{"id":6716,"date":"2020-06-13T07:13:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-13T11:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6716"},"modified":"2020-06-01T10:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T14:15:00","slug":"5e-1-6-skeletons-in-a-stable","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6716","title":{"rendered":"(5e) 1-6 Skeletons in a Stable"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Steve Wright\nDeus Ex Minima\n5e\nlevel 1<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Why are there so many skeletons in this stable? What secret does the town chandler hide? Who is asking all these questions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This eight page adventure uses four pages to describe a stable with some skeletons in it. What was I expecting? I was expecting more of what\u2019s actually hinted in the marketing and the content \u2026 short & punchy. There\u2019s not enough here. I know, Surprising, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How much of this site is performance art? Surprisingly little. What you get here are the expressions of my inner child. That\u2019s someone who\u2019s not generally let out in public unless I\u2019m sleeping with you and it\u2019s time for the seasonal 11pm Sunday night ennui. But, these feelings are honest. The hopeful,  high expectations. The crushing disappointment. Expectations are a terrible thing. You can\u2019t have the highest highs without also feeling the lowest lows, can you? Generally it\u2019s the case that I expect the best of what I\u2019m reviewing, with very few exceptions. And because of that you get what you experience on this site: crushing despair when it\u2019s nothing nearly matching those expectations. High standards? Nah, good sir, simply standards in a sea of product that has none! They only seem high when compared to the quantity of what doesn\u2019t make the cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Which leads me to marketing. I\u2019m a sucker for marketing. I\u2019ll go for the weird thing on the menu, every time. With the extra tentacles. You\u2019ve got a speciality cocktail menu? Yes, bring me one of each. Not every experience can be good, but every one can be magnificent. Like Mulder, I want to believe. \u201cThe booklet has everything you need to meet \u2026\u201d \u201cSkellies included!\u201d Great for a one shot, Setup, NPC\u2019s, story hooks, maps, loot, all included! Help with NPC names! Ideas for future encounters!  Well, you know what Obi Wan says about a certain point of view? I guess they cut the scene where Luke screams profanity at Obi Wan for the deception. Do we accept a certain amount of puffery in marketing? Do we accept that we\u2019re going to be lied to? How much is ok? Where\u2019s the line? If it\u2019s ok for the publishers to puff their marketing, then is it really any surprise when the non-jaded are upset by it? Life is a game baby. You get to puff, but you have to expect pushback. And then as a publisher you get to be mock outraged. You should probably check first, to ensure your neighbor is growing vegetables and not roses. Cause you don\u2019t fuck trivially with the neighboring lord who grows roses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hook! That\u2019s what it says! Hooks! \u201cYou heard something in town.\u201d \u201cYou were sent by a patron to deal with it.\u201d \u201cYou stumble out of the woods and need a rest.\u201d Hmmm. I think we have misaligned expectations here. That is pretty much word for word what the \u201chooks\u201d are. Three very generic idea, used a million zillion time before. The most basic and simple of things. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHmmm, I can\u2019t say the product contains complete sentences \u2026 let me see \u2026 Leverages the full power of the Unabridged dictionary to present exciting and dynamic hooks! \u2026 that\u2019s it! That\u2019s the ticket!\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ultimately, it\u2019s a stable with some skeletons in it. The tactics, puffed up in the marketing, are that they relentlessly attack anyone who enters the stable. \u201cThey have no particular tactics\u201d, we\u2019re told. Well, I feel cheated. There\u2019s a house, next to the stable, expensive looking, Unbroken windows. You can\u2019t break in to it though, you\u2019re prevented from doing so by magic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this is all too bad, because other parts of the adventure are quite intriguing, at least in as much as revealing what might have been. The wanderer table is a good one, terse, with giant snakes dropping on the last person, bugbears holding people up, and bandits lost in the woods. The two chandlers in town hate each other, one paying to cover up things his dad did, another paying to find out what the other guys dad did, and the innkeep buying info to keep those two from each others throats. And it takes about as many words to describe it as I used here. Terse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, there\u2019s nothing here, but there are hints of what could have been, Instead of four pages of content the adventure could have had eight pages. The stable, tactics imagination and and encounter depth could have been greater. The hooks could have involved the town. The town could have been given six paragraphs instead of three, to expand the rivalry\/triangle a bit more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that\u2019s not what we got. Insead we got puffery and a note that this adventure requires the addition of a DM to bring it to life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s not an excuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2. There is no preview, but, as PWYW, I guess it\u2019s free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/310491\/16-Skeletons-in-a-Stable?term=skeletons+in+a+?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Steve Wright Deus Ex Minima 5e level 1 Why are there so many skeletons in this stable? What secret does the town chandler hide? Who is asking all these questions? This eight page adventure uses four pages to describe … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6714,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[25,29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-5e","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/skels.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6716","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=6716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6717,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6716\/revisions\/6717"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}