{"id":9471,"date":"2024-11-25T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-25T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9471"},"modified":"2024-11-11T10:47:21","modified_gmt":"2024-11-11T15:47:21","slug":"a-strange-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=9471","title":{"rendered":"A Strange House"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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James Crane
Crumbling Keep
OSE
Levels ... ? Fuck off and buy it l0ser<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
In the middle of a deep and dark forest along a babbling stream, the PCs come upon a wide and long field. It is extremely overgrown and has become a mix of bolted plants and dead, dry, and decaying foliage. Despite this, there is somehow a completely clear, straight path through it, untouched by the growth on either side. At the end of it is a tall and warped house standing by a single tree. Each PC catches a different scent in the air that reminds them of a specific memory of their childhood \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 42 page adventure presents eleven rooms inside of a \u2018whimsical\u2019 poi crawl house. Aimless, the writing is unfocused and it comes off as something between a museum tour and a funhouse. You simply wander about and interact with strange stuff for no other reason than to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, encounter one. You\u2019re walking towards this house and you see a bird. If you feed the bird then it changes in to a small, wicked-looking six-legged three-eyed winged goat. If you attack it then the goat explodes in powder and you sneeze for a minute if you fail your save. This takes a page and a half to communicate, along with the four one sentence rumors he\u2019s got. So, monster description? Pretty interesting! There\u2019s something you don\u2019t see every day! I might be more specific than \u201cwicked\u201d in a description \u2026 wiry brustle fur, sharp fangs and blood red eyes or some such. But, hey, three eyes and six legs with wings has got it going on! The core of the encounter though? This kind of attitude in the encounter design \u2026 where an attack causes it to party explore with no real effects. This is meaningless. It is a thing that happens. It has no real impact. It is mostly disconnected. It is meaningless. This is the normal manner for this adventure. You encounter a room and something could happen in the room, if you interact with it. But there\u2019s no purpose to it. To any of it. As if each room were a carnival game you could play \u2026 but without reward or context or anything to tie them together in to something more than the sum of the parts. \u201cWhen it sees any PC, it\u2019ll instantly start taunting them, pausing to squawk and laugh at its own jokes. It can\u2019t be bothered to follow the adventurers, however; that\u2019s too much work.\u2019 This is the Jerk Bird, a parrot nesting on top of a chimney. There\u2019s nothing to this. You might as well say that the door is red and unlocked. This is a museum tour, where nothing matters. A funhouse where all of the encounters are bizarre and disconnected. (Yes, if you befriend the cat then it will chase off the sprites in the attack.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cArriving at the house, the PCs see a strange sight: the structure appears to be \u2026\u201d This then is the opening line of the first real room. Note the padding. Note how it doesn\u2019t say ANYTHING. You can literally delete everything here and not impact the adventure in any way at all. And encounter after encounter does this, is like this. Near he start you face two outside doors, two ways in, side by side. A board head trophy in between asks you to sing it a song and if you do so then it tells you that the safe way to the left. My left or your left? Whatever \u2026 the point is that the OTHER door describes the kitchen that it leads to \u2026 and then we get a description of the kitchen in the kitchen. The organization is MADNESS. There\u2019s no map, each room tells you which room you can go to next \u2026 but \u2026 can you go back? The sitting room has no exits listed. These are the absolute basics of adventure design and yet they do not exist at all here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What level is this for? JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP AND BUY IT. The inanity of this shit. The second half is just a bunch of random encounters, disconnected from the adventure proper, as if we just tossed in another supplement called \u201cInteresting encounters\u201d to the rear of the adventure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t understand this. I don\u2019t understand this. I don\u2019t understand this. There is a chair in this room that you can sit in. There is a mouse in this room that curses at you. What is the point of encounters like that? TO be clear, these are not from the adventure, but they represent the vibe of the encounters in the adventure. It\u2019s Isle of the Unknown all over again. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $14 at DriveThru. There\u2019s no preview. Because FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/en\/product\/499909\/a-strange-house?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
James CraneCrumbling KeepOSELevels … ? Fuck off and buy it l0ser In the middle of a deep and dark forest along a babbling stream, the PCs come upon a wide and long field. It is extremely overgrown and has become … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9470,"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-9471","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\/11\/strange.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471","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=9471"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9473,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471\/revisions\/9473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}