Frickin piece of junk. My Anti-virus keeps blocking the site and I lost my entire post.
You can, of course .....I have a post all about constructive criticism, just a few posts, above.
Fiction is about suspension of disbelief. If your disbelief can't even get you across the threshold....there isn't that much more to talk about.
The module at it's heart is not about what the NPC's do, but what the players do.
Winter's Fury is unleashed...players...en media res..what do you do?
The Chard Dragon will be unleashed....what do the players do?
Nobody is going to live unless Auril is dealt with...what do the players do?
There is a really cool Lost City...what do the players do?
Since I don't want to spend another hour typing out my full response. I'll do highlights.
This phrase " If your disbelief can't even get you across the threshold." seems to ignore that it is just as much of the author's responsibility to set up disbelief as it is anyone elses. Writing a story that can't be disbelieved is not a failure on the part of the reader.
Also, I read the copy on DnD Beyond that one of my DMs has, and found things are so much worse than I thought.
See, while I agree that the story cares about what the PCs do, the PCs can't do anything unless the scene is set. And this is where the premise of the two years falls flat. Because threats like Auril and the Dragon don't matter if everyone is already dead. Nobody would be alive for the players to save, so the players can't save anyone.
Also, in skimming the start of the adventure, I had not realized that the players had come up from the South so recently. The Trade Roads are still open. The Passes are still navigable. And people down south are aware of the Endless Winter. The PCs came to the Dale in spite of the Winter.
And yet, they are not confronted with desperate people, but with normal every day life. They might get a quest to hunt down a serial killer (being told who it is), or to find some elemental spirits for a researcher. Or fight a monster fish. Life is still normal.
Which means there is no urgency, there is no desperation. In fact, the fish quest is particularly egregious in this respect. The researcher tries to shame the dwarf for sending the players to thier deaths "For what? A few fish?" as though the safe fishing of this lake isn't going, you know, keeping the town alive because everyone is starving. Nope, these few fish aren't really worth the player's lives and the Dwarf is just greedy.
None of that adds to the atmosphere of a place in desperation, a place on the brink of collapse. It reads like the Ten Towns are... annoyed at the long winter, but it isn't deadly or a real threat. Life is going on. Which means I don't really need to care.
If the NPCs who are living in the town don't find it urgent. I don't find it urgent. If food is still plentiful then no one is in danger.
Chaosmancer, by their own admission in another thread has never used a module.
"I've never seen an Opera, but the Magic Flute is bad one"........not exactly ironclad credentials there, alas.
Would you like to point me to the place where it says "Only people who have run modules can critique their stories?" I must have missed it.
Also, within that same post (which I'm sure I'll respond to there as well) I actually said I have never
run a module. I have in fact played in quite a few. My DMs have run Curse of Strahd, Dungeon of the Mad Mage (woof, that was a bad start to a game. I had to really bite my tongue when I was told that our agreeing to go down the well was a one-way trip. I didn't make a character who was suicidal enough to enter a death dungeon on a whim, with no way out.), White Plume Mountain from Tales. And a few other older modules from various magazines and such.
Does my expeirence as a player in modules, and a DM in general, and as a writer of Fantasy stories qualify me enough in your eyes? Can my problems with a written plot be taken seriously now?
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Also, while I'm not supposed to directly quote Sword, I want to point out that I did do some basic research into Coniferous trees needing sunlight, and a lot do.
The link to a google search is here
How much sunlight do conifers need - Google Search
But the basics seem to be that while pale or golden conifers may burn when they are young in direct sunlight, dark green conifers need quite a bit. Seems most trees need at least six hours of direct sunlight. Which... nothing is getting that in Rime. Also, this was the site where I got the trees surviving 90 days without light
How long could an ecosystem survive without sunlight?
Since, you know, seems like I need to start putting up a bibliography to show I'm not just making things up. (BTW, I know this isn't a heavily researched, peer-reviewed article type of thing. It shouldn't need to be.)
