{"id":7225,"date":"2021-04-03T07:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-03T11:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7225"},"modified":"2021-03-22T07:33:27","modified_gmt":"2021-03-22T11:33:27","slug":"a-tomb-to-plunder-dungeons-and-dragons-adventure-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7225","title":{"rendered":"A Tomb to Plunder, dungeons and dragons adventure review"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By FEI Games\nFEI Games Inc\nOSR \nLevels 1-3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
one-off 1st-3rd level OSR hack-n-slash mini-adventure. Includes the new monster “Guardian Statue”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2026 Your party is traveling from one place to another when you spot a rotting backpack that is still worn by a decomposing body partially hidden in some tall grass. Closer inspection reveals a hand drawn map that hints to a location that might be a small tomb or crypt. Could this be worth checking out? From the various landmarks drawn on the map this location appears to be in this area. The next village is not far away and they might have some idea on where this is located …<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This eight page dungeon describes three rooms, a door, and two hallways. The shovelware industry is alive and well, with little content, no good descriptions, and padding and abstraction galore. Plus, FEI Games can\u2019t be a man cause he doesn\u2019t smoke the same cigarettes as me, DEVO version. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first sentence up there, the one that doesn\u2019t start with a capital letter? The one that inspires the imagination with it\u2019s \u201cincludes the new monster \u2026\u201d statement? That\u2019s the publisher blurb on DriveThru that\u2019s supposed to make you want to buy the product. Look, I dont\u2019 marketing either. As a good midwesterner it feels wrong. But you have to do SOMETHING to let people know what they are buying and get them interested. I mean, I might not like to do it, and it might feel wrong to me, but you need to engage in it to get people to want to buy the thing, right? Even _I_ recognize that. The second paragraph up there is the first one in the adventure, all in italics as read-aloud, and serves, I think, as a much better blurb. I mean, there\u2019s nothing to that encounter other than what it says. And, it\u2019s a masterful work of abstraction. You are travelling \u201cfrom one place to another\u201d. Wow! Exciting! \u201cHints at a location \u2026\u201d Sign me up! \u201cVarious landmarks \u2026\u201d Oh boy! I can\u2019t wait! This is textbook abstraction. It\u2019s nothing but padding. I suspect it’s written like that to insert in to any world, but specificity is the soul of narrative. It still sucks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The adventure is full of such abstractions and padding. Rooms \u201cappear\u201d to be empty. Which we all know is never the case. And it just padding. Everything in the world \u201cappears to be \u201c something. It\u2019s the way your senses work in a world cursed by consciousness. Padding and abstracted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cPut in your treasure\u201d a column of text tells us. Joy. Not even the loot is done. Why would you want this? If you had to do the work yourself then why would you buy the adventure? Does it make sense that a DM is going to creature interesting treasure on the spot for a party that just reached the end? No, of course not. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThese tattered banners are worthless but may be of interest to a historian\u201d \u2026 with no treasure value listed. Making something worth more to one party than another is an good concept, but you need enough to put in to make it worthwhile. Likewise, another room has unknown writing. The fucking game has a spell that has a decippher language impact. What the fuck does it state, even generally? We\u2019ll never know. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYou feel like something bad is about to happen.\u201d and \u201cas the last person enters the room the door slams shuts and locks.\u201d OMG these are bad. You don\u2019t address the party in read-aloud. You don\u2019t, especially, tell them what they feel. You describe an encounter in such a way that the PLAYERS says \u201coh, wow, I feel like something bad is about to happen \u2026\u201d THATS what makes a good description. And, the old it slams shut and locks trick? LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! LAME! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe monsters have no treasure\u201d the adventure tells us. Well no fucking shit, man. That\u2019s why there is none listed. That\u2019s not how one spends their word budget! Most of one column is spent describing one simple poison gas trap. This ain\u2019t no way to run a railroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/351127\/A-Tomb-To-Plunder?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By FEI Games FEI Games Inc OSR Levels 1-3 one-off 1st-3rd level OSR hack-n-slash mini-adventure. Includes the new monster “Guardian Statue” \u2026 Your party is traveling from one place to another when you spot a rotting backpack that is still … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7223,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-do-not-buy-ever-2","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/03\/tomb.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7225","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=7225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7226,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7225\/revisions\/7226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}