{"id":9339,"date":"2024-08-28T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-28T11:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9339"},"modified":"2024-08-14T11:03:15","modified_gmt":"2024-08-14T15:03:15","slug":"the-chili-rat-chiefs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9339","title":{"rendered":"The Chili Rat Chiefs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Zonk
Self Published
OSR\/Into the Odd
Level ?<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Three Rat Chiefs rule over a tribe of rat-like humanoids, harnessing the power of chili for their own depraved and corrupt ends. Treasure awaits the intrepid explorer, or a death choking on capsaicin, clobbered by a rat wrestler, or incinerated by a lich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 56 page adventure (not 52 as the cover suggests) uses 21 pages to describe eighteen rooms in some caves full of rat men. It\u2019s got a hint of good descriptions, in places, but is an overly verbose tangle that has little more than stabbing things in it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Just is a site based location, with no hooks. Well, there are hooks, just a \u201cif you need one then maybe they stole a cow\u201d kind of thing. But, otherwise, there\u2019s none of that overblown hook shit found in other adventures \u2026 even though there\u2019s a section called hooks. And I\u2019m A-Ok with this. Sites don\u2019t really need hooks. There\u2019s a hole in the ground. Get going. I would not, however, that the hook section is two paragraphs long. Even though there\u2019s essentially nothing there other than \u201cmaybe they stole a cow.\u201d This, my ignoble readers, is what we call a sign of things to come.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s look at the description for room one: \u201cIf the PCs manage to make their way down the mine shaft, they\u2019re met with a grim visage:\u201d The sentence continues with \u201cthe mangled, ancient remains of two apparent miners, a broken pick next to one, a strange helmet next to the other.\u201d Let\u2019s be clear: I hate absolutely the fuck everything about this description. Both clauses of it. In fact, I don\u2019t think I could write a more textbook description, if I were going to give examples of what makes a description bad. IF the PC\u2019s manage to \u2026 Great start, with an IF clause. And, of course, they really MUST make their way down the mine shaft in order to enter the dungeon (at least, this entrance.) That\u2019s all just an if\/then pad. And then there\u2019s that grim visage shit. It\u2019s not aimed at the party, so it must be aimed at the DM. But it\u2019s overly \u2026 meta? For the DM. If it\u2019s read aloud then we describe a scene in which the players think \u201cman, that\u2019s a grim visage!\u201d If it\u2019s for the DM then we cement that imagery in their head in a way that facilitates them communicating it to the players so that they think \u201cman, that\u2019s a grim visage!\u201d But in no circumstances do we do this meta thing. So, the first two lines of the five line description ( in the layout) are meaningless. The rest of the description is, well, boring. If it were read-aloud (And its clear, I think, its not meant to be) then it would over-reveal. But it\u2019s just boring. And it has that word apparent in it? I LOATHE the use of appears to be. Seems to be. It does nothing for the text at all. I want a description that really brings the scene to life, and that\u2019s not it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And that happens over and over and over again in the adventure. The descriptions are both padded out with this meta shit and then the ACTUAL description ends up being more than a little boring. There\u2019s no sense of rat man tunnels, or caves, at all. And while there is a chili garden, and they boil chilis in one room, the whole chili theme isn\u2019t really present at all either. It just a fucking boring ass cave with a chili garden and a cauldron in one room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are, though, some high points. They are exits from the rooms. I hate room exits, in a description. I LOATHE them. For that first room they take up about half the page while teh actual fucking description and shit, for the room and things, takes up, I don\u2019t know, a quarter of the page? Perfect, the fucking exits get more description than the room does. But, also \u2026 it\u2019s using the OSE style. Which, I know, gets some people worked up., But it\u2019s used here perfectly. (crudly dug, a smell of ammonia and wet fur) That\u2019s EXACTLY what you want to communicate to the party. That\u2019s exactly the sort of thing I want in a room, in fact. That\u2019s the vibe. Or, (spicy armor, cow tracks, crudely dug) or (rotten stench.) The first one, crudely dug dirt tunnel with that stench of ammonia and wet fur \u2026 that\u2019s REALLY good. It makes you imagine and feel something. And that\u2019s what every description should do. Monster, treasure, room. \u201cThis potato-shaped chamber is blessed with a natural crack in the roof, leading outside;\u201d Blessed with a natural crack in the roof. Fuck that shit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The actual encounters in the caves are pretty boring. It\u2019s mostly fighting rats. A lich rat. The rat chief. The farmer rat. The alchemist rat. The potion rat. You bored yet? I am. There\u2019s a library in one room. No book value listed as treasure (maybe that\u2019s an into the odd thing?) But there\u2019s a whole lot of No Treasure. And not a whole lot of things to do here other than just go in to a room and stab someone. There are some throw away lines about talking to the rats. \u201cBob likes books.\u201d but I don\u2019t see how that comes up when he is threatening to stab you. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The idea here is not realized. The interactivity is poor. The descriptions show a lack of understanding of the descriptive purpose. Meh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru, with a suggested price of $1. The preview is a worthless six pages, but you do get it for free, I guess, since it\u2019s PWYW.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/491351\/the-chili-rat-chiefs?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By ZonkSelf PublishedOSR\/Into the OddLevel ? Three Rat Chiefs rule over a tribe of rat-like humanoids, harnessing the power of chili for their own depraved and corrupt ends. Treasure awaits the intrepid explorer, or a death choking on capsaicin, clobbered … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9338,"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-9339","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\/08\/chili.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9339","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=9339"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9340,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9339\/revisions\/9340"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}