{"id":9107,"date":"2024-04-15T07:18:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T11:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9107"},"modified":"2024-04-01T10:19:56","modified_gmt":"2024-04-01T14:19:56","slug":"into-the-sapphire-mines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9107","title":{"rendered":"Into the Sapphire Mines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By reddJack\nSelf Published\nEZd6<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
A complete one-shot adventure for the EZD6 system that sees players exploring an abandoned mine that uncovers a sprawling underground tunnel system filled with goblins and an ancient colony of crystalline arachnids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This nineteen page adventure details a trip in to some \u201cSapphire Mines\u201d, that contain no Sapphires. It\u2019s an exercise in random locations and experimental layout. Neither of which ends up being as effective as was intended. Onward, to die rolling!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Page eight of this adventure is the critical one. Before this page we get a little blurb on the mine entrance, and some pages describing the goblin tribes (and factions) and the Sapphire Spiders (bestiary) and some backstory. But page eight is where the adventure comes together. You see, their\u2019s this little four section flowchat and six entry random table for \u201cwhat room do you encounter next.\u201d Antechamber, goblin warrens, the back entrance to the goblin warrens, crystal cavern, underground oasis, or the Spider Queen room. And the little four entry flowchart tells us to roll for the room layout (three types) and then for what \u201cdanger\u201d there is in the current tunnel, and then for a tunnel encounter, and then roll for the next main room type. IE: random AND linear. Oh, also, don\u2019t step on the sand\/loose earth or you will summon a worm\/spider. Zzzz\u2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, the designer is looking to set up this thing where a couple of goblin factions live in a cave\/mine, that is also inhabited by these mutant spiders. The spiders have a queen and also some elf dude is who is the spider ally\/leader\/something like that. So you\u2019ve got this band of goblins allied to the elf\/spiders and another that is \u201cfree\u201d goblins, currently out of power and being repressed. And you roll on the table and randomly wander around until you get bored and go home. I guess. I don\u2019t know. There\u2019s not much point here. Oh, look, our first room was the queens chamber. Themes the breaks of randomness. And how can you have an expressive faction play environment with six rooms? You can\u2019t. And thus all of that text on the factions is relatively meaningless. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The magic items get some decent description an are sufficiently unique. The room descriptions, and even the monster descriptions, are sorely lacking though. Bland, when they do exist, \u201cWolf-sized spider covered in crystalline carapace that shines like a moonlit pool. Agile and venomous.\u201d Meh. Hippo sized spider that swims through soft earth. Meh. There\u2019s not much here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main feature of the adventure is the layout. We\u2019re being interesting with it, to help make all of the information readily accessible. I\u2019m a big proponent of the formatting lending itself to those concepts. Further, I think that you must ruthlessly violate your own formatting guidelines when appropriate. Every situation you are trying to get across is different, with different goals, and thus the formatting for everything should be specific to that. This is more than just using a different format for the social town vs the room\/key dungeon. Does the tavern need a different format than the general store? If so, then we don\u2019t try to pigeonhole one in to the other. But, also \u2026 we do not want to tall in to the trap of listing lighting, door, lock, walls, ceiling, floor, sound, tase and smell in every room description at the top of them. We note things when appropriate. What I\u2019m saying here is that there should be a general formatting style that you use throughout your adventure. Some standards. And, then, as exceptions arise, you tailor your formatting for them to those exceptions. But there should generally be some common standards. If EVERYTHING is different on every page then you face some serious cognitive dissonance, as the DM, in trying to context shift to the new formatting. What am I supposed to pay attention to on THIS page? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this is going to a problem here. Every page has a wildly different format. Yes, even the room pages. You\u2019ll get to dig through all of everything fresh and new each and every time. Good luck with that. Just as with the adventures that list the lighting, door, and floor and walls and smells and noises for each room, this adventure has taken a principal to an extreme. Yeah, sure, lighting in a room is good to know. But, also, maybe we can assume most rooms are dark if in fact 90% of the rooms are dark? A format used excessively. And, with this, perhaps not EVERYTHING in the adventure requires a totally new format? Is there so much variation thats the case? (And if so \u2026 why?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Plus, you know, no sapphires.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $5 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages. Which in this case is enough, if you know already that everything is going to be like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/preview.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/464682\/into-the-sapphire-mines-an-ezd6-one-shot-adventure?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By reddJack Self Published EZd6 A complete one-shot adventure for the EZD6 system that sees players exploring an abandoned mine that uncovers a sprawling underground tunnel system filled with goblins and an ancient colony of crystalline arachnids. This nineteen page … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9105,"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-9107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/sapphire.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107","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=9107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9108,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9107\/revisions\/9108"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}