{"id":9113,"date":"2024-04-20T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-20T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9113"},"modified":"2024-04-03T10:38:39","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T14:38:39","slug":"the-brigands-of-bristleback-burrow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9113","title":{"rendered":"The Brigands of Bristleback Burrow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
By Brynjar Mar Palsson
Self Published
Shadowdark
Levels 1-3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
No amount of coin is worth crossing paths with the Bristlebacks; they\u2019ll rob you of more than your gold.\u201d \u2013 Myrtle Salesbury of Salesbury & Sons Caravansary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This eight page adventure uses three pages to describe twelve rooms. It\u2019s trying hard, and does a decent little job of descriptions and scenes. Situations and interactivity, though, is lacking. Still, a better job than 90% of Shadowdark adventures, at a minimum!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
What we\u2019re going for here is a small dungeon with mostly goblins and their minions that has some faction play, again mostly between goblins. Most of the other things you expect from an adventure are at a bare minimum, at best. No hooks. No real marketing. It\u2019s just a dungeon that you\u2019re going in to for some reason. And that\u2019s chill. You know what I like to say, concentrate on the important thing, the dungeon. Everything else is fluff. And that\u2019s what\u2019s going on here. There\u2019s a short (and unremarkable) rumour table and that\u2019s about it. Background is one paragraph of three sentences. Right on man! Then we get a half column on factions and what they do when all hell hell breaks out. Four factions. About half a column. With direction. That\u2019s pretty good from a terseness standpoint. A craven goblin boss with a penchant for cruel punishment. Also, there\u2019s an ambitious and patient doppleganger. Hoy boy! This is how you write an NPC description. Not a fucking paragraph. A few words that inspire and make sense in the context. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m generally satisfied with all of this. Or, would be. They are, I think, a little too eager to recruit any PC they meet to their cause. Basically any goblin who sees the party is going to be all on board. And I\u2019m not sure that\u2019s how this should be handled. The map is small, only twelve rooms, so there\u2019s not much room to breath here. And while the map notes creatures on it, it doesn\u2019t necessarily note factions or numbers. So, what are we doing? Is this an exploratory adventure with subtle faction play? It\u2019s not really large enough and everyone is eager to see you. Is it more of a mass combat\/raid thing once you make contact? But the map doesn\u2019t really support that, or the notes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And this is, I think, an issue with e adventure. It feels like a kind of 4e\/5e mashup. The 4e aspect of combat centric with some \u201cless tactical\u201d 5e stuff. But it doesn\u2019t feel interactive beyond that. And I\u2019m not even sure I\u2019d include NPC discussions with the monsters as an element. It seems like including Talking To The Shopkeeper would be appropriate here. It\u2019s lacking that verve of contestation in the verbal arena, or even much in the way of interactivity beyond just stabbing shit. There are interesting things here, but they are more of an integrated backstory thing (well done) rather than things the party will be directly interacting with in a game way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, hey, I\u2019m being an asshole before I\u2019m being nice. There is some really chill stuff in this in terms of scenes and descriptions and the like. Like I said, monsters are noted on the map for reaction purposes. There\u2019s a great monster reference sheet. And the magic? Oh man. The Pact Slate of Beherit: \u201cA broken and chipped stone tablet with infernal writing and streaks of dried blood.\u201d Go ahead, stamp your fingerprint in blood on it! That fucking shit is gold. FUCKING GOLD! Sign me up mom!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, as the description for the pact-stone might imply, the descriptions in general, and the scenes that they build up, are well done. \u201cCramped and muddy vermin\u2013 infested hallways with the lingering stench of urine and body odor. Goblin voices echo from the gloom as flickering torchlight emanates from intermittent wall sconces.\u201d That\u2019s the general Always On description of the main part of the dungeon and it does a great job of communicating a vibe in a small amount of space. Or. Pillars, strung with 1-3 bodies, each with a sign stating \u201cthief\u201d or \u201ctrespasser\u201d, etc. I might go a little harder there, but ok. The terse and colorful NPC description, combined with terse little scenes in the rooms help to do a lot to give the rooms a little life to them. Even if they do end up in combat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Formatting it pretty good also. Or, lets say, well thought out. There\u2019s a sentence ot so describing the main thing in the room. What you might notice first. And then a few bolded section headings of other main things, and then some bullets and bolding, with indents, to note other important things. No, dickheads, it\u2019s not the ultra-terse OSE style that you love to bitch about. It\u2019s more verbose than that, with essentially something close to full sentences, if not full sentences. And it does a decent job. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rooms, however, tend to be on the more complex side of things. Four or five bolded section headings\/bullets, at about a minimum. This contributes to a density of about four rooms a page or so. We\u2019re moving toward set piece room length here, or Main Room vibes. In something something this short it\u2019s not really going to be a problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, the short size of the adventure, is, I assert, a problem. There is no room to breathe here. There\u2019s no room for the faction play to develop in to something meaningful. There\u2019s no room for that interactivity that is the soul of Dungeons and Dragons. Todo those things you need to get to something longer\/larger, and THEN we have to look at page after page of four rooms per page. Can you do it? Absolutely. But it\u2019s not gonna be fun. The challenge here is to take that format and really work it. How do you keep the vibrancy of the room, the scene, or situation, while also keeping each and every one of them from running to a quarter page? Errr \u2026 I guess that\u2019s my challenge. You can also have a quarter page room. \ud83d\ude42  <\/p>\n\n\n\n
More seriously, the challenge here is the lack of interactivity beyond a lot of combat. Yes, there are factions, but this is a rather simplistic implementation of them. A full dungeon, but this designer, would be an interesting thing to see.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is free at DriveThru:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/preview.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/446454\/Shadowdark-The-Brigands-of-Bristleback-Burrow?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Brynjar Mar PalssonSelf PublishedShadowdarkLevels 1-3 No amount of coin is worth crossing paths with the Bristlebacks; they\u2019ll rob you of more than your gold.\u201d \u2013 Myrtle Salesbury of Salesbury & Sons Caravansary. This eight page adventure uses three pages … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9112,"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":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9113","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\/04\/brig.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9113","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=9113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9114,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9113\/revisions\/9114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}