I’m not just going to do classic modules on this occasional feature, I’m also looking at popular/famous other works…and so why not Indie Darling/award-winning Deep Carbon Observatory, a fundamental LotFP module so coated by reviewer slobber that it is barely discernable as an original shape anymore. I’m not going to weary anyone with the thousandth review of the adventure itself, suffice it to say it’s a good idea that labors to make something playable. This is about the maps, dear boy, the maps. I’ll cover the overland map a little at the end, but if you’re new to DCO, it’s basically a situation-as-adventure, this dam just broke and flooded a valley, so adventurers get to revel in suffering and misery of the victims in the lower valley, then hit a mini-dungeon at the dam itself, then get to explore the now-uncovered lake bed above. The titular observatory is a complex built by Your Own Favorite Ancient Evil Precursor Race to examine the Legally Distinct Dark Under. The dangly final observatory is built to be the reward for the suffering party’s long and soggy trek, so it’s a map well worth study. Gross. Alright, first off, it’s correctly in isometric, which is something you need for such a vertical environment, albeit with a slightly wonky perspective that means I wouldn’t want to transmit this to a mapper, or even uncover bits on a VTT with dynamic lighting. Carefully working through the illustration does allow for parsing all the connections, but a flowing order of battle would be difficult to describe, and random encounters aren’t exactly easy to conjure out of the geography. No scale is provided, nor is there much of a key, so squint carefully at the pictures, dear suffering DM, and hope that the vivid and well-written content sticks with the incidental details well enough. It’s an effective piece of art unlike a lot of the other module illustrations, conveying the mood brilliantly…that’s certainly worth something. C+ for presentation. Lest I get accused of being overly dour, this is a great concept. Speaking as a physicist it of course has nothing to do with any real-world scientific observing, but the idea of a deep underground observatory for magical “under darkness” is great. Ancient, decaying structures are D&D’s bread and butter, but there’s a brilliant reason for this place to be exotic and for this spot to have never before been uncovered. Every part of the setup primes us for a weird, alien, and maddening underworld location that any sensible player group worth their salt would be thrilled to explore. And having the dungeon shaped as a pair of hollowed-out stalactites? A for concept. Sadly, the very first thing we hit when it comes to execution is “site is very small”. Fifteen keys does not a triumphal Final Dungeon make, even allowing for another dozen “spurs” that lack for any unique keying there’s not a lot to explore. A squishy mutated giant should have vast cavernous halls, a veritable maze to chase hapless adventurers down, not this tight little one-access loop. The concept calls, nay begs, for a huge complex filled with laboratories and barracks. Instead, a PC at one end of the place can quite reasonably expect to shout and be heard all the way over at the other end. Unfortunately this also means everything is pretty overstuffed too. Isometrics always make maps look more geometrically complex than they are, and this one is no exception. Single entry, only one main loop, barely even any branching…the exploration isn’t, most of the time. The only thing really saving the map is how vertical the whole thing is; long and dangly shafts to climb up and down make a lot of potential difference, once the third dimension opens up, players will start seeing the world as more real. That bridge between the two stalactites in particular is nice and terrifying, non-OSHA-compliant pass ways over an effectively infinite blackness are thrilling. Pity that and the long dangle-chain are the only bits of environment that really take full advantage of that. Powerful isometric art-piece maps are wonderful at conveying mood when the reader is sitting there and imagining dungeon-like gaming…but it’s what I’m going to call the Trilemma Problem, after the genuinely beautiful Trilemma Adventures (http://blog.trilemma.com/), a huge set of pretty one-shot maps that completely fall apart (or need a ton of work) whenever someone attempts to actually play them. Your players aren’t going to be able to see that isometric map, so who is it really for? It’s not made for a dungeon master; it’s made for a consumer. A passive reader, a reviewer with a Youtube channel, a Kickstarter backer. The comrades trying to play a game? That’s a much smaller audience, so wise call not optimizing for them. D+ for execution. Having said all that, I do need to highlight an isometric map that works a good deal better as a play aid, the valley map. Please note that it’s not strictly necessary to present the flooded valley/emptied lakebed as an isometric map, but it’s a charming touch for the regional map, and in no way detracts from the linear slog up-river. Coupled with the dry boxes-and-arrows event sequencer, a DM is absolutely equipped to run the most miserable Tragedy Crawl he could ever dream up. The key difference? Nobody needs to break out graph paper (or Christmas wrapping paper) to actually figure out what a 30’ move speed gets you. Don’t let this convince you one way or another on actually getting Deep Carbon Observatory. It’s putting the product to its secondary use, but a good adventure can definitely be had using it. You’re just going to be struggling against the map a bit, which is the real tragedy.
3 Comments
Commodore
4/28/2024 11:54:01 am
I know, it's pretty cool...but unfortunately, no mystic reality-warping revelations are forthcoming from that project.
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