{"id":7399,"date":"2021-06-23T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-23T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7399"},"modified":"2021-06-14T14:54:59","modified_gmt":"2021-06-14T18:54:59","slug":"for-coin-blood-adventure-pack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7399","title":{"rendered":"For Coin & Blood Adventure Pack"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Diogo Nogueira, Elizabeth Chaipraditkul\nGallant Knight Games\nFor Coin & Blood<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
It seems that this is actually two separate adventures, totally distinct downloads, bundled under one product listing on DriveThru, with the teaser photo being the core Coin & Blood cover photo. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Hunted – Diogo Levels 2-3<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sixteen page digest thing is a description of an NPC hunting the party. That\u2019s it. That\u2019s the adventure. Oh, you get some ideas on how they do that. FUCKING LAME!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was disappointed when I saw the two downloads thing, but then was upbeat when I saw Diogo\u2019s name. He says, a couple of times, that his is an \u201cunconventional\u201d adventure. Yeah, no shit. Because it\u2019s not an adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You get a description of an NPC bounty hunter, a tale for why they might be hunting the party, one for sme tactics they use, a table of traps they mights use ot places they might attack the party, We are told to sprinkle the stuff in during the parties other adventures, a kind of expansion of their downtime. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, look, I\u2019m not opposed to this. In fact, I think downtime shit can be one of the more memorable parts of a campaign, And I love sprinkling stuff in to a game ahead of time in order to make the world seem more real and lived in. I\u2019m just opposed to everything about this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We get a 2.5 page description of the NPC. Only a few sentences are the actual description and mannerisms, and they are fairly generic. Tall muscular woman with dark hair. That\u2019s great. My imagination burns. I\u2019m not fucking around, other than dark leather armor and a crimson cloak, that\u2019s what two paragraphs gets you. The rest of the pags of her description are right out of a \u201clet me tell you about my character\u201d story. She has basilisk skin armor and it\u2019s hard as metal and if you hit ger you make a save or take 1d3 damage and are at disadvantage net turn and she has a sin seeking dagger which ignores your armor and does 1d4 damage per round and she has a \u2026. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After this are a couple of tables. How she undermines you, who hired her to kill you, and some traps. \u201cA former ally hired her who was hired by the powerful opposition \u2026\u201d \u201ca demon who needs the parties souls but can\u2019t take direct action against them \u2026\u201d the usual not very good stuff and controted reasons. Traps like \u201coil barrels open and spill contents on the party as they pass under a bridge\u201d or \u201cin a wizards lair she puts fake books on the walls.\u201d Contorted stuff. If this is how Coin & Blood is played then I\u2019m super not interested in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The \u201cundermine the party\u201d table is not too bad, but still has that implicit contorted game world shit where she does this instead of just poisoning them with cyanide, or something. She starts lies about the party, she sends messages from people the party has killed in the past, she fucks the parties home base inn, etc. A little too much \u201cshe uses her doppleganger cream\u201d in them, and, still, the whole \u201cjust kill them\u201d thing, ala Dr. Evil & Scott, but, whatever. Magical ren world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oh her and her former adventuring partner broke up because of an \u201cemotional conversation.\u201d Why, isn\u2019t that generic? Nothing like that to liven things up and cement an NPC in your minds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not. Good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sickness, Elizabeth Chaipraditkul, No Level Range<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This sixteen page thing is one of those skeezy abstracted adventures, mor forge-like story than an adventure. Guidelines? Toolkit? Or, maybe, \u201cI had an idea and wrote down four ideas and then expanded it to sixteen pages but didn\u2019t include anything to support the DM.\u201d I am not amused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe you could have an adventure on the way through the city while looking for who framed you. Maybe the party should find out who cursed them and spend some time in the city doing so. Maybe there are guards at the house and maybe the party bribes them or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This, then, is a cardinal sin. If the job of an adventure is to support the DM, what if the adventures DOESN\u2019T do that? What if I jotted down some notes on a notepad. Something like \u201cGet hired by a cult that uses a theater as a base.\u201d \u201cKidnap a guy from a naor for them.\u201d \u201cGet cured with an illness.\u201d and \u201cEvil baddie behind it all was at the manor all along!\u201d That\u2019s your adventure! Pay me!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, ok, I\u2019ll expand it some. How about I write A LOT of read-aloud in italics, so it\u2019s hard to read? How about I support the DM with some ideas. Like, I could write that there are some guard patrols at the manor and the party could, like, ambush a ship captain to steal an invite to the house. I\u2019m only half-assing this, so I\u2019m not going to write much more than that, above. Oh, and one of the \u201cacts\u201d is for the party to go find out who cursed them. They should go do that. \u201cThey should go do that\u201d, that\u2019s enough support for the DM, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This \u201cadventure\u201d is devoid of content. Abstractions and generalizations. A lack of specificity. No actual support, AT ALL, for the DM. Just some ideas. Hey, maybe the party should find out who cursed them. You, the DM, should handle that. What the fuck? Seriously? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thanks to this adventure I do haze a skeezy new business plan to offer my readers. Find a newly released RPG. The hotness. Write an adventure for it. Maybe, I don\u2019t know, have like four ideas and jot them down, expand them very generically, don\u2019t try very hard. Slap a cover on it and release it for the game. Profit. Maybe do a second one, or just move on to the new Hotness. I expect 10% of your take. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe person he wants the characters to abduct is a young man by the name of \u2026\u201d Padded out enough for you? Jesus H fucking christ. It\u2019s all conversational long paragraph form writing, impossible to follow or reference during play, impossible to find anything or key in on the interesting bits. This is the perfect example of an empty shovelware adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The entirety of \u201csneak in to the mansion\u201d is handled with \u201cPlayers could avoid the guard entirely\u2014by watching the guard\u2019s patrolling pattern the character could slip into the mansion without noticing.\u201d like, seriously, what the fuck? No map or anything? It\u2019s just a list of fucking ideas of things that the party could engage in with little to no support for them. Sandboxy? OSR. Plot based? Modern games. Opened AND plot based? Devoid of content. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $5 at DriveThru. I’d be pretty fucking pissed if I got this for Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/334236\/For-Coin–Blood-2e-Adventure-Pack?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
This has been episode \u201cI knew there was a reason I skipped over shit on my wishlist!\u201d of Bryce reviews everything on his DriveThru wishlist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
BONUS FEATURE! –  The Anatomy of an Adventure<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It seems Senor MT Black is going to tell us how to write an adventure! Let\u2019s see if it\u2019s better than the DCC one. Or Vengers. Or any of a billion other ones \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Clocking in at 106 digest pages, this is less a book on how to write an adventure and more of a designers notes for some of Blacks adventures, that serve as anchor points for some lessons in marketing, player choice, and a few other concepts. I like designers notes, so, as a \u201cthis is how I do adventures\u201d it\u2019s not a bad read. Further, there is absolutely a place in life for people to get inspired and gain the confidence to do the thing they dread, and this could serve that purpose also. I mean, I listen to the Frutiness mix of Welcome to the Pleasuredome and get a brand, but, if you need to read about someone else doing what you want to do, good on you. Plus, his essay on meaningful plater choice is a good one, although not really covering much new ground. He does have a great bibliography in the back with only a few stinkers in it. A light read and covering a genre we could use more of: How I Do The Thing. The definitive guide is still missing on how to create an adventure. Well, until, you know what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Diogo Nogueira, Elizabeth Chaipraditkul Gallant Knight Games For Coin & Blood It seems that this is actually two separate adventures, totally distinct downloads, bundled under one product listing on DriveThru, with the teaser photo being the core Coin & … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7397,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/coin.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7399","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=7399"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7400,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7399\/revisions\/7400"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}