Look, the robbers are living right next door to the man-eating ghouls! The Crypt of St. Bethesda is a textbook example of how not to write an adventure.
Review Originally Published May 21st, 2001
Let me just cut to the chase on this one: The Crypt of St. Bethesda strains credulity beyond the boundaries of sanity.
You’ve got a band of robbers living right next door to man-eating ghouls. Man-eating ghouls who wander through the lair of a giant spider. Giant rats which compete with a carrion crawler over the food provided by an inn’s garbage dump. And all of them live within shouting distance of a pseudo-undead on a killing spree to replace its decaying host.
And all of them live in the basement of an abandoned church!
Ummmm….
(Actually, now that I think about it, it sounds like a bad premise for a sitcom.)
Add in the dash of an illogical adventure hook (which the author knows is illogical because he spends nearly two pages discussing exactly how to force your players to swallow this ridiculous pill – and only succeeds in making it more ridiculous), and you’ve got a truly… ummm… memorable experience.
This one’s a very big dud, folks. Pass it by.
Style: 3
Substance: 1
Title: The Crypt of St. Bethesda
Author: James Macduff
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Line: Adventure Keep
Price: $2.49
Product Code: 8307
Pages: 16
Because these adventures are so short, the reviews are also short. When I started reviewing them, I actually grouped multiple reviews together to give them a little more bulk. But it turned out that messed with people’s ability to find them through RPGNet’s search function, so as I continued my reviews of the series I started doing them one at a time. Even if they were brief.
For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.
Sounds like they should have leaned into the stupid angle in the first place and just lampshaded the ridiculousness. Sometimes players enjoy a good game of “but why would they DO that?!” Just has to have the right tone.