There are times where your personal obsession dictates what you look at to review, & there are times where you see a rating and wonder, how did it get that mark for essentially a free adventure, I need to figure this out for myself. This is a combination of both of those instances – I’m looking at starting adventures and this had a low rating without explanation. So let’s figure out what’s going on.

What is it?

This is a Shadowdark adventure for level 1 characters and new GMs set in an ancient knight’s tomb after some goblins move into the complex. The adventure starts after you come across the aftermath of an ambushed caravan. This is a fairly classic setup with a quest-driven adventure compared to the typical dungeon crawl location you normally see for Shadowdark. Should help with GMs coming from more heroic content feel comfortable.

Unique Features?

The keying is… a choice.

What’s the Story?

Sir Reinhart’s caravan was traveling on the road when a goblin raiding party attacks. He’s left to die but the party comes across him before that happens so the can learn of these attackers and be comfortably guided to their location in some caves and a tomb. We can safely assume there are undead in the tomb, because that’s where they rock n roll in their graves. (I’m sorry, that was awful.)

So… Adventure?

Before this even begins, the least helpful thing about this layout for new GMs is that things are wildly out of order for the sequence with which a GM will need to encounter them. For instance, we get the map & random encounter tables before the introduction (which tells us how to read the keys), the background, the NPCs, and then the description of the dungeon’s danger level that corresponds with the encounter tables we will be using.

Also, I’m going to mention it once, but know it happens multiple times. Columns will wrap on the same page & spread across to the next page. It’s always within a console spread, but if your goal is to assist a GM in learning a system or guide them comfortably through an adventure, eliminating wraps & jumps will contain information into referential blocks more easily so that referencing is easier to do. It’s a more focused approach to providing information to your GM, but it should help them read it more quickly. Unfortunately, I don’t think it will help much with this keying convention. More on that later.

Entrances

We start with the entrances to the area and the very first sentence is a struggle for me because it feels like a word is missing. “A large hill in a dark wood, a crown of menhirs atop it and a foreboding cave mouth at the base (sic).” I think this is meant to read a crown of menhirs sits atop a hill in a dark wood with a foreboding cave mouth at its base but the sentence structure & missing verbs leave me unsure. Either way, it’s not a great introduction to a starting adventure introducing the system through the mechanics of the adventure.

This is also an issue with the first entrance, “A ring of menhirs surrounding (sic) a stone slab inscribed with a Holy Symbol of St. Terragnis.” These are small grammatical things, but clarity is lost because of them. For me, I want clarity in any adventure I read, but I think it is especially important for starting adventures, because starting adventures are most likely to be picked up by new GMs & GMs new to the system. A frustrated GM is a lost GM is one who abandons the system. This is compounded then by the fact that entering the first entrance requires a mechanics that is not in the Shadowdark core (collective Strength check) and doesn’t explain how one is conducted. It could be, the entire party rolls the strength check and the highest is the option that is taken. It could be, the entire party rolls the strength check and they are added together. It could be that one person rolls and a small bonus is added for each person who assists. It’s not clear and it’s not explained.

Given that this is the first entrance and if you can enter it you can skip the Goblin Caves, this seems like a means of directing the group to the cave entrance. Otherwise, I think you would start the room keys with the tomb & not the goblin caves. Which I can only interpret to mean that you don’t want to add the collective strength checks together. The lack of clarity in attempting to be succinct really hinders understanding how this is supposed to run. You don’t have to hand-hold the GM, but you do need them to understand the adventure you are asking them to run.

Room Keys

But maybe the room keys make up for it.

1 Noise Trap
Bones and cutlery hanging from rough twine tied to the ceiling, about 2 feet off the ground.
Noise from the chimes attract Goblin guards from Room 2 to the North.

What chimes? Do you mean the bones and cutlery that hang from the ceiling? Why is it 2 feet off the ground? Is that meant to be a clue that the players can crawl under it? Even with their packs? What if they cut the bones & cutlery down? Does that take 1 round? 2 rounds? 5 rounds? I need to know so I know how many random encounters to roll or whether the goblin patrol passes by.

But let’s say I figure out what this means, how many guards are in Area 2? 2d4+2. Okay a minimum of 4 level 1 monsters. That follows the 1:1 monster guidance perfectly (SD Core Book, pg. 193). So roll anything higher than two 1s and you’re looking at increasingly deadly encounters. Oh it says in the room key that there are loud goblin voices coming from area 3 & 8 (with the warchief), what if I decide these are good little goblins and would alert the group & warchief they heard the chimes and are going to investigate? How many goblins would be prepared then? Area 3 has 2d6 (avg 4). Area 8 has Glub (warchief, level 3 – he can summon 1d6 goblins) and 1d4 (avg 2.5) concubines (who have a paralyze poison DC 12). In fairness, area 8 says there’s a 50% chance Glub is in the room relaxing, but does that mean the other 50% is a chance he’s gearing up for combat or not even present?

At a minimum, there are 6 goblins present. At a maximum, there are 22 goblins (6 more appear after round 1), 4 concubines, and Glub. That’s a TPK all because I thought, maybe they would alert their fellow goblins they sensed danger. This is why you need order of battle or guidance to how the goblins act. Not to mention, the goblins have the chance to drive the players mad so they will attack one another (adventure mechanic) or paralyze them.

I’m sorry, but Sir Reinhart’s people are dead.

Maybe also the party, maybe not. It depends on how you handle the simple question of “what happens then the chimes ring?” and a little guidance would be appreciated. The adventure is also pretty stark on how to provide information so the players can use their wits to overcome the obstacles before them.

For me, this reads a lot more like someone’s notes from a home adventure they thought was fun and that others might enjoy, because the succinct writing assumes way too much knowledge that the GM just isn’t given. There are a lot of assumptions that I’m making as I read as an experienced GM and I’m not even sure I’m correct. This lack of clarity really holds this adventure back. The rooms also get to be a little repetitive with the “2d6 INSERT MONSTER HERE” descriptions. (5 of the first 8 rooms have monsters. About half of the 20 rooms have monsters.)

To me, this is antithetical to a starting adventure. This requires a lot of prep to read, understand, and create a narrative around (mostly because the narrative is missing). If I’m running someone else’s adventure, I want it to reduce the work load I have to do. I want it to be clear as to what’s going on or how things work. Not this:

18 Arrow Trap
A widening in the hall with heavy dust on the floor.
Decreased dust around the edges of the room, a pressure plate concealed in the center. Fires d6 Arrows
(+4, 1d4 damage each) when activated.

It’s not interesting and I have to figure out how the trap can be dissembled or avoided. Even just a note that the T on the map indicates that is where the pressure plate is and it’s not a wall in the room (like I initially thought) would be useful. (WHICH PROVIDE A KEY FOR YOUR MAP!!!!!!)

So who is this for?

My best guess is that this adventure is for experienced GMs who are looking for a basic adventure they can gut and rebuild as their own. It’s not for new GMs. It’s not for people new to TTRPGs. It’s difficult to read because of the keying convention & the grammar. There wasn’t really anything interesting in the interactions. I applaud the effort and completing the task of writing something and putting it out there. This just isn’t for me.

If you made it this far, thank you. Now, I’m going to nitpick & nerd out on design. You have been warned.

Why this convention?

This adventure seems to be using one of the Shadowdark templates, but I’m unsure, so we’ll just say it’s definitely the Shadowdark trade dress. All my standard complaints about copying the SD trade dress &/or using templates apply.

Do your own thing!

That said, I’m also about to criticize doing their own thing because it doesn’t work.

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There’s padding issues throughout that just make things difficult to read. Especially, when the text is near the header bars. The inset maps are small and impossible to understand when they’re colored in to represent which rooms you’re in, because you can’t see the room number and multiple rooms are colored on one map. Column & page wrapping just makes it difficult to read as mentioned above & below.

BUT THE KEY FORMATTING!?

While the keying formatting is explained in the Introduction, it is unconventional and partially useless because it isn’t consistent throughout. This is a summary of the convention.

• STANDARD = information for the GM, potentially discoverable by players, system related such as stat blocks.
• BOLD = obvious items (not mentioned: it’s also used for monsters & rooms).
• ITALICS = secret information only discoverable through interaction.
• BOLD & ITALIC = locations or monster names or items with stat blocks.
• BULLETS = Specific items of note.

On the very next page in the GM Background, we have headers and d12 villagers bolded. So bold isn’t just obvious stuff now. Okay, maybe that’s because it’s GM Background. The very next page does it again and introduces the underline which wasn’t identified. Per the convention, Rooms 1-8 & Rooms 9-20 should be bold & italic. Teach me your system by adhering to it. Don’t break it the very next 2 pages.

But let’s skip to some room keys.

Yes, it is column wrapping because the map is underneath it. The problem with it is that it’s not immediately obvious the candles pertain to Area 2 & not Area 1, because in English, convention is read right to left, then top to bottom. Even though there is a column gutter, the eye will jump over that to read more text initially, you have to pull it back. That creates confusion when it is not immediately obvious where the information belongs.

Per these keys, there’s no discoverable information except noises to the north & west. The very obvious gold & silver coins are a secret. The monsters are bold or bold & italic (but not standard which is for system related things?). Why is MAD (not a location, monster, or item) bold & italicized? It’s not even a mechanic in Shadowdark. If you’re going to deviate from the traditional presentation of keying, be consistent with your own at least.

But more importantly, whole passages are bold or italicized. There’s a reason you don’t see this convention in technical manuals or novels. It’s hard to read. It’s difficult to reference. And, basic education teaches people that bolding & italicizing are used to draw the eye to something that is deemed important and worthy of the extra emphasis. (The Elements of Style.) This isn’t emphasis. It’s distraction.

2d4+2 goblins gets lost in that wall of bold text even though it’s the most obvious thing in the entire room key. A statue and the smell are insignificant compared to upwards of 10 potential enemies. You want to draw the GM’s eye to that information. But with a page full of bold and italics, it gets lost and it all blurs into unimportant.

This above all other things ruins this adventure for me. Because at a certain point, I’m fighting to apply your convention. A convention that conflicts with how we’re taught to write in school. It goes against all of the best practices already established in this hobby & related industries. If the convention fights the user instead of helping them run it, the only interpretation of what you are doing, that I can make, is that you really don’t want me to run your adventure.

Which is a shame. A good classic fantasy trope adventure is hard to come by and I was really hoping that 2 rating was because of trolling. My Cursed Knights of Crestmoor review goes into keying a lot more. All that advice applies here too.

It’s okay to try new things, but sometimes, they don’t work out. That’s okay. Just throw away the bad and start over.