Dead Men Tell No Tales

A Review of the Role Playing Game Supplement Dead Men Tell No Tales

Dead Men Tell No Tales by Joseph Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with OSRIC. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.

Dead Men Tell No TalesThe supplement is available as a 37 Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.

Background explains that the adventure is for 4-7 characters of levels 2-4. The characters discover a shipwreck which had been looted by pirates and which has the undead first mate of the pirate captain tied to a treasure chest on it; the mate was killed after questioning the captain.

Game Master Notes explains that the mate has ulterior motives and that some of the monsters come from the free supplement Monsters of Myth.

Player Background has the characters encountering the wreck.

The Wreck of the Zanzian Queen details the layout of the wreck and its surroundings.

Skull Island details the pirate island, with a d3 table of random encounters.

X Marks the Spot Dungeon Levels details the hidden lair of the pirates.

New Monsters has two new monsters.

New Magic Items has three new items.

Player Handout A is the single handout.

The final five pages of content have a map of the wreck, the two levels of the dungeon and two maps of Skull Island, one for the GM and one for players.

Dead Men Tell No Tales in Review

The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a two-column format and some minor errors were noticed. There are a variety of stock colour and black and white illustrations. Presentation is okay.

Perhaps the biggest problem with this adventure is that it looks as if, should the characters kill the first mate – who is, after all, undead – without the first mate giving them enough details, they might miss the majority of it. It might be an idea to add another handout filling in the blanks if needed. The dungeon has a number of puzzles for characters to solve; fortunately, as puzzles are dependent on player abilities, these are just for extra pieces of treasure, rather than being needed to finish the adventure. Dead Men Tell No Tales is an okay adventure and it can be found by clicking here.


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