Review 44 - Rotblack Sludge
Back to the Dying Lands and another introductory adventure! This week I'm talking about Rotblack Sludge for Mörk Borg. The text was written by Pelle Nilsson with art and cartography by Johan Nohr.
This is included in the core rulebook and is also available to download for free on the Mörk Borg website, and is intended to be a way to get new players used to the style of the game. I've run this a couple of times for new groups, using the intended system.
Getting it to the Table
Despite this review coming so late in this project, this adventure was the first time I ever came across the Mörk Borg "house style" which has had such a tremendous impact on the world of indie RPGs. There are many design elements that made this one exceedingly easy to prep for play, and I always think back on it when I'm writing my own stuff that other people will use rather than just notes for myself.
The text itself gets right to the meat of things-- there is a half-page backstory followed by rumors that the PCs will have heard about the dungeon, with notes indicating which are true. Next, we are given a rather unorthodox random encounter method. Instead of one table that is rolled throughout the dungeon, there is a note indicating that the tables should only be used in certain rooms, and there is a secondary table that should only be used once in the scenario. Personally I found this a bit limiting, and in practice it definitely made the dungeon feel a little bit more static.
Now, into the actual dungeon key. First up, we get a lovely map with a quick reference key (including which rooms should include random encounters), and most helpfully the PDF version has each room hyperlinked. Then we get into the incredibly efficient layout that has become so familiar-- each page has a mini version of the main map with the rooms detailed on that page highlighted; the mini map rooms are also hyperlinked. The room descriptions are very brief but also evocative-- sights, smells, sounds, and the other sorts of sensory details that help bring things to life at the table. The actual contents are organized with helpful bullet points, and the connections to other rooms are clearly indicated. When NPCs or monsters appear, they are detailed in the sidebar of the room description, so no flipping around is necessary. There are also useful notes about the interactivity of the dungeon itself-- for example, the rooms adjacent to the guard room indicate that any noises made in those rooms will be heard by the guards. Each of these rooms are interspersed with Johan's great spot art, and the result is a clean and efficient tool that makes it very easy for a new GM to run the adventure.
What Worked?
- Dense yet accessible information presentation. These guys are truly masters of using all of the space on a page without making it feel like there's too much information to parse during a game.
- Plenty of non-combat encounters. The two principle NPCs in this dungeon give players a lot of potential for fun interaction and playing one side against the other. There are also plenty of Strange Things that help to introduce new players to the tone and mood of the game.
- That mini map. I'm glad that this is becoming a more common practice, because it really makes running things easy.
What Didn't Work?
- The random encounter table. It really feels like some experimental design that didn't really pay off. Having the encounters only be rolled in certain rooms made things feel too predictable and static. I also think that instead of having the secondary table that is only rolled on once in the dungeon, it should have been a sub-table where each entry was only used once, whenever the "special" result is rolled.
Final Thoughts
I've been dooting the Mörk Borg femur flute for quite a while now, and this is the one that started it all.
I don't have much to say beyond that-- Mörk Borg is great fun and this dungeon is a near-perfect introduction to the game.
You can get Rotblack Sludge on its own at the Mörk Borg website. Thanks for reading!