Fairytale adventure by Chance Duninack, levels 1-3. Written for B/X or something in the family. I have been in the habit of dumpster diving for reviews, blindly groping amidst the muck of itch.io for the occasional gem. While there’s a lot of dreck, this also feels like a pretty fair sampling method for “average” adventures. There’s a rich-get-richer aspect to reviewing suggested adventures and old TSR modules, which not only stops the rare anonymous gem from getting noticed, but it also means we all hear just the 4,286th review of Keep on the Borderland and I’m not sure the value add there (capsule review: B2 is good). Still, I’m curious, at times, to look at “popular” modules, perhaps not the very highest of the high, but things hailed far and wide certainly, possessing what the kids call “hype”. The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford is one such module, Adamantine Bestseller on DriveThruRPG, hailed as Best by Bryce Lynch at Tenfootpole and by Ben Milton at Questing Beast. I’m a big advocate of dragons, black dragons in particular, so why not check out Black Wyrm and see what passes for high quality in this joint? First off, what is the audience for this? Well, I’d argue there’s an ostensible audience, and an actual audience, but we’ll start by taking this at face value…as level 1-3 adventure set in a simple village in the enchanted wilderness, this is a classic starter module, designed to take a wide-eyed young Dungeon Master and his three-to-five fresh-faced friends on a fairytale adventure with their brand-new just-rolled OSE characters (Human fighter, human cleric, human thief, token elf, token dwarf) on a magical romp that hits every expected high point. There’s a witch in the woods, requisite bandits, nuisance goblins, tricky fairies, a mean/stupid giant, a greedy dwarf mine, an undead-containing barrow, and of course a nicely evil dragon. We laugh, we cry, we lose the elf to a random encounter and roll a magic-user…all is right with the world. May I now have my vast profits please (just enough $$$ to be mildly annoying on the taxes and to pay for at least one unwise hobby purchase). Lest we accuse the module of the dire sin of “being generic”, there is a very distinctive and flavorful voice here. The titular Black Wyrm is a former dwarf, twisted in draconic form by his own greed after murdering his brothers over a gold cache (coins they discovered while…mining? It doesn’t make sense but it fits the vibe). He’s menacing the simple prosperous village of Brandonsford, providing half of the adventuring impetus within the bucolic woodsy adventuring region. The other threat to the region is the goblin incursion, these goblins are firmly on the fae side of the spectrum and under their king Hogboon are seeking to conquer the region. Ineptly. A few little side-quests like capturing a fairy drunkard or romantically setting up a pair of eccentric villagers add spice, but most of the content of the module will be traipsing about the woods looking for ways your first-level party might be able to overcome a wingless but otherwise very formidable dragon. I haven’t mathed it out perfectly but I think parties that “do all the content” can confront the dragon with the fighter and thief at level 3, while the elf and the magic user manage level 2. It’s a solid adventure framework, probably looking at 10-20 hours of play. Format and writing quality are very high, which explains why this product is bobbling high upon a veritable ocean of reviewer drool. Prominent villagers are heavily described, with plenty of useful detail for any long roleplay scenes desired, while every random encounter is richly detailed with “individuals doing things” per Tenfootpole.org standards. Format is clean, with main description not taking up too much time and bullets clearly broken out for details...all written in naturalistic language. With a few notable exceptions, monster stats are given when the monster appears, while magic items (all lovingly unique, of course) appear in the appendix at the end. The two maps (one for the goblin “castle”, one for the two-level barrow) have a charming hand-drawn style, simple and understandable. There’s a trio of cute little illustrations through the booklet that add to the given section’s description. I legitimately have zero complains about the layout of this module, it’s a good-looking product. Eagle-eyed readers may have just spotted a dangerous qualifier a moment ago, though. There are a few occasions where stats are not given, like in the case of a statue that attacks if the players don’t recite the virtues found in a knight…I guess we’re supposed to use an Animated Statue statblock? There’s a magical glowing citrine that the party gets if they help the village alchemist get her groove on that explodes violently if exposed to torchlight…how much damage is that? 1d6? 6d6? “Nuclear bomb”? I can improvise that, you could probably improvise that, our imaginary starry-eyed newbie DM? Probably not. And I get that in a lot of places, this is a level 1-3 module but there are some very dangerous spaces here, with nasty damage spikes…let alone the dragon. Despite the initial impressions, there is a lot of assumed experience needed to properly run this adventure, cultural knowledge imparted by spending a long time not just with TTRPGs, but in the “OSR scene”. This extends even to the module’s overall structure…why should we go to the Barrow of Sir Brandon? Because there’s magic to defeat a dragon there, of course. As nice-looking and well-presented as everything is, the game being played is very simple, dare I say Basic (not /eXpert). The goblin castle is six keys…all very well-written keys, but there is zero exploratory potential. The barrow is barely exploratory, mostly linear, just a couple secret doors (including one found via symmetry, good) and loops, which is fine, but there’s also some confusion about what’s going on in a “barrow”, with one parlor room filled with stuffed chairs. Very normal to have Lazy Boy loungers 30ft from the grave of a saint. It’s whimsical, but not deep. Verisimilitude isn’t just a totem, playing in a realistic world with consistent rules gives players freedom to think outside of the module’s box based on their own understanding of a world, while this midsummer night’s dream drips with flavor, I don’t know if players running this are going to be looking into making rock-slide traps. Flavor can constrain in ways not entirely obvious, and I think that’ll happen on a playthrough of Black Wyrm of Brandonsford. No playtesters are credited, by the way. So circling back to the question of audience, who is this product actually written for? It is very simple, what’s being sold here is nostalgia. This is not a module for the young, this is a module for middle-aged men trying to recapture the feeling of being young. And this is the right choice for a financially successful module. Reviewers can quickly grok the flavor and (being mostly middle-aged men nostalgic for their own youths) transmit enthusiasm for it. People who buy modules to read and imagine playing them love this stuff, it’s a perfect length for that (18 pages). I’ll bet this thing streams on Twitch or Youtube really well too, if I was trying to make a punchy 20-hour actual play podcast season I’d love this. It’s a perfect price point for this audience ($5 pdf, $9 softcover), it’s charmingly marketed…good job. There’s a reason why it’s in the top-200 of all DriveThruRPG sellers of all time, and frankly it deserves it. You should never come to me for advice on how to be a successful adventure module writer. First module I ever wrote is the Fall of Whitecliff, which was also a tenfootpole Best, it is in the top quartile for DTRPG downloads, it does have at least one Youtube actual play…but it’s nothing near Black Wyrm’s level of success. And that’s rightly so, because I wrote the product focused on being played by groups at the table, which is a far smaller audience demo. Nevertheless, it’s those products, even churned out in the dreck mines of itch.io, that interest me in writing and reviewing. That’s why I don’t think I’ll be focusing on the Adamantine Bestsellers or whatever…or at least I wouldn’t label those as “adventure” reviews. There are then three ratings I’ll give The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford: As a read? *****, delightful read, evokes a wonderful mood. As an “Old School experience”? *****, you and your friends will scratch your greying beards with joy. As a straight adventure? ***, it’s fine, you’ll have fun.
6 Comments
Tuirgin
6/4/2024 02:40:06 pm
I've played this module and am currently running it for a group of teens who have never played D&D. They started with Volokarnos, and I quickly realized I was going to lose them. So, Black Wyrm, I thought. And it's working. But it's also a little annoying to my quasi-OCD.
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Tuirgin
6/4/2024 02:55:30 pm
"lot bridge" should be "log bridge," both times.
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Commodore
6/4/2024 07:20:50 pm
That's kind of what I expected, it's good, but to make it into the best play experience there's a lot of homework.
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6/4/2024 03:21:03 pm
Damn, I'd heard good things about this one from Bryce, but I never thought it sold that well. Also seems that both our recent reviews come to the sample place about RPG publishing, which is just dreadful. Stay strong!
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Commodore
6/4/2024 07:23:42 pm
Oh, no worries about me staying strong. Look at my review tag: https://coldlightrpgpress.weebly.com/home/category/review
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Jacob72
6/5/2024 07:46:33 am
To reach adamantinum sales level how many require to be sold?
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