{"id":8156,"date":"2022-08-24T07:06:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T11:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8156"},"modified":"2022-08-10T11:08:26","modified_gmt":"2022-08-10T15:08:26","slug":"dwarrowdeep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8156","title":{"rendered":"Dwarrowdeep"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Greg Gillespie\nSelf Published\nS&W\nLevels 1-7<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Gundgathol lies in ruin. Over 250 years ago, an evil host rose from the underdark and pushed the dwarves out of their ancestral mountains. Since that time, orcs and worse have defiled their sacred halls. In recent days, the high dwarven clerics cast their runestones and read the portents: the time has come to retake Gundgathol. Are you brave (or fooloish) enough to enter Dwarrowdeep?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 336 adventure attempts, once again, to do Moria. It has specific keys, using about half its page count, for about thirteen different areas, and then some D1 hexcrawl & procedural generation for other Moria locations. It\u2019s using a B2-like descriptive format. Do you want that slightly generic feel? Are you willing to put up with doing your own maps (using geomorphs) and keying them and having a generic-ish vibe? Great, then this is for you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am, clearly, not having this shit anymore. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s another attempt at Moria. Moria is too big to key so you get a hex crawl map to get you from location to location, ala D1, and then some rules for using provided geomorphs to create levels and deeps, and some rules on how to populate them. So, you get some DMG like tables and then, the last step, step 15, is \u201cInterpret the Results.\u201d Great. Bring it to life, he means. If I wanted to do that I\u2019d write my own from scratch. I\u2019m not buying an adventure to create it from scratch, procedurally. I\u2019m buying an adventure so I DON\u2019T have to do that. Just grab the old Moria supplement and the DMG and crank some shit out. Why, exactly, do you need this booklet? \u201cBut Bryce, how else can you do Moria?\u201d Well, maybe, don\u2019t do fucking Moria if you can\u2019t figure it out. Besides, the Fellowship Moria thing was just a trip through it, not a delve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, so, no, some of you are not going to be happy with that analysis. Let us, instead, forget all about the procedural generation thing. Let\u2019s pretend it doesn\u2019t exist. Let\u2019s instead review the maps\/keys\/areas that are presented. This is six entrance areas and seven other location sites, most of which have 100 or so rooms, or more. (with a notable exception in the ruined tower on the mountain peak that has a dragon.) Let\u2019s just review that, shall we? After all, I don\u2019t really care how much something costs, or background shit or any of that. Let\u2019s just look at the value we\u2019re getting for our $35 for those thirteen areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFour Dwarven Skeletal Guards AL: CE, AC: 4, HD: 1, HP: 8, 7, 5, 4, #AT: 1, DMG: 1d6, lay on the floor here. They burn with malice for the living. One has a pouch with 3d6gp and another has a Seax Knife +1.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Laying on the floor! Burning with malice for the living! Have you ever read such majesty before on the written page?! Does your heart not leap with joy at the prospects of running this room?! Are you not entertained?! No? You\u2019re not? Ah, then how about this little gem of a room:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Orc Rat-Master AL: CE, AC: 6 (Studded and mShield), HD: 1, HP: 5, #AT: 1, Weapon: Whip (1d4), Scimitar (1d6), and Dagger (1d4), Treasure: 5gp, 8ep, 9sp, 2cp, uses this room as his quarters. Under a stone in the floor, under his bed of dirty furs, is a Huge Broken Pale Green Variscite (20gp), a Large Transparent Green Augelite (24gp), and a Small Deep Blue Azurite (20gp).\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Of course! Masterful!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s nothing here. It\u2019s just a hair above a minimalistic keying style. Sure, there\u2019s some rooms that have more text. To no real effect. There are no real evocative descriptions anywhere in this. There is, though, padding: \u201cThe Ruined Temple of Thaneduhr: This rough- hewn temple to Thaneduhr All-Father was defaced and defiled by the orcs. It now lies in ruin.\u201d That\u2019s a meaningless couple of sentences, especially to start with. It goes on to describe a large statue with the face changed to that of the orc god, rubble, a bloody altar, and some bodies and chained prisoners. There\u2019s some potential here, but it\u2019s described lifelessly. The rooms are just padded out with stats and what the monster is wielding, and treasure. If this is removed you may get, mostly, one sentence per room. \u201cThe orcs here are wagering over a fight between two stirge\u201d The alcove contains a pile of decaying corpses infested with rot grubs. Something partially buried in the dirt gleams at the back of this dead end. There\u2019s no life in any of this. I\u2019d have much preferred to gloss over the stats and weapons and instead have an extra sentence or two to bring the aggressively genetic minimalism to life. Because that\u2019s what you should be paying for in an adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I can roll on a table. I can find a program to roll on a table for me and spit out a generic dungeon. This is not the heart of D&D. The heart of D&D is the magic of imagination and the weirdness of the interactivity. That\u2019s what you\u2019re paying a designer for. Otherwise just go play some Angband. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Barrowmaze had some life. The towers thing had some life. The Caverns thing was, as is this, aggressively minimal and generic in a way that doesn\u2019t work with the adventure. This needs A LOT more of step 15. A LOT more of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDwarrowdeep is the single largest dwarven themed adventure in the history of role-playing games.\u201d I don\u2019t love you, you don\u2019t love me. Da Da Da\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $35 at DriveThru.There\u2019s no preview because it\u2019s a zip file blah blah blah. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/384269\/Dwarrowdeep?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Greg Gillespie Self Published S&W Levels 1-7 Gundgathol lies in ruin. Over 250 years ago, an evil host rose from the underdark and pushed the dwarves out of their ancestral mountains. Since that time, orcs and worse have defiled … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8105,"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":[29,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8156","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dungeons-dragons-adventure-review","category-reviews"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/dwarrow.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156","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=8156"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8157,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8156\/revisions\/8157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8156"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8156"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8156"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}