{"id":8594,"date":"2023-05-31T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8594"},"modified":"2023-05-17T08:48:11","modified_gmt":"2023-05-17T12:48:11","slug":"the-tower-of-the-twisted-mage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8594","title":{"rendered":"The Tower of the Twisted Mage"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Hexplore Publishing\nHexplore Publishing\nB\/X\nLevel 1<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Orin, the Wizard is missing. And his apprentice is hiring adventurers to go look for him in his last known whereabouts: The infamous Tower of Zaradon, the Twisted Mage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 28 page adventure features a \u201ctower\u201d with four levels and about sixteen rooms, using about nine pages to do so. So generic that I had to check, multiple times, to ensure I had not reviewed it previously. It\u2019s throw-away garbage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You see a dude in the market place looking around. I hope you go talk to him because if you don\u2019t then there\u2019s no adventure to be had! An apprentice, named either Kendrick or Cedrick (both names are used for him \u2026 and not on purpose \u2026) wants you to go to this tower that his master was exploring and never came back from. Why doesn\u2019t he? Well, gentle reader, you see, this is just a garbage adventure. In a garbage adventure we don\u2019t bother even mentioning such things. But, whatever. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You walk down a country road to get to the tower. On the road you have an exciting encounter from a table! Just one though \u2026 from the table of eight. So, let\u2019s see \u2026 \u201cA tree has fallen across the path, blocking the way forward. The players must find a way to remove the obstacle or go around it.\u201d Joy! Wonder! Excitement! I\u2019m so glad I\u2019m playing D&D tonight! I had been looking forward to it all week! Our boots might get muddy! Ohs nos! Look, if you\u2019re just gonna force one encounter then don\u2019t use a fucking table. A table was used for wanderers, if the PC\u201ds are dawdling, or exploring, or some such. Not for a programmed encounter. Instead of saying \u201cA group of bandits has set up a makeshift roadblock. They demand that the players pay a toll to pass.\u201d then write a short paragraph about the Murphy Boys Independant Tax Agency.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congrats. You made it to the tower. You may now enjoy majestic room descriptions that say things like a LARGE room\u201d a room with \u201cHIGH ceilings.\u201d Don\u2019t fucking do this. I know you think you\u2019re doing right, but stickin gin an adjective. But, maybe, pick a better one? Large and high have little meaning. Use a thesaurus. Conjure an image in your mind. Describe that. Ceiling tower overhead. Or loom overhead, or stretch in to the shadows above. Don\u2019t fucking say high. The purpose of a room description is to inspire the DM. To conjure an image in their heads that they can riff on for the players benefit. Large don\u2019t do that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, maybe, watch your rooms text for padding also. Telling us that the room has two doors, as the maps clearly fucking shows, and has no encounters or traps in it is not helpful text in the room description. What\u2019s the fucking point? You think there might be some, that the designer left out? Why? Why the fuck say there are no traps or encounters in the room? You don\u2019t even consistently do it for all the rooms with no encounters or traps! \u201cAfter defeating the rats, the players may find some treasure scattered among the bones.\u201d Why? Just why?! That sentence does nothing. N O T H I N G. Oh oh oh, and then it sticks the door descriptions IN THE NEXT ROOM. So if the door from room one to room two is described, you know where it is described at? In room two. Room one tells us there IS a door, but the actual description is in room two. Now, I know my readers, you\u2019re thinking \u201cthat could be ok\u201d. Maybe. But what if room two is a corridor. It makes no fucking sense at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My favorite, absolute favorite, encounter that I may have even seen in my entire worthless piece of shit life, is the mirror maze in this adventure. \u201cTo go forward, the PCs must pass three Wisdom saves. Failing any of the saves forces a restart. If they pass all three, they reach the end of the maze\u201d. Tedium. Just an exercise in tedium. Just like the fallen log encounter. Tedium. Nothing but tedium. Tired of reading the fucking word tedium yet? Too fucking bad. I had to deal with this adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you leave the tower you meet 1d6 rival adventurers. That\u2019s all you get. Nothing more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is NOTHING here. The same room concept, a room with a stone pedestal in the center with a glowing crystal on it, appears twice. Not for thematic reasons. Not for puzzle reasons. Just because. It\u2019s the most basic of descriptions. Dull and boring. Padded text. Unimaginative encounters. Tedious play. No specifics to bring something alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This then is the curse of man. To be forced to create only to spew shit eternally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is eight pages. Because of all of the advert padding you don\u2019t actually get to see any rooms. Shitty preview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/437138\/The-Tower-of-the-Twisted-Mage-A-OneShot-Dungeon-Crawl-Adventure-for-Starting-Players?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Is it possible to live a simple life without flax seed and hemp indoctrination?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Hexplore Publishing Hexplore Publishing B\/X Level 1 Orin, the Wizard is missing. And his apprentice is hiring adventurers to go look for him in his last known whereabouts: The infamous Tower of Zaradon, the Twisted Mage. This 28 page … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8593,"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-8594","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\/2023\/05\/tower.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8594","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=8594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8595,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8594\/revisions\/8595"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}