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A jam submission

Blood Drenched MoorsView game page

3 First-Borns go missing, You have 5 Nights, can you save them?
Submitted by Gerard Earl Balsley IV — 15 days, 17 hours before the deadline
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Blood Drenched Moors's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
Game Master Usability#833.0673.067

Ranked from 45 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

(+1)

love the dungeon generator and the time limit on the adventure

(+1)

What level is this designed for?

Developer

My apologies, I really don't know what level it fits as I both don't believe in game balance and am new to Shadow Dark.

I think you as a game master will know better and can adjust the module to your tastes. 50 HP might be too low for Phantom Hanne, 2d6+6 Damage might instantly kill a character especially if he gets 3 chances to roll it on his turn.

Submitted(+1)

I love the tables for encounter generation. The sparks are 10/10!

Developer(+1)

Thank you, I was inspired by Electric Bastionland which has sparks for everything and a massively creative world. 

I had a full encounter list and was planning on making like +30 Stat Blocks for it but had to scrap for page count.

Might include the table and stats and two example mounds later but not while the jam is going, don't want to disqualify myself.

(+1)

That ring is super overpowered—two effects, one of which can be invisibility? Definitely unbalanced. I like the section on designing a random barrow, but the requirement to have a certain grid of numbered rooms is too rigid. Just assume barrows will have as many rooms as players can explore in a single game night and prepare more rooms for backups if exploration goes faster. 

Developer(+1)
That ring is super overpowered—two effects, one of which can be invisibility? Definitely unbalanced.

The odds of them finding the kid, knowing what they're holding onto, and it having invisibility, and then managing to keep it a secret is the challenge with that ring. It''s a great plot hook and a pretty decent reward assuming they even manage but that'll be harder then it seems and it'll allow you to have hounds of a far greater power hunt them for it.

I don't believe in game balance. There are limitless ways to counter players and situations you can create that'll push them into acting heroically despite the seemingly impossible odds.

the requirement to have a certain grid of numbered rooms is too rigid. Just assume barrows will have as many rooms as players can explore in a single game night and prepare more rooms for backups if exploration goes faster.

 Thank you for the feedback, but I am having a hard time understanding what you mean. 

The 3-by-3 grid is a layout mechanic, you don't have to have all 9 rooms and I recommend you only have 8 or even 7. 

That's a range of 27 to 21 Rooms for a Major Mound, there are 3 of those and up to 3 red herring minor mounds with 7 to 9 rooms each for anywhere from 61 to 108 Rooms to clear 5 days, a 1/4th of those being empty or treasure rooms and 2 per floor being just for entrances and exits it's actually less.

The whole point is that this places weren't built just so the players could clear it in one night, they're burial mounds occupied by layers and layers of monsters who settled them afterwards, they're also defensive structures used by the villain to protect what he needs for a ritual. Why would he use a place that could be cleared out in the real world time of a game night?

I mean I'm not sure how I'd do it seeing as, groups move at different speeds and spend different amounts of times playing so I wouldn't know who to make it for, I personally do a lot of play by post over discord and haven't really sat at a table since October so this is even more alien to me.

I see where you're coming from but that's not really how I think about level design and I haven't seen anything that reflected what I wanted so I went and made it. 

Sorry for rambling or if I come off as rude, I'm just free flowing here and a little unsure of what you exactly mean.

But, if you run this or put it in your world and want to use a format I think you'd like more let me suggest The 5 Room Dungeon, then you can make the reward either a treasure at the end or the way down, use the spark tables for ideas.

Also, you know your group, you know how long you play and how many rooms you clear. You can make a net work of rooms working in  loops and what not using the spark tables to populate and just keep the similar format going. 

Thank you for looking at it and leaving a comment, I hope that I shared ideas that'll work with your style and explain my kind of strange funky style. Sorry if this comes off as rude, I'm really not trying to be, and also I know this is a massive wall of text and again, sorry. 

Have a good one, please enjoy, and get back to me if you have any follow ups.

Submitted(+1)

Classic dark fairy tale setup, very cool. The tables for creating the dungeons are great, really fun ideas in here. I wish we had some more NPCs with some secrets, rumors, or varying motivations to make the players time outside the mounds a little more interesting. Overall looks like a solid one or two shot that I would run.

Developer(+1)

Thank you so much, It means a lot that you looked at this and left feedback.

The book was much longer and included a random encounter list I had to cut for page count. (I am a long winded person and like to get into it), I was also planning on including both a Minor and Major Mound to inspire which was packed with cool fights and interesting NPCs.

I might post it as a follow up, I got like most of the way done, and I'm not sure if I want to put it up yet because I might get disqualified for like another PDF of supplemental materials thus subverting the page count rule.

If you'd be interested I'll finish it up and post it once the jam is done.

Submitted(+1)

Yeah, cutting something down can be really tricky, I understand.
You should totally put out a longer version after the jam and let me know, I'd love to check that out!

Submitted(+2)

I like the mound generation method.  As long as the GM has adequate prep time, it should insure a unique experience each time the adventure is run.

Developer

Thank you so much. 

I wanted an alternative to the 5 Room Methodand something a little more formulated and easy to follow. 

I made two mounds before I saw the page count and had to cut them (might release as a supplement after the jam), and the stuff in there was wild. I had a vegetable witch and a flying man carving some runes onto every square inch of a massive cube room  for an unknown purpose, there was a vampire knight under the mind control of the bad guy guarding one of the children.