This review contains spoilers; this is not a playtest review.
In a Line:
A decent module that employs a cliched plotline as a means of supporting a series of neat encounter ideas, which it ekes out with pop-culture allusions, ironic asides, puns, inside jokes, and advertisements for other Green Ronin products.
In Full:
Before anything else, this is a first-class product. Huge, well illustrated, well bound, well laid out; it has perfectly legible fonts and good paper; it even smells nice. Top shelf, no doubt about it.
It's cake to use, too: sidebars appear right where they should; the few new rules, none of which is unnecessary, receive a clear and concise presentation; a good number of likely players' responses and questions have been anticipated and prepared for. An amazingly thorough work.
It is, of course, still an RPG--at least one typographical or other editing error appears on every single page. A couple of sections of encounter descriptions have left off the numbers that should put them in accord with their maps. The authours confuse 'obtuse' and 'obscure', 'excise' and 'expel', 'alternately' and 'alternatively', 'irreconcilably' and 'irremediably', they use 'comprise' backwards, and so on.
Also, inconsistencies occur, likely as a result of the book's being a collaborative effort: a brand becomes a tattoo, for one; the blonde NPC villain sometimes appears as a brunette, for another.
Occasionally, this sort of thing interrupts the module, but, for the most part, the intended meaning remains clear enough. On the other hand, the module relies on its written style as one of its strengths. The mistakes take on a greater importance because of this.
What makes the style so important in the first place? The hackneyed plot: the players are "to prevent a lost, evil god from rising again and destroying Freeport." Well; they should know the job by now, right? The handling of this business is actually quite good; they give us a decent pirate yarn. Basically, it amounts to an inter-deific dispute. Two pirate gods, Harrimast and Yarashad (my cup punneth over), have it out, the Big Y losing. In his day, Y had a number of killer artifacts and an equal number of bloodthirsty, piratical proxies. Then H, whom Y had previously served, decided he'd had enough of the slaughterous deeds of Y's followers. Retribution ensued. Much later, a cult of Y develops. The cultists of Y seek the artifacts, in order to free the imprisoned Y, who will rise again, etc.
Now, all of this takes place against the backdrop of the history of Freeport. The
first section brings this to light, as the players do the sort of investigation routine that constituted much of the first three Freeport modules. Here, this aspect has been broadened and deepened and, overall, receives much better treatment than it did in Death, Terror, and Madness in Freeport, in part because of the higher-level play, but also because of two subplots: the beginnings of an uprising of orc labourers and the outbreak of war between elves and barbarians.
Once the investigation's mysteries have been solved, the players must set off after the aforementioned artifacts, which involves a trip to four islands set in some kind of inter-dimensional seascape reachable only through a whirlpool. Again, we find the adventure resorts to time-tested scenarios: we have Isles of the Dead, Mutants, White Apes, and Savages/Robots. The authours know quite well what they're
serving up and thoroughly enjoy themselves as they take the piss out of their own
work.
That brings us to the style (yes; there is an exciting denouement, involving the avatar of the bad pirate god, rioting orcs, barabarian and elvish invasions; more
about this later). The text unloads pun upon allusion upon irony upon reference
to other Freeport products. The whole point of the production seems to have been
to play around with a large number of cliches. Joke after joke can become tedious,
but the British diction employed throughout serves to alleviate the constant ribbing
(one zombie refers to a group of other zombies as "nancies"), and the references to
culture other than American is refreshing (when did you last find pirates compared to the Baader-Meinhoff gang?). Unfortunately, tons of this--and the best of it--will go unnoticed by the players, unless the authours intend for the DM to pause after an encounter to say, "that section was titled 'Ghast Station'...get it?"
What the players will encounter, however, begins to step into the realm of the
ridiculous. We're talking about fighting Donkey Kong here. For real: a giant gorilla
throws and rolls barrels down scaffolding that the PCs must climb. Bowser from
Super Mario Brothers shows up in the form of a dragon turtle--and they actually screw up in the descriptive text at one point, writing the name 'King Bowser', rather than their nom de guerre, 'King Gazerra'. I won't even mention the form in which Emeril Lagasse appears.
They do sometimes hit their mark, usually with dry wit. A tribe of goblins has a
"missionary-size" cauldron. And consider this description of an undead mountain lion:
"It's very lonely, having been alone here in the darkness for years
unable to truly die, and it knows of no other way to greet and
thank interlopers forintruding upon its solitude than to rip them to shreds."
Alright, that doesn't seem quite as amusing as it did at first and this perhaps
begins to indicate where the module lapses: a good portion of the humour stales
quickly or comes that way; the style, on which so much depends, is far from perfect. One problem comes from a misunderstanding of the reader. At one point, the authours recommend that the DM play a vampire "against the PCs expectations", which means:
Instead of the stereotypical black cape, Sonismoth wears adventurers'
gear. He eschews the "bleh bleh" and stilted Transylvanian accent for
unaccented Common. He most definitely does not opine that he "never
drinks...wine," nor does he make any reference to the "children of the
night."
Apparently, the authours presume their audience to have missed the last twenty years of vampire movies, tv shows, novels, comic books, and, yes, RPGs. To play Sonismoth against stereoype today would more likely mean that he doesn't dye his hair or listen to punk rock. Plus, they use 'opine' wrong. For another thing, there's often a lack of symmetry between the jokes and the adventure material. We find brain-eating zombie jokes, but no brain-eating zombies.
As for the crossover with the various Freeport support products, there certainly isn't any product dependency, just fairly frequent mention of some of the goodies other Green Ronin books contain.
What else? Does it adhere to the rules? Is it balanced? Does it have cool monsters? Adequate treasure? Surprises?
Yes, yes; all that: it really is perfectly competent. I found only one egregious rules
error: the text calls for a Fortitude save when the PCs attempt to force their way through a room brimming with butchered villagers, to avoid "gibbering at the claustrophobic horror"--should be a Will save. The adventure also introduces a grapple weapon, which I heartily approve of. A couple of 3.0isms pop up. No big deal.
I'd call the challenges tough but fair, the monsters appropriate and the traps clever, the treasure huge, but, if we consider how long it will take the players to slog through this bad boy, much deserved.
The only true surprise comes from one the subplots mentioned previously, the uprising of orcs in Freeport. The authours have decided to portray the orcs as an oppressed minority; they do this in a manner both intriguing and insulting. The orcs'movement is presented in terms and imagery borrowed from a disparaging view of real-world black nationalism. Thus, orcs fly into a rage at "another human plot to keep the green man down." Here's a description of the leaders of their movement, the instigators of the uprising:
"the Sons of Krom, a paramilitary, quasi-religious group whose ostensible
point is to convert the orcs of Freeport to a stricter observance of Krom,
an orc deity. But, in fact, the Sons of Krom exist mainly to terrify the
powers that be, stomping around town in sleek uniforms, acting more
purposeful and disciplined than most people would think possible for
orcs."
First, of course, they've misused 'convert' here, but what's really odd is that the authours have chosen a d20 module as their medium to parody, among other things, Nation of Islam. What's the need for the following passage: "Drak's speech [Drak is the leader of the Sons of Krom] is invariably loaded with racial epithets...Half-orcs in the company of humans he calls "kept" or worse." There's no mistaking where this language has been taken from. There's also no mistaking what the authours think of this attitude: they recommend that PCs recieve an XP bonus for taking the speech seriously--and that PCs who heckle the orcs receive twice this bonus. What's the point? I suppose that, in part, they meant to advertise Green Ronin's Ork! game, which they make explicit reference to (is GR re-issuing it or something?) But, farther along in the module, we come across this alarming phrase: "Genetically repulsive characters, like half-orcs and barbarians..." We'll hope that this doesn't imply anything about the general purpose of this portion of the module.
I should mention as well that this book makes reference to both sex and drugs: drugs and drug use are always evil here, and sex occurs only as an aspect of a doomed romance, as rape, or as pornography, all of which is typical for this genre. I did not expect, however, to see a pistol used 'magically' as an instrument of forced, incestuous insemination--that was new.
Aside from its bizarre politics and crummy plot, Black Sails Over Freeport entertains: my group'll play the thing; I recommend this module.
In a Line:
A decent module that employs a cliched plotline as a means of supporting a series of neat encounter ideas, which it ekes out with pop-culture allusions, ironic asides, puns, inside jokes, and advertisements for other Green Ronin products.
In Full:
Before anything else, this is a first-class product. Huge, well illustrated, well bound, well laid out; it has perfectly legible fonts and good paper; it even smells nice. Top shelf, no doubt about it.
It's cake to use, too: sidebars appear right where they should; the few new rules, none of which is unnecessary, receive a clear and concise presentation; a good number of likely players' responses and questions have been anticipated and prepared for. An amazingly thorough work.
It is, of course, still an RPG--at least one typographical or other editing error appears on every single page. A couple of sections of encounter descriptions have left off the numbers that should put them in accord with their maps. The authours confuse 'obtuse' and 'obscure', 'excise' and 'expel', 'alternately' and 'alternatively', 'irreconcilably' and 'irremediably', they use 'comprise' backwards, and so on.
Also, inconsistencies occur, likely as a result of the book's being a collaborative effort: a brand becomes a tattoo, for one; the blonde NPC villain sometimes appears as a brunette, for another.
Occasionally, this sort of thing interrupts the module, but, for the most part, the intended meaning remains clear enough. On the other hand, the module relies on its written style as one of its strengths. The mistakes take on a greater importance because of this.
What makes the style so important in the first place? The hackneyed plot: the players are "to prevent a lost, evil god from rising again and destroying Freeport." Well; they should know the job by now, right? The handling of this business is actually quite good; they give us a decent pirate yarn. Basically, it amounts to an inter-deific dispute. Two pirate gods, Harrimast and Yarashad (my cup punneth over), have it out, the Big Y losing. In his day, Y had a number of killer artifacts and an equal number of bloodthirsty, piratical proxies. Then H, whom Y had previously served, decided he'd had enough of the slaughterous deeds of Y's followers. Retribution ensued. Much later, a cult of Y develops. The cultists of Y seek the artifacts, in order to free the imprisoned Y, who will rise again, etc.
Now, all of this takes place against the backdrop of the history of Freeport. The
first section brings this to light, as the players do the sort of investigation routine that constituted much of the first three Freeport modules. Here, this aspect has been broadened and deepened and, overall, receives much better treatment than it did in Death, Terror, and Madness in Freeport, in part because of the higher-level play, but also because of two subplots: the beginnings of an uprising of orc labourers and the outbreak of war between elves and barbarians.
Once the investigation's mysteries have been solved, the players must set off after the aforementioned artifacts, which involves a trip to four islands set in some kind of inter-dimensional seascape reachable only through a whirlpool. Again, we find the adventure resorts to time-tested scenarios: we have Isles of the Dead, Mutants, White Apes, and Savages/Robots. The authours know quite well what they're
serving up and thoroughly enjoy themselves as they take the piss out of their own
work.
That brings us to the style (yes; there is an exciting denouement, involving the avatar of the bad pirate god, rioting orcs, barabarian and elvish invasions; more
about this later). The text unloads pun upon allusion upon irony upon reference
to other Freeport products. The whole point of the production seems to have been
to play around with a large number of cliches. Joke after joke can become tedious,
but the British diction employed throughout serves to alleviate the constant ribbing
(one zombie refers to a group of other zombies as "nancies"), and the references to
culture other than American is refreshing (when did you last find pirates compared to the Baader-Meinhoff gang?). Unfortunately, tons of this--and the best of it--will go unnoticed by the players, unless the authours intend for the DM to pause after an encounter to say, "that section was titled 'Ghast Station'...get it?"
What the players will encounter, however, begins to step into the realm of the
ridiculous. We're talking about fighting Donkey Kong here. For real: a giant gorilla
throws and rolls barrels down scaffolding that the PCs must climb. Bowser from
Super Mario Brothers shows up in the form of a dragon turtle--and they actually screw up in the descriptive text at one point, writing the name 'King Bowser', rather than their nom de guerre, 'King Gazerra'. I won't even mention the form in which Emeril Lagasse appears.
They do sometimes hit their mark, usually with dry wit. A tribe of goblins has a
"missionary-size" cauldron. And consider this description of an undead mountain lion:
"It's very lonely, having been alone here in the darkness for years
unable to truly die, and it knows of no other way to greet and
thank interlopers forintruding upon its solitude than to rip them to shreds."
Alright, that doesn't seem quite as amusing as it did at first and this perhaps
begins to indicate where the module lapses: a good portion of the humour stales
quickly or comes that way; the style, on which so much depends, is far from perfect. One problem comes from a misunderstanding of the reader. At one point, the authours recommend that the DM play a vampire "against the PCs expectations", which means:
Instead of the stereotypical black cape, Sonismoth wears adventurers'
gear. He eschews the "bleh bleh" and stilted Transylvanian accent for
unaccented Common. He most definitely does not opine that he "never
drinks...wine," nor does he make any reference to the "children of the
night."
Apparently, the authours presume their audience to have missed the last twenty years of vampire movies, tv shows, novels, comic books, and, yes, RPGs. To play Sonismoth against stereoype today would more likely mean that he doesn't dye his hair or listen to punk rock. Plus, they use 'opine' wrong. For another thing, there's often a lack of symmetry between the jokes and the adventure material. We find brain-eating zombie jokes, but no brain-eating zombies.
As for the crossover with the various Freeport support products, there certainly isn't any product dependency, just fairly frequent mention of some of the goodies other Green Ronin books contain.
What else? Does it adhere to the rules? Is it balanced? Does it have cool monsters? Adequate treasure? Surprises?
Yes, yes; all that: it really is perfectly competent. I found only one egregious rules
error: the text calls for a Fortitude save when the PCs attempt to force their way through a room brimming with butchered villagers, to avoid "gibbering at the claustrophobic horror"--should be a Will save. The adventure also introduces a grapple weapon, which I heartily approve of. A couple of 3.0isms pop up. No big deal.
I'd call the challenges tough but fair, the monsters appropriate and the traps clever, the treasure huge, but, if we consider how long it will take the players to slog through this bad boy, much deserved.
The only true surprise comes from one the subplots mentioned previously, the uprising of orcs in Freeport. The authours have decided to portray the orcs as an oppressed minority; they do this in a manner both intriguing and insulting. The orcs'movement is presented in terms and imagery borrowed from a disparaging view of real-world black nationalism. Thus, orcs fly into a rage at "another human plot to keep the green man down." Here's a description of the leaders of their movement, the instigators of the uprising:
"the Sons of Krom, a paramilitary, quasi-religious group whose ostensible
point is to convert the orcs of Freeport to a stricter observance of Krom,
an orc deity. But, in fact, the Sons of Krom exist mainly to terrify the
powers that be, stomping around town in sleek uniforms, acting more
purposeful and disciplined than most people would think possible for
orcs."
First, of course, they've misused 'convert' here, but what's really odd is that the authours have chosen a d20 module as their medium to parody, among other things, Nation of Islam. What's the need for the following passage: "Drak's speech [Drak is the leader of the Sons of Krom] is invariably loaded with racial epithets...Half-orcs in the company of humans he calls "kept" or worse." There's no mistaking where this language has been taken from. There's also no mistaking what the authours think of this attitude: they recommend that PCs recieve an XP bonus for taking the speech seriously--and that PCs who heckle the orcs receive twice this bonus. What's the point? I suppose that, in part, they meant to advertise Green Ronin's Ork! game, which they make explicit reference to (is GR re-issuing it or something?) But, farther along in the module, we come across this alarming phrase: "Genetically repulsive characters, like half-orcs and barbarians..." We'll hope that this doesn't imply anything about the general purpose of this portion of the module.
I should mention as well that this book makes reference to both sex and drugs: drugs and drug use are always evil here, and sex occurs only as an aspect of a doomed romance, as rape, or as pornography, all of which is typical for this genre. I did not expect, however, to see a pistol used 'magically' as an instrument of forced, incestuous insemination--that was new.
Aside from its bizarre politics and crummy plot, Black Sails Over Freeport entertains: my group'll play the thing; I recommend this module.
