{"id":6304,"date":"2019-11-06T07:16:55","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T12:16:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6304"},"modified":"2019-10-30T08:58:14","modified_gmt":"2019-10-30T12:58:14","slug":"the-temple-of-the-bear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6304","title":{"rendered":"The Temple of the Bear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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John Fredericks\nSharp Mountain Games\nLabyrinth Lord\nLevels 5-8<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Explore the TEMPLE OF THE BEAR in hopes of rescuing a hostage. There they will confront an evil wizard and his minions who hope to bring back a forgotten, evil cult.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This thirty page adventure contains a dungeon with fifteen rooms and a couple of outside encounters in about nine pages. It\u2019s just long-form paragraph descriptions of each encounter location. Low interactivity, poor usability, uninspiring descriptions. The usual trifecta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The DriveThru description does not have a level range. The cover does not have a level range. What does have a level range? The back cover. Which is only available once you purchase the adventure. It\u2019s not even clear to me why these things have back covers. Isn\u2019t that used for marketing purposes in game stores\/bookstores \u2026 and don\u2019t these products exists only as PDF\u2019s? So the designer is slavishly following some template without regard to the actual purpose? And it results in a blind buy without knowing the level the adventure is for? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Villagers are missings. The party, I guess, is somehow motivated to look in to it; the pretext doesn\u2019t really exist in this one. Except \u2026 someone missing is the mayors daughters boyfriend. She\u2019s 18. The mayor lets the party take her with them on the adventure. WTF? Seriously? I\u2019m NOT giving my 18YO daughter over a group of murder hobos! Didn\u2019t he see The Last Valley? Jesu Christo! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
From there we switch to the road in to the forest \u2026 which only leads to the dungeon, so if you kep following it then you\u2019ll arrive there. Big mystery, I guess? Anyway, you get attacked by owlbears because forced combats are evidently a thing in Old School D&D. Oh, wait, they are not? There\u2019s a thread on a forum RIGHT NOW about character death in D&D and the impact of forced combat mindsets? Oh. Well, bad design then I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, wait, fuck, no, I forgot. The town? It notes how it\u2019s a good starting location for the party\/campaign. Note again the level range if 5-8. I guess you\u2019re either starting at 5-8 or you bought this adventure for the two paragraph town or the designer has, once again, not given thought to the context the information is being presented in. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Information in the encounters is relayed in long form paragraphs. Multiple paragraphs per room. With lots of padding. Ensuring that you need to scan everything to run the room. And that the adventure text will be padded out. To nine pages. In a thirty page adventure. \u201cFirst bob will do this and then he will do this and then he will do this and then he will do this.\u201d Yes. Perfect. Exactly the sort of writing I expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A certain trap takes three paragraphs to describe. It\u2019s giant jaws that snap down, kind of like a giant half-open bear trap. Three paragraphs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
An evocative description in this is \u201cAfter encountering the monkeybears, the party will come upon the Old Shrine. This area has a stone altar, a broken pillar, and broken stone benches.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Interactivity is confined to traps, monster fighting and a ghost you can talk to. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Monetary treasure in this adventure consists of 77gp and a 20gp gem. That\u2019s a joke, right? This is a Gold=XP game, right? LabLord? Yes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This time I promise I promise I promise I\u2019m going to remember the name Sharp Mountain. Next time I promise I promise I promise I won\u2019t tell myself \u201cits been awhile, maybe they are better now? I should check in \u2026\u201d No. No I should not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview is five pages and shows you nothing of the adventure, so you have no way of understanding the encounter quality before purchasing. Which, while bad for the consumer, is great for the producer <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/292194\/The-Temple-of-the-Bear?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
John Fredericks Sharp Mountain Games Labyrinth Lord Levels 5-8 Explore the TEMPLE OF THE BEAR in hopes of rescuing a hostage. There they will confront an evil wizard and his minions who hope to bring back a forgotten, evil cult. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6303,"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-6304","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\/10\/templebear.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304","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=6304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6305,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6304\/revisions\/6305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}