The Horrible House of Ivan Vantig

[spittingimage]

I'd appreciate some commentary and criticism on the attached adventure. I've been thinking about it so long it's made its way into my dreams.

 

[Stan]

Wow, I love the concept. I like the controlled randomness and the oddness.

It doesn't say what system it's best for and the intended level.

The treasure may be a tad high relative to the strength of the monsters, though this is balanced by the fact that much of it is bulky. But then, I'm often stingy so take this with a grain of salt.

The die roll + depth mechanic is perfect. I obviously haven't had time to play it but allowing the die size to vary according to DM taste might make the total length slightly more predictable. Maybe a d12 down to a D8. Could add 1-2 more clues that increase depth by 1-4.

Maybe reduce the encounter die from a d6 to a d4 to make the house more populated.

 

[E-Rocker]

I like it. I think I will drop it into my campaign at some point. Thanks!

 

[Voros]

My phone isn’t letting my download it to my Google storage so I’ll have to grab it later on my desktop.

 

[spittingimage]

Wow, I love the concept. I like the controlled randomness and the oddness.

It doesn't say what system it's best for and the intended level.

Thanks for the feedback.

It's intended for D20 OSR games, hence the sketchy statblock. I'll make that clear in the intro. I've embraced the intentionally unbalanced nature of OSR encounters because it means I don't have to learn how to balance combat.

The die roll + depth mechanic is perfect.

Stolen, utterly stolen. My inspiration was Emmy Allen's Gardens of Ynn. Another thing for me to add to the intro.

I obviously haven't had time to play it but allowing the die size to vary according to DM taste might make the total length slightly more predictable. Maybe a d12 down to a D8. Could add 1-2 more clues that increase depth by 1-4.

Maybe reduce the encounter die from a d6 to a d4 to make the house more populated.

I've been thinking about that. Maybe a d10 with 8 and 9 as single creature-type encounters and 10 as a mixed encounter. I'm not completely decided yet.

 

[Stan]

I've been thinking about that. Maybe a d10 with 8 and 9 as single creature-type encounters and 10 as a mixed encounter. I'm not completely decided yet.

I think that would be a good encounter density, with 1-2 complex encounters from multiple creatures.

 

[Malrex]

Forgive me as I quickly scanned over it so take this with a grain of salt. Here's my initial thoughts/comments/suggestions:

1. I like the depth+roll rule. Very interesting idea.
2. Suggestion--bold important stuff so its easy to scan DURING play. For example, I like how you have "Treasure:"---but maybe bold Treasure: so it pops out!
3. Instead of saying: "The first encounter here will be the Predatory Coat Rack"--this takes up a bunch of space when you do it for each room like that. I would put in the GM's notes in the beginning of the adventure explaining that monsters that are connected to the room are labeled there and are only there for the first time the party enters the room--that way you only have to write it once. Then I would do something similar like you did with Treasure: and have Monster: Predatory Coat Rack (and bold that stuff). Also is there a chance that they would get 2 different types of creatures in there or just 1?

4. Use bullet points or a 2nd paragraph for when players interact with the environment. For example:

"2: Great hall
The floor is tiled. The tiles are decorated with elegant curving pattern at the side the characters have entered from. It becomes simpler and blockier towards the other end of the room.

The patterns eventually morph into a pair of symbols. Educated characters have a chance to recognize one as the angelic glyph Nelphael (good job using italics here btw.) and the other as the demonic symbol AGA."

So I just broke that up a little bit so the GM can tell them the description...then if a party member explores a bit more, they will get a little more info in the second paragraph (or bullet points).
I would also delete "Treasure: none."--it just takes up unneeded space.

5. Go through your adventure and change the words "small" and "large" to something else using a thesaurus. Try massive or cramped, or something a little more evocative.

6. Go through entire document and get rid of the word "will". 98% of the time its a word that's not needed.

7. Another idea--maybe make a random roll table for different types of furniture or items in the room. You have a section that covers that a little bit, but maybe an extra table. You said if the party enters the same room, it might have different stuff in it. Would make things fun for the DM to roll on a table and come up with a broken couch or a candelabra that looks like a dragon, or whatever the table comes up with to help with the randomness.

8. Speaking of tables...I would almost make tables for all the components you got and have page numbers for them. I could then roll the dice, look up the descriptions quickly with the page numbers. Like--Great Hall, Predatory Coat Rack, Overstuffed chair that has a pouch of gems inside it, and its raining Whiskey. Then I look them up by page number for more detail (or if you know how to link stuff throughout the pdf--I don't know how to do that myself, but that would be cool). Also, you do it a little bit by having a big ENCOUNTERS and other titles for each section...That's good, but if you were to publish this, I would almost have a full page that just says ENCOUNTERS or ROOMS or whatever to REALLY break up the section and slap some art on that page. Maybe that's overkill...just a thought.

9. You do a great job with your encounters--the creatures are doing something...makes the place feel more alive..

10. Another, maybe overkill idea. If the house is weird, maybe the room shapes are weird too. Maybe a table for different room shapes or a map of d6 different room shapes.

I REALLY like what you got going on overall.

 

[spittingimage]

Forgive me as I quickly scanned over it so take this with a grain of salt. Here's my initial thoughts/comments/suggestions:

1. I like the depth+roll rule. Very interesting idea.
2. Suggestion--bold important stuff so its easy to scan DURING play. For example, I like how you have "Treasure:"---but maybe bold Treasure: so it pops out!
3. Instead of saying: "The first encounter here will be the Predatory Coat Rack"--this takes up a bunch of space when you do it for each room like that. I would put in the GM's notes in the beginning of the adventure explaining that monsters that are connected to the room are labeled there and are only there for the first time the party enters the room--that way you only have to write it once. Then I would do something similar like you did with Treasure: and have Monster: Predatory Coat Rack (and bold that stuff). Also is there a chance that they would get 2 different types of creatures in there or just 1?

4. Use bullet points or a 2nd paragraph for when players interact with the environment. For example:

"2: Great hall
The floor is tiled. The tiles are decorated with elegant curving pattern at the side the characters have entered from. It becomes simpler and blockier towards the other end of the room.

The patterns eventually morph into a pair of symbols. Educated characters have a chance to recognize one as the angelic glyph Nelphael (good job using italics here btw.) and the other as the demonic symbol AGA."

So I just broke that up a little bit so the GM can tell them the description...then if a party member explores a bit more, they will get a little more info in the second paragraph (or bullet points).
I would also delete "Treasure: none."--it just takes up unneeded space.

5. Go through your adventure and change the words "small" and "large" to something else using a thesaurus. Try massive or cramped, or something a little more evocative.

6. Go through entire document and get rid of the word "will". 98% of the time its a word that's not needed.

7. Another idea--maybe make a random roll table for different types of furniture or items in the room. You have a section that covers that a little bit, but maybe an extra table. You said if the party enters the same room, it might have different stuff in it. Would make things fun for the DM to roll on a table and come up with a broken couch or a candelabra that looks like a dragon, or whatever the table comes up with to help with the randomness.

8. Speaking of tables...I would almost make tables for all the components you got and have page numbers for them. I could then roll the dice, look up the descriptions quickly with the page numbers. Like--Great Hall, Predatory Coat Rack, Overstuffed chair that has a pouch of gems inside it, and its raining Whiskey. Then I look them up by page number for more detail (or if you know how to link stuff throughout the pdf--I don't know how to do that myself, but that would be cool). Also, you do it a little bit by having a big ENCOUNTERS and other titles for each section...That's good, but if you were to publish this, I would almost have a full page that just says ENCOUNTERS or ROOMS or whatever to REALLY break up the section and slap some art on that page. Maybe that's overkill...just a thought.

9. You do a great job with your encounters--the creatures are doing something...makes the place feel more alive..

10. Another, maybe overkill idea. If the house is weird, maybe the room shapes are weird too. Maybe a table for different room shapes or a map of d6 different room shapes.

I REALLY like what you got going on overall.

Thanks Malrex, I appreciate the feedback.