I couldn’t find my original review, and I’ve been very busy this weekend, so I’ll give a brief overview of my thoughts on Aerie of the Crow God.
First, I wanted to run a published adventure for my group. I usually prefer to make my own adventures because I tailor them to my campaign world and my group (plot hooks and such). But I didn’t want to go to the effort of writing up my own adventure at the time I bought this product. I had heard good things about the DCC adventures, and so just went and found one of the appropriate level. I bought AotCG.
Although, I was leery of the old-school feel the DCCs touted. Usually when people are talking “old-school” adventures, they are talking about the things I disliked about the old-school adventures – nonsensical ecologies, no plot other than just go and kill everything, and such. [There are many old adventures that were not nonsensical and plotless, and that I think are quite good, even by today’s standards, but that isn’t what most people think of when they say “old school”.]
So, that explains my mindset upon opening and reading AotCG. Now, what I disliked about this adventure (in general, as written, not as played):
* The overall plot was left open, not explained. The module says it leaves this open so the DM can insert his own villains and plots. The module suggests this is a benefit/feature, but really, it’s not. Essentially, the module says, “Lady [whats-her-name] is being threatened and assaulted to get her husband’s lock box. You should come up with who is threatening and attacking her, and come up with the contents of the box, and why the attacker wants it.” Well, thanks for nothing, there.
I’m buying a published adventure so I don’t *have* to come up with plot and stuff. If coming up with this plot is easy, the author should have done it. If coming up with the plot is hard, the author should have done it. If I wanted to come up with a plot, I’d write the adventure myself.
But, interestingly enough, after explaining why the author didn’t give me a plot, he then gives two plots to choose from. What? The explanation for why they are not giving me the plot is as long as the two plots they end up giving as suggestions.
* There is a full page of backstory on the dungeon – not something found in old-school adventures. And not something of any real use to the adventure – the PCs will never learn these details. Useless and not at all “old school”.
* The adventure is packed with treasure. It admits, up front to having more than double what the DMG guidelines suggest. And then it gives ideas on how to cut back on the treasure. How about just following the game guidelines, and letting Monty Haul DMs add if they want, rather than giving me a MH adventure and requiring me to alter it?
* The stupid Star Arms. The adventure has 6(?) intelligent magic weapons that really add nothing to the overall adventure or plot. They are just things with complicated and useless backstory seemingly thrown in as more Monty Haulism.
* The individual room descriptions are unnecessarily detailed at times, and confusingly incorrect (between text and map) at times. Some room descriptions explain to the DM how people in the far-past dungeon backstory did things – explanations the PCs don’t need and will never learn. “Such-and-such [the wizard] retreated to this room and used a teleport to escape the attack that happened 600 years ago.” As a DM running a game, I don’t need such detail referring back to the useless dungeon backstory.
* The stairway up from the bottom of the rock to the top is confusing. In some places, the text suggests the stairs wind around the outside of the rock, but the map suggests that it winds around inside the rock. If the stairs are outside, then there are two rooms/encounters that hang out over the cliff. If the stairs are inside, one encounter can’t happen because the enemies come flying to attack those on the stairs. And then the boxed text description of the top of the stairs suggests that the party comes from inside to outside (where they encounter the rain). I kept flipping back and forth from the text to the maps wondering what was going on.
And some of the encounters just couldn’t happen as described – the skeleton archers are supposed to shoot at the PCs through hidden arrowslits, up to 120 feet away. But the curve of the stairs don’t give view more than 30 feet away.
* The Crow God is statted out as a CR 17. A god is CR 17? And this creature grants spells and domains? I don’t think the god actually appears as a monster in the adventure, but if they are going to stat the thing out, shouldn’t a god be more than CR 17?
******
I never finished reading the whole adventure because I got so frustrated and aggravated with reading the first half. It just was unusable to me as what it was supposed to be – I couldn’t just read through it and start running it. It had so many flaws and stupid text that I was disgusted by it.
I don’t have the time or inclination to dissect this thing on an encounter by encounter level. Just so many things irked me. The DCCs claim to be old-school style, but nothing about this adventure was old-school in design or feel. It wasn’t even good, to me. I’d rate it a 2 of 5 stars.
If folks hold this adventure up as one of the best DCCs, I definitely won’t be buying any others. I’d rather just grab a true old-school adventure and translate the encounters to the current edition of the game – would take about as much time as figuring out the DCC confusion and plots – and would actually be old-school. (I actually did grab an old-school adventure, White Plume Mountain, and ran it for my group.)
Sorry to be so negative on this product, but it was a real waste of money for me.
Quasqueton
for the rogue.
