[Free RPG Day 2022] The Three-Wizard Conundrum

Now in its fifteenth year, Free RPG Day in 2022, was celebrated not once, but twice. First on Saturday, 25th June in the USA, and then on Saturday, 23rd July internationally. This was to prevent problem with past events when certain books did not arrive in time to be shipped internationally and so were not available outside of the USA. As per usual, Free RPG Day consisted of an array of new and interesting little releases, which are traditionally tasters for forthcoming games to be released at GenCon the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera or a quick-start. Thanks to the generosity of David Salisbury of Fan Boy 3, Reviews from R’lyeh was get hold of many of the titles released for Free RPG Day, both in the USA and elsewhere.

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Goodman Games provided two titles to support Free RPG 2022, one of which was more highly anticipated than the other. As you would expect, the highly anticipated titles was Danger in the Air, an adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Yet as highly anticipated as Danger in the Air was, the other release should not be dismissed out of hand. The other release asks the question, “What do adventurers do between adventures?” Well, in the case of The Three-Wizard Conundrum, they get themselves involved in more adventures, of course! As the scenario opens, the party of brave adventurers is unwinding in a tavern, when they receive word that not one, not two, but three mighty wizards are in town, each looking for a band of capable adventurers to retrieve a fabled Ring of Wizardry. In return, they will pay a decent reward and let the Player Characters take whatever other treasure they recover. However, the task must involve great peril, for otherwise the wizards would have already found and obtained the ring for themselves.

The Three-Wizard Conundrum is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition designed to be played by a party of Third and Fourth Level Player Characters. It is delightfully simple affair, really divided between the nicely detailed descriptions of the three scenario’s antagonists—Humboldt of Hightower, Dunbar the Arcane, and Rialto the Resplendent—and the three area dungeon that they send the protagonists to. All three wizards will approach the Player Characters and make them an offer if they will climb Cleft Mountain and once near its summit, descend into the depths of a deep gorge, the result of a great divine battle in ages past which has left magic reliable in the area. Hence their reluctance to descend into their depths themselves. This is reflected by the ‘Wild Magic Effects’ table which is rolled upon any time that a Player Character attempts to cast a spell and fails.

The Player Characters have the chance to check up on the three wizards and may learn a secret or two about the wizards before they climb the mountain and descend into its depths. There is more going on than meets the eye—though not much more given the length of the scenario—and ultimately, if the Player Characters survive they will have made an enemy or two, or three, or more. However, they are unlikely to have grabbed much in the way of treasure and extremely unlikely to have been paid, and for a very good reason. The whole situation is a scam, a fairly dark scam, which will keep both Dungeon Master and her players and their characters on their toes. The other reason that the lack of treasure is unlikely to be a bother is that The Three-Wizard Conundrum is an in-between adventure, a side trek affair, which slots very easily into any campaign.

Physically, The Three-Wizard Conundrum is superbly presented. The cover is excellent and internal artwork good. It does a careful read through to quite grasp what is going on, but the scenario is well written.

The Three-Wizard Conundrum is a really fun little adventure which should provide one or two sessions’ worth of play when the Dungeon Master slots it into her campaign. Although not specifically written for it, the scenario has all of the knavery and insouciance of Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth series of stories, which of course, Goodman Games is publishing as an adaptation of for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. Overall, The Three-Wizard Problem is a delightful in-between adventure which would slots into any Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition campaign or can be adapted to The Dying Earth Sourcebook for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game. In the meantime, can we have more scams from Humboldt of Hightower, Dunbar the Arcane, and Rialto the Resplendent please?