*sigh*

Before I continue with my (what RPG.net used to call) "capsule reviews" of the NAP entries in the (ostensibly) AD&D category, a few notes: 

• We did NOT have a chance to begin Lair of the Brain-Eaters Sunday night...it was a VERY long day for the fam, and we went out to dinner and then relaxed on the couch, watching the Oscars. My players DID have a chance on Friday to create new 1st level PCs for a NAP specific run, so we are ready to go. Party will consist of a fighter (bard-in-training), paladin, thief, cleric, magic-user, and an illusionist-thief (two humans, an elf, half-elf, and a gnome). Easter break is coming up and we ain't going nowhere so I'm hoping to get a good pile of gaming in.

• RE the Oscars: I've seen most of the nominated films at this point and so was rather disappointed with most of the results. Oppenheimer is a well-crafted film on a difficult subject, but it failed to move me (in fact, it took multiple nights to watch it, because it put me to sleep). Nah. Also: it is a damn crime to put Barbie into a Best Adapted Screenplay category. Also: I obviously need to see Poor Things (don't even remember hearing about this movie). Also: Ryan "Triple-Threat" Gosling was robbed.

• Finally: the NAP III contest has concluded, and winners (and finalists) were announced. My adventure made the final cut to be in the book (which looks to be some 600+ digital pages long) and I'll be needing to some clean-up work over the next couple weeks. My son was asking me about NAP IV last night as he really wants to participate and has a "great idea." That's pretty groovy.

Okay, enough prattle...on with the read-throughs!

*****

NO ART PUNKS AKA "FUGITIVE GOLD!" (Peter Mullen)

This entry is listed as No Art Punks, both in the initial review and the book's TOC, but it clearly bears the title Fugitive Gold! at the top. I mean, it's not bolded or italicized or anything...but, then, neither is the No Art Punks "title" printed beneath it. Not much for fancy formatting this one...which doesn't bother me overmuch (just by the way), but...well, who cares about the title, anyway.

This adventure is...mm..."pedestrian." At best. It has a spectacular, isometric map that will prove difficult to use in play, though not unusable. I dread the thought of printing it (my old printer doesn't do color), and having to pen in the numbers (which are fairly faint in the image). 

Except that I probably won't, because I'm not feeling this one. 

My first thought upon reading it is that this was done by a kid...maybe a teenager or (more likely) an art student in their early 20s. It's better written than what I would have done as a teenager, but it's not great, and it exhibits hallmarks of youthful exuberance and a lack of sophistication. Take away the carefully crafted map and the complete sentences and it's only a slight step up from "random dungeon." No, that's probably too harsh. But...again...it's something I would have done in my youth (again, I'm talking my 20s). A good one to give my kids to run, maybe. But it's not my cup of tea.

Written for PCs of levels 4th-5th, it's got 43+ encounters. Treasure is abysmally low: under 44K with just a smattering of magic items (about a dozen, only a third of which are permanent, nothing over +2 and a couple couple cursed items to boot). Things like "scroll with one spell (clairvoyance)" or "short sword +1/+2 vs. burrowing mammals." This is chump change that does not raise the treasure count to an acceptable minimum (something in the 120K+ range). One piece of treasure is a 10,000 gold piece emerald that can ONLY be acquired by a "very small halfling" or through use of a potion of diminution (or similar, presumably).  There is no such potion in the dungeon, meaning its quite possible that ONE-QUARTER the treasure will be unobtainable. What's more, the emerald is magical and if submerged in water (the labyrinth is a series of sea caverns with a lot of water), it "screams like a banshee killing everyone all within a 50 foot radius." Okay, pal.

No, this adventure isn't good. There is an optional timer on this one that, if botched, results in the players facing a hostile 18 HD titan, his undead storm giantess consort, and four (undead) giant hetmen (no stats provided for undead giants). If you don't use a timer than there's a good chance the bad guy still activates his infernal machine and summons the Bigger Bads in 1-3 days that summon typhoons and wreck the coastline. Eh. No. Titans aren't angry "storm gods." Storm gods are storm gods. And facing 18 HD titans shouldn't be a "fail state" for an adventure aimed at PCs of 4th-5th level (let alone angry storm gods). This is dumb. 

Which (*sigh*) doesn't mean it's bad. You can have a lot of fun running a "dumb" adventure. It's beer and pretzels night! It's a break from more "serious" fare. It's White Plume Mountain. Etc.

But I'm not throwing it in my campaign. Sorry.  Maybe something for someone to run at a con with its delightful little encounters: ogres selling rat-on-a-stick, leprechauns doing their BS antics, etc., etc. But it's pretty long for convention time slot. Eh. Pedestrian.

ALCHYMYSTYK HOOSEGOW (Alex Zisch)

This one is a tough one to judge.

Zisch has put together a really nice adventure site. It's a little whimsical in an EX1: Dungeonland kind of way (understanding that I don't own EX1 and haven't even looked at in decades...) but it is tightly themed and put together...for the most part...with care and attention.

It's also a "whackier" form of D&D than what I tend to run. Puns and "in-jokes" abound, as is (in some parts) pointed "zaniness." That's not to my taste, but I may be in the minority here; I realize that a LOT of early D&D included the zany, and many old school aficionados think of this as a feature of old edition play. "Why so serious, bruh?" The problem (for me) is that there comes a point where zany tips the game into the realm of farce, at which point no one at the table (DM or players) take the game terribly seriously. And if we're not going to take the game seriously, I really don't have time to run/play the game; I'm a VERY busy guy.

Hoosegow, however, doesn't have TOO much of this. The mine section is good. The tower is a little weird (guards on the roof but they have to go through the warden's bedroom to get there? Hmmm...). It's kind of unclear why there even IS a warden still, since the alchemist has vanished...? I mean (re-reading the background now) I guess the lycanthropes just "moved in" recently; so why bother taking up the title of High Commissioner? There are some inconsistencies here.

Also inconsistencies with regard to the system. The alchemist proper has been polymorphed into a homunculus which, first, no...that's not how you create homunculi...and second, there's no explanation of how or why this came to be. Which, okay, fine, it's a mystery, but so many other parts of the adventure are explained and functional. Mostly...I mean, there's a giant skeleton dead so long that "only a very high level cleric could cast speak with dead" to question it. How long is that? Note to the designers: the PHB lists maximum lengths of time a corpse can be spoken with based on clerical level...no need to be so abstract (since you're designing this for AD&D)...just tell us he's been dead X number of years and we can find the info ourselves.

Lot of puzzles in this thing...lot of puzzles. And a lot of potions and potion mixing. A lot of NEW potions and special magic items in general (not sure how this skirted under the NAP contest stipulations, but, whatever...). I don't get the Plentiful Potions Prototype room...like,are we just supposed to make shit up if they try different formulae other than those listed? Um...huh? Likewise the Potion Mixing Machine room...it references the potion miscibility table in the DMG, but functions differently...so why bother referencing the table? Puzzling puzzles. Along with all the random writings and text the PCs will find in this adventure (much of which is nonsensical), this is likely to be a looong adventure of clue tracking. Which also isn't (usually) my style of dungeoneering.

The adventure was tested for 5-6 character parties with an average level of 7. For an adventure this size, (60 encounters, not counting random ones) I'd hope for 400K-500K in treasure, probably? Enough for players to level up at least once and make a good dent in the next level, so AT LEAST 400K...something like 70K-80K per character.  Total treasure (not counting magic which, naturally, falls mostly in the "potion" category): 167,205. Maybe that gets boosted by various art pieces that had "price tags" attached to them (it wasn't clear from the text if these items were ACTUALLY valuable), but that would only add a few hundred extra gold pieces. The players would find a better use of their time hunting giant dragonflies in the mountains for their fancy chitinous hides.

Speaking of magical treasure...it's really annoying not to include SOME sort of formatting to distinguish magical items from mundane...italics, bolding, underlining, something. Really annoying. Yes, this is a usability issue, not a design issue, but it's really tough to be reading through a text block of alchemical equipment and things like a beaker of plentiful potions isn't highlighted in some fashion (i.e. nothing indicates to the DM/reader that the item is MAGICAL...I just know it is because I've been playing for decades and have some memory of most of the items in the DMG). Same with monsters that don't reference where they're from...great use of obscure critters (fire snakes, stone guardians, spriggans, etc.) but if you're NOT going to detail their special abilities and whatnot in the text, then please provide a reference for me to look them up. Irritating.

However, flawed or not, there's a lot of good thought and craft in this adventure. It's a tad whimsical for my taste and the alchemical puzzles are a bit over the head of my players (the oldest of whom is 13), so fitting it into my campaign is a slight conundrum. There are, of course, plenty of mountains in the Idaho Deathlands, so it would be easy enough to stash...but it's a little too LONG to be a "side jaunt" and a little too light on treasure to make it really worth questing for. I think I'll locate the compound somewhere northeast of Mayfield, Idaho (the wikipedia entry calls Mayfield a "ghost town" but there's more historic data of the town available online for interested folks), and seed a few rumors of the Hoosegow's history...it'll be a good location for magic-users seeking rare spell components (once they have a few levels under their belts) or ingredients for enchantments.

; )