Review: Pandemonium in the Veins by Frank Brunner. Issue #96

[Emirikol]

PANDEMONIUM IN THE VEINS
by Frank Brunner
Edited by Chris Thomasson
pp30-62

Alright, I can sum this up quickly: fun to play, hacky editing, inefficient formatting, weak NPC knowledge capsules, disjointed, great plot, combo of event and location based works well but in confusing written order. The accompanying poster maps from DRAGON and DUNGEON are fantastic. Easy to fit into a campaign. Playtesters probably had fun, but obviously didn't do any work on this scenario outside of playing the scenario.

Grade:
I give the scenario plot and fun to play an A-
I give the writing style, organization, and editing a "D"

This scenario really is a MUST-PLAY..just don't be the DM who has to figure out how to run this sucker.

jh

 

[Iron_Chef]

PANDEMONIUM IN THE VEINS
by Frank Brunner
Edited by Chris Thomasson
pp30-62

Alright, I can sum this up quickly: fun to play, hacky editing, inefficient formatting, weak NPC knowledge capsules, disjointed, great plot, combo of event and location based works well but in confusing written order. The accompanying poster maps from DRAGON and DUNGEON are fantastic. Easy to fit into a campaign. Playtesters probably had fun, but obviously didn't do any work on this scenario outside of playing the scenario.

Grade:
I give the scenario plot and fun to play an A-
I give the writing style, organization, and editing a "D"

This scenario really is a MUST-PLAY..just don't be the DM who has to figure out how to run this sucker.

jh

SPOILER
I disagree, though I wanted to like it because of the basic idea. I thought the adventure itself was terrible, filled with high fantasy cliches that substitute for intelligent plotting in WoTC and many other publisher's d20 content. A wizard's ghost possessing an ooze? Ridiculous. I was hoping for a more gritty GLADIATOR movie style adventure, not "attack of the blob monster!" I know the magazine can come up with more gritty, realistic adventures, but the last one I recall is the Robin Hood one "Trouble in Sherwood" from the first 3e issue of DUNGEON. I thought that was a great idea and would have preferred to see a mix of high and low fantasy adventures each issue, but now that Paizo's taken over and gone monthly/reduced the page count, I guess there's no hope of seeing anything other than a couple super high fantasy adventures each issue. I haven't bought or seen an issue in many months now.

RANT
Why can't these writers give us a more realistic adventure and let us choose to add what degree of high fantasy we want (possibly from a list of options in the back), instead of always defaulting to the "over the top" option? Or at least give us more realistic options in the back to tone it down, instead. Options for different play styles/settings is what I want, and what I think would make DUNGEON a much more useful and relevant magazine to the widest possible audience. As is, most of DUNGEON is unusable; always has been, except for infrequent high quality issues where about half the adventures are cool. Yeah, I can do the conversion work myself, but very often, it just isn't worth it time or trouble-wise, and the whole thing gets gutted for a map, NPC or bare skeleton of a plotshell, if it gets used at all.

I was glad to see WoTC finally addressing low fantasy and low/no magic settings in The Complete Warrior. I hope that this is explored further in Unearthed Arcana (more than a couple of pages). I think they're missing out on an untapped (by them) market; as is, whenever the thrill of slaying dragons and pantsing Orcus wears thin, these D&Ders have nowhere to go except to other systems or homebrew their own. I'm not even talking major product support, but ONE juicy hardcover with low fantasy and low/no magic options would be the ticket. Maybe include a setting, too, like Lankhmar, Conan or whatever, maybe a stand-alone d20 game like Call of Cthulhu or Wheel of Time. Heck, charge $40 even. I'd buy it.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I agree with Emirikol's assessment. This adventure is fun, but organizationally it's a mess. My best advice for prospective DMs is to read the adventure multiple times before attempting to run it - you need to know everything that's going on so that you can react to PC actions. You're also going to need to ad-lib quite a bit to cover things not in the adventure.

Make photocopies or re-type the information gathering sidebars, because you're going to be referring to those over and over and you don't want to be flipping pages. Consider consolidating the information into the hands of fewer NPCs, which will actually enhance the roleplaying (as the PCs will have to get to know each NPC well before that NPC will divulge the more and more useful info).

On a game mechanical note, you need to ramp up the CRs significantly. This is because the PCs will typically fight only once, perhaps twice in the arena each day. If you pit them against CR = APL, they're going to waltz through the adventure without facing any real challenge. So, use those independent gladiators to add muscle to the match; put Spice on the Sand; or just slap some templates and extra levels on the existing matches. Go for CR = APL +2 or +3 to create real challenges.

You can safely excise many of the subplots (such as the ghost of Arxus Nod or Trixia and her father) without effecting things too much. Alternatively, any of the colorful NPCs in the adventure can be the source of practically any plot hook you can imagine. (Why is so-and-so fighting in the arena? To raise money for his povery stricken spiritual order / sick relative / to buy back incriminating documents / as punishment for a crime / etc. etc. etc.)

You can also ditch the confusing fame rules and just say that the PCs gain access where (and to whom) you want them to by fiat.

The climactic battle takes place in such a cramped location (10' x 15' if I'm reading the map correctly) that spellcasters and archers are at a severe disadvantage. Consider making it a running battle through the arena instead, culminating in the Cloud Box fight.

Wow. My post is just about as disorganized as this adventure. Whee!

 

[Arnwyn]

SPOILER
A wizard's ghost possessing an ooze? Ridiculous.

That is pretty stupid...

Hey, Paizo! Less of that kind of idiocy in your adventures, okay?

 

[Emirikol]

That is pretty stupid...

SPOILERS

The original poster was mistaken. It's not a wizard possessing an ooze. Let me clarify, because it's actually quite cool:


The man with the crooked spine (the bad guy) is the arena physician and he had a son. The physician was an evil and vengeful man against many in the arena, but he plied his trade. The son was killed in arena and he wanted to bring him back from the dead as some kind of superman. The process failed and the son was jellified. The son also had some hatred and love for some people, as well as some unfinished business so the Powers that Be' turned him into a ghost. He jarred into an ooze (or pudding I forget) and has been haunting the lower depths as this creature. It is now a semi-sentient monster that plays an interesting role in the adventure.

IMO, the bad guy (arena physician) is modeled directly after the pharmacist in the movie, "The Naked Man" by the Cohen brothers and I'm starting to think that a lot of inspiration came from that movie for the premise of this scenario.

jh

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