Rolled & Told is a new monthly series of comics that are actually full-length, lovingly mapped and illustrated Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition adventures. Brilliant!

Rating: Content 4/5 and Form 5/5

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Read on for the full review!

Content 4/5

Issue #0 of the Rolled & Told adventure series provides a single adventure (with accompanying comic) and an article. The adventure is The Thunderlock Barcrawl, a sort of “training dungeon” setup by a pair of retired — and previously very successful — adventurers who want to give n00bs a guard-rails-experience as their first dungeoncrawl in hopes of showing them some basic skills and hopefully not outright killing them (though that’s not guaranteed!). After that is an  article serving as a deep-dive into using mimics in your games. Finally, the book ends with four pregenerated characters.

Let’s take a closer look, section by section.

The Thunderlock Barcrawl Map

The map for The Thunderlock Barcrawl is a two page spread, done in a great artistic depiction style that’s also an isometric map complete with appropriate scale notes should you want to make battlemaps. There are also zoomed-in points for higher detail on some of the room features the party will deal with. The map is beautifully done in a slightly “silly” exaggerated style, but goes to great lengths to show off the traps, puzzles, and features of the rooms that the party will interact with during the adventure, so big kudos to that! Each room is lettered — A, B, C, D, and so on — and a legend tells you the name of each room; the names are pretty direct descriptions with the occasional evocative reference thrown in there. All of that to say that the map is fun to look at, useful as a reference, and gives you everything you need whether you run this theater of the mind or battlemap & minis style.

The Thunderlock Barcrawl Map

The Thunderlock Barcrawl Map

Introductory Comic

The following two pages are a comic that basically sums up the introduction to the adventure from the player characters’ point of view, but uses the pregenerated characters found at the back of the book as the stand-ins for the PCs. It’s done in a very cartoony style, so it fits well with the conceits of the adventure, provides the useful details of what this thing is going to be about, and for some reason keeps making me think of the 80s D&D cartoon. Which is perfect.

Rolled & Told #0 introductory comic

Rolled & Told #0 introductory comic

The Adventure

The centerpiece of Rolled & Told #0 is the adventure, and that’s where we get to see if this whole idea of “adventure-in-a-comic” really comes together. It does quite nicely and speaks to some amazingly useful content, but there are some editing and rules misses that need to be pointed out. None of them will come even close to sinking this ship, but it’s worth noting another round of editing and better familiarity with the default language/syntax of D&D 5th edition rules is going to only strengthen this product line.

The gist of the adventure is that two adventurers retired after a long, successful career, but their wealth came at the price of watching a great many other adventurers, allies, and teammates die horrible deaths in a variety of dungeons and against a smorgasbord of monsters. Pooling their hard-won riches, they devised a sort of death-trap dungeon beneath their tavern that folks could come and wager on, or if they were themselves would-be adventurers, could dive right into and show their mettle. Or walk away hurt but knowing adventuring life wasn’t for them. There are guard rails in place, but nothing is for certain. All-in-all, this adventure is meant to challenge low tier characters — levels 1-4 — but there’s enough going on that can dish out damage even with the guard rails in place that I’m a bit wary of 1st level characters tackling this, despite the fact that’s probably the perfect level for the themes of this dungeon. But we’ll get to that in a second.

The adventure literally starts with the players arriving at the tavern and the owners saying, “Hey, go best this dungeon and prove your worth. Or quit while you’re ahead.” The party then descends into the dungeon which is basically a running gauntlet of rooms, each filled with traps and tricks — and only the occasional monster — designed to slow their progress. Why slow their progress? Because they have two hours to get out! This builds in time for a short rest, and notably, the adventure has a bunch of fantastic advice on how to track time, how to ignore tracking time but still make the players feel like time is ticking down, and how to penalize the party several minutes here or there if they should choose to have characters who are knocked out by some of the traps get teleported back into the fray. Very neat!

The rooms rely on complex traps, or multiple traps, in most cases. Blunted crossbows, poison gas with fairly easy saving throw thresholds, geysers of super-heated water, earthquake-test style undulating floorboards; basically everything you’d find in a death-trap dungeon, but with purposely low damage ratings and saving throw DCs. A few traps move on their own, or they present chances to knock PCs prone or back a few feet, which all plays into the timed-run aspect as well as the fact that in the initial room one of the walls comes alive and begins chasing the party down. Many challenges also make use of “timed initiative” to attack the party so they can learn the pattern of the traps. For example, some traps attack on initiative count 20 and 1, while another trap spews gas on initiative count 15.

Outside of traps, there’s a single monster that’s actually an animated taxidermied owlbear, and a room with a giant rat-generating trap, but the giant rats only have 1 HP each. There’s also a couple of puzzles that revolve around spotting illusions or interacting with them in order to reveal hidden objects elsewhere. Almost all of the challenges have both descriptive and rules-based means to impeded or defeat them, which really speaks to the clever design going on in this adventure. They aren’t relying on a single assumed play style — all dice rolls, or testing the players’ skills as opposed to the characters’, but rather a combination of the two– and I love that fact, though it may escape a truly new DM that this is what’s going on.

Here’s where the problems come in, too, unfortunately. Lots of the rules language is done in a very “stream of consciousness” style and doesn’t conform to what we’re used to seeing in published adventures by Wizards of the Coast, the top-tier third party folks (Kobold Press for example), or most of the (well-edited) Dungeon Masters Guild content out there. Saving throws might be written as “succeed on a Constitution saving throw DC 12 versus Poison.” But we’re used to “DC 12 Constitution saving throw; on a failure, you suffer the [insert effects of the poison].” Same with skill and ability checks. This is hardly a big problem, but it speaks to a lack of editing oversight that looks to the language and syntax of the 5th edition core rules. Additionally, there are parts where the saving throws or other checks are mentioned more than once, but inexplicably the DC changes. For example, in the Bad Box Side Chamber, it mentions initially that a hidden alcove can be detected with a DC 20 Intelligence (Investigation) check, but then in a separate section regarding the alcove, it says locating it requires a DC 15 Intelligence (Investigation) check. Though that’s only one out of less than a handful of such errors that I could find, part of the problem comes from the text not being concise. Too many times information is repeated or given in vague terms in one area and then codified later on in a trap stat block, making it hard to reference what a DM needs at a glance.

The only other problem is that the text for each given room is not preceded by the letter designation of the room from the map. This is a simple oversight and correction — just add the letter before each room name’s header — but it’s a pretty obvious problem I caught quickly, and made me suspect that the whole rest of this adventure was going to be poorly edited. Thankfully I was VERY, VERY WRONG about that conclusion! Aside from the rules text not following official syntax, the fact is that there is rules mastery on display in the various challenges, there is a singular vision to the whole work, and there are no major gaffes that I could find in terms of formal language, grammar, spelling, and so on. Phew!

Thunderlock Barcrawl adventure spread

Thunderlock Barcrawl adventure spread

Balancing the Adventure

Regarding the adventure proper, I’ll end with my thoughts on the balance. This adventure pretty much screams “FIRST DUNGEON CRAWL!” for new players, but the trap- and puzzle-heavy nature suggests it’s for slightly more advanced DMs. There are guard rails in place to keep characters alive, or to teleport them in and out if they get absolutely thrashed by any one challenge…but there is purposely nothing in place that guarantees a character can’t die, which I like.

But the sheer amount of damage-dealing traps firing off, and the fact that in the first room one of those traps is always going to be moving closer until they exit the room, might be a bit much for level 1 or even level 2 characters to survive unless they play incredibly, amazingly smart. Perhaps that’s by design, but I can already read several areas where this could’ve been spelled out. Using the environment for cover, or having less than “far too many dart shooters, geyser ports, and crossbows to be fully disabled” in one of the rooms. To that point, there are several traps that deal damage and inflict a condition; often, the condition effect is the more evocative part of the trap. Therefore, I’d argue that some of the traps should only inflict a condition and no damage, or there could’ve been a larger variety of conditions inflicted by different traps rather than relying on low damage values and nothing else, in the case of darts and crossbow bolts. Blinding poison could make some of the puzzles harder without simply inflating the DCs (which happens in a couple cases), and restraining or petrifying characters — even for just a moment — while the wall is closing in on them to crush them would be far more harrowing than “1d4 bludgeoning damage.”

Ultimately, I’d say this adventure is best fit for especially smart players running level 2 characters, or novice players using level 3 and 4 characters. Level 1 characters are basically going to be in a Dungeon Crawl Classics-style funnel: they’ll be dropping like flies simply due to a bad saving throw, or a couple lucky attack rolls by the automated crossbow or dart hurling traps. A paragraph at the beginning of the adventure or note in each room about scaling the traps would’ve been nice.

(As a note, they do talk about how to scale up the adventure for levels 5+, but it amounts to simply upping the DCs. You could probably challenge level 5 characters by doing this, but by levels 6+ the number of kewl powerz that PCs have access to would likely nullify many of the challenges in this dungeon.)

Memorable Monsters: The Mimic

This 4-page article starts by waxing poetic about the usefulness of mimics throughout the editions of D&D, and breaks down just how limited their tactics and threat-level are. But then it gets into the meat by providing interesting, low-prep tweaks to make a mimic into something more than the sum of its meager Challenge rating: increasing its Intelligence score and taking on minions, or boosting various other stats, or even adding on class features or feats to greatly increase their ability to go toe-to-toe with player characters! The discussion of adding certain spellcaster levels talks about how this would affect what a mimic’s goals and even diet might be. That’s incredibly insightful.

Overall, there’s some really cool discussion here, and my favorite part is that even the craziest ideas come with a bullet list of how to explain them “in the game world.” I’ve been involved in the occasional online discussion where some DM says, “you can’t do that!” because they lack creativity to justify a change to the rules or narrative of a creature’s place in the ecology of a fantasy world, so it’s nice to see E. L. Thomas head that response off at the pass and kill it dead.

Like parts of the adventure text, this section is written in a stream of consciousness style that could have used a stronger hand in editing to make it more concise and possibly free up room for more tips, or for adding the scaling advice I mentioned under the adventure. This article is great, well thought out, and extremely useful if you want to make mimics matter, but it’s a bit to slog through and get the important points without having to navigate reflections on past adventures or editions, plus other stuff that doesn’t actually add to the article itself. Some personal context is cool; there’s just a touch too much of that here.

Memorable Monsters: The Mimic

Memorable Monsters: The Mimic

Pregenerated Characters

The pregenerated characters included in this issue are:

  • Huck Snipeshadow, lightfoot halfling rogue 1
  • Zella Vade, human wizard 1
  • Mugg Pigiron, hill dwarf fighter 1
  • Vesska Moonwynd, wood elf ranger 1

It’s great that they come up with cool, iconic artwork and you’ve followed them through the first comic and the adventure artwork, so that sets them up to already feel familiar by the time you reach them here, where you learn what’s unique about each of them. Toward that end, each character has their background, personality trait, bonds, ideals, and flaws spelled out, along with a unique magic item that speaks to their past or abilities in a cool way. These magic items are rarely all that powerful, but they are powerful enough: they would greatly overpower 1st level challenges (possibly all of low tier), but make great, personalized items that could be the end goal of an adventure, or a reward from a patron or faction for a job well done.

As for the stats, they seem balanced to each other, though I’m fairly certain they didn’t use the standard array for ability scores: one character doesn’t have a single score below 12, and a few of them have more than one stat as high as 18 or 20, which suggests these characters were rolled up, and there was some great rolling involved! In terms of the character abilities, proficiencies, and gear, though, everything checks out on first glance.

Rolled & Told pregenerated characters

Rolled & Told pregenerated characters

Open Gaming Oopsie!

I didn’t see the Open Gaming License in this comic. That might be an oversight because this is a preview issue, but I think that’s something that they need to include since the adventure clearly uses the 5th Edition core rulebooks as references. Frankly, even that might be problematic because the OGL really wants you referring to the System Reference Document and not the core rulebooks (even though the author and editor clearly made an effort to ensure the name “Dungeons & Dragons” never actually appears anywhere in here).

I strongly recommend that for future issues they refer only to the SRD and simply make up the other stuff as needed, and include the OGL at the end of the comic (or in the legal text on the first page, if they can find room to fit it!). [ED: Issues #1 and #2 do indeed include the OGL. ]

Form 5/5

Look: I’m biased here. I love comics, I love comic book style artwork, and I also love artsy maps. Rolled & Told #0 utilizes the format perfectly to provide a great, visually appealing map, a cool intro comic that mirrors the introduction the players receive during the adventure, and great depictions of several of the rooms, traps, and especially the pregenerated characters. The visuals are arguably more thematically connected to the material you receive in this book than many big-time adventures. Often in published adventures, the monsters, NPCs, and locations are depicted in a format that isn’t entirely cohesive with the text. For example, you get a picture of a creepy looking doorway, or a monster with no background art. In this, you see the pregens adventuring through each room of the dungeon, and you get artwork that not only depicts verbatim what the traps or puzzles look like, but in some cases provide visual clues, or represent what could go wrong if you fail to make your saving throw! This singularly realized vision shows off just how well the comic book format can work for small, self-contained adventures and their support material (pregens, potential player handouts for images, or introductions to the adventure itself).

Future Issues

Let’s keep something in mind here: this is the free #0 issue of what will be a monthly series that (according to the marketing text on the back) gives you…

  • Two ready-to-play, fun adventures
  • 6-12 hours of play time!
  • Fully illustrated map
  • 64 pages packed with beautiful illustrations
  • Comics with each full adventure
  • Articles offering tips and tricks for budding game masters

If this preview is any indication, this series will be strong, and quite the value at a comic book price tag! If writer E. L. Thomas and editor Steenz take the criticism of tackling rules language and editing to heart, they are already starting on the high ground. The art and maps by Jen Vaughn, Shing Yin Khor, Stephanie Mided, Jonathan Hill, and Myisha Haynes are stellar! Having a strong, cohesive adventure depicted so cogently and evocatively by this roster means that DMs are going to have both form and function delivered in spades.

Rolled & Told #0 back cover

Rolled & Told #0 back cover

Read More!

Read more about the series at the links below:

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