A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Town Musicians of Bremen: Replayable One-shot for D&D 5e

Town Musicians of Bremen: Replayable One-shot for D&D 5e by Lucas Zellers is a role playing game supplement published by Wizards of the Coast via the DMs Guild Community Content Programme. This is an adventure for four characters of levels 1-4.

The supplement is available as a 15-page PDF from DMs Guild for $2 but was received for free thanks to a special offer. One page is the front cover, one page is ads and one the Table of Contents.

Adventure Overview starts with the Summary which explains this is a one-shot adventure based on the German folk story “The Town Musicians of Bremen” and straight-line travel stories.

Running the Game gives an overview of how four animals in the original story scare away a group of bandits from a house. In the adventure, the characters face four obstacles mirroring the original four characters, arriving at the house at the end of the day, where they can stay if they wish.

There are six potential tracks for the adventure; these are fey, shapechanger, celestial, fiend, monstrosity and bonus. A short description is given as to how each track is different. There is a table that shows each of the six tracks. Each track has four columns of options for encounters, depending on the animal. Tips are given on running a shorter session. There is also a d8 table of adventure hooks to explain why the characters are travelling.

The Road then describes the different encounters. It starts with the themed animal, then the six different encounters for that animal are covered. This is done for all four animals.

The Robber’s House covers six different options for both The Taking and The Keeping, depending on the track.

Epilogue looks at what the characters might do next; they are never supposed to end up in Bremen.

Appendix 1: New Monsters has six new monsters.

Appendix 2: Monster Index lists the different monsters encountered, their Challenge Rating, CP and page number, for those using the Monster Manual.

Appendix 3: Town Musicians of Bremen has the original folk tale.

Town Musicians of Bremen: Replayable One-shot for D&D 5e in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and has enough different sections that these would have been useful. The Table of Contents covers the major sections and subsections. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and appeared to be free of errors. There are a number of pieces of colour stock art. Presentation is decent.

As this adventure explains, it can be rerun in many different ways. It is, however, not that suitable for running multiple times with the same group. As a one-shot, it’s also not best designed to integrate with a campaign, and will work best as something done as is, without trying to integrate it with anything else. Perhaps it is best suited for convention play. Town Musicians of Bremen: Replayable One-shot for D&D 5e is an unusual little adventure and it can be found by clicking here.