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Raiders of the Serpent Sea - Third Party 5E Review
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<blockquote data-quote="Sparky McDibben" data-source="post: 9204080" data-attributes="member: 7041430"><p><img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /> Thanks, friend!</p><p></p><p></p><p>It's actually kind of a baffling decision. There's so much they could have done to integrate these NPCs into the epic backstories. Hrolf, Siddhe, literally any of the clan leaders you meet later on, etc. That's a great remix note!</p><p></p><p></p><p>Hello! It sounds like what you're saying is that the format of the review is getting in the way of your utility of the review. That's great feedback, and I'd like to respond to your points in order.</p><p></p><p>This is a critique. It, by nature, focuses on the flaws in the work. I'm trying to give you a sense for what's going on here, what's good or bad, and what can break as you go along. By "break" I mean "anything that causes you, the DM, to do more work on behalf of the adventure." That work could be social (the adventure violated a line / veil of a player and now you need to retract something), mechanical (where a die roll just doesn't work), structural (the PCs fail to find the secret door), etc. Secondly, to be fair, I call out several pieces in the last post where the adventure succeeds (Nowhere being a well-executed trope, the Runethrower tying into the PCs backstories, the interesting tensions between the jarl and the underclass, the fact that our first encounter is non-combative, etc). Now, the overall tone may be distracting from those points, but I am trying to be fair to the adventure. </p><p></p><p>As to why I bought the work, I bought it because I was excited for Viking D&D! I was <em>so excited</em> about Viking D&D. I didn't have the cash on hand to back their Kickstarter, but I picked it up and started reading it for the first time the day I bought it (and the day I started this review on GitP). And, well, it wasn't great. Honestly, it wasn't even good. When something dashes my expectations this hard, I tend to get irritated about it (see my Strixhaven review, for example). While <em>Raiders</em> isn't as bad as <em>Strixhaven</em>, it's no cakewalk. First, this thing is 500 pages. If I just did a straight read-through of it, I expect I would put everyone to sleep before long. Secondly, it's not all bad. There is some genuinely great and epic stuff in here! But it desperately needed better creators to bring it out. </p><p></p><p>Now, on the memes, those I put in because 1) they break up the "wall of text" syndrome I tend to suffer from otherwise, and 2) because they're just fun for me. As to the maps, highly detailed VTT maps are great. But they are not a substitute for the DM's prep work. The fact that this is a VTT map doesn't really help address any of my concerns around the map design. </p><p></p><p>If you're not getting anything out of the review, I don't want to waste your time. But if I may, I recommend that you stay until the Underworld section. For me, that's what really killed the desire to run this adventure. If nothing there is a dealbreaker, I think you're good to buy it. </p><p></p><p>Alright, y'all! Now let's start in on Chapter 2. It's called the First Saga, and is 55 pages long, with a LOT going on. It's broken up into seven subsections. This is the largest chapter in the book (only the monster appendix is longer, at 76 pages). So rather than do the whole thing in one go on my day off, I'm going to break these up and do them piecemeal.</p><p></p><p>Remember how we talked about the "lakes and rivers" model? Well, this is the first big lake. The PCs are out on the ocean, and the adventure highlights to the DM what plot threads are available to chase down:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Raid the Whar Camp - Due to the volv's in-volv-ement, the PCs know where the scummy druid who burned their crap and killed their <s>NPC cannon fodder</s> friends lives</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hrolf says the PCs need to get a proper raiding banner so they aren't considered mercenaries</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">They can explore the High North (there are no real links to this?)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Take Siddhe to the Volv at the Well of Wisdom (main story continuation)</li> </ul><p>To this, there is basically a villain random encounter: the Witch-Shrine. We will get to this last, but it has some of the most bafflingly railroaded adventure design I've seen since <em>Hoard of the Dragon Queen</em>.</p><p></p><p>There are a few motivational problems with these. 1) Why is it bad to be mercs? Sure, we can let the PCs take slaves (thralls, yes, this is a real thing, and it is exactly as mind-bogglingly stupid as it sounds), but you guys don't want to be mercenaries, do you? 2) There's exactly one thread that lets the PCs know there's something going on up north and it involves the PCs taking a specific prisoner (the scummy druid-boi who attacked them in Chapter 1). So, uh, yeah. The adventure lets you know, "They can go here and it'll be cool!" but never really communicates that to the <em>players.</em> Since TTRPG motivations usually need to be associated and in-character, this is a problem. And yes, I can make up my own hooks, but I don't buy material to have to do work fixing it. </p><p></p><p>So today we'll be focusing on the Whar raid. The motivation here is vengeance. This is the scummy druid who (presumably) kicked their butts back in Chapter 1. The Whar are a growing power in the Serpent Sea, and their ambitions puts the PCs on a collision course with them. The PCs target is not the main Whar homeland (that's far to the north), but they have a small outpost and a hunting camp established on the island of Whiterak. That's what the PCs will be raiding. Another key piece of context is that the scummy druid is actually the Whar jarl's brother, so killing him could start a blood feud.</p><p></p><p>So, the adventure lays out how the PCs go about finding the scummy druid's outpost. First, they find a hunting camp. The hunters, upon seeing the PCs in their new ship which they don't recognize, immediately flee, because plot! One of the hunter groups tries to buy the other one time to warn the outpost by boarding the PCs' ship. (Is it just me, or could this adventure really have benefitted from reaction rolls?)</p><p></p><p>The PCs chase the other hunters (in a boat) back to the main outpost. That sounds awesome! How do you run a chase at sea? Good question! ...moving on.</p><p></p><p>If the PCs lose the hunters they were tracking (how?) then the adventure says "have them wander the sea for a couple days but guide them in the right direction. After an encounter or two at sea, they find Whiterak." Oh thank goodness! I was beginning to worry that there might be stakes!</p><p></p><p>After that, the PCs move into the raid proper, but before that, it's another patented McDibben remix:</p><p></p><p>[SPOILER="How I Would Do This"]</p><p>The hunters aren't automatically hostile, and the PCs can find out where Whiterak is through clever RP, betrayal, trickery, or straight up intimidation. If they instead do risk letting the hunters go to lead them to the outpost, you'll want to have a remixed copy of the chase rules from the DMG ready, just in case, maybe with some fun options like letting the hunters chum the waters to draw sea serpents or something.</p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p>Raids break down into three phases: scout, approach, and fight.</p><p></p><p>Scouting reveals information about the target, provided the target isn't alerted (which they will be if the hunters make it to Whiterak with a warning, the heroes are careless on their approach, or just unlucky). This is basically just a Perception check, and it reveals:</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/cZzqkS8.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>This is the outpost's statblock, and is admirably brief and informative. There's also a callout that the outpost has a couple of boats stashed under the cliff it backs onto, which means that when the PCs attack, there's almost certainly going to be some defenders who slip away to alert the main Whar camp far to the north. Gulli, by the way, is the name of the scummy druid.</p><p></p><p>This is good, but also, why not just have the druid cast <em>animal friendship</em> or use a trained raven or something to carry a message? Hell, if you really wanted to highlight the fairy tale type moods, you could simply cut to the Whar jarl <em>feeling</em> her brother's death if the PCs kill him.</p><p></p><p>Anyway, if the PCs get spotted during this part, skip right to the fight phase. When do the Whiterak sentries get to make Perception checks against the scouting PCs? Good question! ...moving on.</p><p></p><p>The approach phase is how the PCs get up to Whiterak. They can sneak up (but a Stealth DC is never spelled out), rush the outpost (although it's not explained, the "Open Space" entry on the outpost's statblock says 100 feet, so my guess is that's how far the PCs have to charge), or parlay with Gulli instead fight a duel. Sieging the outpost is impractical, given that it will take a couple of weeks to exhaust the outpost's food and water, while the PCs have no fresh food on the island, and no source of clean water, either.</p><p></p><p>Finally, there's a fight. If the PCs make it inside, the Whar make their last stand at the shrine of Hel. Gulli the Scummy Druid puts up a good fight, using <em>spike growth, wind wall</em>, etc., to make the PCs' lives harder, while the rest of the raiders here form a shield wall for protection. Once two Whar raiders are down, Gulli tries to parlay.</p><p></p><p>The parlay is full of interesting news, and honestly I feel more sympathetic to Gulli than I do to Hrolf at this point. Hrolf wants blood, and encourages the PCs to</p><p></p><p style="text-align: center"><img src="https://media1.giphy.com/media/BbkTsrNYZj4He/200.gif" alt="pri GIF" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p> <p style="text-align: center"></p><p>So it is entirely possible that the PCs completely miss the "Explore the High North" content. That's not necessarily bad, but it is something to look out for, since the adventure priced that content into the XP budget, meaning that your players might be underleveled for threats later on.</p><p></p><p>If the PCs kill the Whar, it's less likely that they can ally with them later, and unless Hrolf is overwhelmingly convinced that the PCs are in the right, he'll get disgruntled and talk smack about the PCs behind their backs later.</p><p></p><p>So, good things:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An explicit raiding game structure, with levers I can pull to give the PCs choices in the fiction! Hurray!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">An example of good layout! Yay!</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">A link (through Gulli) to the whole Whar plotline in the north! Yay!</li> </ul><p>The bad things:</p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Weak connectivity between scenes in the camp and the outpost</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Hair-trigger alerts with poorly defined mechanical resolution (particularly around Stealth)</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Inconsistent world-building, with the druid unable to use abilities we've already seen other spellcasters use.</li> </ul><p>Overall, this section is a clean 7 / 10. Good adventure, and I'm a sucker for a nice game structure.</p><p></p><p>Next time, we'll dig into the whole Whar plotline. See y'all then!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Sparky McDibben, post: 9204080, member: 7041430"] :) Thanks, friend! It's actually kind of a baffling decision. There's so much they could have done to integrate these NPCs into the epic backstories. Hrolf, Siddhe, literally any of the clan leaders you meet later on, etc. That's a great remix note! Hello! It sounds like what you're saying is that the format of the review is getting in the way of your utility of the review. That's great feedback, and I'd like to respond to your points in order. This is a critique. It, by nature, focuses on the flaws in the work. I'm trying to give you a sense for what's going on here, what's good or bad, and what can break as you go along. By "break" I mean "anything that causes you, the DM, to do more work on behalf of the adventure." That work could be social (the adventure violated a line / veil of a player and now you need to retract something), mechanical (where a die roll just doesn't work), structural (the PCs fail to find the secret door), etc. Secondly, to be fair, I call out several pieces in the last post where the adventure succeeds (Nowhere being a well-executed trope, the Runethrower tying into the PCs backstories, the interesting tensions between the jarl and the underclass, the fact that our first encounter is non-combative, etc). Now, the overall tone may be distracting from those points, but I am trying to be fair to the adventure. As to why I bought the work, I bought it because I was excited for Viking D&D! I was [I]so excited[/I] about Viking D&D. I didn't have the cash on hand to back their Kickstarter, but I picked it up and started reading it for the first time the day I bought it (and the day I started this review on GitP). And, well, it wasn't great. Honestly, it wasn't even good. When something dashes my expectations this hard, I tend to get irritated about it (see my Strixhaven review, for example). While [I]Raiders[/I] isn't as bad as [I]Strixhaven[/I], it's no cakewalk. First, this thing is 500 pages. If I just did a straight read-through of it, I expect I would put everyone to sleep before long. Secondly, it's not all bad. There is some genuinely great and epic stuff in here! But it desperately needed better creators to bring it out. Now, on the memes, those I put in because 1) they break up the "wall of text" syndrome I tend to suffer from otherwise, and 2) because they're just fun for me. As to the maps, highly detailed VTT maps are great. But they are not a substitute for the DM's prep work. The fact that this is a VTT map doesn't really help address any of my concerns around the map design. If you're not getting anything out of the review, I don't want to waste your time. But if I may, I recommend that you stay until the Underworld section. For me, that's what really killed the desire to run this adventure. If nothing there is a dealbreaker, I think you're good to buy it. Alright, y'all! Now let's start in on Chapter 2. It's called the First Saga, and is 55 pages long, with a LOT going on. It's broken up into seven subsections. This is the largest chapter in the book (only the monster appendix is longer, at 76 pages). So rather than do the whole thing in one go on my day off, I'm going to break these up and do them piecemeal. Remember how we talked about the "lakes and rivers" model? Well, this is the first big lake. The PCs are out on the ocean, and the adventure highlights to the DM what plot threads are available to chase down: [LIST] [*]Raid the Whar Camp - Due to the volv's in-volv-ement, the PCs know where the scummy druid who burned their crap and killed their [S]NPC cannon fodder[/S] friends lives [*]Hrolf says the PCs need to get a proper raiding banner so they aren't considered mercenaries [*]They can explore the High North (there are no real links to this?) [*]Take Siddhe to the Volv at the Well of Wisdom (main story continuation) [/LIST] To this, there is basically a villain random encounter: the Witch-Shrine. We will get to this last, but it has some of the most bafflingly railroaded adventure design I've seen since [I]Hoard of the Dragon Queen[/I]. There are a few motivational problems with these. 1) Why is it bad to be mercs? Sure, we can let the PCs take slaves (thralls, yes, this is a real thing, and it is exactly as mind-bogglingly stupid as it sounds), but you guys don't want to be mercenaries, do you? 2) There's exactly one thread that lets the PCs know there's something going on up north and it involves the PCs taking a specific prisoner (the scummy druid-boi who attacked them in Chapter 1). So, uh, yeah. The adventure lets you know, "They can go here and it'll be cool!" but never really communicates that to the [I]players.[/I] Since TTRPG motivations usually need to be associated and in-character, this is a problem. And yes, I can make up my own hooks, but I don't buy material to have to do work fixing it. So today we'll be focusing on the Whar raid. The motivation here is vengeance. This is the scummy druid who (presumably) kicked their butts back in Chapter 1. The Whar are a growing power in the Serpent Sea, and their ambitions puts the PCs on a collision course with them. The PCs target is not the main Whar homeland (that's far to the north), but they have a small outpost and a hunting camp established on the island of Whiterak. That's what the PCs will be raiding. Another key piece of context is that the scummy druid is actually the Whar jarl's brother, so killing him could start a blood feud. So, the adventure lays out how the PCs go about finding the scummy druid's outpost. First, they find a hunting camp. The hunters, upon seeing the PCs in their new ship which they don't recognize, immediately flee, because plot! One of the hunter groups tries to buy the other one time to warn the outpost by boarding the PCs' ship. (Is it just me, or could this adventure really have benefitted from reaction rolls?) The PCs chase the other hunters (in a boat) back to the main outpost. That sounds awesome! How do you run a chase at sea? Good question! ...moving on. If the PCs lose the hunters they were tracking (how?) then the adventure says "have them wander the sea for a couple days but guide them in the right direction. After an encounter or two at sea, they find Whiterak." Oh thank goodness! I was beginning to worry that there might be stakes! After that, the PCs move into the raid proper, but before that, it's another patented McDibben remix: [SPOILER="How I Would Do This"] The hunters aren't automatically hostile, and the PCs can find out where Whiterak is through clever RP, betrayal, trickery, or straight up intimidation. If they instead do risk letting the hunters go to lead them to the outpost, you'll want to have a remixed copy of the chase rules from the DMG ready, just in case, maybe with some fun options like letting the hunters chum the waters to draw sea serpents or something. [/SPOILER] Raids break down into three phases: scout, approach, and fight. Scouting reveals information about the target, provided the target isn't alerted (which they will be if the hunters make it to Whiterak with a warning, the heroes are careless on their approach, or just unlucky). This is basically just a Perception check, and it reveals: [CENTER][IMG]https://i.imgur.com/cZzqkS8.png[/IMG][/CENTER] This is the outpost's statblock, and is admirably brief and informative. There's also a callout that the outpost has a couple of boats stashed under the cliff it backs onto, which means that when the PCs attack, there's almost certainly going to be some defenders who slip away to alert the main Whar camp far to the north. Gulli, by the way, is the name of the scummy druid. This is good, but also, why not just have the druid cast [I]animal friendship[/I] or use a trained raven or something to carry a message? Hell, if you really wanted to highlight the fairy tale type moods, you could simply cut to the Whar jarl [I]feeling[/I] her brother's death if the PCs kill him. Anyway, if the PCs get spotted during this part, skip right to the fight phase. When do the Whiterak sentries get to make Perception checks against the scouting PCs? Good question! ...moving on. The approach phase is how the PCs get up to Whiterak. They can sneak up (but a Stealth DC is never spelled out), rush the outpost (although it's not explained, the "Open Space" entry on the outpost's statblock says 100 feet, so my guess is that's how far the PCs have to charge), or parlay with Gulli instead fight a duel. Sieging the outpost is impractical, given that it will take a couple of weeks to exhaust the outpost's food and water, while the PCs have no fresh food on the island, and no source of clean water, either. Finally, there's a fight. If the PCs make it inside, the Whar make their last stand at the shrine of Hel. Gulli the Scummy Druid puts up a good fight, using [I]spike growth, wind wall[/I], etc., to make the PCs' lives harder, while the rest of the raiders here form a shield wall for protection. Once two Whar raiders are down, Gulli tries to parlay. The parlay is full of interesting news, and honestly I feel more sympathetic to Gulli than I do to Hrolf at this point. Hrolf wants blood, and encourages the PCs to [CENTER][IMG alt="pri GIF"]https://media1.giphy.com/media/BbkTsrNYZj4He/200.gif[/IMG] [/CENTER] So it is entirely possible that the PCs completely miss the "Explore the High North" content. That's not necessarily bad, but it is something to look out for, since the adventure priced that content into the XP budget, meaning that your players might be underleveled for threats later on. If the PCs kill the Whar, it's less likely that they can ally with them later, and unless Hrolf is overwhelmingly convinced that the PCs are in the right, he'll get disgruntled and talk smack about the PCs behind their backs later. So, good things: [LIST] [*]An explicit raiding game structure, with levers I can pull to give the PCs choices in the fiction! Hurray! [*]An example of good layout! Yay! [*]A link (through Gulli) to the whole Whar plotline in the north! Yay! [/LIST] The bad things: [LIST] [*]Weak connectivity between scenes in the camp and the outpost [*]Hair-trigger alerts with poorly defined mechanical resolution (particularly around Stealth) [*]Inconsistent world-building, with the druid unable to use abilities we've already seen other spellcasters use. [/LIST] Overall, this section is a clean 7 / 10. Good adventure, and I'm a sucker for a nice game structure. Next time, we'll dig into the whole Whar plotline. See y'all then! [/QUOTE]
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