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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9521193" data-attributes="member: 18">Definitionally that is a perfect example of the PCs being sidelined for the sake of NPCs from a novel. You're not going to find a more perfect example. There's absolutely no reason for that adventure to exist as it did except because someone wanted to make the NPCs from the truly appalling Prism Pentad series of novels be Big Damn Heroes who the PCs have to get see be super-cool. That's literally it.I agree that after the cutscene the writers did try and give the PCs a bit more to do, but it's a very strong example of this kind of thing, as the PCs have to stand around whilst a cutscene they're not allowed to be in any way involved in plays out in front of them. I dragged the adventure out of check - I'd forgotten it existed - and the whole thing is a pretty massive railroad with the PCs being repeatedly deprotagonised, told by the DM how they feel, and so on, for the sake of forcing them into a very particular situation, and they only need to be in that situation so they can stand around and admire the heroes from a terrible novel series. That's the real killer - the Prism Pentad were so bad even a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds were like "Wow this is way worse than the other D&D books!". I see it also has many pages of Allen Varney-written text which is not needed or helpful and is essentially just "Dark Sun fanfiction".If such an adventure was written today they'd make the whole thing more chaotic and less cut-scene-y and might well not have the PCs see the assassination take place at all, and the assassins certainly wouldn't be Big Damn Hero Adventurers, they'd be something more complex and less in competition with the entire concept of the PCs.Cool Brom cover though!That's just a fairly typical railroad though right? The issue with the oWoD ones and apparently at least some TSR ones was much worse than that - the most dramatic scenes in the adventure would essentially be about the PCs keeping their hands inside the cart as they watch some dramatic scene with Big Important NPCs play out, who are far too Big and Powerful to be intervened in. Or do they have that too?</blockquote>

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