Crothian
First Post
Murder Will Out is an adventure written by Ben Counter and published by White Wolf for the Hunter: the Vigil RPG. The 40-page PDF adventure includes a full write-up of NPCs, some nice handouts for the players, and some good advice for creating handouts more personal to the PCs and specific to this scenario. The plotline centers on a cell of hunters who run into a few different serial killers, or “Slashers”,all of whom are tied together by an even greater evil source.
Murder Will Out is reasonable urban adventure, but will need some help from the Storyteller to be a memorable experience. The plot is too linear PCs will just follow the breadcrumbs to the end with little ability to change how encounters are experienced. The NPCs are well described and have easy- to- understand character sheets. On the down side, NPCs just contact the PCs with the information they need at the appropriate times. There is no other way for the players to learn this information and there is no way to move forward without it. A Storyteller can improve the adventure by establishing the NPCs earlier in the campaign and foreshadowing the many villains. The linear nature of the plot will be a little harder to fix.
Below are going to be spoilers for the Murder Will Out.
Murder Will Out starts with a police contact coming to see the Hunters. Detective Kim, one of the NPCs that can easily be established ahead of time, has come to the PCs because he is tracking a Slasher called the Calculator. The Detective comes to the PCs because he wants to kill the Slasher and not bring him to justice. Through investigation he has figured out who the next victim is and wants to use this as a trap. Unfortunately, they get there to late to face off with the Calculator but can save the victim. There are clues to be found here including the one that leads to the next encounter.
One thing that does make the linear nature work a little better is the traps being set for the PCs. The clue they find was left on purpose and while it does lead to the apartment the Calculator is using it also leads to a horrible monster construction he has built and left there to kill the player characters. In fact there are three Slashers in this adventure and of them will have a chance to kill the player characters in their own way. Some are better then others. One Slasher using a magical pen writes letters to friends or family of his victim and through the magic convinces them the victim has done something very wrong and they will try to kill him.
Eventually once those three Slashers are faced and dealt with the PCs face off against the demon that is influencing everything. But the demon is not corporeal and haunts a hospital. To defeat the demon the group needs to burn down the place. Obviously this can get the Hunters into a lot of local trouble from law enforcement and has the problem of hopefully getting everyone out of the there first. If that solution is too cumbersome the Storyteller is going to need to come up with something else.
Murder Will Out has its issues. The Slashers are not equal or all interesting. Some of them have back stories that are never going to become important or even known about to the players. The Calculator is a little bit like a super hero villain. Another one is basically a relentless killer. And the guy with the magical pen is different and can also offer some good role playing and thinking. The guy would be happy to be killed but is a very old man in an old folks’ home. He’s not going to live too much longer anyway but it can become a moral issue on how to deal with him. The adventure is too linear and if the player characters do figure things out there is little reward as the adventure can easily come to a close with out such knowledge.
Murder Will Out is just an okay adventure. The Slashers can be taken and used elsewhere. There are some neat ideas that can be borrowed but the best I think are found in the review. If the Storyteller knows he is going to use this adventure in a month or two and has time and opportunity to set up the Slashers and allies in the adventure the whole thing will run more smoothly.
Murder Will Out is reasonable urban adventure, but will need some help from the Storyteller to be a memorable experience. The plot is too linear PCs will just follow the breadcrumbs to the end with little ability to change how encounters are experienced. The NPCs are well described and have easy- to- understand character sheets. On the down side, NPCs just contact the PCs with the information they need at the appropriate times. There is no other way for the players to learn this information and there is no way to move forward without it. A Storyteller can improve the adventure by establishing the NPCs earlier in the campaign and foreshadowing the many villains. The linear nature of the plot will be a little harder to fix.
Below are going to be spoilers for the Murder Will Out.
Murder Will Out starts with a police contact coming to see the Hunters. Detective Kim, one of the NPCs that can easily be established ahead of time, has come to the PCs because he is tracking a Slasher called the Calculator. The Detective comes to the PCs because he wants to kill the Slasher and not bring him to justice. Through investigation he has figured out who the next victim is and wants to use this as a trap. Unfortunately, they get there to late to face off with the Calculator but can save the victim. There are clues to be found here including the one that leads to the next encounter.
One thing that does make the linear nature work a little better is the traps being set for the PCs. The clue they find was left on purpose and while it does lead to the apartment the Calculator is using it also leads to a horrible monster construction he has built and left there to kill the player characters. In fact there are three Slashers in this adventure and of them will have a chance to kill the player characters in their own way. Some are better then others. One Slasher using a magical pen writes letters to friends or family of his victim and through the magic convinces them the victim has done something very wrong and they will try to kill him.
Eventually once those three Slashers are faced and dealt with the PCs face off against the demon that is influencing everything. But the demon is not corporeal and haunts a hospital. To defeat the demon the group needs to burn down the place. Obviously this can get the Hunters into a lot of local trouble from law enforcement and has the problem of hopefully getting everyone out of the there first. If that solution is too cumbersome the Storyteller is going to need to come up with something else.
Murder Will Out has its issues. The Slashers are not equal or all interesting. Some of them have back stories that are never going to become important or even known about to the players. The Calculator is a little bit like a super hero villain. Another one is basically a relentless killer. And the guy with the magical pen is different and can also offer some good role playing and thinking. The guy would be happy to be killed but is a very old man in an old folks’ home. He’s not going to live too much longer anyway but it can become a moral issue on how to deal with him. The adventure is too linear and if the player characters do figure things out there is little reward as the adventure can easily come to a close with out such knowledge.
Murder Will Out is just an okay adventure. The Slashers can be taken and used elsewhere. There are some neat ideas that can be borrowed but the best I think are found in the review. If the Storyteller knows he is going to use this adventure in a month or two and has time and opportunity to set up the Slashers and allies in the adventure the whole thing will run more smoothly.
