Neuroglyph
First Post
The month of October and the anticipation of Halloween seems to make everyone start thinking about zombies, ghouls, ghosts, and all manner of things going bump in the night. Certainly, the same is true of D&D campaigns, and players often find their DMs turning to creepier themes during October, and undead become the major plot point in many adventures this time of the year.
So in this spooky time of year, Dungeon Masters can find quite a few appropriately themed adventures released by 3rd party publishers.
And one such adventure has recently been released by 3 Sages Games, which would appear to be perfectly themed for the Halloween season, featuring a country town and rampaging undead in the World of Wor: “Zombies Ate My Baby!”
Zombies Ate My Baby!
Production Quality
The production quality of Zombies Ate My Baby is fair to average, with the adventure material presented fairly logically, and with some decent writing, although quite a bit of it is often a bit tongue-in-cheek. There were a few typos and a couple bits of odd sentence structure here and there, but nothing major enough as to make the adventure reading problematic. The monster statistic blocks use the pre-MM3 format, and have some indentation and structural errors which make them a bit off from standard displays, but not impossible to use.
While the author does provide a table of content, there is problem with the pdf bookmarks. They are simply lableled “page 1”, “page 2”, and so on, but actually start numbering with the adventure’s cover, so they are all off by one page – without details and accuracy, the bookmarks are rendered essentially worthless, which is a challenge for a 60+ page pdf.
The artwork runs the gamut from lackluster to excellent, and ranges in media from simple cartoon-style pieces to photo-quality computer rendered ones, and even a few hand-drawn pencil sketches. Overall, the artwork enhances the quality of the product, and even the simpler pieces still have a certain charm. However, the encounter maps are fairly uninspired, and given the availability of decent map-rendering software available now, it seems disappointing to see a collection of poorly drawn maps. They provide enough data, however, to allow a DM to set up some “dungeon tiles” or draw out a map on a battlemat, but are hardly worth the toner needed to actually print them out for use at the gaming table.
Introduction
The main thrust of the adventure is to stop a zombie apocalypse from over-running the remote town of Sulphur Springs, and to seek out the source of the infection which is causing the zombies to attack. Along the way, the author provides some side plots and rumors to use as red herrings as the heroes seek to unravel the mystery of the zombie incursion. As opposed to standard zombies, as described in the Monster Manual et al, many of the zombies in this adventure are infectious, and can pass on their zombie condition to living creatures, npcs, and the characters themselves! This lends the adventure a certain “zombie apocalypse” movie feeling, and is actually a nice touch to make plot more dynamic and scary.
The author provides considerable background material regarding the start of the infection, and the nature of the arcane scientist who was actually trying to cure undead, but instead managed to find a new way of making them. There is also extensive information regarding the town of Sulphur Springs and surrounding lands, with detailed descriptions of the inhabitants and important citizens in the area.
It should be noted that the author decided to keep the adventure light-hearted, and this is most keenly reflected in the names of the local villagers. Reading somewhat like a who’s-who of nostalgic television shows, villagers end up with names like Sheriff Andrea Taylor with her Deputy Barnaby Fife, a local rancher named Ben Cartleft, and a clerical healer named Feldon Kildare. There are also a few other spoofs like the local inn run by the Newheart Family, and the village is headed by Mayor MacTurren Cheese, whom everyone calls “Mac”. Dungeon Masters looking for less levity will probably want to make some fairly substantial name changes to avoid groans of agony from around the gaming table.
Plot Hooks
The author provides 5 adventure hooks to get a wide-range of character types involved in the happenings around Sulphur Springs. From bounty-hunting a renegade bandit, to ferreting out primal forces rumored to be in the area, or even simply seeking out arcane reagents from the nearby marsh, there is a hook available to motivate almost any character class. There is even a hook to drop an inherited estate on one the characters, putting them in a position to renovate and sell off a property in the town, which would be a very good motivator to resolve any local zombie issue! The plot hooks are definitely engaging, and DMs should be able to find one or two which will get their adventurers interested in visiting Sulphur Springs.
Encounters
On the whole, the encounters are fairly well written, and the author takes great pains to add a feature which allows the DM to balance encounters based upon party level and number of characters. Each encounter has a table of monster groups combinations for Level 2 to Level 4 Characters of 4-6 Players. This allows each encounter to be reasonably balanced for the heroes regardless of how many are playing in the session. There are four side plot adventures consisting of a single encounter, and a main plotline consisting of seven combat encounters and three skill challenges. The author also includes two role-playing encounters, to facilitate interviews with a couple of important npcs.
The encounters use a mixture of custom designed monsters and stock monsters from the Monster Manual, which DMs will have to look up for themselves as GSL rules prohibit the use of unmodified monster stat blocks in 3rd party products. All the custom monster stat blocks are in one section in the back of the adventure, presumably to allow for printing to use during encounters. However, Dungeon Masters who are paper-free and use a laptop or reader at the table will be likely to find this arrangement rather irritating, particularly when coupled with the lack of pdf bookmarks.
The custom monsters are fairly well designed, and aside from the occasional non-critical typo and the odd monster block formatting, should be reasonable challenges for adventurers. A couple of the larger encounters do include both brutes and soldiers, which is likely to bog down the speed of the combat a bit, but generally there is a reasonable mix of roles amongst the opponents. I particularly liked the zombification of barnyard animals used on one encounter, and the idea of young heroes beset by zombie pigs, zombie cows, and even a zombie chicken is really a hilarious scene.
The side-plot adventures are a nice addition to prevent the overall plot from becoming too linear, but once the adventurers get into the main plot of tracking the source of the infection and zombies, the plot becomes a very linear dungeon delve. The author provides recommendations for treasure rewards based upon level, as well as minor and major quest experience rewards. Of course, these are modifiable by the DM to meet the needs of his or her campaign, and might need adjusting based upon the adventuring parties’ members.
Overall Grade: B-
Conclusions
Basically, Zombies Ate My Baby is a mixed bag. On one hand, the adventure is decently written, has some amusing plot development and features, and some nice tools to allow Dungeon Masters to quickly balance encounters to suit the his party of heroes. On the other hand, the production quality is somewhat lackluster, with a pdf that is hard to navigate, some noticeable typos and grammatical errors, and rather basic maps which are hardly worth printing out. The encounters are balanced, but most lack any real hazards or terrain to make them anything beyond a monster slugfest. Players wanting a more serious plot will require the DM to make some major alterations to names and events to keep the adventure from becoming one long groaner session. And the price of $8.99 for an ebook adventure is a bit steep given other adventures of similar size on the market right now. Overall, DMs will have to decide if their party is right for this sort of adventure, lest they have face the horror of having spent a good bit of cash on a B-rated zombie apocalypse.
So until next review… I wish you Happy Gaming!
Grade Card
So in this spooky time of year, Dungeon Masters can find quite a few appropriately themed adventures released by 3rd party publishers.
And one such adventure has recently been released by 3 Sages Games, which would appear to be perfectly themed for the Halloween season, featuring a country town and rampaging undead in the World of Wor: “Zombies Ate My Baby!”Zombies Ate My Baby!
- Authors: David Wainio
- Cover Illustrator: Faeding Light Studios
- Publisher: 3 Sages Games
- Year: 2010
- Media: PDF (64 pages)
- Retail Cost: $8.99 (available from RPGNow.com)
Production Quality
The production quality of Zombies Ate My Baby is fair to average, with the adventure material presented fairly logically, and with some decent writing, although quite a bit of it is often a bit tongue-in-cheek. There were a few typos and a couple bits of odd sentence structure here and there, but nothing major enough as to make the adventure reading problematic. The monster statistic blocks use the pre-MM3 format, and have some indentation and structural errors which make them a bit off from standard displays, but not impossible to use.
While the author does provide a table of content, there is problem with the pdf bookmarks. They are simply lableled “page 1”, “page 2”, and so on, but actually start numbering with the adventure’s cover, so they are all off by one page – without details and accuracy, the bookmarks are rendered essentially worthless, which is a challenge for a 60+ page pdf.
The artwork runs the gamut from lackluster to excellent, and ranges in media from simple cartoon-style pieces to photo-quality computer rendered ones, and even a few hand-drawn pencil sketches. Overall, the artwork enhances the quality of the product, and even the simpler pieces still have a certain charm. However, the encounter maps are fairly uninspired, and given the availability of decent map-rendering software available now, it seems disappointing to see a collection of poorly drawn maps. They provide enough data, however, to allow a DM to set up some “dungeon tiles” or draw out a map on a battlemat, but are hardly worth the toner needed to actually print them out for use at the gaming table.
Introduction
The main thrust of the adventure is to stop a zombie apocalypse from over-running the remote town of Sulphur Springs, and to seek out the source of the infection which is causing the zombies to attack. Along the way, the author provides some side plots and rumors to use as red herrings as the heroes seek to unravel the mystery of the zombie incursion. As opposed to standard zombies, as described in the Monster Manual et al, many of the zombies in this adventure are infectious, and can pass on their zombie condition to living creatures, npcs, and the characters themselves! This lends the adventure a certain “zombie apocalypse” movie feeling, and is actually a nice touch to make plot more dynamic and scary.
The author provides considerable background material regarding the start of the infection, and the nature of the arcane scientist who was actually trying to cure undead, but instead managed to find a new way of making them. There is also extensive information regarding the town of Sulphur Springs and surrounding lands, with detailed descriptions of the inhabitants and important citizens in the area.
It should be noted that the author decided to keep the adventure light-hearted, and this is most keenly reflected in the names of the local villagers. Reading somewhat like a who’s-who of nostalgic television shows, villagers end up with names like Sheriff Andrea Taylor with her Deputy Barnaby Fife, a local rancher named Ben Cartleft, and a clerical healer named Feldon Kildare. There are also a few other spoofs like the local inn run by the Newheart Family, and the village is headed by Mayor MacTurren Cheese, whom everyone calls “Mac”. Dungeon Masters looking for less levity will probably want to make some fairly substantial name changes to avoid groans of agony from around the gaming table.
Plot Hooks
The author provides 5 adventure hooks to get a wide-range of character types involved in the happenings around Sulphur Springs. From bounty-hunting a renegade bandit, to ferreting out primal forces rumored to be in the area, or even simply seeking out arcane reagents from the nearby marsh, there is a hook available to motivate almost any character class. There is even a hook to drop an inherited estate on one the characters, putting them in a position to renovate and sell off a property in the town, which would be a very good motivator to resolve any local zombie issue! The plot hooks are definitely engaging, and DMs should be able to find one or two which will get their adventurers interested in visiting Sulphur Springs.
Encounters
On the whole, the encounters are fairly well written, and the author takes great pains to add a feature which allows the DM to balance encounters based upon party level and number of characters. Each encounter has a table of monster groups combinations for Level 2 to Level 4 Characters of 4-6 Players. This allows each encounter to be reasonably balanced for the heroes regardless of how many are playing in the session. There are four side plot adventures consisting of a single encounter, and a main plotline consisting of seven combat encounters and three skill challenges. The author also includes two role-playing encounters, to facilitate interviews with a couple of important npcs.
The encounters use a mixture of custom designed monsters and stock monsters from the Monster Manual, which DMs will have to look up for themselves as GSL rules prohibit the use of unmodified monster stat blocks in 3rd party products. All the custom monster stat blocks are in one section in the back of the adventure, presumably to allow for printing to use during encounters. However, Dungeon Masters who are paper-free and use a laptop or reader at the table will be likely to find this arrangement rather irritating, particularly when coupled with the lack of pdf bookmarks.
The custom monsters are fairly well designed, and aside from the occasional non-critical typo and the odd monster block formatting, should be reasonable challenges for adventurers. A couple of the larger encounters do include both brutes and soldiers, which is likely to bog down the speed of the combat a bit, but generally there is a reasonable mix of roles amongst the opponents. I particularly liked the zombification of barnyard animals used on one encounter, and the idea of young heroes beset by zombie pigs, zombie cows, and even a zombie chicken is really a hilarious scene.
The side-plot adventures are a nice addition to prevent the overall plot from becoming too linear, but once the adventurers get into the main plot of tracking the source of the infection and zombies, the plot becomes a very linear dungeon delve. The author provides recommendations for treasure rewards based upon level, as well as minor and major quest experience rewards. Of course, these are modifiable by the DM to meet the needs of his or her campaign, and might need adjusting based upon the adventuring parties’ members.
Overall Grade: B-
Conclusions
Basically, Zombies Ate My Baby is a mixed bag. On one hand, the adventure is decently written, has some amusing plot development and features, and some nice tools to allow Dungeon Masters to quickly balance encounters to suit the his party of heroes. On the other hand, the production quality is somewhat lackluster, with a pdf that is hard to navigate, some noticeable typos and grammatical errors, and rather basic maps which are hardly worth printing out. The encounters are balanced, but most lack any real hazards or terrain to make them anything beyond a monster slugfest. Players wanting a more serious plot will require the DM to make some major alterations to names and events to keep the adventure from becoming one long groaner session. And the price of $8.99 for an ebook adventure is a bit steep given other adventures of similar size on the market right now. Overall, DMs will have to decide if their party is right for this sort of adventure, lest they have face the horror of having spent a good bit of cash on a B-rated zombie apocalypse.
So until next review… I wish you Happy Gaming!
Grade Card
- Presentation: B-
- - Design: B-
- - Illustrations: B
- Content: B
- - Crunch: B
- - Fluff: B+
- Value: C+
