I4 Oasis of the White Palm Review - Old School Role Playing

Oasis of the White Palm is the second module in the Desert of Desolation series. This adventure is written by Philip Meyers and Tracy Hickman. It was published by TSR in 1983. The adventure is 37 pages long from cover to cover.

The characters begin this adventure lost in a desert sand storm. They find a cave which they can use as shelter and safety from the storm. Once the storm ends and the party departs the cave they see smoke in the distance. Perhaps there are people near! They set off towards this smoke in order to investigate……

This adventure basically has three areas to be explored. The Oasis itself is one of these. But there is the Temple of Set nearby as well as the Crypt of Badr Al-Mosak. But first the players must find their way through the desert sands to the Oasis. And that alone is no certain task.

Like the preceding module each encounter area is defined with the following headings:

Monster
Treasure
Trap/Trick
Lore

As I stated in my previous review I am not a fan of this aspect of these modules. I think these encounter areas could be clearly described with a lot less text without these headings. To me it just adds a lot of unnecessary text.

I4 Oasis of the White Palm Link

What I like about Oasis of the White Palm

Desert adventures are interesting. There are not many in the library of TSR products so that makes this series kind of unique. Desert are full of emptiness. But when one meets another in the desert it is entirely possible the other party will be some desperate villain. Bandits, dervishes and other such people escape to places like this to avoid the forces of law.

As a desert adventure series the use and carrying of water becomes an essential element of the story. The characters must carry water or they must find it. Otherwise they will die. Animals that are used for packing heavy loot will also have the same issues.

The oasis itself is basically just a town or village in the desert. This gives the adventurers a place to retreat to for safety and resupply. It gives them a place to find rumors and discover information about nearby places to explore.

There are two places nearby to explore. The Temple of Set and the Crypt. Both give lots of opportunity to find treasure and glory.

There are tons of tricks and traps in this adventure. There are far too many… in fact. But some of them are interesting enough to steal and use in other stories.

Naturally for a desert adventure certain types of undead seem to be called for. And they are found in abundance in this adventure. Mummies, specifically, belong in such a story. And this story has some. Along with Efreeti and some other creatures from desert lore. Even a Djinni.

What I do not like about Oasis of the White Palm

Like the previous adventure there are far too many tricks and traps. This is one of my beefs with the heading system of this module. I believe that having these words in every encounter has caused these authors to use them in every encounter. Tricks and traps are usually my favorite element of modules. But not when they are highly overused as they are in this series. They are hardly confounding when one finds them in every room.

Also a similar complaint to the previous module is that there seem to be far too many cultists, slavers and other humans to fight. While I have no problem with using human villains in adventures I think the players tend to find it boring when they fight them too often in an adventure. This is a fantasy game and they expect to fight fantasy creatures most of the time. Now spell casters, of course, are more interesting as monsters to fight. But regular cult type guys and guards and such get a little old after a while. But I guess for a desert adventure the designers must have felt this added some element of reality to the story line.

Would I recommend this adventure to others?

If you are looking specifically for a desert adventure this one would do. There are many elements that I do not like about the series. But there are few competing adventures in this sort of a setting. So this one would be as good as any to run if that is what you are looking for.

Would I run Oasis of the White Palm with my own players?

I think the adventure series is flawed and I do not think my own players would find it all that interesting. While the setting is different than the normal game world of fantasy the monsters are not really all that different than those found in other settings.

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