The warning bells went off when I read the hook for The Secrets of Imaginary Friends, a Tier 1 CCC adventure for the D&D Adventurers League. It stated that the adventurers are hired as labourers. This was the only hook presented.

Oh boy. The stuff of exciting adventures this wasn’t. Look, there are plenty of perfectly fine hooks for adventures. They may not be inspired (hired as caravan guards!), but they make sense within the context of the D&D world, where adventurers are known as skilled warriors and wizards.

In what land does an adventurer have to stoop to working as a common labourer? It’s dull. It doesn’t inspire. And it makes a lot of assumptions about the characters and their current state of finances that an adventure shouldn’t be making. (Why don’t they find the nearest dungeon to get treasure?)

Half-baked is the phrase that comes to mind, and it’s something that I felt about most of the adventure.

It’s not as the adventure doesn’t have good ideas. It does – a lot of them. The plot revolves around a young boy who has an imaginary friend who turns out to not be so imaginary. He’s an agent of Tharizdun, the Chained God, and in addition to the adventurers, there are other forces of Good that oppose him. There’s the possibility of the players mistaking the forces of Good for the forces of Evil, although it seems unlikely that this will happen given the ability checks involved.

The trouble is that all of the ideas don’t come together well. There’s a town where you make deliveries and interact with the townsfolk, which may give you clues about what’s going on, but the links aren’t strong, and it all doesn’t add up to much. The merchant you travel with tells you a fantastic tale of local mythology – which has no relevance to the adventure.

There’s a fallen meteorite and an attack from Chaos Grues. Fantastic! But the text about the meteorite could have been a lot more evocative. Where was the flash and sound of it striking the earth, as surely the players should be aware of it?

The worst sin of the adventure is that it fails to explain the plot in the introduction. The skulk serves Tharizdun? I had to infer that from clues in the text – it isn’t properly stated anywhere.

This may have been clear in the designer’s mind, but it isn’t in the text.

You can make something of the adventure – it’s not terrible – but I was using my knowledge of Tharizdun and the history of D&D to bring it all together. Most DMs don’t have that background. An underwhelming adventure – not recommended.