Minireview: Pathfinder #18, Descent Into Darkness
Descent Into Darkness (by Brian Cortijo) concludes the Second Darkness adventure path. This time round, the PCs are assumed to have tracked the main bad guy to a vast underground region, “The Land of Black Blood”. Various glyphs are active there, and unless they are deactivated everything will end with a big bang topside.
It’s ok. While it does feel a bit like a computer rpg plot at times (multiple weird glyphs, all of which have different effects and must be deactivated in a different fashion), it can probably work pretty well in practice. The underground world is given some coverage in the scenario and also in a secondary support article, but if players do what they tend to do (i.e. wander off in a random direction), some extra work will be required to populate the place. I think this scenario has some promise if the GM manages to build a sufficiently creepy and threatening feel to everything. Not sure how easy that is, though, especially since this isn’t the first time the PCs are venturing into unknown underground depths.
As a whole, I have mixed feelings about this adventure path. I liked the “low-key scum” beginning, and the weird island hit my meteorite was pretty cool. But then it went into elfland, and underground, and somehow I didn’t like that part all that much. Sometimes for specific reasons (the second-to-last part was much, much too railroady in a bad way), sometimes just because it didn’t strike a chord with me, for whatever reason.
I think I have a fundamental problem with D&D adventure paths in general. I like the idea, but the “from zero to hero” level progression of D&D forces you to escalate things into superhero country pretty fast. I usually tend to find the beginning parts good, but the later episodes not so much… partly because at that point the power level has risen to silly levels, and the plots usually have you saving the whole world (yet again). In addition, D&D doesn’t have the concept of “high-level social combat” like Exalted does, so it’s more and more just about high-power physical combat – which can get old fast. I think that problem was magnified here; the beginning rocked, but the rest of the adventure went off in a totally different direction, and one that I didn’t find as interesting.
If you are fond of the drow and/or of D&D elves, you’ll probably find a lot here to love. If not… well, I think this is the weakest of the Paizo adventure paths I’ve read so far. It’s not bad by any means, just lacking a bit in comparison with the others. […]
Minireview: Pathfinder #17, A Memory of Darkness
Ok, we’re nearing the end of the Second Darkness adventure path here. A Memory of Darkness (by J.D. Wiker) is the next-to-last episode… and unfortunately, it’s also easily the weakest so far.
Now, while I like the general idea of “adventure paths” (i.e. a set of linked adventures telling a bigger story), they have always had one big problem: they need to railroad quite a bit, due to the need of moving a plot along with a limited page count allocated for it. This is usually manageable, and can work fine with a good playgroup that understands that derailing the story “just because” isn’t cool. However, it remains a problem that the writers of these things often seem to assume the PCs will do some fairly unlikely and/or suicidal thing based on extremely flimsy clues. So… quite a bit of GM prepwork usually needed, to handle the “you want to do what?!?” scenarios.
Railroads can be fun, of course, if everyone is on the same map (so to speak). As the saying goes, “nobody minds a railroad as long as the scenery is interesting and the destination is Awesome City”.
Well, this thing is railroad-tastic, and not in any good way either. After having (somehow) survived their visit to Drow Town, the PCs find themselves disbelieved and sort-of betrayed by the guys who put them up to the whole thing: the damn pointy-eared elves. Now, at this point I can easily see the PCs doing a Cartman-style “screw you guys, we’re going home!”. They’ve just risked their lives to help the elven nation… and they get disdain and imprisonment as a reward? And it gets better… they get secretly manipulated by an uber-powerful NPC to “escape”, and to go on a senseless tour of Golarion (via elf gates) to look for some group of elven “bad guys”. Player choice in the matter? None, really, it’s just assumed they go for it, and assumed that they realize it’s all a clever double-think by aforesaid uber-NPC. The “elf gate” tour serves little purpose in the story. Then they meet the “bad guys”… who turn out to be pathetic losers. With one real “bad guy”, who is illustrated in such a cartoon “I’m evil!” fashion that he might as well wear a “League of Evil” t-shirt. This makes the illustrations of the Council members useless, since anyone seeing all the pictures will figure out who the bad guy is in under 3 seconds. Sigh.
It’s a mess. It’s one big railroad, with an untouchable uber-NPC running the train engine, waving happily. The scenery is mostly pointless, and the destination is not Awesome CIty. It’s not even the suburbs.
Oh, there are some cool bits here and there. The elven “prison” thingy is cool, and there are some fun encounters. But on the whole, this thing needs a lot of work in order to be usable. Or some extremely understanding players (bordering on the “saintly”). […]
Minireview: Pathfinder #16, Endless Night
With Endless Night, Paizo’s “Second Darkness” adventure path advances to its fourth installment. As the title implies, here the PCs are sent deep into the “night”… in other words, deep underground.
In an intentional nod to the classic old “Against the Giants/Drow” series of modules, the PCs are disguised as drow and sent to infiltrate an ancient drow city, deep under the earth. There’s a lot of room for social stuff (too bad D&D mechanics suck for that, but whatever), and also for various sorts of covert sneaking about. The locale is a huge city, but naturally only a small part of that is detailed – the main plot assumes that the PCs infiltrate a very specific drow royal house, as prodded by plot elements. If the PCs decide to do Something Completely Different (as they are prone to do), well, the GM needs to think fast and improvise. There are some details included here to help with that; the booklet also contains a separate article on the (huge) city, with general descriptions of various interesting locales.
This was a pretty good “episode”, methinks. Lots of room for social shenigans, the absolute need to keep up a cover, and a few fun surprise twists should make this pretty fun to run and play in. Might need some extra GM work, but that goes with the territory. As with many of the imho better D&D “modules”, this one is not just a bunch of combat scenarios strung together. […]
Minireview: Pathfinder #15, The Armageddon Echo
The Armageddon Echo (by Jason Bulmahn) is the third part in the Second Darkness adventure path from Paizo. Before this, the PCs have encountered strange happenings in a small seaside town, and then followed up on a “gold rush” to a nearby island which is hit by a meteor. In this part, it’s expected that they follow clues that point them towards the elven city of Celwynvian and the possibility of Drow involvement. Assuming they do this, they will get recruited into a large-scale hidden war between the elves and the drow, and then sent off to a demiplane which repeats a certain historical calamity on a neverending cycle.
All fine and good, but… why should the PCs do any of this? I’ve always had a small problem with adventure paths which assume that PCs will follow very subtle leads and suddenly decide to go on cross-country expeditions (which is most of them), and here that problem is really thrown in your face. Assuming the PCs are not elves… why the hell should they care what happens in elven internal politics? Especially since the first installement sets them up with a casino/bar to run, with lots of underworlds contacts and other fun stuff. Now suddenly they are supposed to run off to save the elves (and others)? And it gets even better: if they do, they are (probably) hailed as heroes and sent on as a commando troop on an important forward sortie. Umm, what? A group of strangers shows up and helps a bit in your war, and suddenly they are trustworthy enough to put all your hopes on? Right. Sure, it’s a D&D cliché, but…
It works a bit better if you think of it as the elves using the characters as convenient cannon fodder… and it all actually starts to make some sense if all the PCs (or a significant majority) actually are elves. But nothing like this is really emphasised in the first installment of this path; there is some mention of elven connections, but it’s all very vague.
If we ignore the dubious plot logic, the adventure itself isn’t bad. The beginning war thing has a “point system” (used in other Paizo paths, too) which gives points for various things the PCs may do, and the total says what the final reaction will be. I like that mechanic, it’s gives palpable feedback to the PC actions – though you probably want to keep the point count, or even the fact that there is a point count, secret from the players. After the battle scenes the action moves to the “Armageddon Echo”, a very cool demiplane which endlessly repeats a critical historical scene. The PCs enter, and after that they are on a timer: do the job and get out, or become dust and ashes.
So… some dubious plotting balanced by some pretty cool scenes. If the GM or players can figure out suitable PC motivations for doing what they are supposed to, this should roll along fine. This whole thing probably works best if the PC group is mostly composed of expatriate elves. At least that’s how I’d run it. […]
Minireview: Pathfinder #14, Children of the Void
Children of the Void (written by Mike McArtor) is the second part of the “Second Darkness” adventure path. In it, the PCs are expected to launch an exploration expedition to the site of a recent meteor crash (an island some ways off), based on recent evens and some clues encountered in the first installment. This might take some railroading… but probably not. Convincing players to run after treasure is usually not all that hard.
Needless to say, there are complications. In addition to pirates (yarr!), the PCs will also encounter some alien creatures which may or may not be related to the meteor. There are people to save, some treasure to be found, and an island to explore… and of course, some clues that will point PCs toward the next adventure.
The book(let) also contains some info about the solar system Paizo’s game world of Golarion exists in. Interesting stuff, and a bit unusual for a D&D game.
I have mixed feeling on this adventure path, so far. The first part was pretty interesting, as is this one – but they feel very loosely connected. I have the feeling that the continuation story may have problems with players going “why should we do that?”. The players are expected to run off again after this, while they may well feel that they’d rather stay put and keep their collective noses out of other races’ businesses. So… some railroading may be needed. I guess that’s my problem with the “adventure path” concept in general: they tend to be very linear, with sometimes quite minimal support for players doing Something Totally Different.
While I did like this installment, it did contain one real “wtf?” moment: a spacefaring race (one that lives in vacuum, to boot) which communicates partly by smell. Anyone see problems with this? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? […]
Minireview: Pathfinder #13, Shadow in the Sky
Here we go again. Shadow in the Sky (written by Greg A. Vaughan) kicks off Paizo’s third adventure path, Second Darkness. As always, there’s an ancient evil awakening and the PCs are initially small fry who are (probably) expected to save things. Skipping that cliche, things do look quite interesting – there is a science fiction-ish twist and the promise of lots of drow as the bad guys. Not “misunderstood angsty dark-skinned folk”, but “evil, murderous bastards”. All this is tied to a big chunk of elven history and politics.
This first installment places the PCs in Riddleport, a Freeport-style wild and rowdy seaside town. After participating in a gambling tournament the players get the chance to get a slice of the business for themselves, with all sorts of potential problems. The big plot is mostly in the background, in the form of a weird phenomenon in the sky and some dark rumors. The action here revolves mostly around small-time crime and lots of shady dealings, which in fun in itself; it’s quite workable to have the PCs all be small-time crooks, for example.
Paizo has again tweaked the format a bit. The main adventure is a bit shorter, but that’s compensated by a bonus standalone adventure that can easily be plugged into the “main” adventure. The practical reason for this is resourcing: this format lets Paizo divide the adventure writing between more authors, and the small “standalone” adventure bit is a good place for new authors to try their legs (so to speak). I like it.
Hard to say much about the whole thing yet, but the setup seems pretty cool. Waiting with interest to see where this one goes. […]
