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Message: <blockquote data-quote="RealAlHazred" data-source="post: 9650022" data-attributes="member: 25818">The Witchlight Beer FestivalThis is another little PDF with 7 pages of content for the first chapter of WBW. It's supposed to be another location you can add into the Carnival, but it's weird. Like, I'm not a professional writer of RPG material, so maybe I shouldn't talk. But I buy a lot of RPG material, so I feel like I have the right to. This one costs $0, so at I can't say I didn't get my money's worth.The supplement begins with the author talking about how you can integrate this seamlessly into "your Witchlight campaign or any other campaign by tailoring it to your specific needs." Then, he doesn't really go on about tailoring the material at all. The second paragraph copies the first paragraph word-for-word for a bit, then deviates. The author mentions he "incorporate[d] the festival... [by] placing it within the “Mystery Mine,” an attraction at the Witchlight Carnival designed for 1st level characters." Apparently, the DM wasn't happy with the Mystery Mine content, so his PCs just, one by one, vanished from the minecart and found themselves in the Beer Festival.The whole thing is written in this weird way. I'm tempted to think it was created by AI. I could also see it created by someone for whom English is a second (or later) language. So, I try to be generous and assume the latter.The backstory is weird. The Beer Festival is run by a family, who escaped from Sigil just ahead of a Mercykiller hit squad, which they ditched in the Witchlight Carnival, which they reached with the help of somebody named Zenish; "Zenish had a longstanding positive relationship with the Witchlight Carnival, evidenced by his magical Witchlight hand tattoo shimmering with a pixie-dust-like aura." Zenish, the Mercykillers, and, in fact, the rest of Planescape never get mentioned again.The family that run the Beer Festival are not really fully fleshed out. One of the brothers has a unicorn head and three pixie fangirls who follow him around; it's not explained. There are 15 locations in it. The supplement helpfully comes with a map which looks like it came from Random Forgotten Realms Town #23, but there are at least both DM and PC versions, though I'm not sure why, since it's not really a dungeon -- this is a festival, people can go freely from point A to point B. I would have made just one map, and labeled the locations with actual names instead of numbers.The locations given include a Brewery (of course), Lamilda’s Masks (which, confusingly, sells art mostly -- the masks are supposed to be a sideline), a Farmer’s Market, the Main Bar, Fish n’ Grapes (which sells fresh trout, bushels of grapes, and their homemade "Secret Stash" wine only), a Feywild Hookah Lounge, the Main Stage, and a Picnic Area. Many of these locations have NPCs briefly mentioned, either one of the family members or somebody else involved in the activity there. Most of the locations have one of the 7 brothers of the family running the event, each of which has his own homebrew beer that the PCs are supposed to be trying.Oh, right, this is billed as an "adventure." There's absolutely no stakes in any of these locations besides the most basic ones (ooh, somebody's unconscious from drinking too much beer, make a DC 10 Medicine check to wake them; they are given a name and nothing else, so I'm not sure why you'd bother). The last bit is the "Dragon Encounter": "When the time is right for the epic finale", the DM is supposed to use whatever fears the party revealed before the ride, and they suddenly all show up, accompanied by a dragon (also illusory). When they are defeated, a unicorn emerges from a magical fog with a trophy dangling from its horn; it is then suddenly assaulted by a group of goblins equal in number to the PCs, who try to saw off its horn. When they are defeated by the PCs (no options given for what if the PCs don't fight them), then the best beer is judged.Then the PCs find themselves back in the minecart, coming out of the Mystery Mine ride.It's... certainly not how I would have incorporated a beer festival into the Witchlight Carnival. It introduces almost 20 new NPCs, none of which are really fleshed out to any extent. The locations don't even have as much detail as the side attractions of the carnival; instead many of them just sell items for money. I suppose, since there's not a lot of places to spend money elsewhere in the module, that's... okay? I don't know, it's super weird. But, like I said, it's free.</blockquote>

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