etc. Just the usual anti-septic description. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cMany books appear to be damaged by decay or pests.\u201d the library read-aloud tells us. Puddles of books, rotting in damp, gnawed upon, all are words that evoke imagery much stronger than \u201cdamaged by decay or pests.\u201d That\u2019s an abstraction, a conclusion. Rich adjectives and adverbs appeal to sensory information instead and allow the party to draw their own conclusions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nitpicky shit: The level is only noted on the cover, so when I\u2019m on DriveThru looking for a Level 1-3 adventure I won\u2019t know this is one unless I lick on the cover to enlarge it. I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s the wisest decision from a consumer ease standpoint. There\u2019s only about 1400gp of treasure in this. I think I would have expected more, seems low. Especially since there\u2019s a wight in this Level 1 adventure, that can only be hit by magic items. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, let me mention to deriguour text. You know the stuff. \u201cThe DM should blah blah blah.\u201d or notes that you should read the boxed text to the players when they enter the room. I just skip this shit, but, as a point of interest, is this really doing anything but inflating page count? If you\u2019re buying an adventure on DriveThru do you need to be told to read boxed text? Even if you DIDNT know that do you need to be told that? In this case it explicitly notes DM\u2019ing in the players favour. I\u2019m not cool with that. Is there a place for this genero information anymore?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $5. There is no preview. I get it, it\u2019s free since it\u2019s PWYW. I don\u2019t give a shit, stick in a good preview anyway. 
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/275375\/The-Crypt-of-Rokar?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
The players should have a reasonable chance of survival, however a certain amount of danger and risk is necessary to keep things interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As game master you should adjust the number, strength and aggressiveness of encountered creatures to ensure this occurs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When the players enter an area on the map you should read aloud the boxed text in its entirety. You may also add any additional information from the game master\u2019s notes immediately thereafter as you desire. This may be necessary if the players fail to find a crucial item, exit or other plot device.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Michael Mills Cannister & grape OSR Levels 1-3 Buried deep beneath the barrow mounds of the Wild Wood, Rokar the Terrible slumbers fitully in his sarcophagus, his bride beside him. What terrors protect Rokar as he dreams his fevered … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6008,"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-6009","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\/05\/rokar.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009","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=6009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6010,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6009\/revisions\/6010"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}