trancejeremy
Adventurer
Product Background
This is the first in the line of "Bleeding Edge" adventures from Green Ronin. What exactly makes them "Bleeding Edge"? Good question. They give a list of 4 things: Good Story, Drop & Play (in terms of setting), Self Contained (in terms of rules), and Flexibility (in terms of game systems, at least d20 variants from Green Ronin themselves in the form of web supplements). I'm not sure any of that is all that new, but eh*.
This is from Robert Schwalb, an author whose worked I have really liked (Shadows in Freeport) and was sort of "meh" about (Big Trouble in Little Durbenford)**. So I wasn't sure what to expect. But early reports were good, and I tend to like modules about mysterious mansions with creepy families (Castle Amber for D&D, Morrick Mansion for 3.0).
The adventure itself...
It's got a very in-depth background, actually. But it can be summed up fairly quickly. Basically an evil cultist wants to perform a ritual to unleash a horrible evil upon the land. Most of the ritual involves this noble family, basically each one of the children of the family is possessed by a demon (or spirit) of one of the 7 Deadly Sins. But he can't get into the mansion to complete the ritual (having been thrown out of it by the mother of the possessed children), so he has to get it attacked by villagers so he can sneak in during the siege.
Although the module is 48 pages, it's a pretty short adventure. It consists of 5 basic scenes: The PCs saving one of the families kids from demons, and thus getting an invite to the mansion; some dinking around in town; them having dinner at the mansion and meeting the family; the PCs wandering around the mansion; the finale with irate villagers storming the mansion and the PCs interfering with the final part of the ritual.
I can't imagine the whole thing would take more than a session (3-4 hours) and a half. Maybe two if you dragged things out.
The reason the module is fairly lengthly in terms of page count while being somewhat short is that because while the adventure itself is somewhat railroad-ish, there's lot of extra info in case the PCs stray from the path, so to speak. You get the basics of the village in the area. You get a complete room by room description of the mansion itself (though it's not dungeon crawly at all).
However, I was expecting more attention given to the role-playing aspects. Most of the NPCs are covered rather superficially in terms of description. And in fact, because each of the family members is basically a parody of the 7 deadly sins, they have no real personalities. Servants get a line of description each.
The layout is nice and classy looking. The maps are also very decent. The art is okay, but a bit amateurish looking - hands and faces look a little funny (unless that's meant to be the style.)
Final Thoughts:
I think this gets a "meh" from me. It's not bad, exactly, but I didn't really like it, either. It's definitely more Durbenford than Shadows in Freeport.
First off, the plot of an evil cultist wanting to unleash hell is somewhat cliched. In fact, Green Ronin has a adventure with a somewhat similar plot (though with very different specifics) in Hell in Freeport. The 7 sins theme is also worn out. And I would liked to have seen more motivation for the villain than just the usual sort - basically for the sake of being evil.
It's also rather tricky in a low-level adventure, because often the players will be just starting out. And because low level characters are fragile - for them, running away is often the best option for survival. In something like this, that can have serious consequences for your game-world.
Secondly, although it says the product is "Self-Contained", in reality it uses a lot of stuff (classes in particular) from various Green Ronin books. I do not consider it "Self Contained" to use a class from another book and not include the rules for that class, simply just a stat block and suggestions for other classes in case you need to change the stats. (This bugged me in "Shadows in Freeport" and that make no pretense about self-containment).
Similarly, I have some doubts about it's "Drop & Play" nature. Because of the whole 7 Deadly Sins theme, you need to have a campaign world where the 7 sins are well, sins. Yet in the real world, that's pretty much only medieval Western Europe. It started off as a list of 8 "temptations" or passions by some monks living in a desert, then evolved into the modern list of 7 for a variety of reasons that only make sense in part of our world, and because more than anything else, it's a catchy phrase.
This adventure would make a lot of sense for a game set in medieval Western Europe, like Ars Magica or Cthulhu Dark Ages, but just doesn't in a lot of D&D game settings, much less some d20 variants (including ones that Green Ronin provides stats for, like Thieves World and Black Company).
In fact, the module actually reminds me of a 60s Hammer horror movie, one of the ones based on a tale by Poe or some gothic author.
Thirdly, I think the module is too rushed, and not subtle enough. Rather than there basically being only role-playing scene with the family (the dinner), the creepiness of the family should have been spread out over a longer period of time. Say a week? At any rate, with more than just one basic event. And I feel that the creepiness of the family is just not that creepy. The 7 Deadly Sins aspect just makes them caricatures, not real people.
I would probably give it a 2.5, C-, but am rounding up to 3.
* I'm guessing the "Bleeding Edge" has to do with the somewhat dark nature of the module. For instance, one of the children lusts after his mother. It's implied that one of the NPCs was brutally abused by evil humanoids (Bugbears, I think) and driven crazy.
** Both of which I have reviewed, but I think those reviews were eaten in the great database crash here. RPG.net should still have them.
This is the first in the line of "Bleeding Edge" adventures from Green Ronin. What exactly makes them "Bleeding Edge"? Good question. They give a list of 4 things: Good Story, Drop & Play (in terms of setting), Self Contained (in terms of rules), and Flexibility (in terms of game systems, at least d20 variants from Green Ronin themselves in the form of web supplements). I'm not sure any of that is all that new, but eh*.
This is from Robert Schwalb, an author whose worked I have really liked (Shadows in Freeport) and was sort of "meh" about (Big Trouble in Little Durbenford)**. So I wasn't sure what to expect. But early reports were good, and I tend to like modules about mysterious mansions with creepy families (Castle Amber for D&D, Morrick Mansion for 3.0).
The adventure itself...
It's got a very in-depth background, actually. But it can be summed up fairly quickly. Basically an evil cultist wants to perform a ritual to unleash a horrible evil upon the land. Most of the ritual involves this noble family, basically each one of the children of the family is possessed by a demon (or spirit) of one of the 7 Deadly Sins. But he can't get into the mansion to complete the ritual (having been thrown out of it by the mother of the possessed children), so he has to get it attacked by villagers so he can sneak in during the siege.
Although the module is 48 pages, it's a pretty short adventure. It consists of 5 basic scenes: The PCs saving one of the families kids from demons, and thus getting an invite to the mansion; some dinking around in town; them having dinner at the mansion and meeting the family; the PCs wandering around the mansion; the finale with irate villagers storming the mansion and the PCs interfering with the final part of the ritual.
I can't imagine the whole thing would take more than a session (3-4 hours) and a half. Maybe two if you dragged things out.
The reason the module is fairly lengthly in terms of page count while being somewhat short is that because while the adventure itself is somewhat railroad-ish, there's lot of extra info in case the PCs stray from the path, so to speak. You get the basics of the village in the area. You get a complete room by room description of the mansion itself (though it's not dungeon crawly at all).
However, I was expecting more attention given to the role-playing aspects. Most of the NPCs are covered rather superficially in terms of description. And in fact, because each of the family members is basically a parody of the 7 deadly sins, they have no real personalities. Servants get a line of description each.
The layout is nice and classy looking. The maps are also very decent. The art is okay, but a bit amateurish looking - hands and faces look a little funny (unless that's meant to be the style.)
Final Thoughts:
I think this gets a "meh" from me. It's not bad, exactly, but I didn't really like it, either. It's definitely more Durbenford than Shadows in Freeport.
First off, the plot of an evil cultist wanting to unleash hell is somewhat cliched. In fact, Green Ronin has a adventure with a somewhat similar plot (though with very different specifics) in Hell in Freeport. The 7 sins theme is also worn out. And I would liked to have seen more motivation for the villain than just the usual sort - basically for the sake of being evil.
It's also rather tricky in a low-level adventure, because often the players will be just starting out. And because low level characters are fragile - for them, running away is often the best option for survival. In something like this, that can have serious consequences for your game-world.
Secondly, although it says the product is "Self-Contained", in reality it uses a lot of stuff (classes in particular) from various Green Ronin books. I do not consider it "Self Contained" to use a class from another book and not include the rules for that class, simply just a stat block and suggestions for other classes in case you need to change the stats. (This bugged me in "Shadows in Freeport" and that make no pretense about self-containment).
Similarly, I have some doubts about it's "Drop & Play" nature. Because of the whole 7 Deadly Sins theme, you need to have a campaign world where the 7 sins are well, sins. Yet in the real world, that's pretty much only medieval Western Europe. It started off as a list of 8 "temptations" or passions by some monks living in a desert, then evolved into the modern list of 7 for a variety of reasons that only make sense in part of our world, and because more than anything else, it's a catchy phrase.
This adventure would make a lot of sense for a game set in medieval Western Europe, like Ars Magica or Cthulhu Dark Ages, but just doesn't in a lot of D&D game settings, much less some d20 variants (including ones that Green Ronin provides stats for, like Thieves World and Black Company).
In fact, the module actually reminds me of a 60s Hammer horror movie, one of the ones based on a tale by Poe or some gothic author.
Thirdly, I think the module is too rushed, and not subtle enough. Rather than there basically being only role-playing scene with the family (the dinner), the creepiness of the family should have been spread out over a longer period of time. Say a week? At any rate, with more than just one basic event. And I feel that the creepiness of the family is just not that creepy. The 7 Deadly Sins aspect just makes them caricatures, not real people.
I would probably give it a 2.5, C-, but am rounding up to 3.
* I'm guessing the "Bleeding Edge" has to do with the somewhat dark nature of the module. For instance, one of the children lusts after his mother. It's implied that one of the NPCs was brutally abused by evil humanoids (Bugbears, I think) and driven crazy.
** Both of which I have reviewed, but I think those reviews were eaten in the great database crash here. RPG.net should still have them.
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