{"id":6280,"date":"2019-10-26T07:17:04","date_gmt":"2019-10-26T11:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6280"},"modified":"2019-10-14T10:28:15","modified_gmt":"2019-10-14T14:28:15","slug":"5e-citadel-of-terror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6280","title":{"rendered":"(5e) Citadel of Terror"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Paul Riegel-Green & Ben Burns\nnew Comet Games\n5e\nLevels 1-4<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Spring time has arrived, the fields planted, the trade routes are opening and the Orc raids will be coming soon. It also means the arrival of the mysterious but powerful mage Melius. But this year, he has yet to make his appearance. What chance does the small city of  Adwick have against the ravaging hordes of Orcs without the wizard’s assistance. Every day that slips by, causes the leaders worry and concern. You and your small band of adventurers have been tasked with traveling through the abandoned ruins of Rochdale, then into the swamp known as The Moors. To seek out Melius’ tower and discover what has become of the wizard.  What evils lurk in the ruins? What dangers will The Moors hide? What will you find at the Citadel of Terror?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 68 page adventure details a wizards tower with about twelve rooms as well as a couple of overland encounters. It\u2019s massively overwritten, both in DM text and read-aloud, and is one of those \u201cmake a skill check to tie your shoes\u201d adventures. At least I got to pay $15 for it \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m supposed to be nicer. I\u2019m supposed to explain more. I\u2019m supposed to describe why things are the way the way, or should be, in detail. I\u2019m supposed to do a lot of things.  And then something like this comes along and saps all of the life out of me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It starts with the party being ambushed by 24 orcs. \u201cThat\u2019s a lot\u201d I thought \u201cfor level 1\u2019s.\u201d Not to worry, it\u2019s not an actual encounter. A calvary of gnomes and halflings on war dogs come to your rescue. Well Buckher, some strings are more obvious than others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This then degenerates in to the town where the party is sent to find a missing wizard in his tower. And it\u2019s all done in third person read-aloud. \u201cHe tells you that \u2026\u201d \u201che explains that you have been selected\u201d \u201cwhen you enter the bar the dwarf behind the counter welcomes you and introduces himself as \u2026\u201d  Jesus. H. Fucking. Christ. Abstraction. Filthy fucking abstraction. Read-aloud, when used, should immerse the listener.  Abstracting to the third person and abstracting thing like \u201cyour welcome\u201d is utter bullshit. Specififty is key. He raises a tankard drains it and slams it down spraying out \u201cYour Health!\u201d through foam. Contrast with \u201cthe swarf behind the counter welcomes you.\u201d Abstracted vs specific. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not to mention the fucking length of the read-aloud in this. It drones on and on and one, in spite of people not paying attention to long read-aloud. There\u2019s even a faux-study by WOTC proper! But out designer friends don\u2019t know that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is joined by the WAY TOO EXCESSIVE dm text. Mountains of it. Mountains of mountains of it. A five goblin fight takes a page. Some stirge around a pedestal takes two pages. Excruciating if\/then clauses. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You need a DC 16 persuasion to have the bartender tell you about the missing wizard. The most mundane of information. That\u2019s in his own best interest to relay. And skill checks of this type are generally set low. But not in this adventure. But don\u2019t worry, they are everywhere! And All of the conditional clauses take up lots of extra room! Are you an elf? There\u2019s a special line for you in the column long perception check results \u2026 your DC is 2 lower than everyone else! THis is a total and complete lack of understanding of how skill checks are supposed to work. No doubt learned from other badly written  adventures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
One of the outdoor encounters, with five goblins, has a master goblin thespian pretending to be an old woman. I\u2019m pretty sure that\u2019s not meant to be literal, but it still trends the wrong direction. And DC 19\/24 skill checks at first\/second level? Is that even possible in 5e?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No real overland map, in spite of their being an entire swamp to cross with multiple random encounters in it. Or an entire series of woods encounters \u2026 that are essentially linear since you get led to each and need to find some rings at each to get in to the wizards tower. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the actual writing? \u201cThey appear to be dead.\u201d Well no shit. That means dead. This REEKS of just about every bad writing\/editing decision you can make. What\u2019s the name of Ray\u2019s editing book? These people need that bad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And our 8th level wizard, who can\u2019t rescue himself \u2026 I just can\u2019t go on. This. Is. Bad. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This could easily be a one page adventure and loose nothing, in spite of the massive limitations of the one page format, it\u2019s that overwritten. It concentrates text in all the wrong areas, giving painstaking room descriptions that are meaningless to the adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is for designers like this that I feel sorry. They had an idea. They want to do good, I\u2019m sure (doesn\u2019t everyone?) but they have NO idea how to get there. No doubt they had some design principals \u2026 as evidenced by the massive skill check text, but they were the wrong things to concentrate on. Also, I applaud their eschewing of DMsGuild. But, man, ya gotta actually learn how to write an adventure. It\u2019s got nothing to do with the motivations of the NPC\u2019s or the balance of the encounters or how correct the rulings are. Usable at the table, Interactive, Evocative. This is none. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also, where my Terror? I was promised terror!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $15 at DriveThru. And for $15 (fucking bullshit!) you get no preview. So it\u2019s a blind buy. Of $15 crap. To be clear, price is pretty much irrelevant if the adventure is good. But when they are bad, and they are almost always bad, the fucking $15\/pdf shit stings. ESPECIALLY WHEN THERE\u201dS NO FUCKING PREVIEW!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/286774\/Citadel-of-Terror-5E?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Paul Riegel-Green & Ben Burns new Comet Games 5e Levels 1-4 Spring time has arrived, the fields planted, the trade routes are opening and the Orc raids will be coming soon. It also means the arrival of the mysterious … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5e","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/terror.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280","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=6280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6281,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions\/6281"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}