The Crypt of Rokar is an OSR adventure written for Dungeons and Dragons. Presumably this is written for OD&D but the module states that is is written for “Classic” but is easily modified to “Original” or “Advanced” rules.
The adventure was available on Drive Thru RPG as a Pay What You Want file until recently. Hopefully this means it will be available elsewhere soon. I am not sure why it was removed from the site.
The adventure is written for characters of 1st to 3rd level of experience. The author is Michael Mills and the publisher is Canister & Grape Wargames.
This is a short dungeon crawl. It involves a warrior buried in a tomb deep in the woods. Some undead have moved in to the tombs. And the Warrior is now a wight.
What I like about The Crypt of Rokar
It is short. So is the background. You can dive right in and play with little work.
It is very old school. It has a black and white map. There is little in the way of artwork. The maps is clean and brief. The adventure itself is a total of 10 pages and this includes the cover, the back cover and the OSR legal crap that is necessary for publication. So there is actually about 6 or 7 pages of important stuff for the reader here.
It is a basic little introduction to Dungeons and Dragons. There are a few undead creatures but nothing too difficult for low level characters to handle. It gives away only a few magic items and a few pieces of valuable treasure.
What I do not like about this adventure
It does have boxed text. If that is a problem for you then you will not like that aspect. But it is short and to the point. None of the read aloud stuff is stilted language that you often find in such things.
Pictures or artwork would make it look better. But they are not really necessary if the adventure is good. This one is pretty good. It would work well for low level characters. It is brief enough to be an easy one shot for anyone wanting to learn the game. It could be played easily in but a few hours.
Would I recommend The Crypt of Rokar to others?
Absolutely. It is a nice little introduction adventure for Dungeons and Dragons. It is easily convertible to any of the old school versions of the game or even to 5th Edition if one wanted to do so.
Would I run The Crypt of Rokar with my own group?
Possibly. If they were 1st level characters I probably would consider it. Right now my group is 13-14th level so it may be a while before I am ready to play low level stuff again.
