{"id":6859,"date":"2020-09-02T07:03:00","date_gmt":"2020-09-02T11:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6859"},"modified":"2020-08-25T16:04:35","modified_gmt":"2020-08-25T20:04:35","slug":"the-curse-of-buckthorn-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=6859","title":{"rendered":"The Curse of Buckthorn Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Jon Aspenheim\nRandom Table Games\nRelics & Ruins\nLevel 1<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
People in Buckthorn Valley are randomly becoming mutated, transformig with demonic features. In order to stop this curse the adventurers have to explore a 3 level dungeon, meddle in kobold affairs, trek through a mushroom forest and face the God-Fish-Snake-Thing. All the while trying to not become mutated themselves. It won’t be an easy task, but someone has to put an end to – the Curse of Buckthorn Valley!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 33 page adventure uses fourteen pages to describe three level of a dungeon with about thirty rooms. It\u2019s pretty basic. Like, remember how some of those B\/X adventures were almost childish? Language, etc? This does that. Writing is unfocused, but it has some decent evocative ideas \u2026 it just doesn\u2019t do so well executing them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, descriptions. Here\u2019s The Mother of Vicious Spiders: \u201cShe\u2019s large as a dog. Dark green with red stripes. Purple goo is dripping from her mouth.\u201d Not so bad! A little simplistic, but its trying. Likewise an entrance covered by hanging moss or \u201cOld wet stairs lead downwards. Descending the stairs feels like you\u2019re walking forever before eventually reaching the bottom.\u201d When the adventure is doing this like this then it\u2019s doing a good job, or at least a decent one. Writing evocative descriptions takes practice, but you have to START with an idea in your mind, and the descriptions here show that the designer has that, at least in some cases. Execution could be better, but that\u2019s just about universal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Alas, those descriptions are the exception rather than the rule. Far too often the adventure engages in Used to Be\u2019s.  This room used to be this thing but not it\u2019s not. That adds nothing to the adventure. All it does is distract the DM from the important bits, y hiding them in these unimportant bits. Noone cares what he room used to be. What is it NOW? How does it contribute to play NOW? This is not, as I said, a victimless crime. All of these extra words hide the important stuff from the DM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe water appears to be blue-green.\u201d No, it\u2019s not. It\u2019s blue-green. The water is blue-green. This appears stuff is just padding. Rays book on Editing covers these sorts of padding words quite well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Linear map. Joy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Long italics sections that are, because they are in italics, hard to read. Joy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, it does have a decent wanderer chart. A shepard is convinced someone in the party owes him 2SP and won\u2019t let it alone. That\u2019s great! Other encounters show the same type if idiosyncrasy that is required, specificity that brings the encounter to life without dragging out the word out to something cumbersome. Another regional site is with bandits in a ruined tower. A suspicious village mayor wants them cleaned out. Except they are just lepers, not bandits, friendly and want to be left alone. Fun!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s got a good idea. This kind of failing valley because of a curse (unknown to everyone) water source. Mutants\/lepers wandering around, not evil, but pariahs.  And then there\u2019s the dungeon. It\u2019s just basically an also-ran. Mostly very little interactivity with basic descriptions that tend to the \u201ckiddie game\u201d D&D B\/X genre from the bad 80\u2019s adventures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $2. The preview proper is 8 pages, but you can of course download the entire thing for free. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/324756\/The-Curse-Of-Buckthorn-Valley?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jon Aspenheim Random Table Games Relics & Ruins Level 1 People in Buckthorn Valley are randomly becoming mutated, transformig with demonic features. In order to stop this curse the adventurers have to explore a 3 level dungeon, meddle in … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6857,"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-6859","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\/08\/buck.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6859","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=6859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6860,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6859\/revisions\/6860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}