(un)reason
Legend
Dungeon Issue 38: Nov/Dec 1992
part 5/5
Horror's Harvest: Straight from one adventure that's a direct rip-off of a specific movie to another. The cover story is indeed Invasion of the Body Snatchers transferred to Ravenloft, although whether the doppleganger plants are real aliens from another D&D world captured by the dark powers for crimes of their own or just monsters created wholecloth for the lols remains a mystery. Either way, the small Falkovnian village of Delmunster is suffering from a new person each night undergoing a radical personality shift, and then equally radical weight loss over the next couple of weeks as the plant sucks their lifeforce away, all the while trying to pretend everything is fine, or at least throw people off the scent about the precise cause of the problem. Any passing adventurers who's disappearance wouldn't be missed are prime targets for possession, since that'll slow the depopulation rate. On top of that, there's a few more familiar gothic horror monsters hanging around to round out the challenges and keep things feeling suitably Ravenloftish. It's all quite interesting and atmospheric, with plenty of little setting details for the GM to riff off of, and the main thing that'll decide if it goes down well with your group is how players react to their characters being taken over and asked to secretly turn against the rest of the party. How will they balance their desire for secrecy, deteriorating physical condition, and absolute refusal to leave the area of the plant's mind-control to keep the others off balance until everyone is taken over? Basically, if they enjoy PvP, this one looks like it could be an absolute hoot, giving you tons of roleplaying and puzzle solving opportunities and relatively little combat (since you'll probably want to free them from control, not kill them). If they don't, it'll flop. Hopefully you know your group well enough to know which category they fall into.
Three adventures that are fairly low on combat and high on roleplaying here, which is welcome, but making multiple adventures that are directly derivative of specific movies rather than mixing & matching ideas is somewhat less so. That path may seem easy as a writer, but if you don't add new details to account for the players making different decisions from the film, it risks plot railroads very easily. Let's see if next issue does anything similar, or they'll manage to mix things up once again to keep the variety up.
part 5/5
Horror's Harvest: Straight from one adventure that's a direct rip-off of a specific movie to another. The cover story is indeed Invasion of the Body Snatchers transferred to Ravenloft, although whether the doppleganger plants are real aliens from another D&D world captured by the dark powers for crimes of their own or just monsters created wholecloth for the lols remains a mystery. Either way, the small Falkovnian village of Delmunster is suffering from a new person each night undergoing a radical personality shift, and then equally radical weight loss over the next couple of weeks as the plant sucks their lifeforce away, all the while trying to pretend everything is fine, or at least throw people off the scent about the precise cause of the problem. Any passing adventurers who's disappearance wouldn't be missed are prime targets for possession, since that'll slow the depopulation rate. On top of that, there's a few more familiar gothic horror monsters hanging around to round out the challenges and keep things feeling suitably Ravenloftish. It's all quite interesting and atmospheric, with plenty of little setting details for the GM to riff off of, and the main thing that'll decide if it goes down well with your group is how players react to their characters being taken over and asked to secretly turn against the rest of the party. How will they balance their desire for secrecy, deteriorating physical condition, and absolute refusal to leave the area of the plant's mind-control to keep the others off balance until everyone is taken over? Basically, if they enjoy PvP, this one looks like it could be an absolute hoot, giving you tons of roleplaying and puzzle solving opportunities and relatively little combat (since you'll probably want to free them from control, not kill them). If they don't, it'll flop. Hopefully you know your group well enough to know which category they fall into.
Three adventures that are fairly low on combat and high on roleplaying here, which is welcome, but making multiple adventures that are directly derivative of specific movies rather than mixing & matching ideas is somewhat less so. That path may seem easy as a writer, but if you don't add new details to account for the players making different decisions from the film, it risks plot railroads very easily. Let's see if next issue does anything similar, or they'll manage to mix things up once again to keep the variety up.