Rowan does a deep dive on @bradkerr’s popular adventure The Sinister Secret of Peacock Point.
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This was a great read and reflects my experience of running it a while back! A lot of very subtle artful writing that this blogpost exposed to me, as it “just worked” for me at the table. Now it is becoming clearer to me why! For those interested my own brief review can be found here: The Sinister Secret of Peacock Point (Swords & Wizardry) | Post-Mortem
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I think I like that style of review over the “standard” style. It attempts to emphasize the gameable content and is overall positive in the critique.
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I fell in love with this adventure upon reading it and have been itching for an excuse to bring it to the table for a while now. I really appreciate the format of the Design crawl digs in to the small details and would love to see more posts in this format. I think Rowan highlights why Peacock point is a good OSR starter dungeon.
I agree with almost all of the analysis except for the criticism on standard monsters (as it relates to this particular dungeon). I know everyone’s tolerance for weirdness is at different levels but I personally feel like weird is at its most effective when contrasted by familiar elements the party can incorporate into their plans. I think in this case including animals that eat insects is a really great opportunity to pit inhabitants of the dungeon against each other if they PCs are clever.
I also believe that weirdness can be part of information presentation and be used as a tool to direct player focus. If everything within the dungeon is strange its harder to tell in this situation what is normal and what is part of a central mystery. I think as written the adventure does a very good job of threading that needle.
On the other hand, am I going to ignore my own advice and replace goblins with anthropomorphic skunk-folk and add a Calicifer-inspired fire spirit in one of the rooms that can scare away insects? You bet.
I hope the blog eventually covers the other adventures in the Wyvern Songs collections.
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Thanks for sharing your experience playing the adventure! I’m glad to hear it was such a success.
Shame to hear the doors were a bother. I have to wonder if all the doors combined with the Skitterlord’s notable lack of arms are there to give players who encounter the Big Bag early on many chances to escape during a fight that might otherwise be certain death at level 1. I think you bring a good point, doors can also slow down play and lead to paranoia.
I do think there could be merits to tweaking the encounter system to increase both the frequency of the checks and to weigh results to the higher end of the table over a longer amount of time spent in the dungeon might bring it to life. But you potentially need more healing in the dungeon to offset this.
I totally agree, it adds a lot of value that other reviews lack that are just based on a read through. However, I would have appreciated a perspective on what is not there: e.g. the terse writing obscures for instance that it is the dungeons entrance that is behind the secret door. The text only suggests that there is a bag with coins.