{"id":9026,"date":"2024-02-24T07:07:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T12:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9026"},"modified":"2024-02-12T11:08:50","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:08:50","slug":"castle-brookmere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9026","title":{"rendered":"Castle Brookmere"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Roderic Waibel\nIzegrim Creations\nOSR\nLevel 2<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Rediscover a classic story, converted to an adventure for your enjoyment! Castle Brookmere converts the old Return To Brookmere book into a playable adventure with added areas to truly flesh out an adventure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 22 page adventure fleshes out the Endless Quest book with a total of 35 rooms (in eight pages) on a dungeon level as well as a token wilderness area. It\u2019s got that non-traditional whimsy that comes from an outsider to the hobby. And it\u2019s descriptions are abstracted to a degree that makes it relatively useless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes, it\u2019s based on the Endless Quest book. And it\u2019s got a little three or so page description in the front of the process and history of them, as well as quite the long section, a life history of sorts, of Rose Estes, the author of the original books. If you were SUPER in to these books then that might be worth it. For most of us though it\u2019s not gonna be worth the $5 to just read that section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t remember much, if anything, from the Endless Quest book. There is, though, a sense of whimsy, but dangerous, and a non-traditional approach to the fantasy in this. And I assume a lot of that comes from the original book. A doorway to nowhere that turns you in to a kind of firefly trapped within? Absolutely, that\u2019s the kind of thing you don\u2019t typically see. And the ever popular giant crystal in front of a wizard that then crumbles? Yup! It\u2019s these points in the adventure, when we encounter things not out of Tolkein or the last forty years of D&D, in which the wonder and delight of the game, fresh and new, shine through again. No de-rigueur. THe gnoll who hates killing and two guards passing out drunk. Ogre twins, and the ending with Fang the wererat. These all feel wonderful \u2026 is a little scripted when talking about Fang. And they certainly bring to the forefront the situation \u2026 and ol Brycey Bryce LOVES a situation in his adventure. And loves an adventure full of situations. If only there were mof this in the adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
How\u2019s this for whimsy and wonder? \u201cThe regional leader has hired the PCs to scout the castle\u201d Hmmm. no. This is abstracted detail. That\u2019s not good.Or, a hook about a reclusive hermit. That\u2019s not much to go on. We want the designer to fill in just enough details to inspire the DM, to bring the thing to life in their head enough that the DMS head fills in the details and it springboards them to other things and it all comes pouring out in a wonderful encounter for the party. Instead we get \u201ca regional leader.\u201d Wonderful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Likewise, we\u2019re told that \u201cIt is recommended that you start the part in a small town or village just off the map\u201d Now, I would been ok, I think, f that had never been mentioned. I wouldn\u2019t have cared at all about a town or village. But once you put it in, and especially once you tell me that its RECOMMENDED that I do it, then the obligation balance falls to you, the designer, to give them three sentences on it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The map had one loop and is otherwise linear. The overland journey is \u2026 weird? There\u2019s not really a path in, or any seeming rhyme or reason to the locations of the encounters. But, there is a cave with 50 goblins in it? Err, five caves. Anyway. It\u2019s just a forest map with the castle ni the middle and a few other encounters scattered around haphazardly. I really don\u2019t get how this is supposed to be an overland adventure. I guess I might describe it as a hex crawl (with the same sized map) at level two, with a wandering table that doesn\u2019t support that scope, and encounter locations you\u2019ll never find that all have an overwhelming number of enemies in them? It\u2019s fucking weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writing is subpar. \u201cThe winding tunnel opens up to a cavern where dozens of varying types of fungi appear to be cultivated in some version of a mushroom farm. Oribius used this area to grow alchemical components for his experiments. One of the dozen types of fungi is deadly poisonous. The creature must succeed on a Saving Throw vs. Poison if ingested or die.\u201dThe classic appears to be. And another with the classic if\/then statements. We see exclamations and backstory embedded in the description. A description that, at its core, is rather boring. It\u2019s almost, again, like this is cliff notes version of the adventure. Or the script guide version. A placeholder for future expansion. \u201cYo, put a mushroom garden here.\u201d And entry after entry in this adventure falls in to that pattern of weird abstraction \u2026 and yet wordy at the same time. There\u2019s a lack of focus on the intent and purpose of a room, for literally and figuratively in the sense of the role that the room description has during the running of an adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t know. I like the firefly doorway a whole lot. Even if it a save or die \u2026 with no save allowed. But so much of the rest is just devoid of any life, even given the potential of the various situations presented. Bleech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $5 at DriveThru.The preview is six pages. You get to see the overland map. A  very poor preview to help you determine if you want to buy it or not. But, also, you get to read all of that Endless Quest author background detail I mentioned earlier!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/preview.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/470471\/castle-brookmere-osr?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Roderic Waibel Izegrim Creations OSR Level 2 Rediscover a classic story, converted to an adventure for your enjoyment! Castle Brookmere converts the old Return To Brookmere book into a playable adventure with added areas to truly flesh out an … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9025,"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-9026","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\/2024\/02\/brook.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9026","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=9026"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9027,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9026\/revisions\/9027"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}