Adventures for Next Age Heroes

Game: Adventures for Next Age Heroes
Publisher: Black Drink Creations
Series: d20
Reviewer: Wyrdmaster
Review Dated: 25th, August 2004
Reviewer’s Rating: 5/10   [ Perfectly acceptable ]
Total Score: 5
Average Score: 5.00

This bundle has two adventures for Black Drink Creation’s Next Age Heroes. We have the Dancing Diamond and The Lost Tower.

The upfront disclaimer is that I don’t particularly like pre-written adventures. Why pay? At most, you can offer a linear event which isn’t tailored to your suit your party and is something you can whisk up in an hour – or even wing it ad hoc. I suppose in this respect these two adventures get off to a good start; two adventures for US $3 isn’t much more expensive than spending an hour doing it yourself. I do wish that the bundle had been called something more interesting than Two Adventures for Next Age Heroes though.

I do sometimes begin to soften my stance on pre-written adventures. Many of the professional pre-written products come with exquisite cartography and handouts. There are handouts here. There are copies of a tapestry in the Dancing Diamond but it’s not really of that extra quality you’d want – although it’s better than anything this talentless review could do.

Hmm, yes, these are adventures so if you’re worried about spoilers then you’d better turn away now.

Actually, it doesn’t matter much, the twists and turns of the “dungeons” don’t matter terribly. In the Dancing Diamond, we have got an encounter which ends in a treasure map. It’s not a hoax; it’s an actual map to the treasure. Black Drink Creations admit to the cliché but we actually have a situation where the players begin in an inn, it’s attacked by kobolds, someone dies and a treasure map turns up. Okay, Black Drink Creations say that pretend-Halfling “probably” dies – which is good, otherwise you’re railroading players a bit, but there’s little help and a lot of bother if he doesn’t.

My favourite scene in The Dancing Diamond is an encounter which shouldn’t happen. There’s a chance to raid the tomb of a hero. Hmm. Would your character do it? Is your character of a good alignment? Would your character raid of the tomb of a neutrally aligned person? Hmm. Okay, the D&D alignment system doesn’t handle these ethical questions very well and that’s probably why I enjoy shoehorning them in. If your characters do decide to raid the tomb then it’ll get tough. There are some nasty traps. There’s a Baleful Polymorph trap.

The Baleful Polymorph spell is one of the three in the PDF. It’s there along with Preservation and Hallow. About half of the Dancing Diamond is devoted to this sort of stats. This includes maps of the inn, grove and tomb for the GM and the player handouts.

One-third of The Lost Tower is similarly given over to mechanics. The Smoke Dress is a rather nifty idea – actually one of those “I wish I’d thought of that” touches which I look for in products like this. Most of the mechanics here are on Monsters and NPCs. Many of the monsters are new but we’ve also got stats for familiar encounters – like the Ettercaps, Gnolls and Skeletons. Why? It’s for completeness. You don’t need to go flicking around the Monster Manual.

There’s a decent amount of open game content in The Lost Tower too. It’s clearly marked in thick black boxes – and once you get to the end of that section, you discover what the box implies.

The Lost Tower is a different sort of adventure from The Dancing Diamond and must come after The Dancing Diamond. There’s a lot of free-range travelling involved. Travelling, that is, until the players get to the Lost Tower. These aren’t adventures for cliché busting. There are three times as many pages for the Tower than travelling. This is an easy trap to fall into – but, honestly, the adventure doesn’t do too badly here. Travelling isn’t a boring formality here. In addition to the standard encounter tables, there are better details on the clans who live in the area. Better still there are notable landmarks like the Great Stone Man or Horror Pit. Landmarks are good because they give the game important continuity. In adventures down the line, GMs can revisit and reuse the scenery.

Technically you don’t need the Next Age Heroes supplement and campaign setting to use the adventures in this bundle. Technically. In practice, as is always the case, you’ll discover that the two adventures lean towards the setting the author had in mind. Black Drink Creations make the point of saying that these two can be adapted for any world.

I’m not a fan of pre-written adventures. I harp on about that. There’s enough in these two adventures to bring them up to the mark. For not very much money at all a GM gets a pair of adventures which are quick to set up, are easy to run and have everything needed at hand.