catsclaw227
First Post
A couple of years ago, I GM'ed a party through the end of Book 2 of this campaign series, taking them from 1st to 20th level. Book 3 takes them from 21st to 30th. My players gave this adventure campaign a 4 out of 5.
********** THIS REVIEW HAS SOME SPOILERS ************
The adventure begins when the players "awake" on an independent island nation off the coast of a land in strife. The start is a bit cheesy, awake and not know why they are there, but there is some story to it.
[sblock]You see, the PCs are actually a special group of heroes called Starborn, that are tied to a prophecy of heroes, kinda like the Eternal Champion of the Moorcock novels. They are ancient souls, now manifest in the PCs.[/sblock]
The action starts immediately, and pits them against local thugs in a northern village, until they learn from about some Duergar cutting their way to the surface, and the queuing of a massive army of underdark foes, led by Drow.
The PCs journey across the island, battling foes, warning villages, taking side treks, racing time, ultimately trying to notify a large coastal free city, where there is agent double-crossings, drow spys, and an epic mass combat battle between the drow army and the walled city.
This review focuses on the first book, The Gathering Storm. I actually would rate it in three different ways:
1. Maps and materials: 2/5 -- The maps were awful, and in some cases, missing entirely. Scale was off or unknown, quality was really terrible. I also hated the cover of the first one -- the picture was a badly colorized version of a decent B&W image inside the book. Fortunately, they hired Annie Stokes to do the covers for books 2 and 3. They were quite evocative and I actually contacted Annie in London, bought signed prints and had them framed.
2. Story and Adventure design: 4.5/5 -- this was a good story, and it plays very well in practice. The Drow are interesting, the campaign world is interesting, though it was a bit underdone -- good for some DMs and bad for others. The book does require a skim, followed by a solid read-through, with highlighter and pen, or with notes. The interconnecting stories are fairly linear, but some things are foreshadowed and key details are fleshed out later in the book. But, really, it was a very fun game to DM. And the players had a BLAST.
3. Meta-Campaign stuff: 5/5 -- OK, with the maps in such disarray, I contacted Adrian Bott, the writer and he was very receptive to email and conversation. he even sent me copies of his personal maps used during campaign development. His insights on some of my questions were great and it was great picking the mind of the designer as the campaign progressed. We are VERY spoiled here in the EnWorld forums (as well as the Necromancer Games, Goodman Games and Paizo Forums), most writers are very active.
Also, there are some very loosely coupled tie-ins with the other Mongoose books on the Drow. Everything you need is in the book, but I took advantage of some of Sheoloth and the Tome of Drow Lore and it made the Drow Houses come alive.
I entered everything into DM Genie (yes, everything -- thank god for PDF copy/paste) and it made DMing SOOOO friggin easy. They stuck to the SRD and added some new monsters and such, but I was relieved of needing to remember every single plus, spell effect, etc. DM Genie handled it all for me.
Some additional comments and criticisms:
1. The Drow were cool. They weren't typical FR Drow, nor was every NPC the typical angst-ridden outcast (wielding double weapons ). They were cruel, outlandish, and extremely evil. More LE than CE. Think Nazi SS decadence, think film noir bad guys. The provided a nice description of the Drow God "She" and gave motivations for warring houses, and emphasized their disdain for all surface dwellers.
2. Backdrop was a bit incomplete. They claim you could place this in your own world, but not with almost greatly altering the cosmology and political structure of your world. The first book doesn't tell you enough about it, and though it has a decent sized chapter on gods, the geo-political layout, it seems like an afterthought. Kinda like "geez, we have a lot going on here, covering some significant overland territory and nation-level politics, we better write some stuff about it and put it in the first book." Unfortunately (or fortunately) the first book doesn't really require it's knowledge, but you really need to understand it quite well to run the second book.
3. The book is comprised of 10 chapters, each designed to raise the PCs approx one level. The XP awards are well defined and listed at the end of each chapter. This first book of the series uses another mechanic called Victory points to be used in the last chapter of the book, designed to make the Mass Combat in the last chapter run in an interesting way. The middle chapters of the first book are very fast paced and read like it was gonna be very railroady -- BUT in play, it didn't feel like that at all. The story is designed to make the players feel like THEY are driving the action.
4. Mass Combat system. The system seemed clunky during first (and second) read, but in play it was nice. Quite elegant actually. It allowed the PCs to participate and make a difference, no matter what your class, and kept much of the Meta-War going on in the backdrop. And the story didn't require a specific victor to progress. Depending upon who won, different things would happen to launch you in to Book 2.
5. The pace in the adventure was a bit frenetic. The player's one complaint was "when can we settle down somewhere to make some items or spend a month or so information gathering and doing other things? I like Clark at Necromancer Games had a term he used for his SCAP campaign, "Aggressively Paced".
6. Except for the middle chapters of the adventure, it was played non-linear. This is good and bad, each chapter needs a thorough DM understanding to run well. It had event, location and situational based encounters. The PCs could do things in many a different way, but each chapters "end-game" required that some things were done before moving on. Adrian gives the DM a LOT of advice about how to handle these situations in the book and it really makes the game feel like the players are running the show.
7. Great mix of environments. Villages, dungeons, overland, woods, swamps, cities, wars... it really digs deep into the DM toolbox.
Overall, the experience was very fulfilling for me, as a DM, and the players enjoyed it as well. There was some work to be done, but that is typical in a mega-adventure like this. I wish Mongoose would allow Adrian to post some of his designer notes, as his explanations really helped me understand some of the parts that weren't immediately understandable.
Great adventure. Good fun for all.
********** THIS REVIEW HAS SOME SPOILERS ************
The adventure begins when the players "awake" on an independent island nation off the coast of a land in strife. The start is a bit cheesy, awake and not know why they are there, but there is some story to it.
[sblock]You see, the PCs are actually a special group of heroes called Starborn, that are tied to a prophecy of heroes, kinda like the Eternal Champion of the Moorcock novels. They are ancient souls, now manifest in the PCs.[/sblock]
The action starts immediately, and pits them against local thugs in a northern village, until they learn from about some Duergar cutting their way to the surface, and the queuing of a massive army of underdark foes, led by Drow.
The PCs journey across the island, battling foes, warning villages, taking side treks, racing time, ultimately trying to notify a large coastal free city, where there is agent double-crossings, drow spys, and an epic mass combat battle between the drow army and the walled city.
This review focuses on the first book, The Gathering Storm. I actually would rate it in three different ways:
1. Maps and materials: 2/5 -- The maps were awful, and in some cases, missing entirely. Scale was off or unknown, quality was really terrible. I also hated the cover of the first one -- the picture was a badly colorized version of a decent B&W image inside the book. Fortunately, they hired Annie Stokes to do the covers for books 2 and 3. They were quite evocative and I actually contacted Annie in London, bought signed prints and had them framed.
2. Story and Adventure design: 4.5/5 -- this was a good story, and it plays very well in practice. The Drow are interesting, the campaign world is interesting, though it was a bit underdone -- good for some DMs and bad for others. The book does require a skim, followed by a solid read-through, with highlighter and pen, or with notes. The interconnecting stories are fairly linear, but some things are foreshadowed and key details are fleshed out later in the book. But, really, it was a very fun game to DM. And the players had a BLAST.
3. Meta-Campaign stuff: 5/5 -- OK, with the maps in such disarray, I contacted Adrian Bott, the writer and he was very receptive to email and conversation. he even sent me copies of his personal maps used during campaign development. His insights on some of my questions were great and it was great picking the mind of the designer as the campaign progressed. We are VERY spoiled here in the EnWorld forums (as well as the Necromancer Games, Goodman Games and Paizo Forums), most writers are very active.
Also, there are some very loosely coupled tie-ins with the other Mongoose books on the Drow. Everything you need is in the book, but I took advantage of some of Sheoloth and the Tome of Drow Lore and it made the Drow Houses come alive.
I entered everything into DM Genie (yes, everything -- thank god for PDF copy/paste) and it made DMing SOOOO friggin easy. They stuck to the SRD and added some new monsters and such, but I was relieved of needing to remember every single plus, spell effect, etc. DM Genie handled it all for me.
Some additional comments and criticisms:
1. The Drow were cool. They weren't typical FR Drow, nor was every NPC the typical angst-ridden outcast (wielding double weapons ). They were cruel, outlandish, and extremely evil. More LE than CE. Think Nazi SS decadence, think film noir bad guys. The provided a nice description of the Drow God "She" and gave motivations for warring houses, and emphasized their disdain for all surface dwellers.
2. Backdrop was a bit incomplete. They claim you could place this in your own world, but not with almost greatly altering the cosmology and political structure of your world. The first book doesn't tell you enough about it, and though it has a decent sized chapter on gods, the geo-political layout, it seems like an afterthought. Kinda like "geez, we have a lot going on here, covering some significant overland territory and nation-level politics, we better write some stuff about it and put it in the first book." Unfortunately (or fortunately) the first book doesn't really require it's knowledge, but you really need to understand it quite well to run the second book.
3. The book is comprised of 10 chapters, each designed to raise the PCs approx one level. The XP awards are well defined and listed at the end of each chapter. This first book of the series uses another mechanic called Victory points to be used in the last chapter of the book, designed to make the Mass Combat in the last chapter run in an interesting way. The middle chapters of the first book are very fast paced and read like it was gonna be very railroady -- BUT in play, it didn't feel like that at all. The story is designed to make the players feel like THEY are driving the action.
4. Mass Combat system. The system seemed clunky during first (and second) read, but in play it was nice. Quite elegant actually. It allowed the PCs to participate and make a difference, no matter what your class, and kept much of the Meta-War going on in the backdrop. And the story didn't require a specific victor to progress. Depending upon who won, different things would happen to launch you in to Book 2.
5. The pace in the adventure was a bit frenetic. The player's one complaint was "when can we settle down somewhere to make some items or spend a month or so information gathering and doing other things? I like Clark at Necromancer Games had a term he used for his SCAP campaign, "Aggressively Paced".
6. Except for the middle chapters of the adventure, it was played non-linear. This is good and bad, each chapter needs a thorough DM understanding to run well. It had event, location and situational based encounters. The PCs could do things in many a different way, but each chapters "end-game" required that some things were done before moving on. Adrian gives the DM a LOT of advice about how to handle these situations in the book and it really makes the game feel like the players are running the show.
7. Great mix of environments. Villages, dungeons, overland, woods, swamps, cities, wars... it really digs deep into the DM toolbox.
Overall, the experience was very fulfilling for me, as a DM, and the players enjoyed it as well. There was some work to be done, but that is typical in a mega-adventure like this. I wish Mongoose would allow Adrian to post some of his designer notes, as his explanations really helped me understand some of the parts that weren't immediately understandable.
Great adventure. Good fun for all.
