Although presenting a mystery which cannot be solved, The Murder of the Seven Points is probably worth checking out.

Review Originally Published October 1st, 2001

After initially being very enamored with the Adventure Boosters format pioneered by AEG, I found myself rapidly souring on the idea after a series of markedly lackluster efforts (my reviews can be found elsewhere on RPGNet by searching the Review Database). The Murder of the Seven Points offers some hope that the format will still realize its potential, but I remain skeptical.

PLOT

A series of grisly, ritualistic murders are being committed in a nameless city – and the PCs are drafted to help investigate them. Why, exactly, the PCs are singled out to help investigate the murders (rather than just patrol the streets like the other volunteers) is not exactly clear – but it appears that Yaple is attempting to provide an explanation by having the Captain of the Guard say: “You’re new in town. You couldn’t have committed the murders. I need your help.”

Okay, maybe I’m just needlessly paranoid: But if a bunch of strange murders started happening in my town (which is normally small and quiet) the first place I’d look would be recent arrivals. Looking for suspects I mean, not people to help with the investigation.

But I digress: The PCs go through a number of short scenes (checking out the murder scenes, interviewing family members, etc.), supposedly attempting to gather clues by which they will solve this mystery. In the end, though, they don’t really uncover all that much when it comes to valuable information. The next important plot point comes when the Captain of the Guard realizes he accidentally mixed up the order in which the murders took place – which makes it apparent that that murders are being committed in the pattern of a seven-pointed star.

While Yaple has a number of possible ways in which to explain why the Captain of the Guard might have gotten the order of the murders screwed up (perhaps the bodies were found out of order for some reason?), he instead decides to simply leave that as a Fact of Life™. Having concluded that this is all part of some sort of ritual, the Captain of the Guard will lead the PCs to a very specific scholar. They will have an unproductive conversation with that scholar – at which point we basically fast-forward to that evening, at which point that self-same scholar summons forth a demon and a Battle Royale ensues.

The PCs win (presumably). Roll credits.

CONCLUSION

In my opinion, The Murder of the Seven Points is not worth playing as it is written. To put it simply: It’s supposed to be a mystery; but it never lets the PCs solve anything.

But there’s a lot of interesting meat here which is being wasted: Yaple draws a number of interesting scenes and characters, and manages to evoke some rather effective images despite his railroaded plot. Essentially I would say that you need to do two things to make this playable:

1. Give the Captain of the Guards a solid reason to recruit the PCs into the investigation. (Simple solution: He’s heard about something heroic they’ve done in the past. He’s more than eager to accept their experienced help in strange matters like this.)

2. Strip out the railroading: Most notably, don’t obfuscate the order of the murders. Let the players figure out the seven-pointed star pattern for themselves. (And, if they don’t, then you can have someone point it out to them as the Big Deadline starts to approach.)

It’ll take a little bit of elbow grease, but I think there’s enough interesting material here to justify it considering the low price of admission.

Style: 4
Substance: 3

Author: Erik Yaple
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Line: D20
Price: $2.49
Year of Release: 2001
Product Code: 8312
Pages: 16

It turns out I’ve always been remixing adventures.

I did, in fact, give up on the AEG Adventure Booster series after this. That may have been a mistake, but at the time I had a single dedicated table and it was settling into a long-term campaign that had been pretty well mapped out, so I was no longer looking around for new D&D adventures to plug in.

Next AEG Booster Review: Castle Zadrian / Sundered Faith

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Strange mysteries abound… for the poor DM who needs to decipher Kurishan’s Garden and render it into a playable adventure.

Review Originally Appeared May 21st, 2001

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Kurishan’s Garden. Players who may find themselves playing in this adventure should not read beyond this point.

WHAT I LIKE

I like the adventure hook: The PCs arrive in a town which is having problems. But the threat isn’t directly to them: They’re not getting food shipments from a different town which has inexplicably ceased communication. Carpenter adds a nice layer to a standard feature of fantasy adventures, and emphasizes the importance of the PCs’ actions by showing the widespread impact of the problem.

I like the premise: Kurishan, a reclusive mage who lived in the village of Darbin, has recently died. Upon his death a number of contingency spells were triggered, designed to transfer his consciousness to a beautiful eternal lily in his spacious gardens. Unfortunately, things didn’t go quite right, and Kurishan found himself instead trapped within a mass of mold, decomposing vegetation, and other debris. Driven a little insane by this turn of events, Kurishan – no longer able to cast spells, but imbued with an ability to control and manipulate plant life – created a strange race of “brainvine”. The villagers, who had yet to realize that Kurishan had even died, were suddenly beset by these vines: Control of their bodies were taken away from them, but they remain awake and aware of what is happening to them (creating a spooky situation in which the PCs can be attacked by people who are begging them to save them).

WHAT I DIDN’T

I dislike the boxed text: It is lackadaisical and subpar. (We actually have small, 10-foot by 10-foot rooms, folks!) While I don’t consider boxed text to be an essential component of a good adventure (take Penumbra’s excellent Three Days to Kill for example), if it is present I expect it to be of high enough quality so that I can actually read it to my players without feeling embarrassed. Poor boxed text which has been made integral to the adventure’s presentation can also hurt the quality of the underlying structure – which is the case here.

I dislike the fact that the adventure fails to capitalize upon its premise: The horror elements are only loosely played with. The situation in the village is entirely static – despite the fact that the PCs are supposedly facing an opponent who is in control of the entire village (and should, therefore, be capable of presenting a dynamic opposition). The PCs are never really given a chance to figure out what’s going on – but are, instead, forced to simply keep reacting until something clicks and the problem goes away (this is a pet peeve of mine – great concepts which only the DM gets to enjoy).

CONCLUSION

Kurishan’s Garden has a good concept and set-up, but then falls down on the actual execution of its ideas. As an Adventure Booster, the low price of $2.49 means that – despite its flaws — Kurishan’s Garden is probably still a good buy as an idea mine if nothing else.

Style: 3
Substance: 3

Author: Ken Carpenter
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Line: Adventure Boosters
Price: $2.49
Product Code: 8308
Pages: 16

The brainvines are a really cool concept. I should take this as a prompt to finally use them after all these years.

Next AEG Booster Review: Murder of the Seven Points

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

From page one, Jerimond’s Orb has problems.

Review Originally Appeared May 21st, 2001

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Jerimond’s Orb. Players who may find themselves playing in this adventure should not read beyond this point.

I knew I was going to have problems with Jerimond’s Orb right from page one, when I read the following boxed text, which is specifically meant to be read aloud to the players (excerpted):

“My name is Arawn. I remember traveling home to Treefall, to my father’s inn, and then… darkness. […] Please, let me go home to my village. My mother and sister must worry for me. Arawn has no recollection of the encounter with the PCs, the beast he became, or anything that occurred after sunset the evening before.”

Dropping spoilers into the boxed text due to a layout error is a small thing, but it denotes a lack of attention to detail. This opening section of the adventure also betrays another pervasive problem: The assumption that the PCs will do completely illogical things to further the plot. This is one of the worst things a module writer can do, because it practically guarantees that the PCs will take actions which will either derail the adventure (thus rendering the module worthless to the DM) or force the DM to railroad the characters into the proper course of action (thus rendering the module worthless to the players). Specifically, Arawn shows up in the form of a terrible monster – which attempts to attack and kill the PCs. The adventure specifically assumes that the PCs will leave this monster alone and – at the same time – keep him around until morning (when he changes back to his human form).

You know, I’ve played RPGs for more than a decade – and I have never had the PCs in my games leave a homicidal monster alive. (Particularly in D&D, where you really have to go out of your way to capture an opponent alive.)

PLOT

Fifty years ago a wizard named Jerimond left a magical orb to protect his hometown of Treefall. The orb was designed to enhance the natural luck of any creature or area. If the orb is stolen, however, those who it once benefited will fall under a terrible curse: Condemned to turn into beasts (known as mathorn) when the sun sets and remain that way until dawn.

The orb was placed on a statue in the center of town, and has long gifted Treefall with good luck and plentiful harvests. A few days ago, local bandits stole the orb (which Jerimond used as part of a key-and-lock system to secure the treasure stashed at his old house). Now the crops are turning bad and random villagers are turning into vicious monsters.

When the PCs arrive in town, they will quickly have four mysteries to sort out: The missing orb, a dead girl, the plague of monsters, and the local bandits. All four, of course, have their red herrings and true clues – and all four, of course, turn out to be connected to one another.

CONCLUSION

Although Jerimond’s Orb is not without its strengths – most notably the interesting cast of characters that Ree Soesbee introduces – it’s dominated by its weaknesses. Its largest flaw, unfortunately, is the general lack of forethought and planning which Soesbee shows in constructing adventure. Time and again the PCs are asked to do irrational things, make illogical leaps of reasoning, and stumble upon the “correct” course of action.

All the building blocks of a good, solid adventure are here, but they are sadly disarranged and out of sorts. To render Jerimond’s Orb worth playing is an effort which its underlying quality most likely does not justify. There are better things to spend your money on.

Style: 3
Substance: 3

Author: Ree Soesbee
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Line: Adventure Boosters
Price: $2.49
Product Code: 8305
Pages: 16

Reading this review 20+ years after writing it, I’m left a little confused by ranking of Substance 3. But since I also haven’t revisited this adventure in just as many years, I guess I’ll trust past-Justin’s assessment.

The reprint of this adventure in the Adventure I collection notably corrects the boxed text errors mentioned in this review.

Next AEG Booster Review: Kurishan’s Garden

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

Out of Body, Out of Mind fails to think things through to their logical conclusions. A poorly conceived premise, killer traps, and an irrational set-up seriously undermine this module’s positive qualities.

Review Originally Appeared May 21st, 2001

PLOT

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Out of Body, Out of Mind. Players who may find themselves playing in this adventure should not read beyond this point.

The plot of Out of Body, Out of Mind, in brief: Six hundred years ago this area of the world was a turbulent mass of fighting warlords. Then, one of their own numbers – Tirna’gael – gained in sudden strength and struck out against his fellow warlords, quickly coming to dominate the entire region before his death. The newly formed Order of Garadon entombed the warlord in his citadel: A castle of stone which hangs over the simmering cauldron of a volcano.

Although it is believed that the source of Tirna’gael’s power was the ring he wore, the Order of Garadon had actually discovered that Tirna’gael had become the host of a nescent – an invisible and incorporeal demonic entity which exists by possessing mortal bodies. The Order trapped the nescent by slaying the Tirna’gael host body and imprisoning it within an antimagic field.

Rumors now fly that the tomb – which has long been secured by mystic guards – has been broken into. The PCs are dispatched to stop the robbers. Unknown to the PCs, however, is that there is no robbery in process – and it is very likely that they will break the ancient seals on the nescent’s prison through their carelessness.

WEAKNESSES

All right, where to begin?

Let’s start with the premise… which makes no sense. First off, why wouldn’t the Order of Garadon brief the PCs about the true situation? More importantly, why isn’t the Order of Garadon sent in the first place – rather than handing the job over to the clueless? Second, if rumors are already flying about the break-in, why are the PCs dispatched to go to the prison in order to prevent the robbery that’s already happened from taking place?

Once the PCs reach the prison, these illogical premises continue unabated. For example, the mephits which were set to guard the prison don’t wake up until after the tomb has been opened and the nescent released. Apparently the author never understood the irony behind the saying “closing the coop after the chickens have flown.”

Nor is this the only variety of flaw in Out of Body, Out of Mind: Area 7, for example, has a killer trap. That trap can be avoided if a couple of die rolls are successfully made – otherwise it will most likely wipe out the entire party. The trap in area 9 is similarly designed so that escape is nearly impossible.

Out of Body, Out of Mind also uses the technique of keying multiple areas to a single set of text. I appreciate this technique when it is used appropriately. Unfortunately, it is not used so here.

STRENGTHS

Although outweighed by the adventure’s flaws, Out of Body, Out of Mind does have a few notable strengths:

First, Kapera creates the nescent by using the template rules. This idea of using the template as the monster is intriguing, and an interesting design point. I’m not quite sure if it works, but it’s noteworthy.

Second, although it is illogical for the mephit guardians to wake up only after the damage is done, once that happens Kapera introduces a rather interesting dynamic: The nescent will attempt to possess one of the mephits and control as many of the others as possible through its command lesser creatures ability – creating two factions within the fortress. This creates an interesting dynamic for the second half of the adventure (with the PCs trapped in a fortress full of fighting mephits), and if it had been more fully developed could have resulted in a truly fascinating adventure.

Of course, as interesting as it is, it only introduces a new problem into the adventure: Why would you set guardians over the nescent who can be controlled by the nescent? That’s like manning a prison with guards you know have been bribed by the prisoners.

And, at the end of the day, that’s the biggest problem Out of Body, Out of Mind has: The strengths it has are immediately undermined by the faulty foundation on which they have been built.

There are some salvageable elements to be found here, but they are deeply buried beneath the chaff.

Style: 3
Substance: 3

Author: Patrick Kapera
Publisher: Alderac Entertainment Group
Line: Adventure Boosters
Price: $2.49
Product Code: 8306
Pages: 16

Next AEG Booster Review: Jerimond’s Orb

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

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.

Next AEG Booster Review: Out of Body, Out of Mind

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