B8 Journey to the Rock - A BECMI adventure module review
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- Опубликовано: 9 окт 2024
- B8 Journey to the Rock was written by Michael Malone and published in 1984. It was marketed as a wilderness module for levels 1-3, but ran more like a very linear dungeon delve.
Journey to the Rock is widely accepted to be one of the poorest modules ever released for BECMI or D&D in general but I think it’s important to look back at both the good and bad in the hobby, and this review pulls no punches. However, I come to the conclusion that, although the product is poor, the writer was failed by TSR’s editing process at that time.
B8 Credits
Written by Michael Malone
Editor: Edward G. Sollers
Cover Artist: Larry Elmore
Interior Artist: Doug Watson
Graphic Design: Ruth Hoyer
Maps: David S. “Diesel” LaForce
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The module was a tournament module for cons. The point was to see how far you could get in a short amount of time. If you want the full experience the best way to do that is to put all the paths back to back to back and run all of them
Hey there Welch! Glad to see your face here..... So to speak as nobody has actually seen your face. Point is, glad you are supporting BECMI B. I hope this channel continues to get bigger because I am glad to see it around.
Hey it's Mr Welch! I would suggest cherry picking your favorite encounters and making it a fun short adventure.
Honestly reviewing little known modules feels awesome. Quality aside. I'm all for your suggestions on making it better as well.
My brain hurts. That is a perfect write up if you had stopped there. Thank you for fighting through this one.
Thanks for pointing out the plot holes so we can can be sure to fill them in advance when we run it!
This is a great video
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Let me pull another angle...
I play Becmi since it is out and now I play with a new generation that only know 5e (but are now introduce to Becmi devolution !!)
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Here I go...
Sometimes, you had a big day (or big week) and want to play D&D without having to resolve enigmas, or defying politic intrigues...
In these cases, we just want to go fwd and having a simple task and some random encounters... having fun, joke around with friends and all...
I call it my unserious D&D sessions... We love them
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We just finished one of those.
''' Wild Dragon Den'' from '92 Dragons Gold box
We had a blast
And I am.pretty sure l could drag from Fun out this module
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So many thanks for you work
This is highly appreciate
... ho! And I agree. This module is terrible.
I appreciate reviews like this. Reading is difficult for me (English wasn'tmynfirst language,), so any kind of overview helps me decide if I am willing to invest a couple of hours reading. I have a nice collection of originals and reprints of these modules. There was just something magical about the B/X and the BECMI books that I haven't seen since (some of the AD&D modules had it too.) Maybe the Elmore, Otis, Easley (and many others) artwork had something to do with it, or the layouts. Thank you for these!
You're very welcome!
Thanks for doing the review. I promise I won't ask you to do another one.
🤣 Hope you are doing well.
I like this one, though it's definitely on the lower end. I feel it sticks out so much because there's so many *great* intro-level modules (Keep on the Borderlands, The Lost City, King's Festival, Night's Dark Terror, the Veiled Society, etc) that a 'meh' seems a lot worse than it probably is.
Well they all can't be "Nights Dark Terror" lol. As always a well thought out and thorough dive into this module. Reviewing weaker modules does help us to avoid such mistakes in our campaigns. It also allows us to have some laughs, my wife and I laughed out loud several times during the video, thank you for that!
You’re welcome! ☺️
One of the coolest D&D modules: Journey to the ROCK. Get ready to ROCK! 🎸🎶
Fair but harsh criticism is very valuable. This is one of the few BECMI adventures I've never played so it was great to hear the review. Thanks!
Thank you for all the work on this one....I've seen it, but never played it. Could be a good idea mind for quick encounters while on different adventures
I wonder if you could run this as a prelude to Nights Dark Terror.
Ditch the desert and the Chameleon Men. Tuma is a city of forgotten Traldaran.ghosts. The Rock is inhabited by some strange dog-headed statues of long-distant 'kings' (Hutaakans). The magic user giving the quest (Arkayz?) is another member of the Iron Ring. Or you could just make him Golthar from B10.
This sets up the concept of an extinct civilization or two, plus shady magic users trying to pilfer their relics.
It also seems to me that the Gnomes are clearly the precursors of the mad inventors from Dragonlance, Earthshaker, and later Top Ballista. I would keep the idea of a bizarre construct they have built and lose their sea search.
This adventure is one that I’m unfamiliar with. Great video. Thank you for your insight.
If I ran this module I’d rewrite that whole story beginning. Sweet mother of rpg’s Ty for battling through this BECMI Berserker!
Me going on this adventure: Walks out of town and looks to the side of the road, "I found a rock, adventure done!" LOL :)
I suppose not all modules can be winners. This one sure read like a string of poor rolls on a random encounter table. Thanks for muscling through it for us! Good thing I didn't get to play it back in the day...
I feel that rewriting the entire module while stitching all these encounters and backstory into an entertaining, coherent, playable whole would make for an incredible Korean play-or-die game show TV series!! 😂
This whole module just sounds like a ten-year-old relentlessly describing a really cool dream they had.
If I were to rewrite it, I think I would change the backstory completely, tying it to B10:
Arkayz is actually Golthar, from B10.
Tuma is an old Hutaakan ruins, with the Rock as a temple in the middle.
The PCs are charged to retrieve the treasure of the temple, in particular a tapestry and a silver needle.
Why isn't Golthar doing it himself? Well, it is a long and a dangerous trip, and the last time he managed to barely escape with his life. Might as well hire some expendables.
This should take care of the unsatisfactory backstory. Obviously, the tapestry will disintegrate (as in the B10 backstory), and depending how the PCs play they cards, they might solve part of the mystery of B10 in advance. Which will help to motivate them in B10, too.
Then I would take a page out of Mr. Welch's book, and string the encounters of the three paths together, interleafing them by terrain, and then remove some of the repetition, too, like the two bridge encounters (making it just one). I'd also make the trip much longer, like an encounter per day and another per night or something like that. The Gnomes could be doing a portage, getting the longship from one river to another, at least making it a bit less insane. Obviously Tuma would be the last encounter (before the Temple/Rock). If I wanted to keep the Crone, she could have been caught by the Hutaakans way past when and chain her up. She can't do anything as long as she is chained up. There could be some other monsters, like the mummified Hutaakan warriors (the kings), who slaughtered Golthar's men and forced him to flee.
Something like that?
Great comment. Agree 100%. I had similar ideas (see above) but more vague 😊
@@williammoore9794 Yep. I think this would benefit from being paired with B10, and I might get to test it soon. In our current campaign, this (reworked as above) is likely the next adventure for the PCs. I made a post in the Piazza forum about reshuffling and merging the encounters into a single adventure path.
I am kinda torn between making the ghosts Hutaakan, as I originally planned. Rethinking it and reflecting back on my earlier thoughts (in the above forum thread) as well as your comment, I think I would make them Traldar, but not just Traldar ghosts, but Gnoll ones as well. One of the PCs is a cleric of the Church of Traladara, and the chance to witness what looks like a battle straight out of the Song of Halav ought to be nice. And it will then make for a very interesting thing when the 'kings' are actually 'Beast-men' rather than Traldar.
@@anarionelendili8961 Sounds great 😃. Good luck running it with your PCs!
@@williammoore9794 Thanks! I might report back here how it went! :)
Thank you once again for this glimpse in to the past. I have run this adventure a few times and it was a mixed bag. Honestly not horrible IMHO. Assuming your group just wants to kill things and take stuff lol.
It seems like with a bit of work you could "fix" this module. There are some interesting ideas here just need to think of them differently. As an example that +2 sword I would suggest giving it to the players at the beginning of the adventure so they have time to think of what the riddle means, also completely chance the begging info and have Arkayz tell them himself.
15:30 Nah, chameleon men makes sense. All people see is that they appear to vanish in the brush. So, people just assume that they become camouflaged instead of the truth that they actually teleport. You'd think they'd kill to keep any information about themselves secret, however.
It only works if they're mysterious and the truth isn't known.
Even though this module is a dud, I have fond memories of getting it for a present at my grandparents' house on Christmas Eve of 1985. I was 12 years old, and blew off the Voltron toy I had also received so that I could tear off the cellophane and start reading it. For some reason I opted to do so while stretched out on my stomach on the kitchen floor. It made perfect sense at the time.
By which I mean lying on the floor made perfect sense, not the module
@@steveviggiano I totally get it. I have a similar memory when reading many D&D books back then. Lying on the floor was how it was done. 🙂
Following this priceless review my question would be: is it worse than The Assassin's Knot? That was my rotten tomato!
The B1-B9 combo module has this adventure with even fewer options. It has only one trail, no northern or southern ones.
That's the fun of reviewing flawed modules, the grim pleasure of picking them apart. This module was far too ambitious for its ability and page count, but I love the ideas in here.
Welcome to the Rock! Nah, you're welcome to it!
Highly convoluted plan of two saviour not knowing eachother but having to meet to together to something etc etc sounds to me like it is ones and goblins level of logick :D Maybe there is a potential to do a reversal of this sort where instead of Tuma heores we have some bad guys that look for eachother to perform some ancient ritual to free some demon or some other cheese like this. It think there is a potential to the this plot into some comedic side quest xD
I'm glad it wasn't written to fit into the D&D Known World. That's saves the bother of having to rewrite it to make sense there or of having to remove it again.
Yeah, not all those early modules are gems! 😂 Great review though.😎⚔🔥
My brain hurts, but thanks for the review either way! It was an interesting video.
Glad you enjoyed it!
This module does have an 80s Sword and Sorcery B movie quality. Originally in Italian, but poorly dubbed in English.
I like the gnomes and the hut. An adventure should not follow the rules of story structure. Let there be exploration for the sake of exploration. Let there be interactions with interesting people for the joy of enteracting with interesting people. 'We never found out what that gun was for or who it belonged to". And that's ok, because this is Dungeons and Dragons.
Please make some solo rpg vids using BECMI.
Man, I don't know if it was your intent but I just laughed my ass off! This module sounds so bad that I think I need to run it for my group! Once again, a priceless gem from BECMI Berserker lol
Thank you!
I agree this was poorly written but i don't mind, alot of these old mods were. They always were vague or railroady. These mods sharpened my DM skills and made me think outside the rails. Or my players usually did this for me during play. These modules never went the way it was written when played which lead to a fun time anyway.
I feel you here.
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Remembering my first days of DMing and having the PCs to derailled the Modules and me having to adapt in a matter of seconds...
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Those were good times
Bad modules forge great DMs, sounds like you've been in the furnace a few times 🔥💪🔥
@@dannyjingu yes sir iv seen my share of fire lol
With that back ground …… the characters are 1sf to 3rd level…. Right…… did the writer go on to write for TRoP?….. bless this early and current fantasy debasement tropes….I think many current show writers have read this scenario and thought…. “Hey, hey….. that is pretty sharp writing”.
Great video!
It's not a Tuma!
So, apparently this was written by an 8th grader for his first creative writing course, and Dad was so proud he just took it to work and published it unedited.
If that's true I feel so bad!!!!
Just to be clear, I was being snarky. Other than the quality of the writing, I have no evidence that my statement is true. @@becmiberserker
@@rpick7546 Phew! 😀
Thanks for this, your Berserkliness
@@worldbigfootcentral3933 You’re welcome.
B8: Journey To The Plot Holes! Wow, this thing is giving The Forest Oracle a run for its money as the worst official module ever.
Luckily, the players will probably never learn of the plot holes.
Why have all this backstory and then say, Arkayz won't tell anyone any of it?
"Welcome to the rock!"
Awesome.
Ok, I know I'm skipping that one :)
The city of tumor. Lmao
Tuma
"It's not a Tuma......"
@@bobkarstenson1792 I will say this in defense of the module the art for the horseman of Tuma was amazing
After the evil sorcerers got done it was canned Tuma
Awwww fuck! The writing's shit!