By Leon Barillaro
MCDM
5E level 5
Premise: Wizards invented a sentient magical workshop, workshop kills wizards. A tale as old as time.
What do we get here?
This is a 15 page adventure covering a dungeon that has 7 keyed locations. Originally this adventure shipped in the first issue of MCDM's online 5E magazine called Arcadia, now it is being given away for free.
Usability/formatting
Mostly the formatting of the adventure is decent and the writing good. I do feel like some of the paragraphs could be broken down into shorter bullet points to make them easier to scan in the moment however as this is a short adventure it might not be needed.
What hooks are provided are a bit bland, just go there for money. I think there was the option to include a few more such as set the players up as burglars, see a rumour for a magically interested player or have one of the wizards working at the lab be a mentor/friend that needs checking up on. We can do a bit better to motivate our players than just a lord is willing to drop some gold on them.
Like many 5E adventures there are some places where there are roll DCs given when stuff could have been left up to the players to figure out themselves, this is more an issue with 5E than this adventure though.
We do not get an overland travel section to this adventure, you have to figure that out for yourself. When the characters arrive at the mountain is not a lot on working out how to get to the adventure site, finding the path has a couple of skill checks involved which rather than straight up stop you getting to the adventure come with an exhaustion penalty which is better done than you find in a lot of adventures.
There are some neat tricks in the adventure, mostly related to how the sentient workshop watches and learns from the PCs based on what they do. Having their own spells turned against them is a nice little twist. I also like some of the flavour in the table of reactions for the workshop which you use when a spell has been cast by the players.
The "lets fight anyway" friendly fight ending feels like a real railroad to me, I feel like the players should be able to RP out of this rather than be forced to have a combat encounter no matter what.
Portability
Your world or setting needs to have a decent level of magic for this adventure to slot in but as long as it passes that bar you can easily drop this into anywhere in a campaign world. The adventure specifies a mountain setting but I think anywhere sufficiently remote should work.
Recommendation
Using a number of familiar sci-fi tropes this is a decently constructed adventure. I do not like sci-fi in my fantasy so it does not fit my taste however it is a good exploration of the themes around newly created sentient beings so if you like the premise you should definitely consider running this adventure. You will definitely be able to find a few of your favourite sci-fi films or stories lurking as inspiration for this adventure.
If I was going to run the adventure I would only tweak one or two small things but you can run it straight out the box fine. There is definitely the potential for the DM to have a lot of fun role playing as a newly sentient creature.
Now the adventure is being given away for free it is well worth at least reading through.
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