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We continue our review of starting adventures. Part of the reason, I’ve been focused on this particular brand of adventure is because I want to write a good starting adventure as part of my next project. In general, I’m finding that most highly rated ones tend to be overly simplified, but understandably, that makes them easier to introduce people to the system & adaptable to more people. So at some point, I need to resolve balancing a little more complexity with the ease that solid starting adventures possess.

So, when I turn to The Meadery Mishap, it successfully introduces some of the complexity by having an adventure in a few parts, while maintaining some of that ease of use. Let’s get into it.

What is it?

The Meadery Mishap is a Shadowdark adventure for level 1 characters. It tackles a the classic farmer has a problem and hires adventures trope. It’s about 16 pages so it’s an easy read before the session and can be run pretty much from the module.

Unique Features?

It lists the value of the treasure after the treasure. (I wish more people did this because it’s such a useful tool to teach GMs what you think the value of the item is.)

What’s the story?

Sweet Mug meadery collects honey for their mead from a special cave where giant bees nest. Unfortunately, gnolls discovered the cave and want to make it their new lair. They’ve started trying to smoke the bees out. The Honey Master from the meadery hires the party to go solve the problem.

There’s also a kidnapping. Plot twist! It’s not the farmer’s daughter.

So… Adventure?

Conceptually, the adventure is pretty straightforward and can be explained in essentially in a sentence. Eliminate the gnolls. Lately, when I’ve been reading to provide feedback or just editing briefs for work, it has felt like simple is not easy. So, getting to read something that understands what it is in a straightforward manner has been a breath of fresh air after exiting a 80s pool hall smelling like the Marlboro man.

Setup

Normally, I’m critical when I notice a slight typo in the opening pages and this is no exception.

I believe there should be a word or phrase after “Brinewick’s”, but it also works without it, so maybe it is only missing a period. In general, when I identify these lapses, it’s because there’s a lapse in clarity that can hinder the adventure. Here, if anything is missing beyond a period, it is insignificant enough that clarity is not lost. I appreciate that caliber of writing. It’s hard to capture every small error while editing. There are a handful of punctuation issues throughout, but none of them hamper understanding.

There’s a simple map showing the region, alongside some brief descriptions of the key areas. The map is grey on grey which isn’t ideal, but it’s drawn in a fairly simple manner & at a decent size so it’s still legible. After that, we get some random encounters for traveling between the nodes and a timeline of escalating events to help progress the story. Each section has a brief explanation of the mechanics to assist new GMs on how to utilize the information when conveying the adventure to the table. All of this initial setup is basically spread over 3 pages. It strikes a solid balance of providing just enough & not too much that it’s overwhelming.

Note, I did not describe any factions or NPCs. That’s because this adventure wisely chose to put that information at the point of first contact with the players. This is one of those design choices that I think works within the context of the adventure. Some adventures should place the information at the beginning to give the GM some idea before starting, others should include it at the point of interaction. Because this is a shorter adventure, at the point of interaction makes more sense. It also lets the GM get to the adventure faster.

In that same vein, it avoids adventure hooks & rumors using a simple call to action quest as a means of getting the GM into the gameplay quicker.

Adventure Locations

Unlike most dungeon crawls, this is more of a (node-based) narrative adventure. It’s not the norm for Shadowdark and that’s okay since the system is robust enough to support this type of gameplay. (Or maybe, it’s the norm since it seems like a lot of the adventures I’ve reviewed seem to follow this styling more than dungeon crawls even though Shadowdark is definitely a system for supporting dungeon crawls.)

Brinewick

Our first location is Brinewick, the little village where the meadery resides. When I first started embracing the OSR style of gameplay (I grew up in AD&D 2e, but I started GMing later in 4e), I struggled with adventures that gave locations meant to be used as scenes for players to gather information before setting out on the actual adventure. Here, Brinewick is presented in a simple manner that makes this style of GMing a bit more accessible, by providing a basic description of the town, a few unique points of interest in it, and relevant NPCs in a simple, straightforward manner.

For instance, Master Angler Tobi “[is] an elderly man with a big grey beard and surprisingly muscular arms”. That description is immediately followed his wants (re. quest offer) and reward. Concise and clear writing conjures visions of Popeye (without the spinach & anger issues) and provides immediate direction for the GM to give to the players. These are the small things that seem obvious, but are hard to execute effectively. This does both. Could do with a little more memorable flavor, but it’s also okay as is.

Seaweed Grotto

Second, we move into Seaweed Grotto. It’s a fairly standard 5-room dungeon. It goes: obstacle, monster, treasure, hazard/trap, monster. There’s an interesting backstory to the Kelp Horror that lives in the grotto (no spoilers), but I’m not entirely sure how anyone would learn this backstory without the GM flat out having someone in town say it. None of the keys relate to it. Which is unfortunate, because there’s a lot you could do with it. Well, you will have to do it on your own I guess. Look at that, opportunity for the GM to truly embrace it and make it their own.

The other thing that makes me side-eye Seaweed Grotto is that it is not related to the main adventure. Maybe one of the missing fisherman you are attempting to rescue has a note about the gnolls smoking out a cave along the beach as a clue for the Meadery Quest. In fact, when I ran this adventure, that’s exactly what I did.

Rope Raft

It’s a bridge troll trope. It involves a simple riddle where the answer is provided. The riddle is fairly simple, but it’s one of those adventure elements that table mileage will vary since riddles are incredibly table dependent. If riddles work for your table, you may want to print off a few more, because you’ll need at least 2 and the adventure only comes with one. Otherwise, this is reduced to a difficult DC 16 STR (ARGH! non-standard DCs, just use 15 to further impress upon the standard DCs used in Shadowdark) check. To save you some time and effort, here’s a some extra riddles:

What is always running but never tired? Answer: Water.
What has a bed but never sleeps? Answer: A River.
I am transparent, but you can see me. As a solid, I lose my transparency. When heated, I vaporize. What am I? Answer: Water (ice).

Why you should use the standard DCs?

1. It’s part of the system. As such, it’s an expectation you will use it.
2. Because players will have that expectation, it slows their decision making at the table when confronted with deviation.
3. It’s harder to perceive risk at lower incremental changes. Using the standard DCs, makes it easier for players to make a decision or propose ways to lower the DC through some sort of preparation when the DCs follow the standard 3-increment stepping.
4. This improves decision-making speed at the table by making the risks easier to perceive.

Also consider this guidance given by the Creator for GMs regarding how to use the system. It indicates that standardized DCs should be considered the expectation.

Honeywell Cave

As the focus of the primary quest, Honeywell Cave represents where the players will spend the largest chunk of time potentially. But at 8 rooms, it’s not a significant amount more. The two main dungeons in this adventure add up to a total of 13 rooms which is about enough for 1-2 sessions.

This 8-room dungeon has the following interactivity pattern: NPC, monster/quest?, loot, monster, monster & loot, loot, monsters, monsters. It lacks a bit of variety. There’s also a weird element to the first chamber in that she may not even be there to interact with so it may just be an empty room. Which leads to some weird with the 4th chamber. It mentions Whispercap Fungi grow here but makes no other mention about its capability or threat beyond the NPC in the first chamber wants it. It sort of makes this interactivity meaningless.

A quick fix I used and think worked well was I removed Sylara from the events table, put her in town, and made her request the fungi as a quest (another hook to explore either cave). I also think, if you do that, it’s perfectly fine to have Sylara make a potion out of them so that they can speak to bees. Heck, add some whispercaps fungi to the grotto and that way the players can come to Honeywell prepared. (I wish I had thought of that before I ran it.)

There were a few other changes I made to reinforce the theme (grey ooze became honey dripping), the oozes became honey oozes to help explain why it was special honey for the mead, etc. None of these changes fundamentally altered the adventure. They were things I felt enhanced the experience at the table & wished had been part of the original adventure.

Mostly, I sort of felt a little let down by the lack of variety of the interactivity within the Honeywell Cave. So I added some. Sort of like remixing the rooms a little. The bones are solid. I just wanted more from it.

So who is this for?

This is for anyone looking for a solid starting adventure that is quirky & whimsical. It’ll teach a style of play that Shadowdark supports with some elements of dungeon crawling (while not entirely the focus). Due to the light-hearted nature of much of the writing & circumstances, this could easily be run for younger audiences and family members as well. I’m kind of jealous of that because I tend to write more horrifically, horror-themed, … grim dark.

If you made it this far, thank you. Now, I’m going to nitpick the design in the most milquetoast manner, because it’s basically fine. Some things I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m not giving a pass to, but don’t really want to bother with either so soon as the last time I nitpicked them.

Honestly, there’s not much to nitpick. This is similar to the SD trade dress, but uniquely its own. It lacks some personal flavor from the adventure that I would prefer, but it is well-suited to a style belonging entirely to the creators. If I see a tear-dropped moon surrounding a page number, I know immediately who it belongs to. (But I would have enjoyed a honeycomb motif because of course you would in an adventure about honey mead.)

I do dislike the use of the obelus bullet points on the room keys. They’re primarily used to denote footnotes, so when people use them as a primary bullet point, it breaks with convention a little and nags at the back of the brain. I don’t think most people deal with a lot of footnotes in their reading since citation tends to be either academic, medical, or legal, so it’s likely a personal nitpick more than anything.

I enjoyed the art and everything else. It’s cute. It’s solid. Nothing ground-breaking or seismic. Just a good, enjoyable adventure for starters. I’d put this on par with Cursed Knights of Crestmoor.