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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9476590" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://i.imgur.com/eBztfFb.jpeg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" /><a href="https://www.dmsguild.com/product/435045/You-Have-To-Go" target="_blank">Product Link</a>Product Type: AdventureCoS-Required? NoYou Have to Go is a 1 on 1 oneshot designed for a single 3rd-level PC. The adventure starts out with the PC minding their own business somewhere as they excuse themselves to the loo, which would be the absolute worst moment for the Mists of Ravenloft to whisk them into danger! They’re transported into Casterburg Manor, a Domain stuck in a perpetual nightly timeloop of a nobleman’s ball doomed to violently end with the mansion being flooded.For some backstory, the Casterburgs were a noble family who strived to exemplify the romantic ideals of feudal aristocracy: lords and ladies dedicated to the safety and welfare of those they ruled over. They invested the huge profits from their mines back into the community, resulting in a higher standard of living for the miners and farmers. Every year they held an annual Ball commemorating the day gold was first discovered in the region, a Ball which welcomed all regardless of social class.Claudius Casterburg was the black sheep of the family; not only did he demonstrate a lack of administrative skills vital for rulership and business management, he viewed the rest of his family as idiotic in their supposedly misplaced respect for “wasting money on the common rabble.” Despite being the eldest child, his parents entrusted his twin sister (who was born minutes later) as heir to the family fortune. What drove Claudius over the edge was his father telling him in no uncertain terms “You couldn’t even manage the Ball, much less the mines.”Thus, Claudius plotted to kill his family, obtaining paralytic carrion crawler mucus to poison a bottle of wine. The dark deed was done when he and the other Casterburgs stopped at a bridge to toast his sister before coming back home to the Ball. When they fell over, helpless, Claudius threw all of their bodies over into the waters below. When he came back to the Manor as sole heir and now manager of the Casterburg Ball, the Mists of Ravenloft took the building away from the Material Plane, turning it into a Domain.Casterburg Manor is stuck in a Groundhog Day style time loop for the past 50 years, where Claudius tries and fails to manage the Ball as various monstrous creatures invisible to all of the domain’s natives (but not to the PC) sabotage things from behind the scenes. Nobody, not even Claudius, are aware of the time loop, and more disastrous and violent acts of sabotage are mentally rationalized away. For example, a corpse will be taken as someone too drunk to stand up, a sinkhole filled with assassin vines is viewed as “just a small crack with weeds,” and so on and so forth. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabaton" target="_blank">Indesctructable magical sabatons</a> are attached to everyone’s feet, which cannot be removed via ordinary means and hold the wearer in place when the Manor floods, causing those unfortunate enough to still have them on to drown to death. The only means for the PC to escape this Domain is to fix the various problems plaguing the party, freeing not only the Darklord’s soul but everyone else’s…all the while fighting the urge to go to the bathroom!You Have to Go is separated into three major Acts: the first Act where the PC appears at the Ball and is treated by the attendees as a guest of honor, the second Act where they start to realize that something’s amiss and go about fixing the problems plaguing the event, and the third Act where the Manor floods. The third Act’s triggering is by DM Fiat, based on the needs of when the oneshot needs to be wrapped up. The storm outside the Manor prevents one from simply leaving safely, and should a character end up outside they will be unceremoniously dumped back in, usually crashing through a window in a completely different room to show them that their imprisonment is explicitly supernatural in nature.Two major subsystems are in play: the Sabaton Chart and Emergency Chart. The PC will quickly realize that they and everyone else at the ball are wearing pairs of silver sabatons, with Claudius wearing a gold set. Nobody but the PC is aware of their presence, and if asked about them an NPC will mention that they’re fancy shoes in a new style rather than actual armor. Points are scored on the Sabaton Chart when the PC solves the various problems, causing more Sabatons to become translucent and thus lose their powers during Act 3. 8 Points are necessary to free everyone, and Points can also be lost if the PC ends up making things worse. The player isn’t told about the system, instead the overall atmosphere of the Manor and demeanor of guests changes, becoming more upbeat and lively in various ways. Like the bardic band will stop playing offkey and perform better, the magical globe-lights will stop dimming and malfunctioning, etc. When one or more points are lost, some event happens within the PC’s perception that immediately dims the mood, such as a waiter tripping and causing food and dishes to spill onto a guest.The Emergency subsystem involves the PC’s increasing urge to relieve themselves interfering with their ability to perform tasks. This is a magically-amplified effect by the Dark Powers, so even if a PC does their business (intentionally or as an “accident”) the urge will swiftly return. Generally speaking, every time the PC resolves a task for the Sabaton Chart they will roll a DC 13 Constitution saving throw. If they fail, they will suffer a debuff that functions (but is not the same) as a level of exhaustion. By the 4th level of exhaustion, they can’t hold it in any longer and mess themselves and lose all levels. If done in a way that other attendees notice, this causes a loss of 1 Sabaton Point.Act One is the shortest and simplest, being more of an introduction. The PC appears in the Manor as they fall out from a huge painting hanging above the ground, where a grung butler by the name of Hops (who was formerly Claudius’ childhood pet as a mundane frog) introduces the PC. A piece of parchment in the character’s hand placed by the Dark Powers warns them that the Ball must go well, or “All Will Die.” Hops is unaware of his poisonous skin, which causes anyone to touch him (no save) to either remain motionless or have an irresistible urge to run towards the fountain on the first floor and immerse themselves in it. This will happen several times during the adventure with other NPCs, unless the PC comes up with a way for Hops to avoid bodily contact like telling him about personal space or lying that there’s a nasty cold going around. Additionally, after the PC’s dramatic introduction by Hops, people will begin dancing as a vine emerges from a sinkhole, tripping partygoers as it tries and fails time and time again to get a drink from the fountain.<img src="https://i.imgur.com/vPIwSVr.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Act Two is the bulk of the adventure, and is an open-ended scenario where the PC goes around the manor to learn more about the nature of the Domain and right its problems. There’s many means of scoring Sabaton Points, as well as a mixture of combat and non-combat encounters. The four monsters that are causing problems (assassin vine tripping dancing guests, a boggle causing waiters in a hallway to spill food, a mimic in the bathroom, water weird either violently banging on the front door or attacking and yanking out people close to open windows) are invisible to everyone else, so if a PC is seen engaging in violent action against them everyone else will think that the character is drunk, hallucinating, or doing a very convincing fight scene like in a play or a weird interpretive dance. With the exception of the mimic who will eat the PC, a PC who is reduced to 0 hit points will be left alone by the monsters, and will be awoken by a staff member should they make 3 successful death saves. Additionally, while there’s not enough time to perform a long rest, the PC has one free window to take a short rest if they have no levels on the Emergency Chart. But at the end of said rest, a mishap will happen to lower the Sabaton Chart by one point.The various scenarios have a variety of innovative and interesting ways to be solved. For instance, waiters are serving food not on plates, but by galleon-shaped bowls for the party’s nautical theme. But the gnome in charge of crafting and fixing the bowls accidentally switched his glasses with his chef brother, causing him to apply frosting instead of glue to the bowls, and the chef to be accidentally poisoning the guests with glue in their food. Getting them to switch glasses is one such solution, but also switching the galleon bowls for more stable plates can also work in dealing with their unstable nature. For the assassin vine, blocking the sinkhole is one option, but dumping a barrel of alcohol on it or rerouting water from a nearby pipe to feed it pacifies the monster nonviolently. I won’t go over every single problem, but there’s a lot of things for a PC to do (and to mess things up!).Besides immediately fixing the party, there are two scenarios that don’t necessarily add Sabaton Points but paint a fuller picture of the Casterburg family. For instance, a puzzle involving rotating the head of a Casterburg bust so that the cowlick of their hair matches the side as portrayed in a painting above the bust unlocks a secret compartment. This is where Claudius stored a vial of carrion crawler poison. Additionally, the study area has Claudius’ journal that lists the current year as being 50 years ago and details an endless list of grievances by him. Disturbingly, their entries repeat again and again like a loop, and give better insight into his psyche…and thus advantage on relevant social checks with him!And what of the bathroom? Well, it has 3 stalls, one of which is technically working. However, the room has a broken pipe spilling water everywhere, there’s a dead body on the floor, and one of the toilets is a disguised mimic that will attack the PC if they enter the stall. The bathroom has a goblin attendant offering towels, who is sick from the putrid smell but doesn’t actually smell or see anything wrong. A PC grappled by the mimic will have the attendant misinterpret the character as having trouble getting off the toilet and attempt to help them stand up, granting advantage on rolls to escape the grapple.Act Three begins when Claudius gets the attention of everyone at the Ball, about to announce that his family granted him the rights to the mine. Every day, for the past 50 years, this is when his father’s voice echoed throughout the Manor, saying “you could not even manage the Ball…” as the Dark Powers mock him, also lifting the collective delusion preventing people from seeing the Sabatons and other problems of the Manor. This shows everyone that the Darklord’s greatest fear is a reality, just as it’s revealed that the world outside the Manor is underwater, causing the water to break through the glass and begin flooding the building. Giant rats taking refuge in the walls will spill out as attendants scream, those not pinned by sabatons rushing for higher ground. The painting that the PC emerged from at the start of the adventure is the only safe way out, and acts as a drain as the rising water creates a current near it. Even in this disaster scenario the PC still has opportunities to save people: one way is giving someone trapped by a pair of sabatons a Ring of Water Walking (possibly obtained from the assassin vine), while another way by confronting Claudius, either in combat or by convincing him that he’s still a worthy heir to the Casterburg fortune.If the PC survives, they emerge from the painting with other survivors, who will all age drastically to make up for the half-century timeloop. Hops turns into a normal frog, and the parchment from the Dark Powers turns into a deed to the mine naming the PC as the owner. If the PC dies, boxed text will show that they’re now among the oblivious attendees of the ball, just as another “guest of honor” shows up, looking distraught. The product then ends with four pre-generated characters and a pair of maps detailing Casterburg Manor.Overall Thoughts: You Have to Go is a strong, nonlinear adventure with multiple means of resolution and player freedom, and in spite of its brevity it felt like it covered events and rooms in enough detail that important things weren’t left out or to DM Fiat. It has more levity than the average Ravenloft module, but is still distinctly en vogue with the setting in focusing on a central villain’s greedy betrayal trapping himself in a hell of his own making. The survivability and balance downsides of a 1-on-1 DnD adventure are mitigated by being primarily noncombat yet still having an element of loss and risk.From reading this adventure, I spotted specific means for a PC to earn up to 13 points on the Sabaton Chart. The adventure, of course, isn’t wedded to these results, encouraging the DM to reward points for clever actions to improve the mood and safety beyond what’s provided by default. Combined with various open-ended means of losing said points, there is a generous window of errors to be made without making the adventure unwinnable. And given that the only way to end the Darklord’s curse is to save everyone, it’s not a binary win-lose situation.In short, I highly recommend You Have to Go as a fun-looking, creative adventure that definitely deserves to have more eyes upon it.Join us next time as we add some spooky new goods to Curse of Strahd’s shops in Barovian Things!</blockquote>

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