{"id":6683,"date":"2020-05-18T07:20:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-18T11:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6683"},"modified":"2020-05-11T10:21:34","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T14:21:34","slug":"incursion-from-outer-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6683","title":{"rendered":"Incursion from Outer Space"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Metal Turtle Games\nSelf-published\nGeneric\nLevel ... 2?<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
What would happen if inhabitants of the stars visited a fantasy world ?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 24 page digest-sized adventure has a few pointcrawl locations in the wilderness and a four-level pointcrawl dungeon with about 24 rooms. It\u2019s fairly plain, in spite of it\u2019s gonzo nature, with little in the way of evocative descriptions. Interactivity is lightly implied, but in the abstract. There\u2019s just not much to this, in spite of the length. Also, it’s more “weird cultist” than alien, but absolutely has tech and aliens in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Villagers hear sounds in the woods and see weird figures in the fog and call in the party. There are four pointcrawl locations, once of which is the four level cultist dungeon, and another location which isn\u2019t on the pointcrawl map. Basically, an alien shuttle has crashed and some cultists, in the dungeon, have captured a few of them. The village, Cowshire, has five locations, each with a single sentence description. \u201cMarket: a regular market with a huge choice of beef street food.\u201d Cowshire, The Laughing Cow tavern, a wide variety of beef-based street food? I can get in to that. It\u2019s the consistency of the theming that inspires the DM to push things in their own game and dig in to it. I might wish for some off the wall examples, especially in a gonzo\/alien adventure, but, the designer is certainly on the right track with theming, at least in the village. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a vampire hunter in the tavern. He\u2019s convinced he saw vampires the night the sounds were in the woods. He tries to convince the party to buy garlic to protect themselves. That\u2019s the extent of his description. Maybe a a bit lack lacking again, but the core of a good encounter is there and I\u2019ll take that over too little or too much. Further, it ties in to the first couple of encounters in the dungeon proper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wilderness pointcrawl is really just three locations, and maybe a fourth, the shuttle. The shuttle isn\u2019t on the map but the crash can be seen from another location. What\u2019s weird here is that the descriptions seem out of order. I\u2019ve seen this in a couple of other products, only a handful though, and it\u2019s weird everytime I see it. What if you put the main encounter first, the dungeon with its four levels and its twenty rooms, and then listed the other wilderness encounters, each of which took, like, half a page? That\u2019s what this does, putting the main dungeon first after the village and then following up with the minor locations. And then the shuttle appears BEFORE the location where you can see the shuttle. It\u2019s out of order, and weird. I don\u2019t know if this is just convention, staring me in the face, or of there are actual usability issues in this. But it\u2019s weird, in any event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no stats, and no real treasure to speak of. Well, there is, but it\u2019s mostly text descriptions. \u201cThese are very valuable books\u201d and things like that. A blaster pistol. An alien multitool without a description beyond \u201cuseful to the party.\u201d And a giant statue worth 1,000,000,000gp if you can get it out of the dungeon. And eyes worth 5000gp each. And that\u2019s not on the lowest level. It\u2019s weird. Stats are \u201cas bandits (b44)\u201d I assume that\u2019s the basic book? Which one? I don\u2019t know. And that\u2019s the GOOD stats. There are a couple of new creatures that don\u2019t even get that treatment. It\u2019s listed as 1e\/Basic, etc, but there\u2019s not really anything here to tie it to any system other than that confusing \u201cB44\u201d thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Encounter descriptions are very basic setups with not much more. There tends to be something interesting going on in most rooms, but the descriptive manner is somehow a major turn off. I can\u2019t quite put my finger on it. The second room has a group of vampires living in it, not evil, they steal cows to drink their blood and will talk to the party. Another rooms description though is \u201dIn the middle of the room, there\u2019s an area of the ground with a lighter tone. This part of the ground is actually a trapdoor covered in stone, hiding a pit full of deadly spikes (save against breath or die).\u201d it\u2019s very basic. Very matter of fact. Mechanically based, with little attention paid to the descriptive or evocative elements of an encounter. Thus there\u2019s a nugget of goodness in many rooms, but not much to inspire the DM to run it well. \u201cThis old library has miraculously survived many catastrophes and the passage of time, at least for the shelves and a few books.\u201d Well, ok. At least it\u2019s not overwritten? But those descriptions could be massaged in to something more evocative, I guess is my criticism. \u201cThis room is full of tentacles, some passing by, others looking for an unknowing prey to catch and strangle.\u201d Ok\u2026. well \u2026 what does that mean? I mean, nice, I guess, but \u2026 I\u2019m just, I\u2019m not sure what to do with it. I guess i could do anything with it, is my point, and I think a good description needs just a little more grounding. \u201c12 orcs\u201d is too open-ended as a description. \u201cRowdily dicing\u201d, when added on, gies me something to work with. The descriptions in this seem closer to the \u201c12 orcs\u201d side of the house. Not exactly minimal, or maybe they are? But not concrete in the way I\u2019m looking for in an adventure. Something to wrap my mind around during play, to kickstart the imagination and then take it and riff off of it for the current circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $3 at DriveThru. The preview is seven pages. You get to see the entirety of the village of Cowshire, and the first nine rooms of the dungeon. This should be more than enough to give you an idea if the style is something you\u2019ll be in to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/311571\/Incursion-from-Outer-Space?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Metal Turtle Games Self-published Generic Level … 2? What would happen if inhabitants of the stars visited a fantasy world ? This 24 page digest-sized adventure has a few pointcrawl locations in the wilderness and a four-level pointcrawl dungeon … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6681,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/incurs.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6683","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=6683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6684,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6683\/revisions\/6684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}