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September 7, 2022Here's an omnibus review of 5 adventures. And here's one thing I think goes without saying, but heck, let's say it: there's not really an objective measure of what makes a good adventure. Like: maybe something that seems unrunnable to me is perfect for your table; or also: maybe a trope that I find played out seems still interesting to you.
So with that said, this is a review of The Created, Web of Illusion, House of Strahd, The Dark of the Moon, and Adam's Wrath -- and I think each of them has something to recommend it.
***
The Created: I find the cover to be a little lackluster -- it's just a spooky jack in the box -- but this adventure is solid. The premise is, well, Dark Universe Pinocchio: a guy made a puppet and this puppet is almost alive -- and now hates all adults. So he amasses a puppet army to kill all the adults in this one town on the day of this Italian-esque festival. Now, this being Ravenloft, this evil puppet is a dark lord and this one town is a domain, so the PCs are forced to stay here, but otherwise, this is a one-shot domain with no real reason to be a domain. (Or as you'll hear me say: not everything has to be about the dark lord.)
The adventure plot is a little split, starting with a little slow investigation (what killed this guy, oh here's a creepy puppet) and rapidly snowballing into being attacked by puppets in the street. There's some rules about how if the puppets overwhelm the PCs -- which happens automatically if any PC is alone for 5 rounds -- and take over their bodies, with the PCs' consciousness waking up in doll bodies. This is a repeated motif in a lot of Ravenloft: you get captured and you have to get your body back as a motivation (e.g., the decapitation in From the Shadows, being turned into a golem in Adam's Wrath, etc.). I find that part to be unnecessary since "oh no, I'm a puppet" is so ridiculous that there has to be an out. And sure enough, the rest of the adventure is stopping the evil puppet -- Maligno -- preferably (says the adventure) by burning down the theater after the kids leave a puppet show.
Which is fine, but I think I'd take a note from Inside Out or Peter Pan, maybe: Maligno only wants kids to laugh, never to feel sad (like Joy from Inside Out); but like Peter Pan, he's taken away their parents, so of course they're gonna feel sad eventually and turn on him -- which will really make him a monster. Or: he wants laughter, but the kids are sad, and he doesn't realize that actual laughter and acceptance is the one thing that will make him vulnerable, so the PCs can't just destroy him, but need to make him a laughingstock to the kids.
For me, at least, the ending of "destroy him with fire" shows one of the weaknesses of D&D Ravenloft at this point: they can't entirely commit to theme or tone and have to fall back on rolling dice for combat.
***
Web of Illusion: this takes place in the Indian-themed land of Sri Raji and again is one of those "there's a bad guy who wants your help overthrowing this other bad guy."
So the first part of the adventure is scenes, as the PCs learn to navigate (or not) the two main factions -- the Dark Sisters who support the current rakshasa lord (I think?) and the weretiger affiliated Stalkers. And if you don't know your monsters, that means this is a fight between two creatures with tiger heads, which makes some sense, but again makes me wonder what the stakes are. This adventure starts with the PCs finding a magic item that someone else wants -- which isn't particularly Ravenloft -- and includes the villain motivating the PCs by pretending to infect them with lycanthropy. (Which doesn't entirely make sense to me -- why not just actually do it? Oh, but then you'd need a whole part of the adventure where they cure themselves.)
The second half of the adventure is just a dungeon crawl through the ruined city and the temple where the rakshasa lives, surrounded by illusions.
This whole thing feels, well, rickety. The first half is supposed to have a sort of sandbox feel, where they can go from one scene to another, stumbling deeper into conspiracy, but the conspiracy is mostly "these guys try to kill you" and "now these other guys are trying to kill you." Given the name of the adventure, there's not really much of a web here. And frankly, this fantasy India feels a little thin. Now, how about make this less about fighting assassins in the streets and more about, say, court intrigue, so that there really is a web of connections and betrayals?
***
House of Strahd is a revision & rerelease of the original Ravenloft adventure; like the original, it's essentially a dungeon crawl through a castle where you're trying to stop Strahd from completing his mission, and where several important things are decided by randomizer. If you're keeping score at home, this is the 2nd of 3 times that they return to this adventure, and I guess if you're playing 2nd edition, this is the one that has all the stats you need.
***
The Dark of the Moon is a solid werewolf and revolution story, wrapped up in a bit too much stuff and with some overused elements.
OK, so first, this takes place in the wintery realm of Vorostokov, which is Russian-influenced, but that influence is basically: it's cold and we call the lord "boyar." There's 4 pages of backstory on the lord Gregor, who basically turned himself into a werewolf to provide for his family, then grew mad with power and bloodlust, killing a bunch of his family, and turning his kids into werewolves. (One is into the violence, the other is not.) There's so much unnecessary backstory here to set this up, and that 4 pp of backstory and other material means the adventure only begins on page 11. As I've said before, backstory is only useful if it informs play, but here I'd add another rule: elaborate setups don't need elaborate backstories.
I like the realm here, which is eternally locked in winter and depopulated, so there's small towns and not a lot of people to help you. I also like that Gregor, presented as a madman who only wants himself to have power in Darklords book, is here altered so that his bodyguards are all werewolves that he's infected -- and were, in fact, former rebels themselves who now gives themselves over to power.
So that right there is my theme or central question: will you give in to power and give up your principles? And the writer/editors do a pretty good job of that: first the PCs are given the job of protecting a town from the boyar, then witnessing a massacred town, then being potentially infected with lycanthropy (which is a tired trope, but at least here ties into the theme a bit -- I might change it so that rather than an infection that's all bad, the PCs get to revel in the power a bit and then have to make a choice to keep the power or do the right thing), and then have to overthrow the boyar in both human and wolf form -- which again, feels like a reversion to the boring D&D fight mechanics.
Maybe the climactic scene should be something more like: the PCs are given the same choice Gregor had, to give up the power or hold onto it, and they get to make the right choice.
***
Adam's Wrath
I'm just gonna jump in with the tropes I'm tired of and then work backwards from that:
This adventure pretty much starts with the PCs being killed and then brought back by the Frankenstein stand-in as golems; and then tasked with recovering the mad doctor's wife (or her nearly dead body) when the powerful golem Adam steals it, which the mad doctor insures by giving the PCs their bodies back, but with wereboar hearts. Now, just in case you were wondering, having a wereboar heart (a) does change your stats, (b) does threaten you with becoming a boar -- shades of Bulgakov's Heart of a dog -- and (c) doesn't matter because tissue rejection will kill you.
I just feel like another "you get your body swapped" and another "the bad guy blackmails you" opening doesn't bode well.
The rest of the adventure is really ok, though: to find out where the golems have their HQ, the PCs have to finagle a map from a mad baron. (This being Ravenloft, every house here has something to fight and kill.) And then, with the map, they have to invade the golem sanctuary. (There's a little too much "since they spent time as flesh golems, they can fake their way in", which feels... like, if you're going to give an obstacle and then give an immediate out that the PCs don't have to work for, what's the point?)
The adventure falters a bit at the end when they return the body to the mad doctor, who proceeds to revive her, only she's now crazy and has to be restrained -- and the PCs are just supposed to wash their hands of the matter?
Also, going back to my favorite adventures here: what's the theme? What's the gothic horror here? This isn't an easy question, especially since the source text (Frankenstein) is so famously knotty, but let's take a surface reading: the doctor was so driven by a mission that he sacrificed -- almost by accident -- something he really loved. Here, the mad doctor's relationship with his wife is described as more scientific than loving, which robs it a bit of its sadness. Like: Dr. Freeze's story is so interesting because he's got a really pure goal. So, drop the mad doctor's obsession, allow him to remain love-starved -- it's sadder that way.
Now the mad baron's house shows something interesting: maybe this adventure is really about obsession and madness, not being sure of your own reasons. Hmmm... ok, so I don't just want this to be about the doctor and his creation both loving the wife... in fact, I'm a little tired of the wife as object here (and in the Bride of Mordenheim mini-adventure in Book of Crypts). So, let's scrap this and start over: the wife, trapped in her body, develops psychic powers and is also mad, but driven to-- do something. Maybe she wants revenge on the monster who destroyed her family -- which is either the monster or the doctor -- or maybe she wants some freedom of her own. There's a whole thing about how the monster keeps creating flesh golems but can't control them. So maybe wife Elise starts controlling them... Maybe the PCs need to rescue her body not because they have wereboar hearts, but because her plan involves a lot of people dying in order to set her free.
So with that said, this is a review of The Created, Web of Illusion, House of Strahd, The Dark of the Moon, and Adam's Wrath -- and I think each of them has something to recommend it.
***
The Created: I find the cover to be a little lackluster -- it's just a spooky jack in the box -- but this adventure is solid. The premise is, well, Dark Universe Pinocchio: a guy made a puppet and this puppet is almost alive -- and now hates all adults. So he amasses a puppet army to kill all the adults in this one town on the day of this Italian-esque festival. Now, this being Ravenloft, this evil puppet is a dark lord and this one town is a domain, so the PCs are forced to stay here, but otherwise, this is a one-shot domain with no real reason to be a domain. (Or as you'll hear me say: not everything has to be about the dark lord.)
The adventure plot is a little split, starting with a little slow investigation (what killed this guy, oh here's a creepy puppet) and rapidly snowballing into being attacked by puppets in the street. There's some rules about how if the puppets overwhelm the PCs -- which happens automatically if any PC is alone for 5 rounds -- and take over their bodies, with the PCs' consciousness waking up in doll bodies. This is a repeated motif in a lot of Ravenloft: you get captured and you have to get your body back as a motivation (e.g., the decapitation in From the Shadows, being turned into a golem in Adam's Wrath, etc.). I find that part to be unnecessary since "oh no, I'm a puppet" is so ridiculous that there has to be an out. And sure enough, the rest of the adventure is stopping the evil puppet -- Maligno -- preferably (says the adventure) by burning down the theater after the kids leave a puppet show.
Which is fine, but I think I'd take a note from Inside Out or Peter Pan, maybe: Maligno only wants kids to laugh, never to feel sad (like Joy from Inside Out); but like Peter Pan, he's taken away their parents, so of course they're gonna feel sad eventually and turn on him -- which will really make him a monster. Or: he wants laughter, but the kids are sad, and he doesn't realize that actual laughter and acceptance is the one thing that will make him vulnerable, so the PCs can't just destroy him, but need to make him a laughingstock to the kids.
For me, at least, the ending of "destroy him with fire" shows one of the weaknesses of D&D Ravenloft at this point: they can't entirely commit to theme or tone and have to fall back on rolling dice for combat.
***
Web of Illusion: this takes place in the Indian-themed land of Sri Raji and again is one of those "there's a bad guy who wants your help overthrowing this other bad guy."
So the first part of the adventure is scenes, as the PCs learn to navigate (or not) the two main factions -- the Dark Sisters who support the current rakshasa lord (I think?) and the weretiger affiliated Stalkers. And if you don't know your monsters, that means this is a fight between two creatures with tiger heads, which makes some sense, but again makes me wonder what the stakes are. This adventure starts with the PCs finding a magic item that someone else wants -- which isn't particularly Ravenloft -- and includes the villain motivating the PCs by pretending to infect them with lycanthropy. (Which doesn't entirely make sense to me -- why not just actually do it? Oh, but then you'd need a whole part of the adventure where they cure themselves.)
The second half of the adventure is just a dungeon crawl through the ruined city and the temple where the rakshasa lives, surrounded by illusions.
This whole thing feels, well, rickety. The first half is supposed to have a sort of sandbox feel, where they can go from one scene to another, stumbling deeper into conspiracy, but the conspiracy is mostly "these guys try to kill you" and "now these other guys are trying to kill you." Given the name of the adventure, there's not really much of a web here. And frankly, this fantasy India feels a little thin. Now, how about make this less about fighting assassins in the streets and more about, say, court intrigue, so that there really is a web of connections and betrayals?
***
House of Strahd is a revision & rerelease of the original Ravenloft adventure; like the original, it's essentially a dungeon crawl through a castle where you're trying to stop Strahd from completing his mission, and where several important things are decided by randomizer. If you're keeping score at home, this is the 2nd of 3 times that they return to this adventure, and I guess if you're playing 2nd edition, this is the one that has all the stats you need.
***
The Dark of the Moon is a solid werewolf and revolution story, wrapped up in a bit too much stuff and with some overused elements.
OK, so first, this takes place in the wintery realm of Vorostokov, which is Russian-influenced, but that influence is basically: it's cold and we call the lord "boyar." There's 4 pages of backstory on the lord Gregor, who basically turned himself into a werewolf to provide for his family, then grew mad with power and bloodlust, killing a bunch of his family, and turning his kids into werewolves. (One is into the violence, the other is not.) There's so much unnecessary backstory here to set this up, and that 4 pp of backstory and other material means the adventure only begins on page 11. As I've said before, backstory is only useful if it informs play, but here I'd add another rule: elaborate setups don't need elaborate backstories.
I like the realm here, which is eternally locked in winter and depopulated, so there's small towns and not a lot of people to help you. I also like that Gregor, presented as a madman who only wants himself to have power in Darklords book, is here altered so that his bodyguards are all werewolves that he's infected -- and were, in fact, former rebels themselves who now gives themselves over to power.
So that right there is my theme or central question: will you give in to power and give up your principles? And the writer/editors do a pretty good job of that: first the PCs are given the job of protecting a town from the boyar, then witnessing a massacred town, then being potentially infected with lycanthropy (which is a tired trope, but at least here ties into the theme a bit -- I might change it so that rather than an infection that's all bad, the PCs get to revel in the power a bit and then have to make a choice to keep the power or do the right thing), and then have to overthrow the boyar in both human and wolf form -- which again, feels like a reversion to the boring D&D fight mechanics.
Maybe the climactic scene should be something more like: the PCs are given the same choice Gregor had, to give up the power or hold onto it, and they get to make the right choice.
***
Adam's Wrath
I'm just gonna jump in with the tropes I'm tired of and then work backwards from that:
This adventure pretty much starts with the PCs being killed and then brought back by the Frankenstein stand-in as golems; and then tasked with recovering the mad doctor's wife (or her nearly dead body) when the powerful golem Adam steals it, which the mad doctor insures by giving the PCs their bodies back, but with wereboar hearts. Now, just in case you were wondering, having a wereboar heart (a) does change your stats, (b) does threaten you with becoming a boar -- shades of Bulgakov's Heart of a dog -- and (c) doesn't matter because tissue rejection will kill you.
I just feel like another "you get your body swapped" and another "the bad guy blackmails you" opening doesn't bode well.
The rest of the adventure is really ok, though: to find out where the golems have their HQ, the PCs have to finagle a map from a mad baron. (This being Ravenloft, every house here has something to fight and kill.) And then, with the map, they have to invade the golem sanctuary. (There's a little too much "since they spent time as flesh golems, they can fake their way in", which feels... like, if you're going to give an obstacle and then give an immediate out that the PCs don't have to work for, what's the point?)
The adventure falters a bit at the end when they return the body to the mad doctor, who proceeds to revive her, only she's now crazy and has to be restrained -- and the PCs are just supposed to wash their hands of the matter?
Also, going back to my favorite adventures here: what's the theme? What's the gothic horror here? This isn't an easy question, especially since the source text (Frankenstein) is so famously knotty, but let's take a surface reading: the doctor was so driven by a mission that he sacrificed -- almost by accident -- something he really loved. Here, the mad doctor's relationship with his wife is described as more scientific than loving, which robs it a bit of its sadness. Like: Dr. Freeze's story is so interesting because he's got a really pure goal. So, drop the mad doctor's obsession, allow him to remain love-starved -- it's sadder that way.
Now the mad baron's house shows something interesting: maybe this adventure is really about obsession and madness, not being sure of your own reasons. Hmmm... ok, so I don't just want this to be about the doctor and his creation both loving the wife... in fact, I'm a little tired of the wife as object here (and in the Bride of Mordenheim mini-adventure in Book of Crypts). So, let's scrap this and start over: the wife, trapped in her body, develops psychic powers and is also mad, but driven to-- do something. Maybe she wants revenge on the monster who destroyed her family -- which is either the monster or the doctor -- or maybe she wants some freedom of her own. There's a whole thing about how the monster keeps creating flesh golems but can't control them. So maybe wife Elise starts controlling them... Maybe the PCs need to rescue her body not because they have wereboar hearts, but because her plan involves a lot of people dying in order to set her free.
September 12, 2021
It's evil Pinocchio!
Okay, that's a little unfair. I think there's a kernel of a good adventure here. I just don't think it was well executed in this particular module.
Figlio is a puppet, a puppet with plans. He was made as a masterwork of the toy-making art. So good he could be a surrogate son to his creator. But he wants a body. Well, he's almost ready to spring his trap on his village at the upcoming festival. Figlio loves children and children love him. He'll spare the children. But their parents? Oh no.. Figlio, now styling himself as Maligno, discovers he cannot possess a body as he wished but his puppets can. His puppets are called Carrionettes. Because of course they are.
Okay, so this is unique as the PCs are in a village at the moment it is pulled in to the Demiplane of Dread. But, to pull off the adventure as written I think requires a lot of set up. The PCs need to spend a lot of time here and get to know the various NPCs. Start dropping hints. A few mysterious disappearances. Maybe even foreshadow the puppets' ability. Once NPC wanders off and reappears a few days later but their personality is wrong somehow. And it all culminates at the night of the festival.
The other option is to assume the module-as-written is canon except the PCs died in the attempt. Your party comes to this new domain ten years down the line and it's some Children of the Corn stuff. The adults are strange and off-putting (if you have them at all. Perhaps their bodies wear out from having the essence of the Carionettes in them? This would give an incentive for the Carrionettes to try and capture the PCs) Spritely childrens laughter can be heard but the child is gone by the time the PCs look. The children live under Maligno and worship him as a god. When they reach the age of majority, they get taken away and possessed by a Carrionette. Have this initiated by a twisted version of the village's previous rituals of adulthood. This second scenario gives a lot more of the classic Ravenloft villain attributes to Maligno. He DOES legitimately love the children and wants them to be happy even as he raises them for slaughter. He always hopes that some of the kids will still see him as a real as they get older but when they hit their mid-teens he sees a look in their eye that tells him it'll soon be time.
The cover art is nice and depicts a monster in the module. The use of light highlights the best parts of the demonic jack-in-the-box while keeping most in shadow and not over-selling it. The interior art is not as subtle. I think some of it could work if the dolls were given more creepy neutral expressions rather than the malevolence they wear and if they were less brightly lit. It would almost be fix-able if I had any photoshop skills.
Okay, that's a little unfair. I think there's a kernel of a good adventure here. I just don't think it was well executed in this particular module.
Figlio is a puppet, a puppet with plans. He was made as a masterwork of the toy-making art. So good he could be a surrogate son to his creator. But he wants a body. Well, he's almost ready to spring his trap on his village at the upcoming festival. Figlio loves children and children love him. He'll spare the children. But their parents? Oh no.. Figlio, now styling himself as Maligno, discovers he cannot possess a body as he wished but his puppets can. His puppets are called Carrionettes. Because of course they are.
Okay, so this is unique as the PCs are in a village at the moment it is pulled in to the Demiplane of Dread. But, to pull off the adventure as written I think requires a lot of set up. The PCs need to spend a lot of time here and get to know the various NPCs. Start dropping hints. A few mysterious disappearances. Maybe even foreshadow the puppets' ability. Once NPC wanders off and reappears a few days later but their personality is wrong somehow. And it all culminates at the night of the festival.
The other option is to assume the module-as-written is canon except the PCs died in the attempt. Your party comes to this new domain ten years down the line and it's some Children of the Corn stuff. The adults are strange and off-putting (if you have them at all. Perhaps their bodies wear out from having the essence of the Carionettes in them? This would give an incentive for the Carrionettes to try and capture the PCs) Spritely childrens laughter can be heard but the child is gone by the time the PCs look. The children live under Maligno and worship him as a god. When they reach the age of majority, they get taken away and possessed by a Carrionette. Have this initiated by a twisted version of the village's previous rituals of adulthood. This second scenario gives a lot more of the classic Ravenloft villain attributes to Maligno. He DOES legitimately love the children and wants them to be happy even as he raises them for slaughter. He always hopes that some of the kids will still see him as a real as they get older but when they hit their mid-teens he sees a look in their eye that tells him it'll soon be time.
The cover art is nice and depicts a monster in the module. The use of light highlights the best parts of the demonic jack-in-the-box while keeping most in shadow and not over-selling it. The interior art is not as subtle. I think some of it could work if the dolls were given more creepy neutral expressions rather than the malevolence they wear and if they were less brightly lit. It would almost be fix-able if I had any photoshop skills.
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