No Roleplaying?!?

One of the best voices for historical/modern gaming discussion, Black Vulmea, weighed in on my previous post.  When people you respect consider your post and find much of it very good - that's a great feeling.  The main question my post left him with was the same question that comes up most commonly in response to CAG, which is a variation of: "You reject the word 'roleplaying'?  What exactly does that mean?"  

BV framed his thoughts on roleplaying as I most commonly hear it from people who by and large are receptive to CAG:

"My personal conception or ideation - I'm loathe to call it a definition - of roleplaying is, "Making decisions as your character." If your character is a game-world avatar of you sitting at the table, as in CAG, then that still fits my concept of roleplaying. So does the "playacting style" EOTB describes as it's practiced and advocated for by many in the hobby. From where I stand, roleplaying isn't strictly deep-character-immersion or "talking in funny voices." "My guy" is a perfectly valid approach to roleplaying for me."

This is how a lot of people having the most years in the larger hobby think about roleplaying.  It's understood, at least implicitly, that most people use the term in a narrower fashion - thus inevitably there's some variation of "what roleplaying means to me...".  The "to me" is reflexive because we've all been through enough online discussions to know that we can't say "roleplaying" and expect others to understand we simply mean playing to an archetype, or a functional role in a group of varied specialists, or what have you.  In the larger discussion this will result in the opposite of functional communication.  Thus some form of negotiation occurs where we establish alternate meanings the hearer will consider idiosyncratic to ourselves but may be willing to accept, and from there conversation can take place.

This is however a personal negotiation that must occur each time the subject comes up in a public setting, whether on social media, or in large tent groups with changing membership. It must always be established that we will use a word in a fashion most people do not use it.

I wouldn't begrudge anyone choosing to do this, but I don't really want to have this negotiation periodically.  Words change meaning, and it feels like fighting a rear-guard action to insist upon using it in a lapsed meaning.  The word "meat" used to mean all the food on the table - whether animal, plant, or otherwise.  If I write on an invitation that everyone is welcome to come to my house on Saturday night for an evening of fine meat and drink, none of the vegetarians are going to think to double-check my usage.  I'd have to explain my archaic use of the term individually when giving the invitation.

And this gets to the reason for starting up the podcast - we want to reach people who aren't playing any form of "D&D" but love the idea of hanging out with their friends to explore lost tombs, find fabulous treasure, and cross swords with personal nemeses. But because D&D has been around for a long time now, with significant social media reach outside the membership of the hobby, when many of those people hear the word "role-playing" they think "an adult version of tea party".

Because that is what they read, see, and hear.

And often, they're just not interested in that.  You can get all of the adventure I listed above in other media, with zero tea party.  There's no reason at all to play D&D if you don't like tea party.  You can play video games as a group, remotely.  You can meet up somewhere and run a 40K scenario.  You can get your fill and never have to risk sitting across from someone telling you that unless you are willing to repeat that in character, it never happened at all and they won't consider it valid for play.  Or your funny quip that made everyone laugh, yeah...the DM insists your character said it too.

I'm not just white-rooming this or shooting at unicorn games.  If "No roleplaying?!?" is the first question many curious RPGers raise, it's also the first reason many new CAGers give for checking us out and settling in.  One of the podcast crew blew D&D off for years because his early exposure to tabletop was in the late 90s, after gamers had enthusiastically slurped up editorials in Dragon magazine telling them in no uncertain terms that if they didn't include a hefty dose of tea party in their games then they weren't really roleplaying.  

And what he observed did not interest him in the least.

'Really roleplaying' shrinks the gaming hobby by making it unpalatable to a lot of the people Dungeons and Dragons presumed were its core audience.  Which is dumb because this is a demographic that will buy things - D&D now desperately wishes it had the revenues of game forms in which play-acting isn't required, and is frantically hallucinating ways to get people to tea party online and buy shiny new character skins every time they roll up characters.

Look, I've been there too - negotiating an alternate definition of roleplaying. The most common responses when I'd describe how I ran games to a general audience (excepting the that's not really roleplaying already mentioned) were:

1. you're just playing a board/video game at the table
2. well, I roleplay, I don't roll-play
3. It's a roleplaying game - it's right in the name!
4. the game to me is all about being someone else, if you're not roleplaying (play-acting) interesting characters why play the game at all? 

At some point, after one of these conversations, mixed together with the 7,162nd online discussion about "what does the OSR even really mean", the only sane reflection was to say "It's time to lean into this - I'm really not roleplaying".  I honestly don't care if roleplaying (play acting) ever happens. It's not why I'm here. If I say the same thing first then I attract more people I'm already trying to find and disincentivize people who want something different at the table anyway.

All of this sums up to: there could be nothing more self-defeating than insisting upon describing yourself using terminology your target audience is hardwired to dismiss; its predominate usage being reinforced by almost everyone who isn't you.  

But now after explaining further why we arrived at the stance of rejecting the term roleplaying completely, let's get to the meat of BV's question:

"This is the essence of Develop-In-Play rather than Develop-At-Start gaming. Old-school and roots gamers tend to be speak in terms of "story" as an emergent property arising from actual play rather than one planned by the referee - story is something seen in hindsight - and from my own experience, so is characterisation. The more decisions I make for my character, the more subsequent decisions are likely to reflect a consistency and a coherence with what came before. My characters develop interests, habits, and quirks that build on those experiences and ambitions and "my guy" becomes someone else altogether, very different from where the campaign started.

I don't know if EOTB's concept of CAG necessarily excludes or proscribes this."

The short answer is: there's nothing about this that is outside the bounds of CAG, at all.

Every time I create a character it is essentially myself as that class type.  But as BV says, the character, by virtue of interacting with the game world, often becomes a variation of myself that is different than all the other variations of myself I've played before.  I might never bother giving the guy a name (I do name some of my characters) but he's still different than EOTB-6106 and EOTB-5114.  He's made different enemies, developed different habits and often would handle the same situation differently than another character of mine would.  

But he also might not.  He might handle it exactly the same.  And that's the point: I don't care if he winds up different or the same as some other character.  He's not why I'm playing, what happens with him as a character per se is some sort of happy accident, and it might be nothing worth remembering.  Because I'm not here to develop a character, I'm here - me, EOTB-0001 - to explore tombs, find treasure, cross swords, and kick ass.  He's the tool I use to do it, just like a good hammer.  Nothing about the hammer is my hobby, however.  It's rather incidental to the point even if I truly appreciate a great hammer.

The last characters I ran were a ranger in Zherb's AD&D game, and a thief in Melan's 7VoZ campaign.  The ranger wasn't ever named, although the thief was.  At creation of the ranger, discord's dice roller (by some powerball-like alignment of odds) spit out a stat string allowing for a class combo I'd never played before: a ranger who could dual-class into illusionist.  I've played for a long, long time, but that has never happened.  I was intrigued.  I've not dual-classed yet, but that ranger character feels different simply because he's already on the lookout for Illusion-y stuff.  My decision-making is different and thus experiences are different, priorities are different.  I probably won't name him until he completes the switch and can use both sets of powers.  I won't really know him until then.

Zero roleplaying (as in the common parlance) has occurred with that character.

The thief has made his way up through the underworld in Melan's campaign, eschewing converting all of his currency into XP and buying assets instead, forming a wide-spanning caravansarai with a talented smuggler ship captain useful for moving...lots of things...lots of places.  He's bought gifts for nomad tribes simply to gain goodwill in case negotiations might be necessary in the future to move...things...to places...across their territory.  And this has all been done in downtime between fantastic swords and sorcery adventures that have seen him gain immense physical strength from plunking himself down on a mysterious throne, gain some divinatory boons he keeps in his back pocket from respecting altars to bat-gods, and some other stuff that, well, we'll just have to see how it plays out if I can get that day/time slot free again soon.  But I make decisions with that character in a way unlike any other thiefly character I've played.

There has been some minor real roleplaying by myself, in that campaign.  Not much, incidental really, undertaken when it was helpful rather than performative.  But never once was it necessary.

The acceptable roleplaying floor for an individual participant must be zero so that people who aren't into that can relax and have fun.  The ceiling can be whatever each group determines.  But if everyone agrees they're really there to maximize adventure gaming - to explore, loot, fight, conquer, and gain glory - then is there really enough table time left over for roleplaying to be more than incidental? An activity having a floor of zero of a possible action can't be defined by that action.  To attempt that would be nonsensical - but conversely, switching monikers from "fantasy adventure game" to "RPG" is also the reason play-acting-cum-roleplaying grew from this odd thing some people did into a rhetorical bludgeon held by TSR editorialists who didn't really enjoy high-stakes gaming.

The hobby needs a recognized playstyle where people know a table running it isn't going to spend dice-rolling time talking with merchants to buy arrows, they don't have to worry about playing Bob the 53rd (who is the same in every respect as the 52 Bobs before him) and getting a roll-eye, and they never have to be "in-character" if they don't want to be.  CAG is that playstyle (among other things) and it is long overdue.  

What is Classic Adventure Gaming?

Classic Adventure Gaming is not a Roleplaying Game.  It is not "OSR", even if it uses rulebooks the OSR also claims.  It is the style of gaming presumed and presented in the 1E PHB and DMG which was common before a playacting style of "roleplaying" grew into a new normal.  It rejects the term "roleplaying game" or "RPG" because today those names firmly convey implicit expectations running contrary to practices of successful adventure gaming.

We start with what adventure gaming is not to clear the mental decks of unhelpful presuppositions, before explaining what it is.  (For a second excellent take on the topic by my peer Zherbus, see his thoughts at his blog; for JB's thoughts on adventure gaming with the various "B" rulesets, see his post on that topic.)

Classic Adventure Gaming prioritizes the following:

• The players and DM are fundamentally interacting with each other, as people around a table (virtual or otherwise), not as the controllers of PCs and NPCs.  No player is ever required or expected to supersede their own personality at the table with a fictional one.
  
  
• Players are expected to get better at the game and demonstrate a growing mastery of its rules in play.  If someone is playing their 10th first-level character in a similar fashion to how they played their 1st first-level character then something is amiss.
  
  
• There is no expectation players will act at the table as if a game were not occurring; players are expected - not discouraged - to use what the modern hobby mistakenly disparages as "metagaming".  A player who knows that fire prevents trolls from regenerating but declines to use it because "my character doesn't know that" is roleplaying instead of adventure gaming.
  
  
• Conversely, GMs must not metagame - because a GM has perfect knowledge, they must limit themselves within the knowledge, goals, abilities, resources, and quirks of the NPC or monster they are running at the time in order for a functional game to occur.  This is almost the exact opposite of how most roleplaying games view the player-GM dynamic, and an example of how character-first roleplaying flipped the playstyle in a 180 away from how early games ran.
  
  
• Adventure gaming is campaign based; the idea of one-shot games is foreign to adventure gaming.  A game world exists and persists apart from any group of characters.  When combined with the expectation that players grow in mastery of a set of rules, a single set of rules is used for very long periods of time (if not indefinitely) so that players gain enough time in a single ruleset to understand it thoroughly as opposed to a superficial understanding.   
  
  
• Because a GM is comfortable with highly experienced players, rules tinkering for tinkering's sake, or perhaps to artificially reintroduce an atmosphere of player uncertainty due to ignorance, is discouraged.  GMs choose rulesets in which they already agree with the basic principles and presuppositions of the author, so that everyone can get on with the act of playing.  High level play is embraced, it is the goal of every campaign.
  
  
• Nobody is trying to tell a story.  A GM writes places and situations; if a future is written, it is the future of what will happen in that location or what those NPCs will accomplish if the players choose not to engage with it or them at all.  No attempt is made to pre-determine the course of what will happen if the players decide to engage with that content.  Because the GM has determined the goals, resources, abilities, local geography, and "personality" of any NPCs at a location, they have all the tools necessary to react believably and distinctly to whatever actions or plans the players may devise at the time of contact.
  
  
• Should their plans and luck dictate such a result compared to the preparations and abilities of their opposition, players are allowed to "win" situations convincingly and without artificial tension or danger imposed by the GM.  Conversely, the game is generous with 2nd chance magic so the GM need not prevent bad plans and poor play from reaping a whirlwind.
  
  
• Player agency is paramount. The burden of what course of action is taken is on the players, not the GM.  Adventure gaming is not well-paired with a table made up entirely of passive players, regardless of how excited a GM may be to try it.  Many tears occur when a GM attempts to run an adventure game with players who really want the GM to tell them what they will be doing tonight, with players making only minor decisions through the course of the evening but otherwise seeing if they can succeed at the goal a GM has set before them.  It is tailor made for groups having a minimum of one player who likes to make decisions.  Not everyone has to be a decision maker if the rest of the group is comfortable with allowing a minority of however many to perform the role a GM performs in typical roleplaying campaigns of deciding what the group's course of action will be for a gaming session. 
  
  
• A GM accepts that world building and location/scenario writing is a parallel but separate hobby to the game itself.  GMs enjoy worldbuilding for its own sake.  There is no feeling that time spent devising locations and NPCs is "wasted" if players do not interact with it.  Instead, because the GM has written out the effect of players not engaging with that content at all, the game world changes accordingly and seems to the players to move even where they've not personally intervened.
  
  
• As players develop their mastery of the ruleset, the pace of play becomes much faster than most roleplaying game groups experience at the table.  The ideal all participants are aiming for is a tempo approaching a ping-pong game, where the GM delivers information to players who in turn act or react quickly without negotiations over the information. 
  
  
• Unlike in many RPGs, 1st level characters do not have an at-will 9th level time stop spell they can use any moment they would prefer more info to make a decision.  Everyone accepts that some decisions made will result in less than ideal outcomes, because the game continually moves forward without time to reflect if circumstances aren't entirely in the PCs' control.  This results in more exploration, more encounters, and faster advancement in the aggregate.
  
  
• Adventure gaming is not a low-treasure, "magic is rare and wonderous" affair.  "Mudcore" gaming as personified by low-resource, "realism" games such as HARNMASTER are thematic mismatches.  Player agency requires ample player resources, and the GM is not intimidated by players rapidly growing in wealth, power, and independence as the early game is escaped.  The first games were light on built-in character class powers because it was expected the PC would have several magical items giving an ever-changing de facto suite of "character powers" that would morph with time as items were used up (or destroyed) and replaced with new and different items.

These principles are all found in the 1st edition advanced PHB and DMG (and I strongly recommend advanced forms of the game for use with CAG), although they fell out of fashion as a greater number of hobbyists more comfortable with playacting than vigorous gaming joined the hobby.  Adventure gaming carves this early style back out of and away from the more common style practiced today, that openly discourages many elements that make it great.  CAG is not for every table or every group, but for those it suites it is irreplaceable.  If you and your group see an activity in the pages of the the book that play never seems to quite capture (and you wish it did), try running a campaign based upon these principles and see if the game becomes more enjoyable and engaging.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #18 The Observatory

By: Ben Gibson of Coldlight Press

Ruleset: OSE

Recommended Levels: An adventure site of levels 2-4

The Gist: This adventure site has so many things I like about it.  It also has a few things that pull me out of the groove.  I'm reading through it and thinking "am I not getting something?" and keep looking for what makes these discordant bits (and they are really just bits) work, and I don't see the the location ever solve for X.  So I'm left wondering if its just me.  To be clear, so many of the details work well together that I would definitely run it, and I'm going to throw it on my map (changing what makes me scratch my head), so it's not a miss by any means.  Maybe this is one of those things where the author purposefully stops short of solving for X so that you can do it in your own way.  Which I'm more than happy to do, because this is a fun one.

So there's an old observatory on a hill.  People know there's a huge diamond inside (it makes the telescope work).  But they're terrified of the location and the huge diamond is just kind of sitting there.  A 2-headed ogre has taken up astronomy and bullied a band of goblins in coming with him here while he researches...something for some reason that's never hinted at.  But no one locally wants to come here, they're terrified of it, so if he's willing to go where others don't dare why would he need the goblins?  Food appropriation?  It seems like a lot of goblins to cover that.

Why are the people terrified of the location?  Well, there's this cool bit about nightsky traps that paralyze you if you look at one.  After a few rounds your eyes go starry black and you become obsessed with astronomy.  But their origin isn't explained; the text shows the goblins who have this condition able to make these traps - somehow.  Maybe if they paint a surface black and stare at it, the effect gets transferred from their own fucked up eyes.  IDK.  So if these traps were here all along that would make sense why no one wants to come here to get a giant diamond, if they're normal humans or low-level adventurers.  It doesn't explain why a MU, or even a cleric, with a handful more levels would stay away during the period that the observatory rotted away though.  Big glowing diamonds must have some lab value.  But back to the trap: I keep looking for some few words that explains patient zero so that I can extrapolate the trap into something apart from this place and these monsters and get my arms around it.  But apart from a possible past origin indirectly hinted at by black masks found in a secret closet that offer protection at the cost of reduced light to your eyes - which you would think daylight averse goblins would accidentally copy with their own cloth - nothing's there.

But let's talk about the location because it's marvelously put together.  There's so many little details that don't do anything directly, but by being there indirectly give players options.  The fence is broken down in a few spots by fallen trees, allowing some cover and camouflage to come up and observe to get an idea of the goblin's patterns.  The cattle that the goblins have rustled are primed to stampede.  The goblins are operating off their cycadean rhythm, in daytime, so their morale sucks and the DM is given conditions for what they do if it breaks.  Some of the hidden doors in and around the place haven't been found by the goblins, so you know to describe these spots a little differently and make attacks coming from these axes perhaps even more demoralizing to goblins already on the edge.

Little stuff like this is what keeps players interested before combat starts and they don't take a lot of space to sprinkle all over.  Ben does a really good job with this.  

The place feels like an observatory.  It has the right rooms, and the secondary rooms have a good mix of potential energy with fights, environmental hazards, and decent valuables.  The noise in the main goblin barracks means its easy to sneak up.  There are goblins tasked with milking little scorpions for venom in one room, and their blades are poisoned.  That's a nice little curveball the players likely won't see coming, but will make sense soon after the fight is over.  Present situations that make your players go "huh?" while making the "oh, right" happen in reasonable proximity.  The little temporary mysteries have value in the game when and because they're solved, which feels like a minor win gained along the way.

Presuming the players don't freak everyone out and get them prepping for a last stand, they can encounter the 2-headed ogre doing a Good Will Hunting bit on the chalkboards in the study.  One head is starry eyed and speaks in riddles while the other is normal and focused on the academics.  The DM should probably prepare some riddles to be ready, and also figure out what the hell he's here for, in case the players are into the talky-talky.  It has all the trimmings of a fun encounter.

In another encounter, the players find a starry eyed sea lion swimming in the cistern pool - which, if the water is still, is itself another nightsky trap with the effect on the water surface.  This broke all type established for the effect in the rest of the module, which is when I stopped trying to understand it and presumed it was just there to be cool, and something to deal with.  But the encounter is a fun set-up, granting it will raise a lot of questions if the DM doesn't think to place it within a reasonable (very short) distance of an ocean.  The module doesn't indicate this should be a consideration before this detail would need to fit; there's nothing otherwise on location to explain getting a sea lion far inland

There was one other minor location that I didn't have a problem with in structure, but the necessary rolling seemed excessive.  You have 3 rooms scholars used, three beds and lockboxes per room. So nine lockboxes.  Each lockbox has a 6% chance of having a small treasure and an astrology sign name (more below) .  Players are going to check the lockboxes.  Even if the boxes weren't locked, 9x6% chance means ~60% chance of all those rolls getting nothing at all.  It's just too small a chance.  Then put another hurdle in front of each 6% roll where a lock picking roll for a low level OSE thief has to succeed for that 6% chance to occur.  It just seems like a lot of rolling - table time overhead and play momentum severing for a miniscule chance of getting much.  I'd probably switch for a d20 roll where results of 10-20 meant nothing at all, while 1-9 was that many boxes having stuff (and drop the locks).  After all, if clues are being put in the boxes it doesn't do much good if none are found.

Which segways into the main area, the telescope apparatus spanning all three levels of the observatory.  There's a lot to like in this construction.  I really liked the way the goblins had practiced with the lens, out of boredom, and learned it could fry stuff like a kid with a magnifying glass does.  The room has little scorch marks, and they can train that "weapon" on PCs for pretty good damage if it goes cumulative rounds on target.  This could make a final stand a tough, tough fight.  One sentence that could set up further play is giving something the telescope could help a player discover if they got it operating and spent some time here.  Because this is a great place for a MU to consider renovating for a stronghold.

But one of the parts I didn't understand is also at the telescope, and that's how the astrology astrology puzzle is presented.  Specifically because I thought room 5 had all the pieces to solve it:

• You have twelve glyphed alcoves.  
• The glyphs aren't magic - they aren't glyphs of warding (?).  
• So if they're non-magical glyphs, aren't they glyphs of astrological symbols?  

That was my presumption on reading room 5.  Otherwise I have no idea what these glyphs are of.  But then I get to the bottom level of the telescope and there's the zodiac procession again in room 11, presented as if new info, saying this is a hint for room 5.  Isn't it the same information presented a 2nd time?  Or are the glyphs in room 5 not in sequence order around the room?  I felt like there might a missing detail in room 5 that would scramble the PCs understanding that the glyphs showed the zodiac, and without that bit I would present room 5 with too much info. Since it's the central puzzle/feature of the location, I'd want to thoroughly understand it.

The other part about the telescope that I thought felt off was the value of the diamond.  If this is a massive glowing diamond shouldn't it be worth more than 10,000 gp?  A diamond the size of my thumb joint is worth 5,000 gp, at least in AD&D.  Are the two games that far apart in gem values?  Something for an AD&D DM to consider if so, because players aren't going to believe a huge glowing diamond is only 2X. 

All in all, this location gets so much right that answering these questions for yourself isn't going to keep you away.  It's a great location even if I have a fair amount of questions.  

Monster Roster: 14 goblins, a 2-headed ogre, bat swarms, stampeding cattle, at least one scorpion, a sea lion.

Treasure: A good mix of valuables, the potential haul is ~17,000 gp.  ~13,000 of that however is in a bulky/heavy statue, and the telescope diamond - which likely requires some time and further adventuring to get all the stuff necessary to free the diamond.  So most of that couldn't be assumed to be taken just from the initial exploration and routing the monsters.  For magical treasure there's only a shield +1 (with a magical nightsky trap on it).  So I'd probably give the ogre some magic stuff or hide a couple more minor pieces around the place, in my campaign.  And also remove the feces coating some pieces of it.

Do I think this will work: Yes, but the DM will need to decide some details I expect players to inquire about that the text doesn't provide answers to.

Do I like it: Yes, it's a fun location

Nitpicks:  

1. Map text and numbers facing different directions makes me hit the rotate button
2. There's a lot of feces here.  
3. The weight of the stone cistern covering seems light for its size
4. Are the room numbers for the cargo elevator right?  It from 10 to 5 to...6?  Is it supposed to be 9?
5. A platinum-coated mirror filled with fish?  Do you mean an aquarium with platinum coated sides?

Adventure Site Contest: Review #17 The Tower of the Elephant

By: J. Blasso-Gieseke of 21st Centaury Games

Ruleset: OSE

Recommended Levels: 4-6 players levels 6-8

The Gist: This is a hard one to review.  I don't really like it.  It didn't do anything wrong.  I don't think it will play well.  I don't think it will play poorly.  The writing when considered as technical writing is well-done.  It's laid out really nicely.  It's OSE personified.

You get hooks and rumors; the hooks play off the inversions.  The rumors give mostly true details about the tower and its owner.

If you know the story and rely on it, you will lose because everything in the tower is inverted.  If you figure out right away that everything in the tower is inverted you can go back to relying on the story.

You get a map that pretty much faithfully recreates the gist of the story.  Doing so doesn't elevate the product, it makes the story smaller.  You have the two courtyards with guards as described.  Once you get into the tower you have three chambers above the ground floor guardhouse/kitchen.  So essentially after dealing with the guards either through bypassing them or killing them, it's three structurally similar encounters (one foe, one element of sensory misdirection, one story inversion).  There's just not much to do, really.  It's basically a 5-room dungeon.

If you've read the story then writing a bunch of shit for this is a waste of time.  If you haven't read the story then all you really need to know is it's a tightly written 5-room dungeon without much to do except march from encounter to encounter.  (Presumably silently somehow, as the adventure has no real adjustments given if the PCs just leeroy jenkins-butcher their way up or down while making a lot of noise.)  But the three main encounters could each be interesting as presented, if no alarm were in motion.

Monster Roster: 40 3HD guards, 6 lions, a normal slave, 14th level cleric, a Malphyr (seems demon-ish), and a human polymorphed into a giant spider.

Treasure: Unlike the story you can get the heart, which is a cool 250K gp value gem.  Interesting outcomes could result, as it will be hard to sell.  You also might get a lesser amount for the gem (50K gp) depending upon what hook is used, and/or 50K gp for a kidnapped royal.  

Four carpets are mentioned worth 10K each, along with 7 huge golden goblets (10K each).  Other items such as incense are likely valuable but no specific values are given.  I doubt any group is going to get all of this, however - it's going to be a certain subset or the other.  But monetary riches are certainly ample.  

The 14th level cleric has a staff of swarming locusts.

Do I think this will work: Mechanically yes.  Player reaction will depend on their feelings about the IP and how its portrayed, as well as the repetitive structural aspects.  They have an entire party against the story antagonists instead of one Conan, granting that might still be less powerful than one Conan.

Do I like it: It would be far better to make a larger tower adventure that had stuff to do, and somehow worked in a recognizable homage, than this near-copy.  I can however appreciate that the author was very faithful to the gist of TotE and has more-than-competent technical writing chops.  I won't run this, however.

Nitpicks:  None not already discussed.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #16 The Barrow Shrine of Corruption

To the dame's question...I'll never tell. But might I have found the author's twitter alt (?)

By: Submitted anonymously (?)

Ruleset: B/X

Recommended Levels: "cautious low-level characters"

The Gist: A nice spider lair in the woods, useful and appropriate for any dark forest hex.  

The author is either down bad and working through it, or perhaps lost a bet and had to write their submission and draw the map using the illustrations of reproductive systems found in textbooks as inspiration.  But for all that, the encounter works and is something I would hold up as what you want to have in your back pocket for (in AD&D) a giant spider's lair.

It starts off with the giant mons...err, mound.  A dead raven is nailed to a door at the southern (?) edge.  The entire setup is practically begging the party to visit its magical realm, and I'm guessing t'aint a party who will refuse.  The interior description does a good job of conveying a location of some antiquity, with tree roots reaching through the earth from above to hang down over the party's field of vision.  Luckily, the monolith at the northern-most point has two big glowing eyes (gems) - they won't miss it.  It's also unfortunately one part of a double trap, like adulthood is for death, and taxes.  Since it's surrounded by the hard bits of former corpses of many types no one can say the monolith trap is of the FU type.

Trap #1 is a good-sized party of gnolls coming up from two trapdoors along opposite sides of the chamber, to cut off the party and hopefully divide them by forcing them into the trigger point for trap #1 - which is another trap door at the base of the monolith covering a deep chute.

Anyone dropping into the chute will be saved by a mass of webbing shortly before they would otherwise land in a spiked pit.  Saved, but not really, as a mated pair of giant black widow spiders live in a cave just above, so unfortunates are "saved" from the fire by landing in the frying pan.  There's not going to be a lot of time to extract anyone who's stuck from the web, and since they can't really see the spikes there's always a chance someone might toss down a torch while dealing with the gnolls above.  This will burn the webs, deposit the unfortunate in the spikes, and leave them wounded while still in danger from the spiders between them and the top.

It's really a nicely thought-out trap.  The glowing "eyes" monolith doesn't lead one's mind to thoughts of spiders, and dealing with the gnolls simultaneously impairs more deliberate rescue attempts.

Anyway, only the larger female is immediately aggressive towards chute-droppers.  If she's somehow dealt with and the cave she emerged from is explored, the smaller male hides as best he can in the dark back of the cave trying to take anyone entering by surprise.

There's good interactivity here - a cocooned bandit begs for his life, promising to lead rescuers to its lair if saved.  If the party hightails it and comes back later with spider-specific prep to clean out the area, he's a drained husk (if any spiders survive first contact).   Of course the party may also still need to deal with the gnolls, requiring accessing their hidey-hole from either above or below using the trap doors in the main chamber or coming upward from the spider cave.  Vertical connections are provided either way, and a nice side-view makes the map structure clear if less of a titter.  

None of the other rooms are especially noteworthy beyond describing the sorts of living quarters rooms necessary to support humanoid life.  The gnoll's treasure is protected by a poison trap, and given the level suggested it's likely there's only so many poison-clearing spells to go around.  I can almost hear the swearing if it's been a bad day for poison save rolls.

Monster Roster: Spiders and golls.  Short and sweet.

Treasure: There's no magic, but the trapped chest with 2,000 gp will be hard to miss.  Probably also the glowing eyes-which-are-gems can be picked up - I don't think anyone's failed to grab eye-gems since the PHB came out in '78.  They're big pieces of amber, worth another 1,000 for both, and have the neat wrinkle that prehistoric scorpions were trapped inside when the amber was made.  If I was in the party I'd probably try to tuck those away for higher levels when maybe magic can do something to make those scorps useful (they'd be very rare at least - who knows what their stats are). Rounding out the loot are six occult tablets of the demon-god the monolith is dedicated to that could bring in another 1,200, for a total haul of up to 4,200 gp.  

While this aspect isn't really played up in the adventure, a DM could run with this demon having a portfolio of corruption/disease and work it into further campaign activity if desired, as a bread crumb trail to another unholy site farther away is left by the author.

Do I think this will work:  Yes, this will be a memorable lair/hex.  All the elements help each other and put pressure on the players.

Do I like it: Yeah, I think this is a really nice entry, even if it was only typed with one hand.  Good job.

Nitpicks:  None.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #15 St. Durham’s Home for Wayward Youths

 St. Durham’s Home for Wayward Youths

By: Trent Smith

Ruleset: AD&D

Recommended Levels: N/A, but nothing here will be a challenge to PCs over early mid-levels (around 4th) presuming typical party numbers of 6-8

The Gist: In the countryside is a reformatory facility for evil humanoid women and children built using platonic gygaxian naturalism.  It's a proper "location" in that it doesn't presume why you'd be interacting with it or attempt to manufacture a reason.  The nature of all the conflicting aims easily breeds organic reasons to interact with it, so as-written it's one of those "static" elements discussed in CAG episode #7 that a DM could stick on a map and let it putter along largely undisturbed until some natural development in the campaign world either flipped it to a dynamic element, or, brought about PC involvement almost certain to change the status quo.  One thread that could flip the location to dynamic at any time is if the orc tribe the adult females came from learned they were still alive and were in the program - they'd attempt to storm the fortifications and retrieve them.

But as written it is a tight, functional, working location that isn't "adventuring" per se, in the sense that an alchemist's shop in town isn't adventuring, or a druid's grove isn't adventuring - there's no lit fuse.  And this is no mark against it by any means.

Most of the potential comes from conflicting aims, both secret and unspoken.  Most of the reformees aren't steadily progressing towards reformation, except perhaps for one demographic (orc females).  The guards don't expect any of this to work, and have a typical prison guard mentality of being there to prevent uprisings and ensure the situation is under control and the humans stay safe (the humanoids aren't their charges though, per se).  The head cleric believes in the mission, intending to effect changes to the humanoids' natures through instilling what we could call the puritan work ethic and rigid discipline - both growth of the personal sort, and correction of the punitive sort (up to and including hanging for physical assaults).  His main assistant is double-faced, playing good cop to his bad cop but secretly worst cop in that she sells "graduates" into slavery instead of attempting to integrate them - which, being lawfully-minded, has been meticulously tracked in a secret ledger that could blow the situation wide open if it became known beyond herself.

The reformees are largely faceless excepting one goblin female who's managing to keep secret being a shaman dedicated to the devil Moloch.

The entire place is a mess of tangled grey and black colors.  Don't come looking for any archetypical do-gooders here.

While the structures aren't fantastic in any way - they're exactly what you'd expect a religious reformatory in our world to look and feel like, with kitchens, workrooms, dormitories, chapels, etc., the building does hold its secrets just as the inhabitants do.  The headman has a secret passage connecting the upper and lower levels opened by pulling on a book with a hindsight-obvious title; the goblin shaman has finagled a secret door in the punishment cells (guessing she's been thrown in there many times) to an excavated cave/sacred space with an incomplete jailbreak tunnel leading off.  The text notes the DM can expand this into a system of caverns if desired, although if doing so the DM should have a motive for the shaman to still be here instead of escaping (several come to mind, the main thing is the DM is prepared to answer this question if needed.)

The exterior is walled and fortified, with corner towers keeping watch over the whole; the guards keep shifts to maintain a 24/7 watch, and reinforcement patterns are noted if trouble breaks out.  It's built to withstand a siege from either evil humanoids or nervous humans.  All normal outbuildings necessary for the location to function are present and described.

Daily schedules for all the mundane inhabitants is provided; a DM will be able to run this like a clock should something create a stir.

Monster Roster: clerics of 6th and 3rd level with four 1st level acolytes; one 3rd level fighter, three 1st level fighters, and 24 0-level fighters with typical arms/armor; 45 humanoid women and children of mixed types and one female goblin shaman of 4th level ability; a poisonous snake.

Treasure: The valuables are worth about 6,800 gp, max, although some of it will pose difficulties getting that in coin value as it's a mix of location-appropriate items such as altar pieces that can be connected back to the home, a bank draft letter where our trafficker deposits her ill-gotten gains, or incense that presumably has a more limited market of buyers.  This is a nice touch reflecting advice in the DMG about making treasure a mix along spectrums of convenience and portability.

Magical treasure includes a scroll of protection from normal missiles, potions of extra healing and sweet water (also known as the potion of player sadness).  The leveled clerics have plate mail +2 and quarterstaff +3, ring of mammal control, +2 scale armor, and a wand of flame extinguishing.  The guard captain has +1 chain mail and broad sword.  

Given that magic mostly belongs to the humans in charge, many interaction scenarios would have a low likelihood of taking possession of these.  So if a DM wants to up the treasure take, using the suggestion of putting extra caverns off the escape tunnel with a challenging monster (and treasure) of some sort could be a solution. 

Do I think this will work: The scenario itself, as crafted?  Yes, it will work without a doubt.  

In an out-of-campaign sense, will this work for all play groups?  No, simply because it chooses to present a subject that's been a heated debate in the hobby for decades (what to do with non-combatant evil humanoids).  I don't think anyone is obligated to shy away from interacting with that subject, and I don't think Trent would be offended by someone choosing not to use it on those grounds.  He addresses the subject with a tremendously even hand, here: it's controversial in human society, it's unwelcome in humanoid society, it's not very effective, and everyone involved is either dubious of the worth of it, an uptight dick, or shamelessly abusing the point of it for personal gain.

But it does interject that entire debate into the campaign world, and there's no way to really keep it there if the subject is considered contentious to those playing the game at the table.  In a best case scenario no one cares and it's just an interesting thing to consider.  The DM should judge whether this is the case however.  It could also generate an argument among players very easily.

Do I like it: Yeah, I like it as a well-done expression of the game.  I personally don't have reformable humanoids in my campaign world, so usability for me is limited without reworking it (very possible to do, and I might).  But I can like something I wouldn't make or use as-is myself.

Nitpicks: None, it's as tight as a drum.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #14 The Red Tower

By: Kristóf Morandini

Ruleset: Swords and Wizardry

Recommended Levels: Suggested for 5th level players

The Gist: If you roll on the 1E DMG random encounter tables often enough, you'll pop a random encounter with a fortress, and eventually one of those will have a MU owner.  Something like this would be perfect to stash away for when that happens...if any of the idea stems inside were completed.  As it is, this work represents the type which is just incomplete enough that the DM likely saves little time making it into something ready to play, and then most people would rather spend the marginal extra time to just have something of their own make.

As it stands, you get a tower that's just survived a small assault.  The owner is missing, and his steward has decided this is likely permanent (he wasn't involved and doesn't know why), resulting in a de facto ownership transfer.  And...that's pretty much it.  To be sure you also get a pretty standard small wizard's tower in terms of layout, room types, and such, but there's nothing here to do unless you write it.

Examples of ideas or details that just stop before giving you something you can game with:

• The tower map provides no distance scale
• Also on the map - black blobs that aren't discussed.  From the text it can be inferred the one in the ground floor shed/weapons room is the debris detailed there, but the massive one in the upper floor gets zero treatment in the text.
• No map is given for the basement
• The sorcerer's disappearance
• the empty camp of the besiegers, and what their motivation was
• What the magical gate-field is created out of - it's not unheard of for 5th level characters to have access to magic items which could potentially nullify different types of magic, but it's just a "magic field" so if they try the DM must decide how to ref that.
• Two secret tunnels are described, one leading into the tower from a well 200 feet away, and the other connecting the tower with a river 600 feet away - so the DM is going to need a map of the locale around the tower unless handwaiving all of this is very vague theater of the mind fashion.  Maps didn't count against the page limit, so there's no reason one couldn't have been provided.
• A cleric is an odd steward choice, it seems like a sentence or two would be needed to address what's a very likely questioning from the players for why, especially given the absence of the sorcerer.  
• "the sorceror's notes" are bolded in the lab entry, but nothing about what is in those notes is given.  

Monster Roster: 5th level cleric steward and a 1st level human fighter valet, a dragon newt.  More hinted at in the area around but not detailed or listed as such.

Treasure: About 1,600 gold worth of sellable treasure, a human control ring, potions of frozen concoction (S&W-specific item), growth and clairaudience.  The ring is very powerful but it's still squarely on the meagre side. I'm a bit more lenient with sites such as this because the DMG makes clear that even if a lair encounter is rolled, no treasure might be found.  So it's as common in my experience to get meagre treasure or nothing when popping a lair encounter as it is to get a nice haul, simply because the treasure type rolls all miss.

If you were going to use this in a non-random fashion, as a placed encounter location, then I'd say you really should rework the treasure (which may naturally occur as part of finishing off all of the incomplete parts).

Do I think this will work: No, what is finished and ready to use here is very mundane.  It doesn't meet the threshold for "working" as nearly anyone would interpret that phrase in a D&D context.  It could be a serviceable random encounter if it were completed and fleshed out.

Do I like it: It's too incomplete to say.  I don't like it in the form it's in.

Nitpicks:  

1) Most of what would go here was discussed above, but the passage from the well is starts under the water level, but the water level is only 2 feet deep (?).  Could be a typo as it's just a strange well and strange passage if intended.

2) I'm not sure if this is a language thing, but the room listed as a "shed" is described as a bedroom - which doesn't make any sense to the typical english usage of the word "shed".

Adventure Site Contest: Review #13 The Nalfeshnee's Monastery

By: Archives of MU

Ruleset: AD&D

Recommended Levels: Hopefully appropriate for levels 8-10

The Gist: Much fun was had writing this entry, and much fun was had while reading it.  It is not really a playable entry, however, as it finishes with a dollop of LOTFP negadungeon .  It also breaks the 4th wall a lot - ironic/sardonic commentary on culture/politics is layered on thick, the minotaurs have a GWAR poster on their cave wall, etc.  Some people will love that, others not.  I don't pass judgement on the style-as-style, but I'd note that I've yet to see someone turn out a string of playable material employing it, and creating strings upon strings of creative material is foundational to running a campaign. The natural limits of meming as a creative school may end at the gates of functional gaming scenarios.  It often seems as though making a style statement is priority #1A, the intent is to make playable material is #1B, and at some point in the process meeting both priorities became increasingly difficult until the author said "fuck it" and leaned hard into #1A to finish the project.  Does this creative school pose a similar mirage to gaming applications as Hickman's novel writing did in the 80s, where gaming had to bend to it to work instead of the other way around? I don't know; I think it would be cool to see that product that still would work if the style were stripped out - which is the test, how are the bones?  I just haven't seen it yet.

I'm sure there are other scene references too inside baseball for me to grok.  I did a google search for horned werewolf and the only thing that seemed relevant was a bit about some cryptid claimed to be seen near Gloucester.   At least I caught the Doom bits.  

As mentioned, playability is high the earlier in the text encounters and locations occur.  The keep is laid out intelligently, it feels like the author wants that to be considered authentic to someone who would care.  The height upon which it rests would normally pair very well with a Type IV demon able to telekinese 500 lbs and make combat terrifying to consider - I was anticipating this until discovering the demon was in the cellars.  If proceeding through the gatehouse with its murder holes and arrow slits, by hook or by crook, an alien garden stands before you in the central yard.  In it are more than a dozen "humans" (the aforementioned horned werewolves) cavorting; the fruit of the garden might help chaotic beings but others can expect only pain.  In the corner is a captured prize - the jeweled skull of a pope, protected by some undead (released by a trap that pisses green slime on those nearby).  This is all very good.

Other minor areas nearer to the gatehouse also make thematic sense with a monastery and feel playable as concepts.  You get the larder/cook, some anchorites, etc.  One issue with higher level characters is the cramped size of the location - area of effects often increase with levels, and many of these encounter locations are tiny in size with many inhabitants (example: 30 anchorites in 450 sq feet of space that includes bunk beds and trunks for each of them).  But that might just be chalked up to not seeing enough of these ideas play out at the table.  

The only real issue I have in the early going is the name of a demon is given away to anyone with the ability to read Demonic script.  For higher levels, some means to decipher this can be almost presumed.  Learning the name of any lower-planar monster is a massive deal, just throwing it up on a statue breaks most game worlds at all concerned with that type of coherence.  I suppose non-goofing players might presume it's fake, but at any point if they find out it's real - and they must employ it expecting it to be real to have a snowball's chance in hell at the end - either the adventure or the game world it's ran in must break.

Another similar point is the chaotic monks; it seems to exist only to be incongruent.  There's so many good underused CE monsters...

From here, the bigger rooms get increasingly memed.  The minotaurs using overbearing on the high bridge is great; their lair felt underwhelming (apart from the GWAR poster).  The vampires are yuppies plotting to urbanize your favorite town.  The large chapel has the cool stained glass floor with the eight-pointed star glazed in along with scenes from the Abyss, but once that visual is ingested there's nothing to do there except descend to your Raggi-fied demise.  

At the bottom are your doom-swords and the sound of hundreds of demons shrieking through the stone walls.  Grab the swords, the doors open, and 665 manes pour out.  The Type IV demon makes 666.  I get it, I get it.  But this is what I mean by it's just a meme written in adventure form.  It's very funny when nothing's at stake.  Are we going for priority #1A or #1B?  

To be fair to the author, he puts right up front that this isn't playtested so the odds of someone grabbing this and expecting #1A aren't high.  I wasn't.  But you still always hope to be surprised, and when there's fun stuff there you really hope to be surprised.

Monster Roster: The monster roster is varied, although not many challenging foes for the level range: leucrotta, bugbears, ghouls, a wight, chaotic monks, vampires, minotaurs, and an ogre magi. 

Then the uncertain variants: horned werewolves, human anchorites (0-level?), animated suits of armor.

Treasure: It's really light for the risk. A few thousand GP of monetary treasure, some +1 suits of armor, a potion of healing, and the aforementioned doom-swords - which are only +1, although granting an extra attack roll if you hit.  But there's nothing here that a 10th level character would use after the adventure was over in preference to their likely already-better gear they came in with.

Do I think this will work: No.  

Do I like it: I want to - there's a ton of great ideas and themes in here when memes are stripped away, even if the bones on the layer beneath that don't work in game-as-game form.  But I get memes and jokes on social media; I don't really want them in game form.

Nitpicks:  

1) bugbears or skeletons in the gatehouse?

2) the beginning says you need to have your Monster Manual to use the product, but the tweaked monsters or other combatants often don't have either stats or a reference there.  Are horned werewolves just werewolves?  Does animated armor match to a monster there (no stats are provided)? Etc.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #12 Lost Vault of Kadish

Lost Vault of Kadish

The patrician choice to not reflexively loopy-doopy

By: Jonathan Becker

Ruleset: AD&D

Recommended Levels: 5-7 characters of 3rd to 5th level

The Gist: Our second adventure location interacting with a desert oasis, and a very fine adventure location it is.  Mr. Becker knows his business and efficiently turns out a tomb location that works by itself and reaches out beyond its initial exploration to hinder and/or harm PCs for the temerity of looting it (presuming this in fact happens).

You know what I like most about this, among the many fine room ideas and no-nonsense writing?  Departing from the checklist mentality that so many have when making pieces for play.  There is no loopy-doopying to be seen in this tomb.  There's almost a functional loopy, but it's incomplete, requires such effort to make it functional that doing so represents a net loss (of time if nothing else), and if completed destroys something beautiful, forever.  Jonathan may not have intended to send a message with this; it might be entirely coincidental; but when mapping a location has reached a point where people would try and force multiple loops on a cathedral floorplan just because every blog in the world seems reflexively check whether loops are present on maps, it's a subtle fuck-you to mindless box ticking. 

Linearity has drawbacks in dungeons.  However, everything is not a dungeon.

Another thing I like about Lost Vault of Kadish is that it can and reasonably might remain lost.  There is no hook, no way to drag players to the spot, it's entirely possible they might be driven off by hostile centaurs before figuring out there's something to find, or, never stumble over the transition point.  (Speaking of the centaurs, having them wear horse skull helmets is low-key dark.)

It's ok in a persistent world if some things are so subtle they're usually missed.  I guarantee you that if the players were to stumble on this long after beginning play in a DMs world - perhaps only on their 4th or 5th visit to this oasis - the very real sense of discovery felt by the players would be a cool moment.  "What?  Was this here the whole time?  How did we miss it?"  The interest felt by flesh and blood people sitting around a table just went up a hundred fold, for this little tomb.  Players should feel how willing you are to let secrets remain buried, in an amused detachment.  

But let's say that the party isn't driven off, they do wander around in the general direction a statue is pointing a spear towards: what happens?  They fall down a sinkhole into a cavern with  a door carved into one side.  They likely have to deal with some scorpions, possibly some blood hawks.  So we open with a little rough and tumble to make sure everyone's engaged.  Then come the series of rooms, which feels just like a desert tomb should.

From there we get the almost-loop; a crevice opened by the shifting earth, and time, that seems to go nowhere really.  We're probably going to eat up some time with looking for doors here, and there are some doors to find.  But that time.  Now, it isn't as if the time penalty is harsh, but those blood hawks outside are normally only active at night.  If you spend a lot of time looking for secret doors, the odds of another encounter happening on the way out (presuming it isn't dark initially) goes up.  Nothing massive, just a touch of consequence.   There doesn't seem to have been much to find here, absent a decision to extend one leg when nothing makes doing so an obvious choice, but if one of the bricked-over old rooms is uncovered then one magical trap farther in is largely nullified.  

Taking the constructed route leads the party to a room with an eternal flame burning in the center - dousing it is the only way to open a way forward.  This is a good use of puzzles; the answer seems obvious when reading it, but practice tells us this will take up a reasonable amount of game time and conversation while almost certainly being solved, and yet still deliver the satisfaction to the players which are the only (barely worthwhile) purpose of puzzles.

After that, there is the trope of danger presenting as beautiful women.  It isn't badly done, but I'd use this opportunity to remind DMs that unless you've woven nine encounters such as these into regular play that weren't dangerous at all to the players, including a subset that benefited the players, then they're not going to be fooled and will just start filling up the "women" with arrows, fire bombs, and assorted spells.  It isn't that I don't like the trope - it's a genre classic for a reason - but the number of DMs who only use the subversion never seem to get that you can't subvert what never happens according to expectations/normalcy.

Next is a room unlikely to be cracked except on the way back.  It has a really cool treasure - an efreeti bottle!  But the efreeti won't serve, even if the bottle is opened.  The text doesn't give any indication the efreeti is bluffing or fronting here, but I'd suggest its better if it is.  Or perhaps that the players can try to subdue it for an even greater reward than normal, for its initial intransigence.  Otherwise it feels like dangling a far better treasure than can be found elsewhere in the location in front of the players while preventing them from gaining it.

Following this is a wonder-room...a large chamber that seems as a night sky.  And also prevents the use of magic.  While it has no immediate or obvious tactical use or need to exist, that's also cool.  However - if things go south with the efreet, luring it here for combat would certainly tip the scales in the PCs favor, provided they discover the room's powers.  And hey - unless they ruin it, the room will exist for a long, long while...I can think of many reasons over a character's career that knowing the location of a secret large chamber where no magic works, would be very useful.

After that is a library of many old books and scrolls, and here is a place for an enterprising DM to seed many more adventure locations, rumors, legends, etc.  Don't be shy about expanding beyond the bare minimum description given here under a 2-page limit.  Players are going to perk up in situations such as these, and (just as with beautiful ladies) it only helps your campaign to typically match the trope whenever lost knowledge rooms such as this are found.  Becker doesn't make extracting such info easy - unless the PCs have comprehend languages immediately available, they're likely going to have to pick and choose a subset of material to take with them for later perusal.  Among the smattering of magic treasure usually present in places such as these is a variation of the spell invisible stalker, that summons a dune stalker (found in the Fiend Folio).  This might (but probably not) tip off wise players of the danger they'll face if looting the place before leaving, and is another opportunity for a natural "ah-ha" moment that levels up the player skill.

Last is the throne room, properly placed, with the skeleton still on the throne.  Players will absolutely be expecting a big fight with undead here; but coyly, the DM only offers them a chance to destroy treasure if they're trigger happy.  Just as with beautiful women, you need to make some dead things stay dead for the ones that come alive to work to maximum effect.

Very delightful entry.  No random encounter matrix - which feels right here.  

Monster Roster: centaurs, scorps, blood hawks, huecuva, efreet, likely a dune stalker.

Treasure: between 5,500 and 7,500 in gp value of monetary treasure. Magical items possible to come away with include: an axe +1, scroll with a couple of good mid-level spells, the very very rare spell for summoning dune stalkers, wand of lightning and potion of longevity.  No issues with treasure.

Do I think this will work: Yes

Do I like it: Yes

Nitpicks:  Only one really - while I think contextually it's clear that the magic mouth happens on the way out if the PCs have the gem in their possession, it's possible to read it that the mouth speaks when PCs take the treasure into their possession in the throne room.  Might be worth a couple of words to exclude that interpretation.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #11 Lipply's Tavern

By: Grützi

Ruleset: AD&D, bitch!

Recommended Levels: 4 to 6 characters of levels 2-4

The Gist: Allright, look.  If we're going to allow Germans into our contests then they can't have a page count, they have to be put on a word count, with a mandatory white space reserve, a no acronym rule, and whatever they turn in must be able to be run by an Italian in less than 60 minutes of table time.

This adventure location does to halflings what the Brothers Grimm did to children's stories.  It took the West 300 years to recover from that, mainly through the herculean efforts of Walt Disney (the man), and it might take the liquor stores in my area slightly longer to restock.  The entire thing is a cunning trap.  It starts with the color choices, proceeds to 335 words of general location conditions, gives you a random encounter table that varies the dice notation by area, and says "making a Ruckus" more often than Bob Eubanks used the phrase "making whoopee" in 21 years of hosting the Newlywed Game. You could trap the souls of chaotic creatures in this layout.  It displays system mastery akin to how Nurse Ratchet displayed a thorough understanding of how to keep mentally ill people calm.

It's a hyper-organized version of this, OK?

Interspersed in all the Teutonism is a wealth of excellent content.  I only have three months to get ready for North Texas RPG Con, so I'm just going to give you some nibbles.

• The poor halfling son who doesn't know his furry-footed dearly departed father worshipped the devil
• Orcs and spiders negotiating treaties of coexistence via shamanic spells, like that bumper sticker come to life
• An e-girl who isn't going to leave until she gets what she came for, but cannot call the manager
• With orcs on location I don't want to think about why the liquid in the tub is brown water, but if you're willing to fish around you can find a skeleton that had a platinum dental plan in life
• OK, OK, the orcs are torturing gnomes, I guess they're not so bad
• The most valuable single treasure in the entire place is nearly a metric tonne of sauerkraut that survived the fire, paired with rare cheese in the cellars

Monster Roster: Massive

Treasure: Also absolutely massive, with monetary and magic riches galore, although collection is in a state of double jeopardy as it's not only what percentage the party will find, but also the percentage of that percentage the DM will find in the text.

Do I think this will work: Yessss....in a similar fashion to how the owners manual of a 2004 BMW Series 5 works in helping you change the oil in your car.

Do I like it: I do, I love it, although unlike the other entries it makes me feel angry and unclean at the same time.

Nitpicks:  

You forgot to bold-italicize the word Ruckus on entry #3 on the random monster table, motherfucker.  What's another empty bottle of vodka on the top of the wastebin though.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #10 Legacy of the Black Mark

Legacy of the Black Mark

By: DangerIsReal (https://dangerisreal.blogspot.com/)

Ruleset: Swords and Wizardry

Recommended Levels: 4 to 6 characters of levels 2-3

The Gist: Deep in the mountains a lost entrance is found to its underworld, drawing treasure seekers who've not returned.  Ircana the Spider Sorceress is rumored buried within, but her degenerate morlock followers still roam this area.  Want to try your hand?

The adventure starts off with a good rumor table, which is always better than a bunch of hooks.  Since other treasure seekers already found out about it, the rumors (which are mostly true) are reasonable for stuff they'd talk about over drinks before setting out, if they'd done some due diligence first. If your players aren't interested in the rumors, no agency is lost.  Rumors for campaigns, hooks for one-shots.

You get a paragraph of general information regarding structure, decoration, condition, and climate up front, and a random encounter table with a handful of traditional monsters (with some cosmetic differences - the zombies are headless, etc.).  There isn't a morlock monster in AD&D; I looked through the two S&W versions I have and didn't see it there, but the monster is a humanoid archetype in its own right so DMs should have no issue with running it I don't think. 

Everything is clear and easy to read; the room numbers always showing inside a circle makes them pop and its easy to track back to your spot on the page when flipping back and forth to the map.

Then entry then describes the tomb/lair itself, leaving the in-between to the GM - which doesn't bother me a bit.  The in-between is what will vary from world to world anyway, and I'd rather get maximum word count on the location.  The entry down allows starting out near the middle of the map instead of on an edge - nice touch.

 Interesting stuff is available right off the get go: in the entry room there's a concealed alcove with some potion bottles; room 2 isn't necessarily the first path which will be chosen but its at least 50/50 and it presents a lot of interaction right off the gate. Players will get engaged quickly.  Players willing to play ball with evil can gain an attribute point and jump locations on the map (and back again) but the merely curious likely get nothing but pain.  It's possible to find and get what you came for almost immediately - which I really like as it keeps players guessing instead of presuming "goal" and "end" are always synonymous  But if you didn't play with evil prior to, you could become a pawn of evil during the encounter.  Enjoyable design.

Among the expected tomb-type rooms, you get neat encounters interspersed.  

• A macabre room of severed heads on hanging chains conceals three vargouilles - nasty always, but especially at lower levels.    

• the remains of previous treasure hunters are found in areas of subtle dangers - will the impulse to loot quickly bring these upon the party?

• The morlocks offer a choice between possible cooperation or violence for a bit more treasure.

• Another encounter room with a crab spider - am I the only one here who's never seen this monster printed anywhere?  It must be a B/X or other clone staple.

Really good little bit, it will play well, it's got its own creepy atmosphere, and is a solid example of How to Write Small.  Nothing here feels incomplete or cramped, it's instead a bite size chunk of a campaign world players will enjoy without it taking over game play for multiple sessions.  This is in type, if not specific construction necessarily, the sort of location treasure maps should lead to and so should be frequently experienced by your players in a campaign.  The tricks and traps are great too - kudos!

Monster Roster: spiders, zombies, vargouilles, a ghost that can seize your will and bend it to her own, centipedes - very satisfying roster.

Treasure: Treasure is nice - there's some magic items here for nearly every class, with the prize likely a suit of mithril chain mail+1 sized specifically for a dwarf.  The money treasure is spread out, so feeds the greed on a regular basis, and totals up to around 11K, give or take.  Players might not find all of it.  But for a low-level party, at least some will likely level after following rumors here.

Do I think this will work: Yes.

Do I like it: Also yes, a really nice job with this one.

Nitpicks: No nitpicks.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #9 Lair of the Grim Gasher Orcs

(Full map not shown)

By: Daniel Herz

Ruleset: B/X

Recommended Levels: 1-3

The Gist: It's a nicely done orc lair.

This is good vanilla.  You need orc lairs, they are what they are.  This one feels like an orc lair, and it feels like part of the world.  You get lots of little details players might latch on to for some idea they have, it's not "wonder" but it's attention-keeping and gives a path to player satisfaction from using the environment and circumstances to their own benefit.

The entire lair is coherent, easy to read, and tight.  There's zero need for the DM to try to anticipate exactly how the players will choose to tackle it because it's competent world building and complete as its own thing.  Since the DM knows who the orcs are, and what they're like, anything the players come up with makes an orcish reaction immediately come to mind.  And that's stress-free DMing; it's DMing out of a position of curiosity. This is why good vanilla can make great gaming.

nice touches:

• note about ransom attempts ending badly thus preferring other uses for captives

• sentry system is given

• possibility of submittal (and conditions) mentioned

• These orcs aren't hyper competent - they can ignore their dogs warnings, foul their well while collecting rainwater in barrels, can be fooled by disguises, will shoot arrows even if possibly killing their own, really only have one plan for invasion and fall apart if circumstances are different etc.

• However neither are they hopelessly dumb - the make barricades for cover

• The dogs might attack their owners, which players would find fun

• a human boy who's got a touch of Stockholm syndrome

• You get an expansion point if you want to add some more

• A goblin slave, if freed, will spill the beans and also take out its frustrations on the corpse of its master

• Doors that work differently get a note before they'll be interacted with, and another at the point of interaction - a DM isn't going to "whoops" these

• It's possible to use the ventilation system to surprise orcs away from the main hall

• The orc chief has a touch of OCD and arranges skulls in order of size

Monster Roster: It's almost entirely orcs, with the handful of dogs.  Assorted slaves or prisoners aren't significantly different from a roster standpoint.  This is fine for an orc lair.

Treasure: Also fine for a level 1-3 orc lair.  The chief has a potion (but might use it) and otherwise there's about 6,000 gp worth of various coin and jewelry/art objects.  Also a church bell (with no value given) that a DM could give a reward for if the players want to attempt taking it. 

Do I think this will work: Yes

Do I like it: Yes, seeing an orc lair executed like this immediately makes me want to play in this DM's campaign.  If you can do the basics like this, you're not relying on flashbangs to create fun.  I bet the wow stuff really sings.

Nitpicks: Mismatch in numbering fireplace rooms on map vs text numbering

Adventure Site Contest: Review #8 The Glen of Shrikes

The Glen of Shrikes

By: GiantGoose

Ruleset: Unspecified, but looks like OD&D/AD&D mash up (?)

Recommended Levels: Unspecified, but I'd guess early mid-levels (4-6) if the party has six or more characters (including henches) and the DM wants some parity for the harder locations.  

The Gist: It looks like a forest hex set in the Wilderlands, with several bite-sized locations detailed having light connections; each stands alone and yet can build into at least some of the others.  GiantGoose also seems determined to use the psionic rules, as that rare power is heavily featured in this 6-mile hex, including at least one way for the players to become endowed! 

It starts off with the the general status around the hex so the DM has an overall picture, proceeds to a nicely put-together random encounter table that includes a few little dynamic details, and since it's fey of course one entry is a satyr-elf conference on inter-fey relations.  It then goes to give some motivations or desires for five of the persons or groups likely met, giving the DM a quick-hit on how to portray them if encountered.  This is all good stuff.

As this is wilderness exploration, you also get some info about what people can (or can't) see while they're traveling around.  Nice touch.

As for the specific hex encounters, you get:

• a tree with a murderous bird that has some nice treasure bits on its prior victims

• a bandit outpost that's willing to be bought off - an under-utilized encounter resolution today as compared to the early days (read the adventuring section of the PHB where players are told to always consider if it's better just to pay a toll than fight and burn resources)

• a touch of weird, with a druid sage living in a tree with mental intelligent pears

• the magic shop no party member will expect (technically not a "shop" but can trade)

• guarded evil elven psi-mages floating in deep meditation, one-half of a group that corrupted long ago

• a fountain with a twist - it's OD&D/Wilderlands...gotta have a fountain somewhere that functions like a chance card in monopoly.  The area inhabitants synergize nicely with it.

• an obelisk giving hints and danger about secrets and conflicts mostly forgotten - the writing in here is really, really nice with each room/area having a distinct threatening feeling yet never swerving into D&D cliches

The writing here is just really good.  Descriptions paint a picture but stop just short of telling you what you feel about it.  When what you just read makes three or four different yet cool scenarios for what that will mean, or what will happen next, pop into your head that's the holy grail.  "Evocative" is now cliche and too often results in "overwrought".  Goose isn't trying to be evocative, he's deftly provocative; this is a higher form of D&D writing as it will:

• help the DM run something they weren't thinking of before reading the product

• less likely to be a mirror presentation of another DM's sessions running the same product

I use both styles; evocative has its times and places. There are encounters and locations where I am trying to convey a very specific mental image I'm seeing as I write it, evocatively.  This works better in dungeons, IMO, where connectivity is closer/denser and the reader seeing an author's mind's eye speeds up understanding how this piece affects other groups or areas when reading them in turn.  But instead of the dungeon apartments found underground, hexes have big beautiful yards separating neighbors and benefit more consistently from several possibilities and little mysteries. 

And for the love of a d20, will someone please play in a psionics campaign ran by this man?  He's jonesing for it.

Monster Roster:  It's varied and well put-together; monsters chosen are up and down the power range and fit into the terrain.  Some lesser-known or -used types were selected from supplementary or 3rd party sources and they fit will as deployed.

Treasure: Many of the encounters could produce magical treasures of low to medium power, and a few choice bits supporting future adventures (looking at you, tuning fork set to Limbo) are possible.  It's doubtful a party will gain all of them unless they're depopulating the hex down to bedrock, but you don't necessarily have to kill the current owner to benefit from an item.  Cash will look a little light in comparison to some other entries, but I think it's reasonable for exploration of a 6-mile hex.

Do I think this will work: Yes

Do I like it: Yes, I think these entries compare favorably with stuff like NOD.  

Nitpicks: Only a couple

• the maps are essentially the opposite of loopty-doopty, but the locations are so simple it's a minor sin.  But if putting out more hexes, try to work in a location or three where the (non-hex) maps aren't quite that simple.  If you're not limited to 2 pages that's a great way to spend the extra space.
• While it can be difficult to peg a wilderness hex for "levels", the rule system used should always be given.  If it is a mashup, that's fine to say also.

Adventure Site Contest: Review #7 Frostfire's Durance Vile

Frostfire's Durance Vile

By: Richard Sharpe (https://bloodortreasure.blogspot.com/ and https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/18526/Town--Down-Games)

Ruleset: B/X

Recommended Levels: for level 4-5 characters 

The Gist: The short and sweet intro says it all - a princess needs rescue, and a dragon stands in the way.  

I should make clear at the onset: I think this is a good bit of adventure.  A lot of the review is critical, but to take away that this is a bad offering would be incorrect. I think many players will enjoy it.  I really like the unique monster (the hellwing) that has a psionic attack.  All the details feel fantastical.  You get golems and fire ray-shooting gems, and dragons and a huge pile of treasure.  You've got all the environments - cave, water, verticality, ice, a manned fort, and secret passages.  It's got a lot going on. Stripe went all out on the art, this is clearly a labor of love. No one will be bored playing this adventure, provided the DM can understand the instructions.  

But I had a hard time with that; it might be the way I think doesn't sync up well with the way the author describes game info and others will have an easier time.

This location is intended for either one shots or campaign play, but I think it is inherently better for one shots without extensive reworking.  But I think similarly to the Fountain of Bec, it is a 10-page idea stuffed into a 2-page format.  Additionally, while the hook is very imaginative and flavorful - and will, I'm sure, be liked as a hook by many people who often or for a very long time, reviewed adventures - the hook also serves as an illustration why hooks are simply a bad concept which unfortunately became somehow a tradition in the wider hobby.  I'll discuss this a bit, although these shouldn't be held against the author as this adventure is far downstream from my holding these opinions.

First let's talk about how to match format to concept.  You want your writing to introduce yourself to the reader; you want the reader to gain value from having utilized your writing.  So it needs to make a good impression and follow through on promise.  The former gets the reader to the end, the latter makes them look up other stuff you've written.  

Consider your idea/concept a physical body; consider the format a set of clothing it will wear.  If you have a very big idea, presenting it in clothing several sizes too small makes both the idea and the format look something close to ridiculous.  Likewise, draping an outfit several sizes too large over a modest physique impresses no one.  Your readers will need both big and small pieces of content - and so, presumably, will you if you're running a campaign.  But if you tag your adventures as small when they're not, or vice-versa, the three-step process of read, use, and return for more likely does not happen.  Even if the ill-fitting idea is a good one. So it is important to develop talent in both sizes, rather than always trying to fit whatever idea you have at this moment into the situation at hand - whether for a contest, submission to spec, or for your own players.  

Being a good DM is to create in a manner recognizably from you and yet always, after Campaign Day 1, in a sense submitting to circumstances outside of your total control.  Where this dynamic is undeveloped, many tensions result between the game's premise (player agency) and an untamed muse.  The horse must be broken in order to serve. 

This is a pompous and longwinded way to say: when preparing a short, long-form ideas will come.  As soon as this is recognized write down enough to re-spark the process at a later time and try again if the first idea can't be pared down.

Now a word or twenty about hooks.  We've established I hate them, and that is because the very nature of a hook presumes a campaign does not exist.  For a hook to be able to slot in several campaigns at any moment, they must be so banal that they need not be repeated, or exist outside of perhaps a single book of hooks referenced by everyone.  "Suggested hooks would be #4, #12, and #21 from the Universal Book of Hooks."  People will waste a quarter- or half-column in a two page dungeon on shit that boil down to fifty ways to say "someone you've never met needs your help - if you want to play, say yes".  This is one-shot driven in a hobby engulfed in one-shot-itis.  

Or, we get very specific hooks which verge on preposterous when considered for use in a campaign.

The latter is what the issue is with the very flavorful, imaginative, and good hook given here.  It takes up most of page 1 - leaving no space for detailing the three other mapped approach locations (of which no more than two will be used, and possibly none).  It also requires the following to either be already true, or suddenly inserted, into an organic ongoing campaign:

• An ongoing war

• a journey which can be diverted without repercussion to whatever was the proximate cause to travel

• the serendipitous choice to indulge at a whorehouse while on the way

• recruiters who can draft involuntarily (because of the war) being in the whorehouse on the way

• the recruiters being there because they hope to find someone who can rescue a princess everyone thinks is dead

• They hope to do this in a whorehouse because they have no proof of a plot they've discovered in an undetailed way (the players won't ask how they learned this), and there's no time to get word to a king who won't believe them, so sitting in a roadside whorehouse looking for strangers is their sliver of hope

• If you succeed, the reward of not being involuntarily drafted into the army will make you grateful to receive a fraction of the loot you'd gain undergoing a similar trial in any normal campaign circumstance

It makes for entertaining reading, and read-only consumers likely will applaud.  I wouldn't use this in a campaign in a million years.  I'm not going to insert that much chaos into my campaign to make a 2-page location fit, and so the 2-page location will sit unused until it fits by chance. Or it will be stripped for parts. But when running a one-shot, this works.  The players don't care - they're not going to use these characters again and never used them before. The war, and probably the "campaign world" itself, doesn't actually exist. The hook is instead a fake because - so the more colorful the better.

But I will hand it to the author...it's one hell of a fake because.  It will serve its purpose in spades, in one-shot OSR games.  

Now for the meat of the scenario proper.

The two recruiters offer up three possible means to access the cavern of the dragon below.  Unkeyed maps are provided for two of these: 

1. the courtyard with one entrance (a well)
2. the main keep interior which is just an intermediary path to the lower-level jail under the keep where an elevator is located
3. the third entrance to the caverns isn't mapped so will need to be done either by theater of the mind or any outdoor map easily pulled off the internets showing a stream coming out of a low cave - for example, if you have the module Hyqueous Vaults, its outdoor map could easily be cropped and recycled for this purpose.

Once the activity moves into the lower caverns proper, there's stuff going on in almost every area.  Some sharp fights, dungeon tricks, environmental hazards - the players need to be on their toes.

You get 3 (or maybe 4) fights, and each are tough.  No pushover combats here.  All the language is written in high evocatarian, so the non-combat set pieces such as the orbs will firmly anchor in the imagination of the players when described.

But many of these areas have unclear text requiring puzzling out author intent.  

Interestingly, not all the entrances are equally favorable to the players.  If they follow the suggestion of looking for the orbs, taking either of the entrances beginning inside the keep likely means they'll need to face the golems twice unless they want to do some swimming and cliff-scaling (which they may prefer, if they've met them once already).  

And then, of course, at the end, you rescue the princess if you can beat the dragon and she knows all about the evil plans to do her in (presumably because the traitorous castellan just had to tell her all about it), so she'll make sure your party's actions here are properly understood as the heroism it is.  

Monster Roster: there's three monsters - the dragon, the new hellwings, and a couple of 16 HD rock golems that the party has to immediately run from at the suggested levels, if they want to be in fighting shape for the dragon.  

If the author has space to give the hellwing a bigger write up somewhere, I think that would be cool.  You get the info you need to run it, but knowing a bit more about it would make it easier to use outside of the adventure in other stuff.

Treasure: Presume the adventurers succeed - a frost brand sword and 50K in gold/gems would be a nice haul - depending upon what the "share" they get is.  If they can somehow manage to pull off getting the fire ray gems from the golems, that's a very nice couple of attacks they can use at range once per day, each.

Do I think this will work: Man this is kind of tough.  Some DMs will love this, others will be very frustrated by it.  The playtest, for instance, reportedly went really well.  I would categorize it like this:

There are two continuums I'm thinking of here. CAG-OSR is one continuum, and the Gygaxian Naturalism of G1 Steading of the Hill Giant Chief vs the funhouse dungeon of S2 White Plume Mountain is the other.  

• If you love the sit-down-and-roll playstyle of the OSR (even if you want to import some CAG stuff into it) you will be more pleased with this adventure location as written

• If you love the funhouse dungeon content of White Plume Mountain a little (or a lot) more than the Gygaxian naturalism of G1, you will be more pleased by this adventure location as written

Do I like it: I love the ideas and a lot of the areas as individual vignettes, but I don't like it as presented, in this two-page format. I suspect I would like it very much if it had room to breathe, the connective tissue didn't feel as if it were mostly cut for space, and it had a severe editing pass. Considered as a whole, the whole is less than the sum of its individual parts.

Nitpicks: 

• Suggest listing where each entry method outputs into the cavern where the three options are listed under "The Plan".  E.g., add "see area 9" to the elevator bullet, etc

• The map locations of the two suggested orbs are areas 2 and 6; the earlier prompt for the DM to have the recruiters suggest finding these before confronting the dragon says they're in areas 2 and 5.

• I'm not at all clear if the description for area 1 means that the stream shown as flowing there curves north off-map (underground)?  Such that you could follow it to area 7 and bypass areas 2, 3, and 5?  

• I don't understand how the water connects from area 7 to area 1, because I presume the water is flowing from area 12-ish to area 7...and then pools there.

• Area 2 shows as +50 ft; area 4, beyond a 50 ft ledge also shows as +50 ft; there's nothing in area 3 connecting them to indicate a loss of elevation.  Is these altitudes absolute or relative to each other?  I.e., is area 4 another 50 feet higher than area 2 (+100 ft) or was there a big slope down in area 3?  I'm used to "+50" meaning absolute elevation similar to contour lines.  Not clear how they're used here.

• Area 4 - Can any character of any STR open the 30 ft tall wooden door?  I presume yes, given no thresholds provided.  But since not opening them quickly is death by golem, if very strong or multiple PCs are required to push them open this would be good to note here.

• Area 6 - if the PCs go to area 5 first and kill 4 hellwings there coming from area 6, does that mean the listed 4 hellwings are gone if this is explored after?  Or are there 4 more here?  I.e., some DMs will end up running 8 hellwings if both places are explored.

• area 8 - I'm confused by what's going on here...is the incredible alpine mountain landscape described, something engraved on the doors?  or is the area beyond the doors just an alpine mountain landscape illusion hiding the mentioned sheer ledge (no fall distance given, btw, unless Area 10 is supposed to be "+0 ft" elevation), and opening/closing the doors dispels this illusion to show the normal cavern area that is actually in area 10?  What confuses me is the secret path from area 7 to area 10...which never interact with these doors, so what does taking that path produce?  An alpine mountain landscape that's actually someplace far away (or an illusion), or the described cavern in the area 10 text?

• The doors seem to lead to something that either doesn't exist or is a portal to someplace far away.  There's just a lot going on here, and I'm not certain exactly which option is going on with the magic of the doors.

• text for areas 10-12 are out of order and/or misnumbered.

• No stats are given for the dragon!  Or the massive gem in its chest!  Players are going to key on that gem my man, and no DM wants to go looking up dragon age/HD by reverse-engineering it's length :)