Good Friends and Fine Spirits

[trancejeremy]

This is a rather strange adventure. It's not really a complete adventure, as the description says, it's a mini-module. You can use it as filler in-between regular adventures. Basically, it describes a small restaurant or pub, a few of it's inhabitants, a one event that the PCs must get involved in - one of the employees gets kidnapped, and the PCs must rescue her.

On the plus side, it's free, the NPCs are fairly interesting and are very well detailed, in both personality and stats.

On the negative side, it's a bit too offbeat. You have NPCs named Turtle, Marble, Crate, Delroy, Arlene, and Maggie, which is perhaps more fitting for an adventure set in a modern day truck stop in Texas.

The adventure is also a bit gruesome, which constrasts sharply with the folksy nature of the NPCs and setting. This may or may not be a bad thing, it's a matter of taste - the contrast makes it all the much worse. But as you can probably guess, it involved the critter pictured above (with the rather silly name of the 'Qweetal', which is more apropriate to a talking Koala bear or something else unbearly cute...)

It's also a hefty download at 5 megabytes, despite having only a few pieces of artwork. I suspect the culprit is the backgroudn image used on every page (and is probably really annoying when you print it out...).

So, anyway, if you need a inn or pub in your game, or have nothing better to download, it's not bad at all. But it's not spectacular.

 

[Simon Collins]

Beware! This review contains major spoilers.

Good Friends And Fine Spirits is an adventure for four PCs of level 2-4, but can be adapted to different numbers and levels. It is a free download from Mystic Eye Games website.

Production And Presentation: This adventure is a 23-page 5MB .pdf file. The text is presented in one-column format and is clear to read. Some of the sections are split by a textured border, which sometimes takes up a very small amount of space, sometimes ¾ of the page. The layout is average as is the general presentation. The art is poor, though the computer-generated maps of the Crock Pot, the sewers and the abandoned house are fairly good.

The Story: The module begins with an overview and introduction of the adventure, and some basic hooks. The PCs end up going to a halfling-run inn, The Crock Pot, to celebrate the successful end to their first adventure. After an evening of revelry and roleplaying with the inn’s customers and staff, a group of giant cockroaches invades the kitchen, kidnapping one of the innkeeper’s daughters, and retreating into the sewers beneath. The PCs enter the sewers to rescue the girl. After run-ins with giant cockroaches, dire rats, more giant cockroaches, a ghoul, more giant cockroaches, and even more giant cockroaches, they eventually reach the lair of the half-human, half-eggsack cockroach queen, who has kidnapped the halfling girl to create another queen, needing a bit of company.

The High Points: The NPCs of The Crock Pot are well detailed, with personality and motives that add up to a good roleplaying experience. The tactics of the monsters are well-detailed throughout the adventure and the ecology makes sense. The boxed text for the players is clear and atmospheric. There is information to adapt the adventure to more or less than 4 PCs and for higher level PCs

The Low Points: The names of the NPCs are, not to mince words, stupid. I also find the idea of giant cockroaches ridiculous. This would have been reasonably OK if the adventure was meant to be humorous, but I get the impression that it wasn’t. The plotline was linear, a basic dungeon crawl once the PCs got into the sewers, and the scenes repetitive.

Conclusion: The setting and the monsters from this adventure are like some sort of killer-insect B-Movie. If that’s your style, feel free to download this adventure. The only things stopping me giving this an Appalling rating were the NPCs motives and personality at the beginning and the monsters’ tactics descriptions – the ideas behind the adventure’s structure were good, but the style and the subject let it down

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Let's see if I can break this adventure down.

1. It's free. Doesn't get much better than that.

2. Download time. It took me awhile to download this adventure but then again I don't have a top of the line computer.

3. Story. I liked the story. It fits in very nicely to just about any existing campaign. It is well written and laid out in a manner that is easy to use.

4. Characters. I agree with some of the other reviews in that the names of the charcaters don't seem to fit. But they are only names and can be easily changed. Other than that the characters are some of the best I've seen complete with motivations . They seemed well thought out.


5. Playability. This is an extremely easy adventure to run and doesn't take but one to two nights to run. As I said before it fits nicely into any existing D&D game. This is one of those adventures that can be really fun to play or really stupid depending on the dungeon master. I had a lot of fun with this adventure and so did my players.

6. Overall. I'd say this a pretty good adventure. Not the best I've seen but it was fun and that is all that matters to me

 

[Messageboard Golem]

What a wierd adventure! I love it. I wish it was longer, but for free what more can you ask? The plot was, well, strange as hell, but I happen to be a fan of the odd.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Mystic Eye Games is happy to give you an action packed mini-module for you d20 fantasy setting, free for download.

This module takes place at the cozy Crock Pot, the local areas best dining hall where the Brimbleton's serve some of the finest food in town.

A hero never gets much rest though, and the characters find themselves embroiled in another mess while relaxing after a long and hard Quest.

This module is for beginning characters of 1-3rd level but can be adjusted to your campaign.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

The price doesn't sound too bad.