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Iron DM 2016 (The Complete Game Thread!)
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<blockquote data-quote="Lwaxy" data-source="post: 6930481" data-attributes="member: 53286"><p>Not as detailed as I'd have liked, but my head has some orc misusing it as war drums. <strong></strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Rules</strong></p><p></p><p>Both well within, no advantage. </p><p></p><p><strong>Use of Ingredients</strong></p><p></p><p><strong>Ancient Curse</strong></p><p></p><p><em>The Hulk</em> has a mother's loss and a murdered girl's fury, while <em>With Strange Aeons</em> has a spurned necromancer's curse. In both cases, the incident is only a century old, so not quite that ancient in either case. Other than that, it was well implemented. No advantage. </p><p></p><p><strong>Moonlight Serenade</strong></p><p></p><p>A psychic ritual in <em>The Hulk</em>, while the serenade in <em>With Strange Aeons</em> is a real serenade to lure the girls out at night. The latter feels a bit forced just to have it included and it makes me wonder why no one else made a connection from the disappearance of the girls to a nightly romeo singing in the streets. Not like only the target could hear the music. So I'm going with the ritual here, despite it not being a serenade, technically. Advantage <em>The Hulk</em>. </p><p></p><p><strong>Hate Story</strong></p><p></p><p>So the people in the city of <em>With Strange Aeons</em> have this problem with disappearing noble girls since a hundred years, and only now they begin to revolt? Wouldn't nobles faced with this problem either bring their daughters to other holdings far from the city, post a constant watch with the girls and get rid of the king as soon as they could? It also seems more of a fear or revenge thing, not hate, as everyone is aware of the curse and the only thing they could hate the king for is for him not to name a new king and leave. </p><p></p><p><em>The Hulk</em> on the other hand has a tribe stuck with hate for something that's happened long ago, yet it makes sense as in a psionic society, such things likely make a much bigger imprint. Advantage <em>The Hulk</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Sanctioned Kidnappings</strong></p><p></p><p>A sanctioned kidnapping, to me,is where the government or an organization turns a blind eye or is clearly in favor without being involved. But here we have two cases where the government and the corporation are directly behind it. No advantage. </p><p></p><p><strong>Dirty Laundry</strong></p><p></p><p><em>The Hulk </em>refers to the obvious, with the kidnappings and experiments being the figurative dirty laundry. Not much of a twist, we could see that coming from the beginning.<em> With Strange Aeons </em>on the other hand refers to actual dirty laundry. I really liked that. It was relevant enough to the plot, too, with the bad guy mistaking the laundry girl for her employer. Advantage <em>With Strange Aeons.</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Awakened Behemoth</strong></p><p></p><p><em>With Strange Aeons</em> has the standard Cthulhuesque beast at the bottom of the sea, which might, or might not, awaken. <em>The Hulk</em> on the other hand has a psionic problem which, come to think of it, never really slept all this time, at least not constantly. Yet, it is at least definitely awake, which isn't the case in <em>With Strange Aeons</em>. Advantage <em>The Hulk</em>. </p><p></p><p><strong>Unstable Cargo</strong></p><p></p><p>I liked both the psionic creation and the mentally unwell girls in the boat for originality, however, considering the coolness of the psionic effect it's a clear call. Advantage <em>The Hulk.</em> </p><p></p><p><strong>Sail of Stars</strong><p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left">Standard solar sail for The Hulk. The sail from the boat in <em>With Strange Aeons</em> is way cooler. <em>Advantage With Strange Aeons</em>. </p> <p style="text-align: left"></p> <p style="text-align: left"></p><p></p><p><strong>Readability</strong></p><p></p><p>The Hulk comes over half finished in editing. It is difficult to quickly find references as there is a lack of headers etc. It works because it is not that long a text, but still. With Strange Aeons is very clearly structured and it is not hard at all to know what's where and find it immediately. Advantage<em> With Strange Aeons. </em></p><p></p><p><strong>Use in gameplay</strong></p><p></p><p><em>The Hulk</em> depends on the players finding out a few things in the first part of the adventure without which they would have a really hard time in the second part. The GM can easily arrange for it to happen, though, if just by having the group rescue a native to befriend. Also, if they are worth their salt, they have done preliminary research and probably already know that another ship from Revori went missing a 100 years ago. </p><p></p><p>In the ship itself, there are a few half explained issues, like what exactly happened on the bridge? The GM will have an easy enough time to connect all that went wrong with psionic attacks, yet such things make the adventure appear a bit unfinished. This could also use a map, which was of course not within the scope of this contest. The ship layout is, however, described well enough to create a simple map - or just take another one and ignore the layout provided altogether if you work with maps. </p><p></p><p>The geonee scavenger is but an afterthought, I had hoped after the race claiming to be the Ancients was mentioned, there would be a bit more relevance, but in the end it was just one of several scavengers. </p><p></p><p>Flower power (hehe) disturbing the ship really gives a lot of opportunities, not only to quell her anger (as the group would definitely have recordings of the moonlight ritual) but to bring her and the mother peace - and what about all the other children? They aren't mentioned anymore, as they were weaker than Flower, but one should think their spirits, too, would run along with Flower to cause mayhem, or at least be there somewhere lost and confused, probably projecting their fear onto the crew. In my game, I'd definitely rule that the only way to really free the ship of the haunts was to pacify all the lost souls. </p><p></p><p><em>With Strange Aeons </em>has a lot of background information players may never find out about. I mentioned somewhere before that this is a pet peeve of mine. Either give them plenty of option to figure out the details - not just the basic story of the curse - or reduce background to the absolute must for the GM to fill in as needed. </p><p></p><p>The plot itself is slightly confusing. Why are the PCs doing what, again? Depending on the lead used it could go any which way, which makes this a bit of a sandbox, which is cool enough. However, as timing seems important, it will, with most groups, not be that easy to steer them towards the harbor in time - or you have the opposite effect and there are too many opportunities and the PCs don't find the road at all. The adventure seems like 2 stories entangled somehow, and it doesn't fit all that well. There is the beast at the bottom of the sea, which might never even appear, and then there is the bad guy killing noble girls to prolong his life, and the only reason why he needs nobles is that their blood has more vitality (which I don't find convincing). With less backstory and more adventure, this could have been a lot better. </p><p></p><p>Advantage<em> The Hulk</em></p><p></p><p><strong>Would my players have fun with it?</strong></p><p></p><p>Definite YES to <em>The Hulk</em>. It's just the kind of research and recovery which makes the right mix for the people I GM for. With Strange Aeons, I am pretty sure I would have to rewrite it into half an adventure path to make it playable for them (and to be sure the beast appears). </p><p></p><p>Advantage <em>The Hulk</em></p><p></p><p>So with a clear lead, <em>The Hulk</em> is the winner for me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Lwaxy, post: 6930481, member: 53286"] Not as detailed as I'd have liked, but my head has some orc misusing it as war drums. [B] Rules[/B] Both well within, no advantage. [B]Use of Ingredients[/B] [B]Ancient Curse[/B] [I]The Hulk[/I] has a mother's loss and a murdered girl's fury, while [I]With Strange Aeons[/I] has a spurned necromancer's curse. In both cases, the incident is only a century old, so not quite that ancient in either case. Other than that, it was well implemented. No advantage. [B]Moonlight Serenade[/B] A psychic ritual in [I]The Hulk[/I], while the serenade in [I]With Strange Aeons[/I] is a real serenade to lure the girls out at night. The latter feels a bit forced just to have it included and it makes me wonder why no one else made a connection from the disappearance of the girls to a nightly romeo singing in the streets. Not like only the target could hear the music. So I'm going with the ritual here, despite it not being a serenade, technically. Advantage [I]The Hulk[/I]. [B]Hate Story[/B] So the people in the city of [I]With Strange Aeons[/I] have this problem with disappearing noble girls since a hundred years, and only now they begin to revolt? Wouldn't nobles faced with this problem either bring their daughters to other holdings far from the city, post a constant watch with the girls and get rid of the king as soon as they could? It also seems more of a fear or revenge thing, not hate, as everyone is aware of the curse and the only thing they could hate the king for is for him not to name a new king and leave. [I]The Hulk[/I] on the other hand has a tribe stuck with hate for something that's happened long ago, yet it makes sense as in a psionic society, such things likely make a much bigger imprint. Advantage [I]The Hulk[/I] [B]Sanctioned Kidnappings[/B] A sanctioned kidnapping, to me,is where the government or an organization turns a blind eye or is clearly in favor without being involved. But here we have two cases where the government and the corporation are directly behind it. No advantage. [B]Dirty Laundry[/B] [I]The Hulk [/I]refers to the obvious, with the kidnappings and experiments being the figurative dirty laundry. Not much of a twist, we could see that coming from the beginning.[I] With Strange Aeons [/I]on the other hand refers to actual dirty laundry. I really liked that. It was relevant enough to the plot, too, with the bad guy mistaking the laundry girl for her employer. Advantage [I]With Strange Aeons.[/I] [B]Awakened Behemoth[/B] [I]With Strange Aeons[/I] has the standard Cthulhuesque beast at the bottom of the sea, which might, or might not, awaken. [I]The Hulk[/I] on the other hand has a psionic problem which, come to think of it, never really slept all this time, at least not constantly. Yet, it is at least definitely awake, which isn't the case in [I]With Strange Aeons[/I]. Advantage [I]The Hulk[/I]. [B]Unstable Cargo[/B] I liked both the psionic creation and the mentally unwell girls in the boat for originality, however, considering the coolness of the psionic effect it's a clear call. Advantage [I]The Hulk.[/I] [B]Sail of Stars[/B][LEFT] Standard solar sail for The Hulk. The sail from the boat in [I]With Strange Aeons[/I] is way cooler. [I]Advantage With Strange Aeons[/I]. [/LEFT] [B]Readability[/B] The Hulk comes over half finished in editing. It is difficult to quickly find references as there is a lack of headers etc. It works because it is not that long a text, but still. With Strange Aeons is very clearly structured and it is not hard at all to know what's where and find it immediately. Advantage[I] With Strange Aeons. [/I] [B]Use in gameplay[/B] [I]The Hulk[/I] depends on the players finding out a few things in the first part of the adventure without which they would have a really hard time in the second part. The GM can easily arrange for it to happen, though, if just by having the group rescue a native to befriend. Also, if they are worth their salt, they have done preliminary research and probably already know that another ship from Revori went missing a 100 years ago. In the ship itself, there are a few half explained issues, like what exactly happened on the bridge? The GM will have an easy enough time to connect all that went wrong with psionic attacks, yet such things make the adventure appear a bit unfinished. This could also use a map, which was of course not within the scope of this contest. The ship layout is, however, described well enough to create a simple map - or just take another one and ignore the layout provided altogether if you work with maps. The geonee scavenger is but an afterthought, I had hoped after the race claiming to be the Ancients was mentioned, there would be a bit more relevance, but in the end it was just one of several scavengers. Flower power (hehe) disturbing the ship really gives a lot of opportunities, not only to quell her anger (as the group would definitely have recordings of the moonlight ritual) but to bring her and the mother peace - and what about all the other children? They aren't mentioned anymore, as they were weaker than Flower, but one should think their spirits, too, would run along with Flower to cause mayhem, or at least be there somewhere lost and confused, probably projecting their fear onto the crew. In my game, I'd definitely rule that the only way to really free the ship of the haunts was to pacify all the lost souls. [I]With Strange Aeons [/I]has a lot of background information players may never find out about. I mentioned somewhere before that this is a pet peeve of mine. Either give them plenty of option to figure out the details - not just the basic story of the curse - or reduce background to the absolute must for the GM to fill in as needed. The plot itself is slightly confusing. Why are the PCs doing what, again? Depending on the lead used it could go any which way, which makes this a bit of a sandbox, which is cool enough. However, as timing seems important, it will, with most groups, not be that easy to steer them towards the harbor in time - or you have the opposite effect and there are too many opportunities and the PCs don't find the road at all. The adventure seems like 2 stories entangled somehow, and it doesn't fit all that well. There is the beast at the bottom of the sea, which might never even appear, and then there is the bad guy killing noble girls to prolong his life, and the only reason why he needs nobles is that their blood has more vitality (which I don't find convincing). With less backstory and more adventure, this could have been a lot better. Advantage[I] The Hulk[/I] [B]Would my players have fun with it?[/B] Definite YES to [I]The Hulk[/I]. It's just the kind of research and recovery which makes the right mix for the people I GM for. With Strange Aeons, I am pretty sure I would have to rewrite it into half an adventure path to make it playable for them (and to be sure the beast appears). Advantage [I]The Hulk[/I] So with a clear lead, [I]The Hulk[/I] is the winner for me. [/QUOTE]
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