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Message: <blockquote data-quote="demiurge1138" data-source="post: 4696579" data-attributes="member: 7451">Sure thing!DCC #3: The Mysterious TowerThis adventure was written by Joseph Goodman himself! So one would assume that this would probably be a pretty good archetypical example of a Dungeon Crawl Classics module. And The Mysterious Tower does deliver.Many years ago, there was a wizard (his name was never given) who loved two things more than anything else: walls of force and levers. In order to protect his wizard’s tower, he combined the two, creating a powerful spell that would create a permanent wall of force that could not be penetrated by any means, only to be deactivated by a lever. Only problem was, he cast the spell before determining the correct dimensions—the spell’s area was mere inches too short to encompass the relevant lever. The wizard went mad trying to devise a way out, and even his spirit is now trapped in the tower. There is a series of ruins surrounding the tower, however. This series of caves contains a family of owlbears, catacombs sacred to the long-gone god of humility, various traps and tricks and lastly the lever that deactivates the force field and would let adventurers enter the tower and plumb its riches.Enter the PCs. No hook is given, just “hey! A mysterious tower! Let’s try to get in!”What I liked: The tone of The Mysterious Tower isn’t one I’ve encountered much. Joseph Goodman’s writing style is full of little asides for the DM and has a general tone of informality. It’s chummy. It also has a taste for the classics, with encounters like two NPCs, one of which always tells the truth and the other always lies. And a rip-off of the “only a penitent man shall pass” trap from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The encounters themselves are generally pretty straight-forward. There’s plenty of variety in the monster palette, unlike Idylls of the Rat King, but the monsters present make some ecological sense.Lastly, I like that the module assumes that it will end by the PCs claiming the tower as their stronghold. PCs with land and armies of followers are something that 1st Edition assumed would happen eventually, but is all-but-forgotten in 3.X and 4th Edition. The wizard’s bedroom is full of magical (but hard to transport) furniture, and there’s a discussion of how to disable the lever so that the PCs don’t get trapped inside the tower too. And the suggestion that one of the wizard’s heirs might come to reclaim his birthright…What I didn’t like: Although I liked the chummy tone used throughout The Mysterious Tower, I can see it grating some people. What grated me was the prevalence of traps on which Disable Device doesn’t work. I understand the rationale—in AD&D, getting past traps was something that tested player ingenuity as much as their character’s skill rolls—but it strikes me as cheap and unrewarding to PCs who’ve invested highly in Disable Device. I’d rather have a trap with a ridiculously high DC than none at all. The owlbear family also strikes me as having the potential to murder entire parties. There’s the potential for 3rd level PCs to fight three or four owlbears at once, which is a recipe for rolling new characters. I can see that encounter ending poorly for a lot of groups.I’d like it if there were more concrete story-hooks than “look! A mysterious tower! Let’s explore it!” If I were to drop a tower protected by an impenetrable force field into one of my games, most of the people I run games for would likely give up and look for adventure elsewhere than assume there was an entrance deep below. In my experience, most players need more incentive than curiosity.Is it worth the $2? Yes. The Mysterious Tower is a more lighthearted module with plenty of opportunities to reward player ingenuity and to give them a stronghold.</blockquote>

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