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Message: <blockquote data-quote="olshanski" data-source="post: 2010695" data-attributes="member: 7441">The criteria I use to evaluate a d20 adventure includes the following:1.  Interesting and varied encounters:  I look for unique encounters, allowing for a variety of role and roll playing. There should be opportunities for many different classes to excel or use thier abilities.2.  Motivations for NPCs and Monsters: or some detail of how they interact with their environment or neighbors.  3.  Logical: the adventure should obey a sense of logic that clever players can use to their advantage.4.  Writing Quality: this includes foreshadowing, mystery, and descriptions that bring locations and NPCs to life.5.  Ease of DMing:  Clear maps, friendly stat blocks, skill check numbers, player handouts and illustrations.MY OPINIONS AND PREJUDICES:I don't give much weight to text density and cost per page... I'd rather pay a lot for a small clever mystery than pay a little for a huge repetitive monster bash. I don't give much weight to new monsters, prestige classes, and magic items... they can add a little variety to an adventure, but to me they are minor decoration.I also believe that Dungeons and Dragons is not a contest of Players vs the DM, but rather the Players are trying to "conquer" a scenario with the DM acting as supporting cast and providing impartial decisions. I do not like adventures in which the DM is expected to adjust room content, monsters, and treasure on the fly. I do not like adventures in which players are rescued or helped by divine intervention or the intervention of powerful NPCs.THE BASICS: (not exactly spoilers)The adventure is 40 pages long, cover price of $9.95 American4 pages of credits/legal/advertising2.5 pages of adventure introduction and conclusion3 pages of a very clever puzzle1.5 pages of new monsters and magic items29 pages of adventure (outside, inside, and below a castle)The adventure is designed for 4 characters of levels 4-6. The encounter breakdown follows:Approximately 2-3 role-play encounters. (non-combat interaction)Approximately 4 combat encountersApproximately 7 environment encounters (rooms, tricks, things to examine)One truly amazing puzzle, a few small puzzles.The adventure is setting neutral The adventure is written for edition 3.0, but It doesn't look like any additional work is required to play in version 3.5THE SPECIFICS: (Some Spoilers Follow)1.  Interesting and varied encounters: (5/5)  The encounters were very interesting. Some combat takes place from rooftops and balconies, some interaction with NPCs requires creative thinking. The centerpiece of the adventure is a challenging and creative puzzle.2.  Motivations for monsters and NPCs: (4/5)  The villains were well written. The good guys have reasons for seeking out the players. An outstanding aspect of the writing is that NPCs are defined by their actions rather than the author simply stating facts about the NPCs. 3.  Logical: (3/5)  The players relied on the logic presented in the adventure to make thier decisions. They were usually rewarded for good observation and careful planning. There is a single important excpetion: The players have an opportunity to witness a time-loop, where an event repeats itself. The players are lead to believe that this loop has repeated many times and will continue to repeat. My players concluded that they could proceed slowly, changing one variable here or there, and observe the results of their meddling through each iteration of the time loop. The adventure was written with the PCs getting only one chance to modify the loop... while it adds tension for the DM, this does not follow consistently with what the players observe.Some minor details seem to have been lost in the shuffle: The castle is lacking many basic "castle" elements, such as servants quarters, defensive fortifications, barracks, armory, storage, etc... While this bothered me, it didn't seem to bother the players when I ran the adventure.4.  Writing Quality: (4/5)  The writing is clear. The plot was easy to follow. The stat blocks are easy to read. I didn't like a lot of the flavor text which was added. (Some blocks of text are written from the point of view of an adventurer who has already completed the module... interesting reading, but not useful in terms of DMing a game). The adventure requires that orcs (or at least one orc tribe) were fairly civilized. Some descriptions refer to a race of "high men" type humans and orcs, which are taller and perhaps more noble in bearing than standard members of the race. This only added flavor to the game but was not necessary... I might even say that it detracted from an otherwise more portable adventure.5.  Ease of DMing: (3/5)  The adventure appeared fine on reading it, but two problems became apparent during play. The problem described above in "Logic" is a campaign ending problem if you enforce the one-try-only rule.The other problem is that there seemed to be a bit missing on how to run the central showpiece puzzle of the adventure. The puzzle is based on the characters moving in a specific pattern. The DM should create a chart listing each player's name in order to track what their previous movement was. This is quite time-consuming and a logistical problem for the DM. The puzzle doesn't also doesn't state how to resolve non-movement related actions, such as activating magical items, casting spells, and laying on hands. The adventure doesn't spell out how non-movement actions work within the puzzle. I required the players to roll initiative, and forced them to act in initiative order. They could take one movement actions each turn and a non-movement action each turn. They could alternately take a double-movement action to move twice. Casting spells required concentration (10+spell level). It would have been helpful for the adventure to have explicitly stated the game-playing mechanics when working on the puzzle, rather than for me to have to invent my own.FINAL WORD:My group really enjoyed the adventure. There were opportunities for very cinematic combat. The adventure is tailored more towards puzzle-solving players who enjoy a lot of thought rather than people who like rolling big numbers and doing a lot of damage with thier +3 sword. I rate this a solid 4/4, mostly on the strength of the interesting encounters.  The adventure is short and the central puzzle is very challenging for the DM to execute. If you want to give your group a unique puzzle, it is very rewarding.</blockquote>

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