{"id":7114,"date":"2021-01-27T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7114"},"modified":"2021-01-13T08:45:54","modified_gmt":"2021-01-13T13:45:54","slug":"clock-strike-zero-dd-adventure-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7114","title":{"rendered":"Clock Strike Zero, D&D adventure review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Bill Petrosky, Matt Sisk, JP Fridy\nMinor Realm Games\nOSRIC\/5e\nLevels 2-4<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Join a cast of ambitious, fledgling adventurers as they stop if in the bucolic backwater of Blackwyrm on the road to the capital of Herlivik. Intending to make a quick stop to rest at the local inn before resuming their journey, the intrepid travelers realize that things are not what they seem in this odd little town, and their pit stop spirals into a full-blown adventure as they’re drawn in to investigate a growing peril threatening Blackwyrm’s people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 45 page adventure describes a few combats in a town. Railroad plot in dysfunctional wall of text with emphasis on A Reader rather than play. Yet more meat for the grinder that is the modern adventure market. If only there were a way for the general populace to not suffer through first efforts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An adventure made to be read and not played. But first, one nice thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one point you are exploring an old church, rumored to be haunted. A tapestry can kind of fold back upon itself and a spectre emerges from it. Or \u2026 \u201cthen the tapestry will mystically form fit to the shape of a body, at once, emanating a chilling green ghastly glow from underneath of it.\u201d This is a pretty decent way to handle the appearance of the undead, especially a spectre. When I talk about inspiring the DM to greatness then this is one of the elements I am referring to. It\u2019s about putting an image in their mind and then letting them leverage that to greater effect. This isn\u2019t a great example, but it\u2019s on the right track, certainly. It\u2019s also a rather isolated case from an otherwise poor adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first encounter of the adventure is a good example of what\u2019s wrong in the adventure, and most adventures. It\u2019s five long paragraphs. The first one reads \u201cThe party hikes the rustic byway of Roland Pass in the center of Western Zearus. A crisp autumn air chills them as boots meet the firming soil, with the smell of the pine and the sycamore setting a fragrant, comforting tone for what could be the most exciting time for a new unofficial clan of young adventurers.\u201d This isn\u2019t read-aloud, but DM text. It is clearly written as a novel. It\u2019s using crisp autumn air and so on to create a novelization of an adventure rather than an adventure. The other paragraphs go on and on this way. \u201cThe party walks this trail as modest adventurers seeking acclaim in the north and a bit of coin in a journey filled with both heroism and self-exploration. But of course, they\u2019ll also be seeking some fine ale and good times along the way!\u201d This is text without purpose. It\u2019s background information. It\u2019s the writers guide for a Tv series or shared world. It\u2019s not writing that is directed at a DM to help them run an adventure. It\u2019s just allpadding, irrelevant. The last paragraph describes three hooded individuals coming out of the forest and coming straight for the party! All of this lead up. All of this build up. All of those irrelevant words \u2026 and the one part that SHOULD get a few notes is nothing more then three people in hoods walking out of the forest and attacking. Where is your spectre tapestry now? Now nuance. No build up. No tension. Just They Attack! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this is the commonality to the adventure. There is all of this build up, background, motivation, related in the text. And then the actual encounter is just an afterthought. This is not the way an adventure is to be written. It should be written to be run at the table, not to be read. I know, I know, all adventures are written to be read. The industry has done a poor job of providing examples.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ignoring this, and ignoring the long sections of italics (which are hard to read and should never be done), ignoring the first quarter of the page count which is a travelogue,  ignoring the long read-aloud, and ignoring the fact that a major town with a 500 foot tall clocktower is called a bucolic backwater \u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are at least two major adventuring sites with multiple locations. Neither gets a map. This modern design trend to not include maps is crazy. You have to fight the fucking text to try and figure out where things are in relation to each other. I THINK it\u2019s all just a linear thing (but not the haunted church?) but a fucking map would have dispelled all of this. It\u2019s NOT designed for ease of use. It\u2019s not designed to make the DM\u2019s life easier. I don\u2019t know what the fuck it was designed for.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And the adventure design, proper, is a confusing mess. A woman wants you to find her missing son. But, just as with the bandit attack, the ACTUAL thrist here is handled as an afterthought. You\u2019re supposed to go to the church to search for him. There\u2019s no tips on other places, or running the search. There\u2019s no how to get the players in to the church that is handled in any meaningful way, just a \u201cget the players to the church\u201d note. That\u2019s the fucking adventure! The search and hunt for the kid! But it\u2019s handled as an afterthought. Not to mention why a local is turning to strangers to find her kid \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At one point the adventure presents \u201cAdventure Path A\u201d and then later \u201cAdventure Path B\u201d \u2026 without any idea of how or why one would go down one path instead of another. Where is the turning point? Is it meant to be a turning point? Who knows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In another place you\u2019re meant to follow a group of town guards taking a dude to jail. AT least, that\u2019s how the linear adventure is written, as if you sneak follow them. But there\u2019s no hint that this is the case, or that\u2019s what you should do, or what happens if you DONT do that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s no support for the DM, just endless text for a person who buys it and reads it, never to play it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $10 at DriveThru. There\u2019s no preview available. There should always be a preview, showing the potential buyer a few meaty parts of the adventure, so they can make n informed decision about to buy it or now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

drivethrurpg.com\/product\/341721\/Clock-Strike-Zero?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Bill Petrosky, Matt Sisk, JP Fridy Minor Realm Games OSRIC\/5e Levels 2-4 Join a cast of ambitious, fledgling adventurers as they stop if in the bucolic backwater of Blackwyrm on the road to the capital of Herlivik. Intending to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7114","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\/2021\/01\/zero.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7114","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=7114"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7115,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7114\/revisions\/7115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}