{"id":8164,"date":"2022-08-29T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8164"},"modified":"2022-08-29T06:04:31","modified_gmt":"2022-08-29T10:04:31","slug":"troll-pit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8164","title":{"rendered":"Troll Pit"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Morten Greis\nGreis Games\nB\/X\nLevels 5-7<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In a mysterious cave, darkness whispers secrets to those who dare to listen, and daring adventurers can win divinations and learn the magical secrets of Dark Magicians, but not everyone escapes alive from the Troll Pit, where darkness consumes the careless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 24 page adventure uses eight pages to describe thirteen rooms, most of which are in an underground cave. It\u2019s got a nice premise, but doesn\u2019t explore its themes enough, and the individual room entries, from read-aloud to DM text, overstay their welcome. I don\u2019t need a theme, unless you tell me there is one. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, so, a  lot of lame-o hooks about bandits, goblins, apprentices and so on. They all suck and can fuck right off. What IS good is the core premise: inside a cave system in a bog\/swamp is a great chasm, a bottomless abyss. And if you listen hard enough, it will whisper secrets to you \u2026 Fuck yeah man! SIGN MY ASS UP! This is a good thing. Oracular visions. Places of power. Loot. These are the things that drive a PLAYERS soul. Well, the things that are easy anyway. Other emotions may serve better, but are substantially harder to accomplish. Re: Making the PLAYERS revile the villain \u2026 through non-odious\/non-fiat means. So, yeah man, \u201cYou can become a Dark Magician if you stand by the abyss in the depths of trolls and let an Abyssal Fly take up residence in your body\u201d Uh huh! In the depths of the trolls? Stand on the abyss? LET AN ABYSSAL FLY TAKE UP RESIDENCE?! I got visa\u2019s in my name bitch! Take my money!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s are things here that speak to your soul. A crow suddenly taking flight. Goblins, \u201cThe goblins can smell the adventurers, and the adventurers can hear the goblins talk about being able to smell people.\u201d YES! That\u2019s the fucking way a goblin works! A scream in the dark on the wandering table. The rays of dawn striking a statue though a hole in the roof, causing a hole in the wall to appear for one hour, revealing a treasure! Or, the mists, rolling in the caves after dark, obscuring things. There are parts here that are just RIGHT. They make sense, in every definition of the words. The context in to which the adventure falls FEELS right. And the rumors! \u201cTwo drunk people compete to talk about how dangerous the caves are. Goblins abound! There are lots of them and they eat people raw and preferably alive! It is best to go there during the day when they sleep!\u201d Fun! Interesting! Or perhaps, you\u2019ve been listening to those whispers from the abyss, trying to learn a secret, like \u201cDire Words of a fateful moment: The character receives a warning of a deadly trap. The next time a trap kills the character, the character is reminded of the words and the deadly effect of the trap is avoided (depending on the type of trap, the character fails to step in, activate, or be exposed to the trap; avoid interacting with or activating the trap).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, alas, the promise is not fulfilled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our read-aloud is long. VERY long. And thus will not be paid attention to. And it over reveals. Instead of simplifying saying a towering statue it must go on and describe the statue \u2026 which leads to the long read-aloud. These things, the details, should be saved for the back and forth between player and DM that is the heart of the D&D experience. And this happens time and time again. In the read-aloud, or, in the DM text. Yes, you could, potentially, make them long. But only f you\u2019ve dona lot of work to make it very scannable and usable at he table. ANd that is a heroes effort seldom found. And not here. Instead, maybe, don\u2019t over describe in the read-aloud. A tower statue stretching to the ceiling will do. THEN tell the DM what is going on so they can relate it to  the players when, hopefully, the fuckwits ask about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, the adventure has this whole Troll Pit thing going on. IDK what that is. Maybe it\u2019s lost in translation or has some cultural context I\u2019m missing? There IS a troll down there. A troll king, a corrupted human. Who basically talks to you. (And the adventure notes that, at 8HD, if too much for the party to handle? This is a level 5-7 adventure, right?) Anyway, the whole Troll Pit thing is not really present and doesn\u2019t come across very well. And, for that matter, neither does the whispers in the darkness, though that manages things better than the troll pit thing does. There a crazy lady in one room, a dude in another who exists only as a whisper, and the core abyss whisper mechanic, with you going deeper and more precarious to get a better listen roll, works well. Still, it all FEELS lightly themed. Perhaps because of the length of the thing? It\u2019s just not FANTASTIC, although it does lean that way with the crazy lady, abyss, voice in the darkness, and that statue. Maybe even the troll king thing, but it\u2019s out of place here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And for all that there\u2019s a lot missing. Confusion about the entrances. Read-aloud that is a little too flowery \u201cOnly reluctantly it gives way to your light.\u201d Uh uh. Or descriptions in the text that don\u2019t match up to the map very well, not communicating things well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, it\u2019s not a disaster, but, also, it\u2019s not a home run either. I think, perhaps, if the theming were stronger or the text a little more organized\/shorter\/better I might have bumped this in to No Regerts. But, as is, there\u2019s jts too much for me to handle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $3 at DriveThru. The preview is six pages. You get to see those rumors, as well as several encounter descriptions. So, it does give a feel for how the writing is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/390975\/Troll-Pit–A-B-X-adventure?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Morten Greis Greis Games B\/X Levels 5-7 In a mysterious cave, darkness whispers secrets to those who dare to listen, and daring adventurers can win divinations and learn the magical secrets of Dark Magicians, but not everyone escapes alive … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8163,"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-8164","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\/2022\/08\/troll.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8164","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=8164"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8180,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8164\/revisions\/8180"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}