2nd Edition: The Birth Of Customization

Had a reader post on an old post of mine, asking if...with regard to starting a D&D campaign focused on adventure gaming...I would recommend "hacking" 2E (a system the commenter is familiar with) or instead learning 1E. After all, it's not much more than replacing 2E's advancement system with a "gold for x.p." model, right?

Wrong.

2nd Edition AD&D is the birthplace of what I call the customization (or "build") culture. 2E is the first edition of AD&D to support...through its systems...the ability to generate unique and divergent characters. These systems include weapon specialization, schools of magic, priests domains, and rogues' allocation of "skill percentage" points, not to mention non-weapon proficiencies (i.e. skills). Even before the advent of "kits" and the Players Options books (what some refer to as "AD&D 2.5"), 2nd edition was providing players with methods of building characters that were special. Even the methods of ability score generation offered a primitive point allocation variant ("Method VI" of the 2E PHB).

Contrast that with first edition AD&D, in which character creation is a matter of rolling and placing one's ability scores, picking a class-race combination for a set of options, and then buying equipment, generally based on the character's (limited) number of weapon proficiencies. That's it, as far as "choice" goes. Heck, even the spells in a magic-user's spellbook are randomly generated. Pretty quick set-up to get down to play, all things considered.

Why is 2E's customization bad? That's the question that all 2E (and later edition) aficionados are bound to ask. Isn't the ability to create ultra-specific, unique characters a "good" thing? Isn't variety the "spice of life?" Don't we want to give players MORE options, not less? Didn't YOU, JB, say that one of the problems with running a BASIC D&D system over an Advanced one was the LACK of variety for sustaining long-term play interest?

Here's the skinny:

When I sit down to run a game of Dungeons & Dragons, I want the players focused and engaged on the task at hand...specifically, facing the world/adventure, working together to further their common goal of surviving and thriving in a hostile fantasy world.  The character is nothing more (or less) than a player's vehicle for exploring the game environment. 

Customization promotes an inward-facing disposition. Excessive options for character choice encourages players to focus on themselves, their own individual needs and wants, distracting from the objectives of play. For the players, the more choices presented for character "builds," the more that attention is drawn away from the exploration/experience of game play, focusing players (instead) on the 'game-within-a-game' of character construction. 

Character building is not the game.

Couple THAT with an advancement mechanic in 2E that provides different, conflicting objectives of reward-based play among PCs of different class category, and you have the makings of a game that is both divisive and narcissistic. Certainly it is both those over the long-term, and (in my admittedly limited 2E experience) fairly quickly from the start of play.

The potential for making special and unique players also produces ATTACHMENT in players towards their characters...another unwanted development. Attachment is a bad thing. It leads to hard feelings when "bad things" happen to a character. It leads to DMs "fudging" dice rolls (something that leads to a loss of trust in a DM and a complete loss of integrity in a game) in order to "save" favorites...or to forestall bitching-moaning from players. Of course, with the extra burden of a more detailed character creation process, fudging or "dialing down" challenge may already be on the table, because no one wants to wait around for a player to create a new, detailed, uniquely customized character...50 page backstory or not.

Later editions have, unfortunately, only compounded the problem of customization, adding MORE options and MORE choices for the creation of even more "unique" and specialized characters. Feats. Skills. Prestige classes. Class "tracks." Class "builds." Point-buys. For some players, character creation and character development IS the game. It is no wonder that the soap opera style of play favored (and supported) under the 5.5E rules is so focused on creating drama and side-stories and 'character arcs.' 

The game, as currently promulgated, ain't about "adventuring." 

So, yeah: the advice I gave to the reader was to skip any attempt at "fixing" 2E and (instead) just diving into 1E. It's more than just the divisive experience point system that is an issue...it's the whole paradigm shift to character customization which MORE THAN DRAGONLANCE is the root cause of the game's fall from a fun game of fantasy adventure to amateur improv night at the kitchen table.  You don't think there are enough PC "options" in the 1E PHB? There are some 50 different class/race combinations (including bards and multi-class characters)...how many different options do your five to seven players require?

Focus on the GAME, not the character. Character is not the game. Character is the vehicle for playing the game. AD&D is great for people who want pulse-pounding adventure. Why waste that just so you can show off your "original character?"

Woo-hoo! Look at me! I'm
soooo special with my
longsword specialization and
my horsemanship NWP. Right?!

Nuts-And-Bolts

Had an email from a GM earlier who reaches out to me for occasional game advice/suggestions. In addition to wishing me well with my recovering wrist (it is recovering...slowly but surely), the GM mentioned they are "getting better [at GMing] with each game" played. 

Which is awesome...duh. If you have a calling as a GM/DM, you WANT to see improvement in your craft over time. Imagine how frustrating to love something and then struggle in futility with it for years (or more).

Last December, I wrote (briefly) about the number of YEARS it took me to learn how to run AD&D in (what I consider) an "adequate" manner. Not "great;" probably not even "good," really. But definitely adequate. And, it should go without saying that I'm judging "good" and "great" by what I know NOW...with the benefit of decades spent in this hobby, watching DMs both good and...not-so-good. When I was 15, I (and my players) would probably have called myself a "good" DM, if not a great one.

My, how low we set the bar back then.

But we were kids. And I'd guess that our MAIN concern at the time was simply one of FAIRNESS. Was the DM acting as an "impartial arbiter of the rules?" Or were they being an asshole? Concepts of 'storytelling' and dungeon design theory were definitely NOT concerns for us back then. Could the DM be trusted to play by the rules and not be a jerk...THAT was the main concern. 

Now...well, I have some higher standards. Because I'm older and wiser and (somewhat) more mature then I was. Funny how that happens. If you'd asked me a decade ago, I'd probably say I'd LOVE to be transported back to my teens or twenties with all the knowledge I have now. But now? I'd say I rather like being the age I am, even though it means I'm balding on top, my eyesight is going, and I don't heal as fast as I used to. 

[the eyesight part is the one I struggle with the most]

I rather love where I'm at in my life, despite the challenges that this decade brings (every decade of one's life brings challenges, that's just how life is). But this is a fun one right now. Kids not quite adults, but on the cusp of it. Routines settled into some sort of semi-organized chaos. Yeah, money's tight and you can't eat out like you used to, but I've really learned to enjoy cooking at home. Every day is a bit of a struggle, but you know and understand what the struggle is all for...there is value and meaning and purpose. It's kind of wonderful.

Anyway.

It takes time and effort to learn how to do things. For [reasons]. I've been reading up on the lives of famous guitarists. And the thing they all have in common is how much they worked and worked and worked at their craft...for hours and hours and hours, before they achieved any type of success and even afterward (if they had any consistency or longevity). I used to own a guitar...I used to be able to play a few chords on it. I wrote a couple-three songs even (for one of my former bands). But I never spent hours upon hours over days and weeks and months and years becoming skilled or even competent as a guitarist. I didn't care much for playing the guitar. It wasn't a passion for me...it wasn't even fun. For people who become virtuoso musicians (with any instrument) there has to be something that drives the person to immerse themselves in it. Maybe they love the instrument and the music it produces. Maybe they see it as a means to an end (i.e. a career). Maybe they simply have nothing else going on in their lives/brains. 

In the end, none of those motivations matter. All that matters is the time and effort put into honing one's skills. You do something 40 or 80 or 100 hours per week, and over time, you WILL get better at it. 

As a teenager, I worked at fast food joints over summers. I got really, really good at making a Burger King "Whopper." Even today (decades since I last stepped into a fastfood kitchen) I could put one together in seconds...probably blindfolded if I needed to. In a way, it was a complete waste of time, since I never aspired to being a lifelong "maker of BK burgers." But I use the example of how one can train themselves to do something, just by putting in the hours regardless of motivation. We learned to read and write and walk and talk the same way. I worked at another career...a much more complicated one...for fifteen years and learned to do THAT in my sleep, too. Could probably still do most of it, if I were to go back, excepting the technology has probably changed.

D&D...specifically Dungeon Mastering...IS a passion and calling for me. I don't know why, but it is. And because of that, I've spent long, long hours reading and writing and playing the D&D game for DECADES. Just like those virtuoso guitarists, I spent hours locked in my room with my dice and my books. To the non-gamer, this probably seems ridiculous...all the skills I could have been learning instead. Whatever. The heart wants what the heart wants. I wanted RPGs...many of them. And reading them, playing them, absorbing them, burning them into my brain's neural connections...that's what I've done over the majority of my life. And to the person who does enjoy and appreciate these games...well, my dedication in gaming circles is usually recognized, if not respected.

Which, by the way, doesn't matter to me. The heart wants what the heart wants.

And so we come to AD&D: a vastly complicated game by the standards of most games played around a dinner table, but the bulk of its rules still (mostly) fit in two slim hardcovers. Seriously. If you were to set the magic item descriptions and optional appendices aside, the DMG would clock in at the same number of pages as the PHB...about 250 pages total. Compare that to the 5E where the PHB alone is 300+ pages. Can you grind 250 pages of rules? Study them, learn them, burn them into your neural cortex so they're as ingrained as the plot of your favorite television series or the procedures in your favorite spectator sport? Can you do that? Or is it too much to ask?

Spending hours...TIME...grinding is, as said, the key to building skills. It's those "nuts-and-bolts" that are the most important part of mastering one's craft. You may have a tremendous imagination and a penchant for 'storytelling,' but if you don't have the nuts-and-bolts of the game nailed down, that's all for naught. 

You want to write songs? Better learn your scales.

It becomes amazingly "simple" to DM a session of AD&D if you put in the work learning the rules of the system. The rules of AD&D exist to describe and define and delineate the possible actions the players take in the (imaginary) "world." This is why...when running...I don't care overmuch about my players' depth of knowledge. I describe situations and ask what they want to do (occasionally presenting options)...and then I lean on the rules of the game to adjudicate results. I don't negotiate with my players...there isn't a need. I don't hem and haw and consider "what would be fun" or "story appropriate" for the session. I allow the players to immerse themselves in the game world, and then I use the engine of the system to drive the car. It's knowing the nuts-and-bolts that make this possible. 

Don't worry about being a good Dungeon Master. Focus on learning the system. Do THAT and everything becomes a whole lor easier.

Busy & Battered

Apologies for the lack of posting. Most of February was spent between volleyball (I am coaching my daughter's team) and "house stuff," with the bulk of my time being spent on the latter. My mother's house, my family home, the house I spent the most years in (especially my formative years) officially went on the market last Wednesday. Offers should be coming in by Tuesday (there's been a LOT of showings the last few days). 

I have a lot of emotion and memory attached to that house. Letting it go is extremely difficult.

The volleyball is less difficult, although I managed to absolutely wreck myself on Friday. We were doing "box jumps" and the 30" box I was standing on to demonstrate slipped out from under my feet dropping me on ass, causing me to severely sprain my left wrist and rendering me mostly "one-handed" the last couple days (bashed my lower back, too, but ice and rest have mostly taken care of that). Extremely dumb, and extremely inconvenient...even typing hurts (currently doing so with an ice pack wrapped tightly to my hand, but I'm about to change back to my wrist brace). At least it doesn't seem much worse than a grade II sprain...the frustrating pain is constant, but after two nights rest I have most of my range of motion back, despite the swelling. Haven't (yet) gone to see a doctor because A) I'm a stubborn ass, and B) what are they going to do besides charge me for x-rays and give me a cheap prescription for opioids? 

Sorry, no. I've been through that drill before.

But it's a pain in the ass. And while I'm managing it with bracing, ice, and the occasional dose of Advil, I'll probably go see the doctor tomorrow if I'm not back to "functionally two-handed" by tomorrow. Yesterday I couldn't even use a pepper grinder. Today, I can turn doorknobs with my hand...if necessary.

The vball season is another story I don't really want to expand on at this time. We're working on it. Let's leave it at that for the moment.

Having taken care of my mom's place (for the moment...once it's sold I'll have the whole other headache of paying off the creditors, dividing the assets, dealing with my brother, and worrying about the tax crap), I can again devote some time to gaming interests. I have yet another Cauldron convention coming up in seven months and I am, at the moment, registered to run no less than EIGHT different adventures, including the third installment of the ever-popular "Blackrazor Cup."

Seven months is not a lot of time to write that many adventures.

Fortunately, I only have to write...mm...six of them (two I have to test and prep, but they should be good to go), and three of those are half (or more) written. But...it's a lot. Especially assuming I want to do a decent job with them. The BRC adventure is especially troubling as it's going to be a little nutty and the map is...intimidating. For ME, that is...designing it to be useable to the tournament DMs while still accomplishing what I want to do is a bit of a conundrum. But I just haven't had much time to devote to the thing the last couple months.

Still, other than that, I expect MOST of these to be fairly straightforward designs. Maybe not. Ugh. I'm sorry...I'm being cryptic. I just don't want to give too much away, as some of my blog readers might well be playing in these adventures down the road. No spoilers!

AND...I'm thinking about cutting down the slate anyway. I'm taking Diego with me to Cauldron. He's excited but also a trifle nervous. He feels like he'd be less intimidated to play at other (non-Papa) DMs' tables if I was alongside him as a fellow player. Totally understandable, though I think he underestimates himself. But I'm considering cutting down on the number of sessions I run, and (instead) rolling through some other folks' adventure sessions. 

Maybe. I don't know, I like running games...much more so than playing a PC. They are two different activities, each providing their own (different) 'thrill.' And I like the thrill of being a DM more than the thrill of being a player. Perhaps because, at heart, I am just a petty tyrant. Perhaps it is because I have "trust issues," and simply can't trust anyone other than myself to run a decent game. Perhaps. Perhaps I'm just worried that I'll be a lame-ass player (whereas I'm a fairly proficient DM) and I'm just afraid of looking bad. 

*sigh*  Something I'll have to ponder on. I guess.

All right...that's enough of an "I'm-not-dead" update. Next time I post, I'll try to have something more substantive to say.

[by the way: just reading back through my December blog posts, there are some good essays in there. For readers wanting more than adventure 'reviews,' I'd suggest checking out my posts from the last couple months of 2025]

ASC Review: Thick Thews, Brutish Brows & Heaving Bosoms

My apologies: turns out we had one more of these that I didn't notice until a day ago (Ben gave me a heads up about it getting left off the initial list, but I'd been too busy to check my DMs till then). Let's get right to it:

Thick Thews, Brutish Brows & Heaving Bosoms (Rook)

OD&D adventure for PCs of levels 4th & 5th

This one bills itself as a Frank Frazetta inspired caveman lair...which it is. But at 12 encounter areas (Dyson Logos map) it's still in the solid range of an "adventure site."

This one has decent ideas, but it's not as tightly themed as it could be...despite the size, it really is just a "lair:" almost everything encountered is going to be a "cave person" (caveman or cavewoman). There are multiple interesting ideas stashed here, all of which can be seen as "Frazetta" (read "pulp paperback") inspired, but they don't quite go together. We have (for example) the three eyed demon deity with its mutant tyranasaurus avatar AND the black pudding, river god that are both getting sacrifices (not to mention the green aura'd cave painting guy with the green slime behind it and the ancestor wizard/preserved skeleton hanging from the ceiling). I feel like...PICK ONE, dude, and build your scenario around THAT.

But, then, if you do that all you're left with is a caveman lair. Which is too small. See the problem?

So instead, you have disjointed stuff going on. The chaotic shaman who's turning the tribe. You have some cavewomen who are plotting to leave (??) while others ar gleefully taking part in sacrificing and tormenting sacrificial victims. You have these primitive-type beings that can only hoot and howl and raid the homo sapient villages for "buxom" sacrifices, but then you have others that can speak broken common and who keep a stash of thousands of gold pieces on hand to "trade with outsiders." These are all great ideas, but there are (for my taste) TOO MANY. You don't throw every pulpy idea in the book into the thing. I mean, you CAN, but this can prove jarring to players in play...like defeating a hydra, opening a door and finding a mind flayer. Yeah, both monsters are in the same level range, both are weird and hostile, but do they really go together?

Are we negotiating and faction-building with primitives OR are we stamping out demon worshippers while avoiding godlike retribution OR are we rescuing buxoms from deluded primitive worshipping a giant slime pool? You see what I mean? Or not? Maybe you're just like, hey, it's all fun. Okay. Kick-in-the-door D&D is a thing and some players don't overthink it. For me, I see some things that could be tightened to make this a real wowser.

2HD cavemen (and 1HD cavewomen) aren't too tough for PCs of this level but there are a LOT of them, which makes the challenge about right. I have no problem with the encounters except the zombie head which while (again) a neat idea is problematic in a number of ways...if you think about it (some people won't). Like, why is it attacking as a 2 HD creature? How can it actually move (albeit with a MV of 0.5) AND still attack? Do all zombie pieces have individual animating force in their various limbs or is this guy just special? And who/how was it created? Is this a creation of Ooooogun the witch-doctor (whose spells, HD and hit points aren't listed)?

There's a few things left out here. Blank spaces that appear to need to be filled in by the DM (these should be filled in by the adventure writer). Info on the witch-doctor and the chief's younger brother. Stats for the tyrannosaur (not a monster in OD&D...and where is it sleeping?). Ditto the giant snake.

There is too much treasure, even assuming a party of eight PCs (OD&D adventures tend to run easy with a higher number of players)....if you're only running with 4 or 5 it'll be even more. Most of the treasure items are "big ticket" items (gems and jewelry instead of coins and goods), and none of it is particularly difficult to discover or retrieve. You've close to 70K in treasure for something that should probably be under 40K. Very few magic items, though the chief has a +1 sword and +1 shield that are sufficiently famous as to have names and are identifiable by a sage (??)...no explanation given, and a little odd considering the primitive nature of the "tribe."

This one gets ** because it's incomplete and requires work on the part of the DM before it's fit to run. But it's a HIGH two stars, and it while just filling in blanks and providing stats for the various monsters would get it an extra star, tightening the theme could boost it into the 4* range...possibly higher. There's a lot of good "Frazetta fantasy" in this one, and while caveman tribes don't fit into every campaign, this one's the best and most well done that I remember seeing.

Also: check out Jean Auel's Clan of the Cave Bear sometime.

; )

ASC3 Wrap-Up & Thoughts

Yesterday rolled out the last of my ASC3 reviews, reviews that I finished writing some weeks ago. This post (yes, the one you're reading right now...) was written many days later, giving myself some time and space to think about the contest as a whole.

Not that I've done a lot of that. I'm a busy guy and I've been exceptionally busy since the holidays finished in early January. "Non-stop" is the phrase that comes to my head...for most of these reviews, I read and wrote them in BUNCHES...huge, heaping piles of them...in order to get through my obligation as a judge. At times, it was a bit of a slog, and I'd guess that (as much as anything) contributed to the curtness of some of these reviews.  For those who wanted MORE feedback, I've done my best to provide extra thoughts in the comments section of each entry. For those who'd prefer a more private forum for complaining or questioning my methodology, I'm generally responsive to emails.

Overall, I was somewhat disappointed by the quality of the submissions this year. 'Course, it's not MY contest (Ben will be the final arbiter of what he feels is worthy of the compilation), but there seemed to be a real dearth of...what I would call..."complete" entries.  Lots of problems, and many of the adventures with the strongest creativity and best theming were often the ones that lacked proper execution. Some of the two-star entries had me more jazzed/excited than the handful of four-star entries...which shouldn't happen. But it did. And none of the adventure sites (in my opinion) warranted a five-star rating. Not one...despite receiving nearly 40 entries this year.

The types of entries was also a little disappointing. Of the 38 adventure sites, eight were written for AD&D and four were were written for some form of TSR Basic. That's less than one-third. Everything else was written for various retroclones or...other. Six for ACKS. Two for Seven Voyages. A Hyperborea, a Savage Swords. That's more for "non-D&D" than there was AD&D...what's up with that?

My question is not meant to be rhetorical. There's something going on here that is interesting. And, if you'll permit me, I'd like to speculate about it for a moment:

I enjoy the gaming community. But for me, the community is a secondary consideration to gaming. I already mentioned I'm a busy guy. Most of that "busy-ness" revolves around my family and all our various "stuff," very little of which involves gaming. Sports, music, socializing with (non-gamer) friends, school stuff, house stuff, day-to-day living stuff...this occupies the bulk of my time and attention. And it gives me a full life...a happy, satisfying life. The gaming stuff...which, for me, is a vocation and calling and a part of my basic identity...is always there. Like my eye color. Or my wedding ring. 

But the gaming community? I play game, I write games, I teach games. But games aren't a lifestyle for me. And I don't need to be immersed in the community of gamers to know what I'm about. 

And I am different from some gamers in this way. There are gamers...many gamers...who not only want this community but NEED it. They need to kabitz and be friends with likeminded folks who encourage them and validate them and accept them and relate to them. This is a HUMAN thing...we all "need" community to one degree or another to give us all these things. We are SOCIAL creatures; we do not enjoy being LONELY. 

Most of us. I've always been a little odd in that I like my solitude. But not always. And, generally speaking, I love people...gamers and non-gamers alike.

What does all that have to do with adventure writing? Gibson's contest is an on-line thing...something marketed to an on-line community. And those communities (like my blog readers, or Ben's) gravitate towards a particular type of gaming...an older style, an FAG-oriented style (what's now being called "classic"). And in larger community, you see vocal visionaries promoting particular games...games like ACKS and OSRIC and OSE, etc. And some gamers gravitate towards these vocal proponents, and a small handful becomes a small group and then a small community. Like-minded folks finding ways to be together with other humans.

And togetherness is something we all want and desperately, desperately need in these times.

The particular edition of D&D I play has a following, too...but it is older and more diffuse. Pocket tables (like my own) teaching and playing a game the same way  it's been done for 40+ years, long before "communities" and social platforms made networking dead simple. Geezers, in other words...geezers like myself who decry the way the hobby has disintegrated over the years but who (again, like me) can't be bothered to create a gravitational force that drags in folks searching for "community." AD&D is not a Church; a gaming session is not a Mass. For me, that is. For other people, the wider gaming community has replaced for them part of the thing that religion has done for so many people over the years. Provided a feeling of belonging. Provided a higher purpose outside themselves. Provided a way and a reason to bond with others.

All very good stuff. As I said: we're humans. Humans need this kind of stuff.

So while I'm disappointed not to see more AD&D adventure sites, I get it. And I'm okay with it...the "disappointment" I expressed was more personal than conceptual. I like AD&D...I'd like to see more AD&D adventures being written, published, play-tested. But it's a GOOD thing that we have so many people going out and creating...doing work...for the larger hobby. More entries this year than last year...Gibson's contest has grown with every season. That's fantastic. Because people need creative outlets and gamers need adventures and adventures writers are only going to get better the more they write, the more practice they get.

I look back at some of my own stuff, and I'm appalled at my earlier efforts.

Thank you to everyone who took the time and made the effort to participate in the Adventure Site Contest this year. Thank you for sharing your creativity; thank you for contributing to the hobby. Thank you for putting up with my slights and nit-picks and taking my sourness in stride. Thank you for making me THINK and READ and helped me sharpen and crystallize my own thoughts on design. And thank you for being an inspiration to others who haven't yet found the time...or the courage...to create their own adventures.

RPGs are meant to be played with others. By providing adventures, you provide more opportunities for people to play together. Appreciate you folks.

ASC Review: Pyramid of Peril

Patracleo's Peregrinating Pyramid of Peril (Matthew Lake)

Seven Voyages of Zylarthen adventure for three to six PCs of levels 5th-6th

I am reviewing these in the order they were submitted. For my review criteria, please check out this post. All reviews will (probably) contain *SPOILERS*; you have been warned! Because these are short (two page) adventures, it is my intention to keep the reviews brief.

Once again, Matthew Lake takes the final submission spot. Last year's entry was the best of the bunch and a decisive winner of the contest. This year? Well...

I'll make this brief, because I've already spent way too much time on this one. The idea here isn't bad: an undead AEgyptian princess zips around the world in her flying pyramid, picking up dummies to run a gauntlet/obstacle course for her immortal amusement. Okay, actually writing that out it looks worse than the concept actually is (I mean, D&D's premise isn't the greatest...). 

The problem with this one (well, my MAIN problem) is that A) it's written for Seven Voyages of Zylarthen, which requires some 'transduction' for me to grok, and B) the re-skinned monsters which need to be translated to 7VZ just so that I can translate them again to D&D terms. Which is a pain in the ass.

When I'm picking up a pre-written adventure for use at my table, I don't want UNDERSTANDING the module to be a "pain in the ass."

I will not quibble overmuch about 7VZ as an entry, because while NO, its system is NOT compatible with TSR-era D&D (its combat system functions differently), that doesn't matter terribly when looking at the adventure itself. All I see is "bugbear 12 HPs" or "gold ankh 500gp" or "save vs. spells or dance madly for 2-12 turns." These things all translate as "standard" D&D, and if you are playing this using OD&D, you don't need to know the funky 7VZ rules, nor does it matter that 7VZ doesn't use clerics or whatever.

No, the two biggest issues here are just monsters and treasures. 

All the damn re-skins. "Scarabites" as goblins. "Stag-Scarabites" as hobgoblins. "Bear-bugs" as bugbears. "Scarabite flyers" as...winged goblins, I guess? Infrared scarabs (invisible goblins). I mean, I get it, you've got a bug theme going on here. I'm trying to play D&D, and I keep seeing paragraphs full of unfamiliar mouthful of words and I have to remember if Rhino-Scarabs are the ones that get ridden (they are) or are those the Stag-Scarabs (no, they're the riders). Scarab-scarab-scarab...sheesh.

But that just makes the thing a headache to parse. The other issue is the treasure.

7VZ uses a "silver standard," which NO is NOT the same as an TSR-era edition of D&D but whatever, I can do math. So players have to SPEND money to earn x.p. (*sigh*) and they get 1 x.p. for every 1 silver piece spent. So, easy right? Just add up the s.p. value and treat it like g.p. for seeing if the treasure totals are good for this adventure, right?

Except that the author isn't CONSISTENT with his nomenclature. He gives some items' values in gold piece, some values in silver pieces, and then there are coppers thrown in the mix just to piss me off (because in Zylarthen, five CPs = 1 SP, meaning that UNLIKE normal D&D, 100K in copper is worth a phat score of 20K experience points, rather than just something to weigh down bodies in the river...). As a reviewer I have to assume that the author did not just typo his way through this thing and meant every scrap of loot to be worth its exact value which, besides being a pain in the ass, GROSSLY OVERVALUES the treasure yield of this adventure...should be 43K in silver and instead you've got 110K.

Of course, if you were just using it as an OD&D adventure than it's grossly UNDERvalued at a paltry 11K in gold pieces. Bleah.

Matthew, you did a great job last year, and you're a creative guy, but this one needs work. For me, it's not even playable...but I don't play Seven Voyages, even if it IS the "new hotness" amongst classic adventure gamers. However, some people do and...as with the ACKS submissions...I'll defer to other reviewers and simply mark this as *** assuming its appropriately functional (if over-treasured) for 7VZers.

The end.

ASC Review: Foggy Night to Forget

A Foggy Night to Forget (Jamie Henson)

BECMI/RC adventure for "all levels and groups from 1-99"

I am reviewing these in the order they were submitted. For my review criteria, please check out this post. All reviews will (probably) contain *SPOILERS*; you have been warned! Because these are short (two page) adventures, it is my intention to keep the reviews brief.

Welp we're down to the final two submissions; last year's ASC saw a couple real bangers at the end...can we hope for the same quality this time around? That the author thinks Basic edition PCs can get up to 99th level, does NOT bode well...

"A Foggy Night to Forget is as easy or hard as the DM decides..."

Mm. Okay, pal. On with the show!

Welcome to D&D meets Brigadoon! Albeit with less dancing.

Not going to lie...for all the issues with this one, I don't absolutely hate it. Maybe I have a soft spot for BECMI efforts; maybe I'm just addled after too many adventure reviews. But this one is...what? Touching? Charming? We have the quaint yet cursed hamlet that shows up on a foggy evening, drawing the PCs into its drama. Seems it's generally forced to reside inside a pocket dimension due to the irritation its inhabitants have caused Gloux, an Immortal of the Sphere of Thought (I don't know why, but part of me enjoys Mentzer's odd D&D cosmology...it's just so idiosyncratic from other forms of D&D), and they won't get released for realz until a murder mystery is solved. The author advises the adventure can be used as

"...a way to remove/kill PCs (of almost any power level -- a campaign-fix)..."

which is just so straight-up asshole, you have to be a tad impressed. It's like Trump telling people, yeah, we're just going to run Venezuela's oil from now on. Except, you know, more amusing and less mind-numbingly awful.

Sorry, sorry...digressions. A cursed, magic hamlet (a la Brigadoon) is about the perfect size for an adventure site, with its 11ish encounter areas. There's stuff going on (the curse, duh), people to interact with, factions to discover, mysteries to be plumbed. Heck, there's even a list of treasure to be found at each keyed location (on the off-chance to PCs just decide to bushwhack the townsfolk). There's whimsy here...from the god-spawned automaton that hangs out by the village well for no explained reason, to the pack of gator-men that are more hungry than hostile.

But "charming" as all that is, it's not really D&D play. This scenario basically assumes PCs are going  to be sucked into this railroad of a mystery-crawl, and then forced to dance till the DM says you're done...if ever (see the asshole bit above...). That's not real player agency...that't the illusion of agency. We (DMs) want PLAYERS to be EMPOWERED to be PROACTIVE when it comes to tackling adventures. This adventure tries to force players to care...which is about the worst thing to try to force on players. Especially in a ham-fisted way that relies on magical barriers of egress. 

Treasure is too little for "any number" of PCs of 36th level, let alone 99th (not a thing in this edition, by the way). Sure, there's a 800,000 g.p. "tristal" but clearly the author hasn't paid close enough attention to their Mentzer Companion Book 2 (or their Rules Cyclopedia) or they'd know that a tristal "may have any value from 1,000 to 100,000 gp." Probably just added an extra zero by mistake. The author's other stuff is good...although, they should have noted that "gator men" are found in AC9: Creature Catalogue (that took me a minute to figure out; a reference would have been handy).

Look, it's interesting, and it's got some fun stuff (like the vampire druid raising his army of level-sucking spiders). But its too dependent on its story for function...and that's a big no-no. This is ** with a "+" for potential. The disappearing village is a great idea for an adventure site, but don't make "solving" its curse the objective of play...instead, make it something fun that can be "unlocked" in the course of doing 'normal adventuring stuff' (i.e. kicking ass and taking loot). Design the thing for specific level and number of players. Don't tell DMs to adjust to their whim...DMs already do that (when we want to).