Frugal GM Review: The Towers of the Weretoads

Last week, thanks to a G+ post, a free OSR adventure was brought to my attention.

Evidently Michael Raston had finished his six page labor of love and released it for the world to see. The Towers of the Weretoads is not statted for any particular system or PC level and is easily adapted. I can see running this for a mid-level (5-10) group of HackMaster PCs, but only because of the sheer number of enemies that can be found within. Of course that all depends on the party's resources. I could see this level range swing wildly.

The Weretoads don't seem particularly nasty, individually, but they have a few surprises and the real threat is the environment. I won't go too deep into it, but aside from the potential lethality, the lair is straight-up disgusting. If I was playing this I think I'd rather just go on another adventure or three and use all the loot gained to deforest the region, hire the villagers to stack the wood around the complex, and make a bonfire that could be seen in the next county. Boil the bastards in their own slimy filth.....and then move away.

What really caught my attention, aside from the disgusting condition of the lair, was the way the adventure was laid out. Instead of a couple pages of maps followed by flavor text, everything overlaps. Now I wouldn't want this as a regular layout, but I feel it really works for this small adventure. Two different text colors are used to separate types of information for the GM. Overall the effect is slightly visually confusing and a little uncomfortable, which works well considering this lair....

...have I mentioned how disgusting the Weretoads lair is? Seriously, it gives me the creeps envisioning having to assault this lair, enough that I'm happy my GM won't be running this for me since I've spoiled it for my PCs.

Grossness aside, I think this is a great adventure with some neat ideas, a new class of monster, and just the thing to get your group to establish a new standard operating procedure.....kill everything with fire. Now excuse me while I throw out all my tapioca pudding cups just because.

Well done Michael!