A generic fantasy adventure with some interesting twists on the familiar tropes of the genre. This one deserves a closer look than you might first suspect.
Review Originally Published December 29th, 2000
You’ve seen these RPG books before: Questionable cover art. Amateurish lay-out. “Compatible with any fantasy roleplaying system” (*cough* D&D *cough*).
So you think you know what’s inside: A generic adventure that could have been popped out of a cookie cutter, in a flat fantasy world rip-off populated with paper-thin logic.
PLOT
Warning: This review will contain spoilers for The Fantastic Adventure. Players who may end up playing in this module are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.
So obviously you know exactly what to expect:
Evil villagers send the PCs on a quest for a nonexistent item.
Hold it…
The Fantastic Adventure takes the familiar traits of a fantasy adventure and then gives them just enough of a twist to provide an entertaining gaming experience which keeps your players just a little off-balance.
Basically the adventure goes like this: The people of Westfork have been burned by one too many adventuring parties of questionable morality in the past (just imagine that the Knights of the Dinner Table have come through town one too many times), and have hatched their own plan for revenge. Upon arriving in town the PCs are feted as heroes, but then framed as criminals and forced to seek the Anomaly Stone in order to clear their names.
However, the Anomaly Stone does not actually exist: It is the result of the nightmares of a faerie which have been imprisoned in the nearby ruins of the Auctumnix Monastery. When the PCs go there, they’ll discover the truth… and the faerie.
One last twist: While on their way to the Monastery the PCs will run across a group of horrible “monsters” (a giant, a satyr, a minotaur, and a witch orb). These guys aren’t villains, though: They’re another adventuring group, come to save the faerie (who is the childhood friend of the satyr).
STRENGTHS
In addition to the general cleverness of the central concepts driving The Fantastic Adventure, the entire adventure is set in the Red Marches. In this small slice of their Winter Dark campaign setting (which is available as a separate product), Troll Lord Games has created a really nice, generic fantasy area. The primary economy here is driven by the forest’s rilthwood trees, which are tall, white, and, in the fall, covered with bright red leaves (hence the name Red Marches). Its a simple concept, but one which results in an area which is subtly alien, successfully capturing the essence of the fantastic without having to blow the players away with fireball-like intensity.
This is nicely done – showing a subtle creativity and attention to detail which many larger companies lack — and makes me look forward to reading the complete campaign setting.
WEAKNESSES
The Fantastic Adventure has a good idea – take the tropes of fantasy and turn them on their head – but like an injured quarterback it never runs with it. I would have liked to see the villagers deliberately send the PCs on a dangerous and misguided fool’s errand (perhaps complete with the catch that, if the PCs succeed, they will have mistakenly done a great wrong). I would have liked to see the encounter with the monstrous adventuring group (a nice twist in and of itself, mind you) designed so that there was a greater chance of the PCs mistakenly attacking their counterparts. And so forth. There is a hesitancy about embracing the really cool idea on which The Fantastic Adventure is based which, unfortunately, flaws what had the potential to be a really outstanding module.
The other problems here are entirely aesthetic: The cover artwork and lay-out on the product is poorly done – lending the entire product an extremely amateurish feel.
CONCLUSION
The Fantastic Adventure is a little shaky, but the foundation is fairly solid – with a couple of easy tweaks you could easily transform this one into a real winner. A couple of other nice touches definitely make this one worth the measly $5 the Troll Lords are asking for it.
Note: Troll Lord Games is planning to release The Fantastic Adventure, along with the modules Mortality of the Green and Vakhund — which I hope to be reviewing shortly – on a CD-ROM, complete with D20 conversions. You can check out their website.
Style: 2
Substance: 3
Grade: B-
Title: The Fantastic Adventure
Authors: Mac Golden
Company: Troll Lord Games
Line: Sword & Sorcery
Price: $5.00
ISBN: 0-9702397-3-4
Production Code: TLG1301
Pages: 24
I’ll be honest, until this review cued up in my reprint queue, I had completely forgotten The Fantastic Adventure. It was a weird opportunity to read a review I had written while having no actual memory of the book I was describing.
What I do remember, and what this review reminded me of, is how much I truly adored Troll Lord’s campaign setting. Even now it’s hard to describe what I found so enchanting about it. There was something richly textured and deeply mythological. There was beautiful imagery woven into a tapestry that tempted you to step through into its fantastic realms.
Several years later I ended up working on a couple of books for Troll Lord Games. I wish I had been paid for them.
The Fantastic Adventure has been updated and re-released several times: Under the D20 System trademark for D&D 3rd Edition, then for Troll Lord’s Castles & Crusades game, and then again for D&D 5th Edition.
