Tagline: Learning from their previous mistakes, Bruce Baugh and Richard E. Dansky deliver one of the finest adventures ever as they bring the Darkness Revealed trilogy to a conclusion.

[ Ascent into Light is the third book in the Darkness Revealed adventure trilogy for Trinity. Plot points and spoilers are discussed. Do not read this review if you have any intention of playing in this adventure. I also encourage you to read my reviews for the first two books in the trilogy, as I will be including and concluding thoughts and arguments from those earlier reviews. ]

This is how it is done.

With Ascent into Light the Darkness Revealed trilogy not only establishes itself as one of the finest adventures to ever be published for an RPG, it also becomes a textbook case of how designers who remain willing to learn from their previous mistakes are the best at what they do. It is also an excellent example of how to design and implement an adventure which gets the PCs involved in the highest echelons of a game world. Plus, Ascent into Light throws more shocking surprises into the Trinity universe than you typically expect from a year’s worth of White Wolf products.

High praise is deserved all around.

THE STORY

First, let’s recap the basic story as told in the first two volumes of Darkness Revealed: The PCs, working for Aeon Trinity, get assigned to investigate suspicious activity on Luna. They discover evidence of an illegal conspiracy within the Aesculapian psi order to conduct Aberrant-related experiments on human subjects – something called the Huang-Marr Project. They follow this trail to Mars and then back to Earth, where they uncover evidence that not only the Aesculapians, but also members of Orgotek are involved. The second volume, Passage Through Shadow, ends as they root out the last of Huang-Marr’s corrupting influences on an orbital station… but as they do so, the alien Chromatics appear in Earth orbit and assault the station! The PCs assist in the quick dispatch of these alien invaders.

Thus the stage is set for Ascent into Light: Humanity has learned the psions are not the pillars of virtue they have been portrayed as (raising old fears of “Aberrants among us”) and, as internal dissension begins to grow, we are suddenly threatened from the stars.

The first adventure in Ascent into Light, “Heaven Through Iron Gates”, starts just after the UN instigates a commission to investigate not only the implications of the Huang-Marr project, but also the possibility of more widespread corruption among the psi orders. Meanwhile, Aeon Trinity, in response to the Chromatic attack, dispatches the PCs with a strike force to Karroo (where humanity is in direct conflict with the Chromatics) in order to capture and interrogate Chromatics in an effort to find out where their homeworld is, how they found out where Earth was, and to figure out what they’re up to. (The hidden reason behind this is that Aeon Trinity wants the PCs, who are the key players in the revelation of Huang-Marr, out of the way until they can come up with a synchronized strategy for downplaying and spinning the anti-psion news.)

The PCs go to Karroo and succeed brilliantly in their mission, in the process making two startling revelations: First, that the Chromatics are preparing for a massive assault on Earth. Second, the true reasons behind the Upeo wa Macho’s disappearance (which ties into the Chromatic threat in a completely unexpected way – and, no, I’m not going to tell you; buy the book). Returning to Earth however, the PCs are told by their Aeon Trinity bosses that they shouldn’t warn the world of the Chromatics’ impending invasion – the Trinity wants time to prepare and take advantage of the situation.

“Heaven Through Iron Gates” ends as the PCs rebel against the Trinity and escape. Cliffhanger.

The second adventure, “Climbing to Tartarus”, picks up at the end of the cliffhanger. The PCs finally make their way to the UN headquarters on Luna, where they burst into the ongoing Huang-Marr inquiry and make their stunning announcements on interstellar holovid.

And that’s when the Chromatic invasion force shows up.

If the implications and pulse-pounding potential of this storyline doesn’t have you at, the very least, intrigued, then you might want to check your heart – it may have stopped pumping. And I’ve only covered the major, major stuff here; other major stuff (can you say “Doyen”?) I’ve left out entirely.

THE SETTING

A brief digression: In all my reviews of the Trinity product line I’ve never really mentioned how utterly stunning the setting is. By this I don’t mean just the detail and political intrigue (although they’re certainly there, and I’ve mentioned them before) – I mean that the imagination of Bates and his design team have cooked up some startling vistas which, when you capture them in the mind’s eye, take your breath away.

The Darkness Revealed trilogy has showcased some of the best – from orbital stations, to Luna bases, to the Summit Center which rotates around the top of Olympus Mons (until the PCs are involved in blowing it up), and much more.

One of the more startlingly original pieces is the mining colony Karroo – which, as mentioned above, appears in “Heaven Through Iron Gates”. Karroo is located in a “pocket” of the Crab Nebula. When the nebula, formed from the expanding remnants of a supernova, encountered a nearby planetary system the system broke apart into a massive asteroid field; but like a river hitting a rock, a “calm” was created behind the remnants of the system. This asteroid field is now known as “the Shield”, and Karroo is located in the (relatively) small, empty space on the far side of it. When you picture this small enclave of humanity, nestled among the “greatest aurora borealis in the galaxy”, it’s an awe-inspiring thing.

THE IMPLEMENTATION

Those of you who have read my previous reviews covering the first two volumes of the Darkness Revealed trilogy know that my estimation of the story underlying each of the products has always been high. On the other hand, you also remember that I felt each product was severely flawed in its implementation.

In particular I felt that Descent into Darkness was fatally flawed as an adventure – to take advantage of the outstanding story you would need to completely rework the adventures in order to make them playable. However, with Passage through Shadow I concluded that many of these problems had been fixed between one book and the next, leaving only two main concerns for me:

First, the color sections in the books (designed to be read by the players) actually succeeded at destroying the story (in one case by containing plenty of proof to arrest several of the characters the PCs were supposed to be investigating before the adventure had even begun; in another by giving the PCs information on a location they couldn’t possibly know they would be going to until midway through the adventure).

Second, that some of the transitions required specific conclusions to be made by the PCs – if those conclusions weren’t reached, you would be off course without a compass. (This was a fairly minor concern in Passage Through Shadow; noticeable only because the flaws in this area had been completely crippling in Descent into Darkness.)

Happily I can report that Ascent into Light solves both of these problems: The color sections not only have been stripped of their plot spoilers, but the second one actually serves as an intriguing plot point (as they are mysterious transmissions of information received from an unknown source throughout the adventure).

Besides the generalized excellence, there are a couple of features I want to point out in particular: First, the inclusion of insertion points; second, the in-built capability of alteration.

I have commented in my previous reviews on the great amount of effort put into making each and every adventure in the series accessible to any group of players – even if they haven’t played through the previous ones. These “insertion points” (as I call them) give the Storyteller multiple ways to bring his PCs into the story at any point during the Darkness Revealed trilogy. I was impressed by this before, I was flabbergasted when they managed to pull it off for Climbing to Tartarus.

If you noticed, above, Heaven Through Iron Gates ends as a cliffhanger, which Climbing to Tartarus picks up on. As I reached the end of Heaven I was convinced that the traditional insertion points would not be included for Climbing — this was not a bad thing: Climbing is the last adventure of a seven adventure series. Why would any Storyteller necessarily want to start there?

Unbelievably, however, an insertion point is introduced. And I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work just fine. Works incredibly well, actually. I can see exactly how Climbing could be played as a one-shot adventure.

I have also commented previously on how Baugh and Dansky have given extensive amounts of time to discussing how the basic structures of their adventures can be modified in various ways. Definite thumbs up on that. Once again, however, Climbing to Tartarus takes this to a new height – as the presented story is made accessible not only if the PCs betray Aeon Trinity at the end of Heaven Through Iron Gates, but also if the PCs decide to stay loyal to the Trinity.

Simply amazing. Based on a rock solid story, these adventures are flexible, dynamic, and enjoyable.

THE VERDICT

Ascent into Light, as the concluding volume of the Darkness Revealed trilogy, is one of the finest adventures you can buy for any roleplaying game. It possesses no weaknesses, only strengths. It only costs $15.95.

There’s absolutely no reason for you not to buy this book.

Style: 5
Substance: 5

Author: Bruce Baugh and Richard E. Dansky
Company/Publisher: White Wolf
Cost: $15.95
Page count: 120
ISBN: 1-56504-751-6
Originally Posted: 1999/08/06

For an explanation of where these reviews came from and why you can no longer find them at RPGNet, click here.

Go to Part 1

We’ve framed the top of the scene and filled the middle of it. Now we need to close the frame.

CUTTING A SCENE

The actual act of cutting a scene is generally pretty straightforward: You stop talking about that thing and you start talking about this other thing. Use phrases like “meanwhile”, “we cut to”, and “two days later” to make the transition explicit and then move straight to banging your next scene.

The interesting question, however, is knowing when to cut. And, once again, we’re going to discover that this is more of an art than a science.

FINISHING THE AGENDA: If the agenda of a scene is defined by a question, a really obvious place to cut is the point where that question has been answered.

This line of thinking, however, can also be a trap if you think that’s the only way to end a scene: Some of the most interesting agendas develop over multiple scenes before being resolved. Other conflicts literally can’t be resolved until some other event has occurred. Staying mired in a scene which has reached an impasse is a quick exercise in boredom, so you’ll want to identify other moments when it’s time to move on.

THE SECOND LULL: The Smallville RPG offers this advice:

There’s an ebb and flow to a scene, with the dialogue coming hot and fast, the dice getting broken out, gloating and cheering and tense confrontations. And then sometimes things start to drag. That’s okay; your players may need to absorb what’s happening and figure out which direction they’re going next. Give them that moment, because a good pivot makes for a great scene. Things will pick up again right after and proceed onwards. The trick is to cut before the scene hits that second lull. One pivot makes for a good scene; two pivots makes for a muddy mess. If things start slowing down again, it’s time to move on.

Not much I can add to that.

ON THE EXIT: If all the PCs leave, that’s a pretty clear-cut signal that the scene is over. But often even a single lead leaving (whether that’s a PC or NPC) can be a good point to cut the scnee.

Until We Sink is a storytelling game which says that every scene ends “as soon as two characters have left the patio”. That’s not a bad rule of thumb: The exit of the first lead makes it clear that the scene is coming to an end, but still gives everybody else a chance to wrap up. When the second lead leaves, it’s a sign that interest in the scene is waning fast and it’s probably time for a change.

FLEE: When the bad guy gets away or the heroes are forced to retreat. This is a specific type of character exit, but it deserves a special call-out. The key thing about this sort of scene ending is that it specifically doesn’t resolve the agenda: A key lead is making the decision to run away from the scene instead of dealing with that situation.

Combat is an obvious example of this, but it can also take the form of Billy running out of the house when you confront him the syringe you found in his room. Or Susan waking up in the middle of the night and sneaking out of bed after sleeping with Roger.

A NEW BANG: Sometimes, instead of going to a new scene, you can bring the new scene to them. If the current scene seems to have hit a lull, hit back with a new bang: The doors of the inn burst open and a team of assassins pours into the room. Betty gets a phone call with dire news. One of the NPCs says, “This might be a bad time to mention this, but…”

CONTINUING THE CONVERSATION

On that note, when one scene ends it’s time for a new scene to begin. All conversations are loops and it’s time to close this one: If the current scene has been happening in “now time”, then it’s time to up-shift to abstract time or cut hard to the next bang.

Go to Part 5: Advanced Techniques

Yesterday I was talking about the different types of characters in a scene and why you should think twice (and preferably three times) before having the PCs be anything other than the lead in a given scene. Before that, I was talking about setting agendas as part of scene-framing.

As an example of how NOT to frame a scene, I just got done reading the Harlequin campaign supplement for Shadowrun.

SPOILERS AHEAD

After a series of adventures, the agendas of the penultimate scene in the entire campaign are, “Will Jane Foster help Harlequin?” and “Can Harlequin complete the ritual of chal’han against Ehran?” Neither Foster nor Harlequin, you’ll note, is a PC. Most of the PCs are relegated to being extras for this scene, although PC spellcasters could arguably be called features because they’re allowed to assist in the ritual (although they’ll have no impact on its success or failure).

This transitions us to the ultimate scene of the campaign in which the agenda becomes, “Will Harlequin or Ehran win their duel?” and the GM is specifically told to do everything in his power to prevent the PCs from having any impact on the outcome of the duel.

It’s a terrible way to end a campaign.

The argument can be made, of course, that sometimes reality just works like this: Sometimes you’re side-lined and all you can do is watch other people make their decisions. Let’s ignore, for the moment, that everything about this situation has been designed and therefore could have been designed differently. (If a situation like this had arisen organically through simulationist play, for example, it might be very different.) Instead, take a moment to consider how easily you can shift the agenda of these scenes without changing the given circumstances of the scene.

Instead of, “Will Jane Foster help Harlequin?” the agenda becomes, “Will the PCs turn Jane Foster over to Harlequin?”

Instead of, “Can Harlequin complete the ritual of chal’han against Ehran?” we have, “Can the PC spellcasters contain the magical backlash from the failed ritual?”

Instead of, “Will Harlequin or Ehran win their duel?” we say, “Will the PCs help one of them and, if so, which one?”

The interesting thing about this is that even if you still railroad the outcome of the scene (which I don’t recommend), these re-framed agendas are still clearly superior: Even if Harlequin just takes Jane Foster after the PCs refuse to turn her over, the ethical struggle and moral debate that results from focusing the scene on the decisions of the PCs still tells us something really interesting about the PCs and can serve as a crucible by which they can express or grow their characters.

Harlequin’s ritual is doomed to fail and he’ll definitely save himself by reflecting the energy into a dormant volcano and causing it to explode (which, I’ll admit is pretty cool), but focusing the scene on the PCs trying to contain the rest of the magical backlash allows them to actually contribute to the proceedings.

Similarly, focusing the scene on the PCs’ decision of which morally ambiguous power-player they’re going to help is not only interesting in its own right, but will also have potentially huge consequences for their future. (Who do they make an enemy? Who do they make an ally?) And that’s true even if it turns out that Harlequin still wins the duel and cuts off Ehran’s ear no matter what choice they make.

Go to Part 1

Now that you know what the scene is about and the bang you’re using to launch it, you need to fill it with content. (Although, to be fair, the distinction we’re drawing here is not a hard-and-fast one: By the time you’ve set the agenda and the bang of a scene, you probably already know a lot about it.)

The process of filling a scene with content is an artistic one. And, like most artistic processes, there’s a virtually unlimited variation in the methods people use to do it. I’m not even particularly consistent in how I approach it and I actually think it’s a mistake to treat it as something that can be hard-coded. So I’m going to toss out a whole bunch of ideas that I personally find useful. Maybe you’ll find them useful, too. But regardless of that, you should poke around and see what other people have to say about it. And you should give yourself permission to experiment and really play around until you start getting a feel for what works for you and for your players.

First, however, there’s an all-important maxim:

You may know where the scene begins, but you don’t know where it ends.

You’re not writing a book or filming a movie. Unlike a traditional author, you may know where you’re starting off, but you’ve got no idea where the journey will end. Viewed from one perspective, this is a major limitation. But if you look at it from another angle, it’s a major opportunity.

ELEMENTS OF A SCENE

Here’s my basic philosophy: Take all the elements of the scene – the who, what, where, when – and fill those elements with all sorts of toys that both you and the PCs can play with.

(You could also think of these as “tools” that you use to build the scene. But, personally, I find the imagery of the toy – a thing which is meant to be played with; which becomes the focal point for a liberated imagination – to be far more evocative and, thus, useful.)

Hand-in-hand with this philosophy is the idea that the more flexible these toys become the more useful they will prove. If you include something which only has a single utility, that’s pretty good. But if you include something that can be used eight different ways, then you’re really cooking with gas.

(The good news is that your players are probably a gaggle of creativity: If you let them, they’ll take even the most boring stuff and spin it in ways you never imagined. But the key here is if you let them: Remain open to the players twisting or even completely inverting the people and things you include in the scene. Don’t let yourself get locked down on a preconceived notion of how things are “supposed” to work out.)

LOCATION: This is the “when” and the “where” of the scene. It’s the immediate environment for the actions of the scene and it can be either claustrophobic (“the back room at Bill’s”) or absurdly panoramic (“the highways of Texas”), depending on the nature of the scene and the characters in it. Ideally, remembering that minimizing contextualization makes for a better bang, you want to keep things short and sweet while simultaneously maximizing the number of toys that your players can grab.

A few rules of thumb that I use for crafting evocative descriptions as a GM:

Three of Five: Think about your five senses. Try to include three of them in each description. Sight is a gimme and Taste will rarely apply, so that means picking a couple out of Hearing, Smell, and Touch. (Remember that you don’t actually have to touch something in order to intuit what it might feel like if you did.)

Two Cool Details: Try to include two irrelevant-but-cool details. These are details that aren’t necessary for the scene to work, but are still cool. It’s the broken cuckoo clock in the corner; the slightly noxious odor with no identifiable source; the graffiti scrawled on the wall; the bio-luminescent fungus; etc.

Three-by-Three: Delta’s 1-2-(3)-Infinity talks about psychological research demonstrating that repeating something three times takes up the same space in our brains as repeating something infinitely. Thus, once you’ve hit the third item in a sequence, any additional items in that sequence are redundant.

Extrapolating from this, for minor scenes you can describe three things each with a single detail. At that point, you’ve filled up the “infinity queue” in your players’ brains and their imaginations will impulsively fill in the finer details of the scene you’ve evoked. For “epic” scenes, use the full three-by-three: Describe three different elements with three details each.

CHARACTERS: This is the “who” of the scene. I find it useful to conceptually break the characters present in a scene down into three categories: Leads, Features, and Extras.

Leads are the major characters in the scene. They’re the characters who are most affected by the agenda of the scene or who are capable of having the greatest impact on the agenda of the scene.

Features are the supporting cast of the scene. They wield an influence over the Leads; or provide crucial information; or are important resources in whatever conflict is being fought.

Extras are scene-dressing. They might find themselves being taken hostage or appealed to for mob justice, but they can usually just be thought of as part of the location instead of as active agents in the scene.

PCs in a scene are almost always leads. You may find it useful to think of some PCs as being the leads in the scene and the others PCs as features (because the agenda of the scene is primarily of interest to the former and of less interest to the latter), but if you’ve got a scene where none of the PCs are leads you might want to take a moment and triple-check what you’re doing. Unless you’ve got some amazingly good reason for side-lining the PCs, it’s probably a good idea to find a way of reframing the agenda of the scene.

(Off-hand, the only example I can think of is a situation where the PCs are deliberately not participating in a scene. For example, maybe they’re eavesdropping on a conversation. Although even then you should double-check and make sure that a secondary agenda in the scene isn’t about the PCs avoiding detection. And then triple-check to make sure that the scene isn’t really about something like, “Will the PCs stop Roberta from confessing her love to Charles?”)

CONFLICT vs. COLOR: The “what” of the scene is largely encapsulated by the agenda of the scene, but in actually running the scene I often find it useful to categorize the scene as either being primarily about conflict or primarily about color.

Conflict scenes are about two or more characters who want mutually exclusive things. The result might be a firefight, a formal duel, a boardroom takeover, a political debate, a psychic assault, or a torrid argument. Whatever form it takes, though, heads are going to butt and (in a roleplaying game) dice are probably going to be rolled.

Color scenes, on the other hand, are about exposition, planning, and/or preparation. They’re a time for character development; for showing what the PCs are like (and how they relate to each other) when fireballs aren’t flying at their heads. They’re the scenes when your crew studies the blueprints and calls in their favors. They also provide a valuable contrast – a negative space to highlight the positive space; a moment of calm to emphasize the frenetic chase.

From a purely utilitarian standpoint, color scenes are also where the facts get established which will allow you to minimize contextualization for later bangs. (For example, if you know a character’s long-lost brother is going to show up on their doorstep next week it’s more effective to seed information about the brother into a series of scenes leading up to that bang instead of trying to communicate the full meaning of the bang in the same moment that the brother arrives.)

With all of that being said, most of the time you’re going to want your scenes to be about conflict: Conflict is usually interesting and meandering exposition is usually boring, so try to find ways to build your exposition into conflict. (For example, you might have a scene where the PC’s mother is angry because she feels like the PC has stopped caring about his missing brother.) This frequently allows you to have your cake and eat it too.

Addendum: How NOT to Frame a Scene (Starring Harlequin)

Go to Part 4: Closing the Frame

There are three ways to foreshadow in RPGs:

(1) Strew the foreshadowing around liberally. If the PCs might go to location A or they might go to location B, foreshadow both of them: Whichever one they go to has now been foreshadowed and they’ll think you’re brilliant. The foreshadowing for the other will simply be irrelevant trivia or, at worst, red herrings.

(2) Retroactive foreshadowing. After a few sessions, look at what the PCs have actually done / experienced. Now, take some of that stuff (particularly stuff they liked) and use it as the building blocks for prepping the next chunk of the campaign. (For example, maybe they were fascinated by the small jade statue of a knight that you included as a piece of random treasure. Make the next major villain in the campaign a knight who wears green armor.)

(3) Vague foreshadowing. Simply make statements that would be true or significant regardless of the specifics of a given event. (For example, when Gandalf says, “My heart tells me that Gollum has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many – yours not least.” Tolkien is very specifically foreshadowing the role he knows Gollum will play in saving Frodo’s life and completing the quest to destroy the ring. But even if Tolkien were just a GM who had no idea where the story was going at that point, he could just as easily have Gandalf say that. The statement, after all, boils down to nothing more than saying, “Gollum is going to do something and this quest is pretty important.” Which is pretty much a given since, at that point in the story, Gollum is already following them.)

If it’s all just a trick, why do it? Well, foreshadowing can be used to give a sense of cohesion and completeness to the campaign. It can also invest the players with a feeling that what their characters are doing is important. It can also be used to reinforce themes. Basically, you can use foreshadowing in a roleplaying game to achieve all (or most) of the things that it can be used for in other mediums; the only difference is that the non-linear nature of a good RPG scenario forces a different execution of the foreshadowing.