Dungeon Crawl Classics #76.5: Well of the Worm
Publisher: Goodman Games
Cost: $6.99 (PDF)/$9.99 (Print)
Page Count: 18
Release Date: 10/11/2013
Get it Here: DriveThruRPG.com
I’ve never understood the .5 style numeration of some Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures. There are several things that can trigger it – con exclusives, conversion from another system and so on. I just think it’s silly. Maybe a different track with its own numbering, ala old school D&D adventures? Con exclusives could be CE1, CE2 and so on. The point-five bit always sounds like it’s part of an adventure or to be tacked on as a follow-up to an earlier release. In this case, the adventure does state that it was converted to the Dungeon Crawl Classics system, but unfortunately it doesn’t say WHAT it was converted from. As a reviewer, that would have been nice to know for comparison and contrasting. I had to actually look up the original source, and it turns out it was originally DCC #29, back when these were printed for Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. It’s also worth noting the printed version of this adventure was originally only available to people who purchased two or more paper copies of adventures from Goodman Games. It’s nice to see that, for those who missed out on the original offer, they can still purchase a pdf version of the adventure. With all that out of the way, let’s get on with the review.
Well of the Worm is for four to six Level 1 characters, which is a rather small party for a DCC adventure. It’s a very short adventure which has characters going down a well to fight human headed worm monsters. I’ll admit that the enemies aren’t all that interesting a concept, but they can’t all be winners. Besides, just because *I* don’t think the well worms are interesting doesn’t mean that some other gamer WON’T. At least the adventure gives you three possible plot hooks to make your characters go down the well. One is especially weak (What are the chances all the characters are from the same village after all – how often does THAT happen?), but the other two are solid and diverse enough that they can spur your party into action.
Sure, it’s a bit odd that there is a massive cavern under a town’s dried up well, but it’s a fantasy game. Honestly, is that really the weirdest thing your players will have encountered in one of these? A good DM should really play up the tight quarters of the adventure. After all, this isn’t an expansive dungeon made by some evil big bad. It’s a naturally occurring cavern that just happens to have some hideous monsters living in it. I really like that the adventure calls attention to how cramped the location is and inflicts penalties on large weapons due to the lack of room to properly use them.
There isn’t a lot to see or do in Well of the Worm. It’s a fairly straightforward, linear dungeon crawl. Characters will hack and slash their way through zombies and well worms. For a Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure, the lethality of the quest is surprisingly low. I was surprised at how “easy” the adventure was for characters to survive compared to previous releases. That said, there are two very easy ways to die in this one. The first is taking a very large fall at the beginning of the adventure. The second is falling into a pit of the human headed worm monsters. Neither are very fun ways for your character to go. For the most part, though, this is a fairly standard and somewhat generic dungeon crawl. Even the two main antagonists are a bit predictable and pat. In fact the warm worm mother is almost 
ripped exactly from the video game ArcaniA‘s first boss, which is probably just a coincidence. There’s only so much you can do with worm monsters after all. There is one neat monster in the Zombie Ogre, especially its unique physical state. That’s definitely the most memorable and enjoyable thing about Well of the Worm. Unfortunately, it’s an optional encounter that may not happen depending on what players do.
There isn’t a lot of art to Well of the Worm, but what’s here is very well done indeed. There are two full page handouts that really help to make the adventure come alive, and as always, the DCC maps are the best in the industry today. The two covers (front and back) are full colour and are really well done, but I did have some people laugh at the absurdity of the monsters, which puts a damper on playing the adventure. After all, if the players can’t take them seriously, it takes a bit of extra work to salvage the experience.
All in all, let’s give Well of the Worm a thumb’s in the middle. It’s not a bad adventure by any means – just a rather generic and uninteresting one. It’s very well written, and I loved some of the details to the location and mechanics, but the adventure just didn’t really wow me. There are plenty of better (and cheaper) Dungeon Crawl Classics adventures out there. Again, this is not a bad adventure by any means, but I’d only recommend picking this up if you’re a completionist trying to get your hands on all of the adventures for the system.
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