The conclusion to the trilogy which began with Death in Freeport and Terror in Freeport, Madness in Freeport brings the same strengths and weaknesses to the table.

Review Originally Published October 8th, 2001

PLOT

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Madness in Freeport. Players who may end up playing in this module are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

Madness in Freeport, the final installment of the Freeport Trilogy (following Death in Freeport and Terror in Freeport — which are reviewed here and here), takes place over the course of three days as Milton Drac’s sinister plans begin to come to fruition and the PCs must work furiously to stop them.

Madness opens with the Grand Lighthouse Ball – a celebration to which Drac invites the PCs under the pretense of applauding their recent accomplishments. In reality, however, he’s brought them there in an attempt to set them up for a fall (just as he’s set up everyone else who has ever posed a potential threat to him). The PCs must resist Drac’s manipulations, while still using the opportunities of the Ball to further investigate the truth behind Drac’s plans for the Lighthouse.

If the PCs are successful, they will discover that they need to acquire an ancient artifact – the Jade Serpent of Yig – in order to counteract the foul summoning ritual which Drac is building the Lighthouse to attempt. The PCs will then be able to trace the resting place of the Jade Serpent to the cache of the infamous pirate Black Dog. Seeking out this hidden cache, they will discover an ancient, sunken Temple of Yig.

Once they have acquired the Jade Serpent from the Temple of Yig, they return to Freeport. But they may already be too late, and a furious chase through the Lighthouse ensues until the PCs reach the Big Finale.

LOW POINTS

Madness in Freeport shares its primary flaw with Death in Freeport and Terror in Freeport: Once again, the strings which hold the adventure together are far too weak. The success of the module hinges time and time again on the PCs reading the author’s mind or making a lucky dice roll.

For example, it is absolutely crucial that the PCs discover the location of Black Dog’s Caves (where they suspect they can find the Jade Serpent of Yig). In order to accomplish this, they must make a Gather Information skill check. A complete chart of possible responses is given (ranging from DC 10 to DC 25) – but, essentially, they have to make this skill check at DC 25 in order to find out what they have to do next.

This is bad design. Plain and simple. The module writer practically admits as much in the very next paragraph, where he tells the DM to essentially ignore the die roll if the PCs don’t make it. If that’s the case, why the heck are you bothering to have me roll the dice, anyway?

Essentially, any DM wanting to run this adventure is going to have to modify it substantially in order to strengthen the flow of the plot – or he’s going to have to simply accept the necessity of railroading his players through it.

Another major flaw comes at the adventure’s end, when the author attempts to claim that the PCs (having killed Drac) will not have their story of what happened believed. Unfortunately, this just doesn’t make any sense. For starters, the PCs are already acknowledged heroes of the city. And, furthermore, a huge crowd just saw the climax of the adventure. In other words, the PCs not only have a lot of personal credibility built up in Freeport – they also have a massive amount of corroborating evidence.

Madness in Freeport, unfortunately, also shows a relatively sloppy handling of the rule system. For example, in the Lighthouse at the end of the adventure Simoni asserts that it takes a guardman two rounds to run to the top of a fifty foot stairway (this is crucial, because he’s going to alert others to the PCs’ presence). Unfortunately, Simoni is wrong – the guard can move 60 ft. per round while running. He’ll reach the top of the staircase in the same round he starts running.

The other low points in Madness in Freeport take the form of “that was good, just not as good as it could have been”.

For example, the Grand Lighthouse Ball at the top of the adventure is a roleplaying-intensive sequence. It’s handled well enough, but Simoni would have benefited from taking a look at Penumbra’s In the Belly of the Beast — which handles that type of scenario in a far better fashion.

Similarly, the sequence in the Sunken Temple of Yig is good insofar as it goes – but it suffers from trite tricks and one-note religious symbols, rather than exploiting the situation for some actual depth and mystery.

HIGH POINTS

Madness in Freeport primarily succeeds for two reasons:

1. Despite the flaws of execution, the story itself is a good one.

2. The adventure capitalizes well on the groundwork laid by the first two adventures in the Freeport Trilogy. Assuming the DM can stop the PCs from losing the thread of the adventure, everyone should enjoy themselves immensely as the mysteries of Death in Freeport and Terror in Freeport are finally resolved while ancient evils are defeated.

CONCLUSION

Ultimately, Madness in Freeport delivers a solid conclusion to the Freeport Trilogy. That being said: If the Trilogy had been released in today’s D20 market, rather than the virgin territory of August 2000, it would most likely have been widely ignored. The production values of Madness in Freeport simply don’t compare well with the other D20 products out there, and the module possesses too many flaws to distinguish itself from the competition.

To put this in context: When I compare Death in Freeport (the first Green Ronin module, released in August 2000) to Three Days to Kill (the first Penumbra module, released in August 2000), the comparison is highly favorable. However, when I compare Madness in Freeport to The Tide of Years, it becomes apparent that Penumbra has worked steadily to improve the quality of its offerings – while Green Ronin, for all intents and purposes, is still putting out the same old stuff.

So, while I still offer my endorsement of Madness in Freeport as a conclusion to the Freeport Trilogy, I also reserve judgment to the extent that, if this is the best that Green Ronin can produce in the future, then I probably won’t continue to categorize Green Ronin as a top-notch D20 publisher.

Style: 2
Substance: 4

Author: William Simoni
Publisher: Green Ronin Publishing
Line: D20
Price: $10.95
ISBN: 0-9701048-3-9
Product Code: GRR1004
Pages: 46

In retrospect, I’d knock at least one point off of my Substance rating above. My memory is that this was quite mediocre, and reviewing my prep notes for the adventure reveals that I ended up rewriting almost all of it. (Which isn’t a good sign.) Conceptually great; execution mostly a whiff. The best bit is the Grand Lighthouse Ball, and even that I had to heavily reorganize and remix to get it into a format I felt comfortable running. On the other hand, the process of figuring out how I wanted the Grand Lighthouse Ball organized was, if I recall correctly, the beginning of the process for developing my social event scenario structure, although it would take several more iterations over the next seven or eight years to work all the kinks out.

There was actually a significant gap between my reviews of Death in Freeport and Terror in Freeport, which were published on the same day in February 2001, and my review of Madness in Freeport, which didn’t appear until October. Some of that gap is explained  by Madness in Freeport being released at a later date, but that’s not the whole story here. I think this is one of those books I read, meant to review, but I didn’t actually get the review written in a timely fashion. If the gap between experiencing a piece of media and writing the review takes too long, then I generally find I can no longer write the review. The material is too stale and too many details will have slipped away from me.

I do remember that people kept asking me when my review of the third book in the Freeport Trilogy would be released.

Looking over my documents, I started putting together my prep notes for the Freeport adventures starting in mid-October of 2001. It’s probably not coincidental this review was published at the beginning of the month. I’m guessing that, having decided to run the trilogy, I re-read the whole thing. And then, with Madness in Freeport fresh in my mind, I also seized the opportunity to finally write up the review.

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

The sequel to Death in Freeport, Terror in Freeport brings the same strengths and weaknesses to the table.

Review Originally Published February 12th, 2001

Terror in Freeport picks up exactly where Death in Freeport left off (my review of the latter is available here) – which is only logical, since it’s a sequel.

In terms of its strengths and weaknesses, Terror is very similar to its predecessor: It’s picked up a few new flaws (weaker boxed text, repetition of material), but it’s also picked up a few new strengths (more adventure material, better lay-out).

PLOT

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Terror in Freeport. Players who may end up playing in this module are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

A couple of months have passed since the events of Death in Freeport and the PCs are approached, once more, by Brother Egis: He’s sure that the serpent people are still active in Freeport, and has come to believe that someone is working behind the scenes to undo everything that the PCs have accomplished. The plot which begins to unravel from this simple seed is so delightfully convoluted that the author, Robert J. Toth, has included sidebars entitled “The Real Story” throughout the adventure to make it easier for the DM to keep track of everything that’s going on.

Things open with another round of investigation, starting with a secret residence that Milos (the main villain from Death in Freeport) kept under an assumed name. Investigating the rented room will not reveal anything (although if the PCs make some lucky search rolls they will uncover a set of documents which will be very important in setting up Madness in Freeport, see below). Shortly after they start investigating, however, they will attacked and – if they follow one of the would-be assassins successfully – he will lead them right back to the bricked up temple building from Death in Freeport.

The temple is supposedly being cleaned out by Councilor Verlaine, but if the PCs successfully investigate they’ll discover that the Temple is still inhabited by serpent people – who are transferring the contents of the Temple into the basement of Verlaine’s mansion! A series of subsequent investigations and diversions will make it appear that Verlaine is in league with the Brotherhood, but – in fact – he’s being set up by his boss, Sea Lord Drac – the ruler of Freeport.

The Brotherhood then attacks Egis’ Temple, some more craziness ensues, and the PCs triumph. Along the way they finally get to talk with Thuron, the head of the Temple – but at the end of the adventure it’s suddenly revealed that Thuron is one of the serpent people, too! Fortunately, he’s one of the good serpent people. (Made ya look!)

Finally, the big whammy is laid on the PCs (setting the stage for Madness in Freeport): K’Stallo reveals that the diagram the PCs discovered way back at the beginning of the adventure are the plans for the Lighthouse which is being constructed in the harbor – a Lighthouse which is being carefully prepared for a demonic ritual which will see the Unspeakable God of the Yellow Sign reborn into the world once more!

LOW POINTS

Terror in Freeport possesses the same primary flaw as Death in Freeport: The links which hold the adventure together are far too weak. A missed die roll here, a failure to read the author’s mind there, and the adventure is hopelessly derailed without even a glimmering clue regarding how to get it back on track.

To this, a few other weaknesses are also added: The boxed text is generally much weaker than in Death in Freeport, and on at least two occasions it makes decisions for the PCs (something which I simply can’t stand). The pregen PCs from Death in Freeport are reprinted here and, although they’ve been advanced to third level, I consider this an even greater waste of my space and time. Finally, during a sewer sequence,  the map of the sewer fails to match the description in the text.

HIGH POINTS

The biggest advantage Terror in Freeport has is that it is a sequel to Death in Freeport. The same sense of lurking horror and hidden mystery lurks within these pages, and even as some of the mysteries left lingering in the shadows of Death are brought into the light, even more sinister mysteries are shown to lie behind them. Terror raises the stakes elegantly and naturally – drawing the PCs into higher circles of power, and showing that the corruption and horror they had so briefly brushed against before becomes even more terrifying as the full scope of its truth becomes revealed.

Other positives: Adventure seeds for getting players involved in Terror in Freeport are included (in case they didn’t run through Death in Freeport) – even though I can’t seriously imagine running a group through Terror that hasn’t been through Death. In general, Terror is a far meatier adventure than Death, although this is largely due two factors: First, Terror draws upon the background in Death (so that it has a larger number of actual pages in which to describes its adventure). Second, Terror is for higher level characters – so the PCs can handle a bit more breadth and depth than they could before.

CONCLUSION

If you liked Death in Freeport, you’ll like Terror in Freeport. If you didn’t like Death in Freeport, you probably won’t like Terror in Freeport. And if you haven’t read Death in Freeport, then you’re probably best advised to check that out first.

Support the reviewer’s plan for world domination: Click here to order Terror in Freeport through an affiliate link to Amazon.com.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Authors: Chris Pramas
Company: Green Ronin Publishing
Line: D20
Price: $7.99
ISBN: 0-9701048-2-0
Production Code: GRR1003
Pages: 32

It’s been a long time since I cracked the cover on Terror in Freeport, but I have only the fondest memories of running this module. (Unlike Death in Freeport, I’ve only run Terror in Freeport once, but that has nothing to do with the quality of the module itself and shouldn’t be held against it.)

Taking a peek at my prep notes, it seems that I made virtually no adjustments to the module. It looks like I modified the hook to incorporate a patron who’d been established in my campaign; fleshed out the the tracking section with a Gather Information table; added a cool trap from the Traps & Treachery supplement published by Fantasy Flight Games; and modified Thuron’s story to align it to the cosmology of my own campaign world. Everything else is just stat blocks and handouts.

My point is that sometimes you can have fond memories of an adventure as you experienced it at the table that have little or nothing to do with the adventure as it was published, but that doesn’t seem to be the case here. Terror earns my nostalgic accolades.

Perhaps my strongest recommendation is that I hope to some day return to these modules and run them again.

Next Freeport Review: Madness in Freeport

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

One of the inaugural products of the D20 license, Death in Freeport is possessed of some wonderful strengths… and some disappointing weaknesses.

Review Originally Published February 12th, 2001

When the 3rd edition of D&D was released in August 2000 at Gen Con, everyone in attendance knew that the rules of the game had changed: Not just because the line for the Player’s Handbook stretched around the Castle and out of sight (that was expected). Not just because it was the steadiest, loudest buzz of the con (that was expected). Not just because the words “D&D” dominated every program and announcement (that, too, was expected).

No, people knew the rules had changed because Atlas Games had released Three Days to Kill (reviewed here) and Green Ronin Publishing had released Death in Freeport — the first two modules produced under the D20 System Trademark License.

As an inaugural product of sorts, Death in Freeport has its share of rough edges. But it’s not distinguished only because of Chris Pramas’ good sense of timing. It also contains some laudatory gaming material which you might want to take a couple of minutes to check out.

PLOT

Warning: This review will contain spoilers for Death in Freeport. Players who may end up playing in this module are encouraged to stop reading now. Proceed at your own risk.

Death in Freeport takes place in the City of Freeport, an old pirate den which has since become a bustling island metropolis. The first six pages of this module are, in fact, dedicated to describing Freeport’s history and background – sketching in the broad outlines of an interesting gaming venue which can be thrown down along the coastline of any traditional D&D fantasy world.

The story itself involves a priest named Lucius. Six years ago, Lucius’ body was taken over by a mysterious power. Four years later, Lucius awoke to find his body returned to him – in his absence though, the power had done all sorts of strange things of which Lucius could remember nothing. Despite this, Lucius was still able to resume his former life, up to a certain point.

Then the dreams came.

Lucius would wake every night screaming in strange tongues after seeing visions of bizarre rituals. As a result, he began investigating what “he” had been up to during those years of possession. Two nights ago Lucius disappeared.

Which is where the PCs come in: Brother Egil, a friend of Lucius, wants to know what happened to him – and the other members of the order, uncomfortable with Lucius’ strange behavior of four years ago and his new inquiries into that time period, don’t really seem to care. Egil asks the PCs to investigate.

THE INVESTIGATION

This is the core of the module: The PCs will investigate Lucius’ house. If they make some successful Search checks here they will turn up a “to do” list which will lead them to the Bloody Vengeance, an orcish pirate ship. If they manage to work their way through to the captain of the Bloody Vengeance they will learn… absolutely nothing of consequence.

But eventually they may think to check out the church where Lucius and Egil work. If they do so, they’ll meet with a guy named Milos who will stymie their attempts to learn anything else. Shortly thereafter, they’ll be attacked by some mercenaries and, if things play out the right way, they’ll get the address to a tavern. If they stake out the tavern they might spot Enzo, who will lead them back to a bricked up building. (They might also find the temple if they decide to follow Milos for some reason.) The conclusion of the adventure takes place here.

Frankly, this is the biggest problem Death at Freeport has: The structure of the adventure is tenuous at best. If the PCs miss a die roll, the adventure is derailed. If the PCs don’t make a questionable leap of logic, the adventure is derailed. If an encounter goes just slightly wrong, the adventure is derailed.

A successful investigatory adventure requires multiple paths of inquiry to be present: You can’t expect every player group in existence to perform like Sherlock Holmes. Death in Freeport makes the assumption that the players are capable of reading the author’s mind – and that’s a bad position to but the DM in.

AN ANCIENT EVIL

What lurks in the bricked up building? Nothing less than a temple dedicated to an ancient god whose last appearance upon the Material Plane nearly destroyed the world. (You ever notice how evil cultists never worship the gods who make your socks disappear from the drier? It’s always World Destroying Evil™ they go after. Why is that?)

Years ago, before the humanoid races settled upon the world, a vast continent spread over the area where the Serpent’s Teeth islands exist today. (That’s where the City of Freeport is located.) This continent was known as Valossa, and was home to a race of serpent people whose magical sciences and natural sorceries were vastly advanced compared to those of today.

However, the serpent people was brought low by the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign, who summoned forth their nameless dark god. This Great Old One tore Valossa asunder, and forever destroyed the civilization of the serpent people.

Unknown to the younger races which have grown strong upon the world’s surface, the remnants of the serpent people remain: Barbaric degenerates still live beneath the surface of the earth, while an immortal upper class of sorcerors still cling to the old ways in forgotten corners of the world.

Worse yet, however, the serpent people walk among us: They have the power to assume human form, and they are out in force in Freeport.

The bricked up building the PCs will, hopefully, reach is none other than a temple of the Brotherhood of the Yellow Sign – still worshipping the ancient god who was once responsible for the downfall of Valossa. At this point you have a fairly standard, if abbreviated, dungeon crawl through the Temple of the Unspeakable One, at the end of which the PCs rescue Lucius.

This, in short, is the greatest strength of Death in Freeport: A rich gaming environment, with a backdrop of ancient mysteries, strange magicks, forgotten races, and arcane gods. Fans of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard should get a special kick out of all this, and anyone who enjoys Kenneth Hite’s Suppressed Transmissions should feel right at home.

OTHER NOTES

A handful of miscellaneous notes to wrap this review up: Death in Freeport also contains four pre-generated characters, presumably for use by play groups who don’t want to generate characters. In my opinion, these are a waste of space and the two pages they took up could have been dedicated with far better purpose to just about anything else.

The new stats for the Serpent People, on the other hand, are very much appreciated (and surprisingly accurate, given the fact that Death in Freeport was developed before the release of the Player’s Handbook or Monster Manual).

On the other hand, Death in Freeport demonstrates its pioneering spirit in the fact that it takes up a page and a half with the licensing agreements – something which later D20 releases quickly learned to work around (by shrinking the type size considerably).

It should be noted, in closing, that Death in Freeport is the first in a trilogy of modules (to be followed by Terror in Freeport and Madness in Freeport, in that order). Several minor details of “local color” in Death in Freeport acquire a sinister significance in the later adventures – a nice way of balancing the necessities of a trilogy’s continuity with the autonomy of a stand-alone product.

Style: 3
Substance: 4

Grade: B+

Author: Chris Pramas
Company: Green Ronin Publishing
Line: D20
Price: $7.99
ISBN: 0-9701048-0-4
Production Code: GRR1002
Pages: 32

“A successful investigatory adventure requires multiple paths of inquiry to be present: You can’t expect every player group in existence to perform like Sherlock Holmes.”

What you’re seeing here is very nearly the origin point of the Three Clue Rule. The specific formulation of Three Clues and the refinement of the technique was still in the future, but it was while remixing and running Death in Freeport that I very specifically identified the problem

I used Death in Freeport to launch my second D&D 3rd Edition campaign. It’s a campaign that still lives fondly in my memory, and that may or may not color my opinion of the adventure (which remains quite high). I liked it enough to run it again as a one-shot, also to great effect. When I attempted to use it to launch a second campaign, however, the results were not so satisfactory. (You can read about that in Bumbling in Freeport.)

The adventure itself has been reissued several times, including a 20th Anniversary Edition compatible with 5th Edition and the most recent version, which is compatible with Shadow of the Demon Lord. (I haven’t checked out these specific versions, but have no reason to doubt their faithful rendition of the original. Although I will note that, for whatever reason, 5th Edition versions of the sequels were never produced.)

Next Freeport Review: Terror in Freeport

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

A common form of mapping for RPG cities is the block map. For example, here’s the city of Kintargo from the Hell’s Rebels adventure path:

A common mistake when looking at such a map is to interpret each individual outline as being a single building. For example, when I posted a behind-the-scenes peek at how I developed the map for the city of Anyoc years ago, a number of people told me I’d screwed up by leaving too much space between the buildings. Except the map didn’t actually depict any individual buildings: Each outline was a separate block, made up of several different buildings.

When people look at a block map and interpret it as depicting individual buildings, how far off is their vision of the city?

Well, we can actually see this exemplified in a few cases where artists have (in my opinion) misinterpreted block maps. Blades in the Dark, for example, has a block map for the city of Duskwall. Below you can see a sample of that block map (on the left) next to a block map of a section of Paris (on the right).

If it was not self-evident, the interpretation of the Duskwall map as a block map is supported by this description of the city from the rulebook:

The city is densely packed inside the ring of immense lightning towers that protect it from the murderous ghosts of the blighted deathlands beyond. Every square foot is covered in human construction of some kind — piled one atop another with looming towers, sprawling manors, and stacked row houses; dissected by canals and narrow twisting alleys; connected by a spiderweb of roads, bridges, and elevated walkways.

You can see that if you interpret Duskwall’s map as detailing individual buildings, the layout of the city actually becomes far more organized and well-regulated than seems intended by the text. This is, in fact, a common problem when GMs misinterpret block maps: Their vision of the city, and the resulting descriptions are heavily simplified.

For example, when Ryan Dunleavy decided to develop a large version of the Duskwall map, he interpreted each block on the map as being an individual building (or, occasionally, two). Compare the resulting illustration of a single block in Duskwall (on the left) to what a single block in Paris (on the right) actually looks like:

(Please don’t interpret this as some sort of massive indictment of the artist here. Ryan Dunleavy’s cartography is gorgeous, and I recommend backing his Patreon for more of it.)

You can see another example of this with Green Ronin’s Freeport. When first revealed to the world in 2000’s Death in Freeport module, the city was depicted using a rough block map:

In 2002, for the original City of Freeport, this was redone with most of the blocks being represented as individual buildings:

The map was redone again for The Pirate’s Guide to Freeport, this time reinterpreting the original outlines as a block map:

I pull out this example primarily to point out that sometimes a block map outline IS, in fact, a single building. Because some buildings are really big. Or, in other cases, they might represent walled estates, as shown here with the estates along the western edge of the map.

And here’s a real world example of this from Paris with both the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais:

(click for larger size)

The north-south cross section of the Grand Palais is fairly comparable to the Parisian block shown above.

CONCLUSION

My point with all this basically boils down to don’t mistake the map for the territory. One of the great advantages of the block map approach to city mapping is that it leaves so much to the imagination, allowing both you and your players to lay in immense amounts of fractal complexity onto a simple geometric shape.

(Which is not to say that block maps are the be-all or end-all of utility at the gaming table. You can take my copy of Ed Bourelle’s Ptolus map when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.)

And when you miss that opportunity — when your mental image of the block map reduces each geometric shape to a single building — you’re robbing the city of its grandeur, its complexity, and its flexibility.

Take a moment to go back and look at the map of Kintargo, for example. Imagine what that city would look like if each block were, in fact, a single building. What you’ll probably end up with is a modest city still possessed of some good degree of size. But what you should actually end up with in your mind’s eye is this: