{"id":6525,"date":"2020-02-22T07:39:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-22T12:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6525"},"modified":"2020-02-12T07:40:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-12T12:40:55","slug":"5e-al-where-the-dead-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6525","title":{"rendered":"(5e AL) Where the Dead Wait"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By James Introcaso\nSelf Published\n5e\nLevel 3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
On their way back to Salvation, the adventurers are ambushed by a large force of undead and forced to seek shelter in a ruined cottage. As the dead close in from all sides, the survivors turn to the Oracle of War for a lifeline. Only this time, things don\u2019t play out as expected….<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh Adventurers League, never change!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 28 page adventure is the usual \u201cNight of the Living Dead\u201d scenario, with undead attacking you while you are trapped in a house. Bad novel writing abounds and there is woefully little advice for handling the fortifying and undead assaults. It\u2019s only got about ten pages of actual content, the rest being AL padding. A railroad from start to finish, choke down the crap you\u2019re being fed you AL suckers!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I find myself really looking forward to the newspaper included in each adventure! I love how it sets a great vibe for the greater world. There\u2019s very much a frontier\/Deadwood (HBO series) thing going on, if all you ever did was read the newspapers in these adventures. Pretty cool, even with the basic typo\u2019s. There\u2019s also a reference sheet included for the NPC\u2019s in the adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Annnnddddd\u2026. That\u2019s the last kind thing I\u2019m going to say about this adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a hack railroad of an adventure. Not a hack because it\u2019s a railroad, a hack because the designer doesn\u2019t know how to write an adventure. That\u2019s pretty common, very few designers DO know how to write an adventure. So, a hack AND a railroad. Let me count the ways \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The hints are there in the marketing intro \u201cthings don\u2019t play out as expected \u2026\u201d This is your first hint that you will not be playing a D&D tonight, you will instead be playing a railroad and be expected to do exactly as the designer intends. Other hints of this include: \u201cThe story thus far \u2026\u201d and \u201cKalli also stars in this adventure \u2026\u201d Let\u2019s add insult to injury. As undead show up on the horizon the scav gang you rescued in the last adventure heads to the house. YOU WILL FOLLOW THE PLOT. THE PLOT SAYS YOU DEFEND THE HOUSE BECAUSE THE DESIGNER THOUGHT THAT WOULD BE COOL SO YOU WILL DO IT AND WE WILL MAKE SURE OF IT BY HAVING THE NPCS GO THERE. EAT YOUR CRAP!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Look, I\u2019m not an asshole. Well, maybe, but I\u2019m not hating on this for no reason. I understand that there are certain assumptions that must be made if you are going to write a ten-adventure arc, or whatever, especially given what I assume to be an assumption that the gaming group will change every week because of musical RPG tables at gaming stores and cons. Yes, I accept that. I object to the ham handed and railroady way this adventure is written. The NPC\u2019s from the last adventure are alive again, except the one that the plot decided might die. That\u2019s bad. The way the adventure is written, to dictate that the party WILL go to the house, implies rather heavily that the designer thought that would be cool so that\u2019s what is going to happen. It\u2019s the pinnacle of bad design: the designer thought it would be cool so it\u2019s going to happen. This stands in contrast to emergent play, that special something that makes D&D special. But you don\u2019t get that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, the party is punished for not following the script. If you don\u2019t hang out in the little house then you are attacked by all undead at the same time, instead of facing them in waves. Fuck. You. That\u2019s adversarial DM\u2019ing. You\u2019re changing the rules to punish the players if they don\u2019t follow the little plot you\u2019re masturbating to. Bad bad bad design. Oh, until the end, of course. Then you have the option of running away, thrown in as an afterthought. Basically, you take 10HP and get to run away. Yeah! I do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writing is hackneyed. \u201cA few moments later \u2026\u201d or \u201cTh dead want you to join them \u2026\u201d or \u201cThey dies in the last war and yet \u2026\u201d or, how about the initial read aloud that has the other scav gang dragging your artifact through the mud? No, no they fucking do not. They don\u2019t get anywhere near MY artifact! (OUR artifact. THE artifact, says Piter.) The writing tells you what you see, feel, and think. It\u2019s fucking lame. It\u2019s TELLING you instead of SHOWING you, and thats the definition of bad writing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, it\u2019s AL, so you get told that \u201cIf you gain a level you MUST tick the box on the adventurers record sheet showing that you have gained a level.\u201d Great. This is the kind of padded shit that makes up the bulk of all AL adventures. Recall, this is a 28 page adventure with about ten pages of actual content, for $5. That everyone is going to buy. Nice work if you can get it. It smacks of that Adam Sandler rotating cast of friends that get fat paychecks for doing nothing. But, hey, at least EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. TIME. a door or furniture is mentioned it tells us that it takes no damage from psychic or poison damage. Seriously? Is AL D&D THAT pedantic? \u201cWell, the adventure doesn\u2019t say that the boulder doesn\u2019t take poison damage, so I guess it\u2019s ok.\u201d My objection here is that they waste time on this shit instead of on actual content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s take that NPC reference sheet. Instead of personality we get things like \u201cKalli belongs to the grey dogs\u201d \u2026 just like she has in the last two adventures. Or, Sprocket, another NPC, having no personality at all on the reference sheet. What do you think the purpose of the sheet is? It gives the DM one place to look for how to run the NPC. This don\u2019t do that. It\u2019s a bad reference sheet. And it wastes an entire page with like five rows of a table. How about you overload that sheet of paper and put a few other reference things on it, like that \u201cenvironment\u201d shit for the house, how it\u2019s dusky and full of leaves and dirt? Then it would always be at my fingertips, ready for me to add flavour? No? You\u2019re just going through the motions? Ok \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, again, the major failing is in the lack of supporting the DM. The adventure spends massive amounts of time on combat but, as in the last one in this series, seems to avoid any DM advice in the rest of the adventure. Coming down the chimney is mentioned off hand, but that\u2019s essentially the only thing you get for advice in running this. Moving the furniture, it\u2019s impacts on blocks doors and windows? Absolutely NOTHING. But you\u2019ll drone on about the combat. Is that all D&D is? 4e mini battles? No, there are other pillars of play but you don\u2019t know how to write for that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are a couple of climaxes in the adventure. First you are, of course, betrayed by the people you saved from certain death. The adventure justifies this by making them all \u201cAlignment Neutral.\u201d Fucking lame. Second, there\u2019s supposed to be this thing you can do to make all of the undeads heads explode, but only in at the appointed time, after you\u2019ve been betrayed! The clue says you must destroy the five undead focuses. What are they? No idea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh, it\u2019s the things in the house that are one note? There are multiple features that, if damaged, spew blood everywhere and cause everyone to make a save vs Madness. I guess you discover them during the house exploration. But, all of the house exploration results in these kind of \u201cTake Damage!\u201d traps. No warning, just \u201cdid you pay your skill tax and min\/max your character build\u201d tax traps. Spew blood. Save vs madness. But, don\u2019t worry! If the madness effect is too serious the DM is encouraged to roll again or use something less serious. So, don\u2019t use the madness table then? It\u2019s, ultimately, a pushback against exploring the house. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is bad writing on top of bad design. I make no judgements on the designers ability to write a blog piece, or world build, or run a podcast network, but they have no ability to write a coherent adventure that is useful to the DM at the table. But, hey, they managed to make it on to the writers circuit for this series, so, I guess it\u2019s like a guaranteed $15,000 for every one they write! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Eat your crap plebs. You wanna play AL? Your DM has to suffer through this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $5 at DMsguild. There\u2019s no preview, so you can\u2019t tell what you are buying before hand and I can\u2019t point you to specific pages to show off the examples of bad writing and design. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I will, however, make a point here. If you have fun with this adventure it is because of the DM and not because of the designer. The purpose of an adventure is to help the DM run it and this fails at that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.dmsguild.com\/product\/302373\/EB03-Where-the-Dead-Wait?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By James Introcaso Self Published 5e Level 3 On their way back to Salvation, the adventurers are ambushed by a large force of undead and forced to seek shelter in a ruined cottage. As the dead close in from all … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,6,29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5e","category-adventurers-league","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/deadwait.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6525","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=6525"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6525\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6526,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6525\/revisions\/6526"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}