This holiday season, I’m going to review a different module, game or supplement every day. I haven’t sought any of them out, they’ve been sent to me, so it’s all surprises, all the way. I haven’t planned or allocated time for this, so while I’m endeavouring to bring the same attention to these reviews, it might provide a challenge, but at least, I’ll be bringing attention to some cool stuff!
Depths of Dark Bargain is a 10 page module for Cairn and the first for Block, Dodge, Parry by Lars Huijbregts. In it, you explore a labyrinthine, underground cave complex. It’s a small, six-room dungeon, using some unique traversal mechanisms.
Depths of Dark Bargain doesn’t beat around the bush: 4 rumours and 4 hooks, and then the entrance to the dungeon. I’m not particularly satisfied with the rumours and hooks. The hooks in particular hold no juicy worms. Basically all of these hooks need a second part — not just a clue, but also why the hook draws the player characters into the dungeon. They are halfway there, though — you could play a game with the players by prompting them to finish them, to be honest. “Who cares about this, and why did you choose to venture there for them?”, and this would go from poorly designed to cheekily engaging. The rumours, though, are less redeemable. The two that are true are the kinds of rumours that would cause you to choose not to enter the dungeon at all, and of the two that are false, only one has the potential to impact the player characters actions.
Between rooms, you roll a variation of the hazard die, and if you find an encounter, you then roll a random area of cavern to have that encounter in. It’s likely you’ll encounter 8 rolls on a fairly thorough exploration of the dungeon, which means there’s a high chance you’ll only encounter 1, possibly 2 of these rooms while travelling in one direction. You can also make choices in some of the rooms that will add to this number, but not by much. The idea of using a hazard die variation in a kind of flux space hack to mimic and small underground cavern is clever, but the math is all wrong here I think. For this to work, we need a 100% chance of at least one random cavern, with the probability decreasing the more caverns you find, and the occurrence there be more concrete: Perhaps it’s always slowly flooding, an encounter occurs, or you find a specific boon or clue? In a small space, the current solution doesn’t have enough punch, although it may work in a larger space. In the context of all of this, there are too many random encounters: The low probability encounters will almost never occur, and really, you want to encounter the NPCs, so again, for punchiness, you need to lean into those more interesting encounters. We’ll come back to the NPCs.
The rooms themselves are solid, important for such a small space. You could skip everything I’ve just mentioned, and you’d do just fine. I love how skill, time and equipment is worked directly into the text of the challenges (as it should be, given Huijbregts coined it). The key is direct, with highlighted terms being described in detail in the bulleted section. There are some lovely touches, like the very creepy “If spoken into at a conversational volume, there is a 2-in-6 chance that the echo is not a repetition, but a reply.” and “slowly pulsating as if ‘breathing’ in slow motion, exhaling spores”; solid, evocative writing all up. I also really appreciate the sketches that diagram out the shapes and layout of room 5, as it’s important. This is something that was common in the early days of the hobby, but has fallen by the wayside as an aversion to the do-it-yerselfness of the hobby has developed in concert with production values increasing.
There is a bunch of hyperdiegetic information hidden, particularly in the NPC goals. These NPCs are pretty unlikely to be seen, though — of the 1 or 2 total expected encounters, we’re going to meet any given one of them about 6% of the time. But, they’re amongst the most interesting interactions in the modules! As I said, I’d forefront them a little, but while I like the individual pieces hyperdiegetic information here: “Find proof that the caves are growing and changing shape.”, or “Heal her adventuring partner,who has fallen ill.” for example, I’d love for there to be a moment at the beginning where the players or referee are cued to make decisions regarding these; or that there’s an actual answer to these within the module or surrounds.
Layout is basic, but functional. It’s easy to navigate and easy to find the information you want. The map is nodal — I think that similar information could’ve been communicated with a more traditional map, though, without as much labeling. The art is public domain and is honestly great.
Depths of Dark Bargain is a solid night’s play, a beer and pretzels type module that is a lot of fun room-by-room, and is full of interesting characters. It’s compromised by skimping in interconnectivity, low probability of events that should be regular occurring, and in terms of minimising the chance that some cool stuff will be seen, but also in terms of hooks and rumours that don’t contribute to improving the rooms. But, it’s a worthy addition to your campaign, for a small but impactful dungeon detour.
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