review Archives - Per Aspera Games

Module Review: Seekers of the Un-K’nown

Posted on August 21, 2024June 22, 2024 by sullijo

Seekers of the Un-K’nown by Louis Hoefer is the first module in Dandyline Games’ Classics Mutated line for Mutant Crawl Classics. (Full disclosure: Hoefer is a friend and part of my regular gaming group.) The adventure takes inspiration and tropes from the classic D&D module In Search of the Unknown and reimagines them in the post-apocalyptic world of Terra AD: the hidden fortress of Quasquenton is now the ancient war bunker Quartum-Q, home of the long-dead heroes Rogo Khan & Zee L’Gar. The PCs have been sent by their tribe to discover why people have gone missing.

The module opens with a large hexcrawl across an ancient battlefield littered with unexploded ordinance, giant mutant weasels, and digital “ghosts” of artifacts of the ancient humans. The base itself is a sprawling two-level edifice filled with squatting beastmen, malfunctioning robots, and tantalizing clues about the secret history of the base’s former inhabitants. That means there’s a lot packed into the module’s 54 pages. Judges should do a thorough read-through of the adventure before running it, although Hoefer has included some helpful hints for running the adventure.

Seekers can easily encompass 3-6 game sessions when the hexcrawl is included. When I ran the module at Gen Con in 2022, I skipped over the wilderness portion and dropped the PCs at the door of the fortress. I also moved around a few rooms on the map on the fly to ensure the players discovered the most salient secrets before our four-hour session was over. That said, the adventure was a big hit with the players (even though two PCs went down in the final fight). I’d also recommend removing the holo-entertainment room if time is a factor, as PCs can easily get sucked into a redundant mini-adventure there.

The artwork by Santiago Iborra and Christopher Tupa does a good job of conveying the sights and scale of the adventure, but the maps can sometimes feel a little cramped due to all the detail in them.

While it may take a little extra prep on the part of the Judge, Seekers of the Un-K’nown is a fun addition to any post-apocalyptic campaign, offering plenty of challenges and puzzles for your party of seekers.

Module Review: One Night in the Sinister Citadel

Posted on June 20, 2024June 20, 2024 by sullijo

Every year around my birthday I run an online one-shot for some old friends. It’s a way to spend time with people I love who I don’t see very often and to run modules that haven’t made it to the table before!

This year’s selection was One Night in the Sinister Citadel, a fabulous little level 2 scenario for 5e from Goodman Games. Set in a crumbling tower in the process of being renovated into an auction house by an entrepreneurial tiefling, the PCs have been hired as night guards to look after various artifacts that will be on the auction block the next day.

The adventure is a bit of a slow burn in a good way. After locking the doors of the tower the players have a chance to explore the various areas of the auction house (although my players were well behaved and stayed away from the stairwell with the “do not enter” sign on it) before the most dangerous artifacts are delivered.

Without giving too much away, the action goes from 0 to 60 very quickly as the PCs must deal with a group of thieves guild hopefuls, the former inhabitants of the tower, and the tower’s security measures all at the same time. Clever players will find ways to pit each group against the others without causing too much collateral damage before the tower’s owner returns in the morning.

The adventure has some fun role-playing opportunities with the owner of the tower and a wizard who drops off some “special items” for the auction. There are several new magical items, a new spell, and a good selection of player handouts included in the module.

With all those moving pieces DMs are well advised to give the module a thorough reading (and make some judicious notes in the margins) before running it. Despite that, One Night in the Sinister Citadel is a simple, fun one-shot that can be easily dropped into any urban setting. I give it a strong recommendation.

Resource Review: 101 City Encounters by C. Aaron Kreader

Posted on July 10, 2023July 10, 2023 by sullijo

I’m pretty picky about purchasing resources that purport to add to your game. I’ve been burned by more than a few that, when push comes to shove, I’ll never actually use at the table, either because they’re too cumbersome or because they do something I can just as easily do myself.

On the other end of that spectrum, C. Aaron Kreader’s 101 City Encounters is a book I can’t imagine running a city campaign without. Designed as a sort of mega random encounter table, the book offers a variety of interesting vignettes and situations a party might stumble across while traveling through a fantasy city. Some are relatively mundane (a funeral procession, a request for help unloading goods from a ship), while others offer tantalizing hooks that could lead to their own mini adventure (a carrier pigeon is killed and its note taken, a red devil appears and disappears leaving strange runes where it stood). Each entry includes suggestions for running the encounter and possible follow-ups.

101 City Encounters also includes a simple system for tracking a PC’s reputation in the city with a variety of groups: the Thieves’ Guild, nobles, the townsfolk, and religious temples. Higher ranks grant various benefits from each group, while lower ranks can cause problems when the party has to deal with the group in question. The system offers just enough detail to be helpful without becoming onerous to the Judge, especially with the inclusion of a custom reputation tracking sheet.

Although compatible with DCC RPG, the book is light on stats and can easily be adapted by a competent Judge to other fantasy systems.

101 City Encounters has already benefited my games and is highly recommended, especially if you’re running a DCC Lankhmar, Planescape, or similar campaign.

Movie Review: Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

Posted on March 20, 2023March 20, 2023 by sullijo

Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a fun romp whose middling story is lifted by the charm of its cast. It owes an obvious debt to the popular (and lucrative) Marvel films, even if it’s more of a Thor or Captain Marvel (movies I put in the middle of the MCU spectrum) than an Iron Man or Infinity War.

If that seems like damning with faint praise, it’s not meant to be. Chris Pine’s natural charisma is on display as the lead, Edgin Darvis, a widowed father who turns to thievery as a means of providing for his daughter. When he takes a chance to pilfer a relic that can resurrect his dead wife, he winds up imprisoned, which is where we find him at the start of the film. He and his friend, Holga, an exiled barbarian, team up to recover his daughter and the relic, both of which are in the hands of the conman who betrayed them.

They assemble a small team for the heist, including Simon, an inept sorcerer, and Doric, a druid with a talent for shapeshifting. Regé-Jean Page’s chivalrous paladin, Xenk Yendar, is in less of the movie than I would have suspected from the trailers, but is a fun foil to Edgin. As the group’s plan unfolds they discover that the troubles in Neverwinter go deeper than they expected. At this point savvy moviegoers will no doubt be able to guess how the story will play out, but it’s an entertaining ride nonetheless.

Packed with Easter eggs for hardcore D&D fans, Honor Among Thieves is accessible enough for those who don’t know Baldur’s Gate from Ten Towns. In fact, the movie doesn’t try to overexplain the lore of the Realms (we’re told Doric is a tiefling, but not what a tiefling is), which would have been an easy trap to fall into. The filmmakers also display a love of practical effects in the realization of many fantastical creatures and characters, although I suspect the digitally-created red dragon Themberchaud will be the fan favorite.

My bottom line: if you’re looking for a fun popcorn flick to pass away an afternoon, Honor Among Thieves will fit the bill. If not, you could certainly wait for it to come to streaming. Personally, I’m hoping it does well enough to warrant a sequel; there are plenty more tales to be told — and creatures to be spotlighted — in this world.

Book Review: Game Wizards

Posted on May 27, 2022May 26, 2022 by sullijo

Jon Peterson has made a name for himself as a gaming historian. His rightly lauded and fastidiously researched Playing at the World may well be the definitive treatment of the historical antecedents of modern role-playing games across the centuries.

Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons (MIT Press, 2021) tackles a more focused topic: the creation of D&D and the first 12 years of Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) from its founding to the fateful evening when Gary Gygax was removed from direct control of the company. Peterson is particularly interested in divining credit for the game’s creation, sifting through the competing claims of Gygax and Dave Arneson, and detailing the (mis)management of TSR which led to Gygax inadvertently placing himself in danger of losing the company he co-founded.

Like Playing at the World, Game Wizards is well-researched with 30 pages of endnotes citing various trade magazines, columns in Dragon, and other sources. But what makes the book more readable than, say, Playing at the World is that Game Wizards has a compelling narrative on which to hang the various financial figures and convention numbers. No one thought Dungeons & Dragon would be an especially profitable idea (Peterson regularly reminds us that Gygax and Arneson thought it might be a “$300 idea”). So when the game takes off, what had been built on nebulous contracts and verbal agreements quickly becomes the focus of intense legal battles as various players seek their piece of the pie.

Those battles seem to have been exacerbated by the interpersonal conflicts that inevitably arose when a bunch of hobbyists tried to run a business. Broken promises, poor HR policies and procedures, and the lure of wealth and fame seem to have taken its toll on those who initially banded together to bring D&D to life, leading to the sad but inevitable climax of Gygax’s reign.

Game Wizards is a treat for RPG fans, especially those (like me) who came to the hobby well after the events it depicts. I highly recommend it.

Module Review: Welcome to Eastwood

Posted on May 17, 2022May 15, 2022 by sullijo

Welcome to Eastwood presents a clever sandbox location — a mysterious Old West town that, through the vagaries of magic or technology, can be dropped into any campaign — for players to explore and interact with.

Like Museum at the End of Time, combat isn’t the only danger in the town of Eastwood. Without giving too much away, PCs can become enamored of the various opportunities and encounters, failing to realize (until it’s too late) that they’re trapped in the town. The more they attempt to peek behind the scenes, the more bizarre — and perilous — the situation becomes.

This includes a clever resource management component the Judge must handle concerning PCs’ ability to leave. Normally I’m not a fan of putting additional work on the Judge, but the module comes with a handy tracking sheet, making the task less onerous. The adventure also comes with an appendix detailing various features of the “town,” including random encounters, new artifacts, and new creatures.

The module is well laid out and illustrated throughout, giving Judges a taste of the town’s atmosphere and inhabitants. The map is especially nice and makes a good handout to give the players once they have the lay of the land.

I’ve had the opportunity to both play the module with the author and run it for my regular MCC group. Both times we had a blast as the PCs came up with theories as to what was happening and who was puling the strings of Eastwood.

Welcome to Eastwood is a 28-page 1st- or 2nd-level module compatible with both Mutant Crawl Classics and Dungeon Crawl Classics. It was written and illustrated by C. Aaron Kreader of Studio 9 Games.

Module Review: The Sunken Temple of Set

Posted on April 12, 2022April 12, 2022 by sullijo

Chris Doyle’s The Sunken Temple of Set was released in 2021 as one of Goodman Games’ Free RPG Day modules. It’s a 7th-level adventure for Dungeons & Dragons set in the classic Dark Tower setting and ties in with Goodman Games’ upcoming DCC/5e conversion of the original module.

The adventure’s titular temple is dedicated to the lesser deity Sobek, but has recently become the locus of a powerplay by a son of the evil god Set. The PCs can be roped into the conflict in a number of ways, but wind up (unwittingly) working on behalf of the temple’s former high priest to oust the usurper and his minions.

Things start off with a great sequence around the lake on which the temple is located as PCs must navigate to the entrance. Investigation and exploration are rewarded, with multiple paths possible. Once inside the PCs must contend with secret doors, an underwater crypt, and numerous crocodilian monsters, culminating with the three-headed son of Set, Makura. The module also features some new desert-themed weapons and spells.

I’ve had the opportunity to run Sunken Temple for my regular 5e group and online as part of Gary Con. Both groups enjoyed the old school challenge of the adventure, with my regular 5e group, which is made up of players relatively new to the hobby, particularly intrigued by a style of play they weren’t accustomed to.

Crafty players can make quick work of the module if they don’t do a lot of exploration — my Gary Con group completed it in about 3 hours by avoiding a major fight and speeding through the crypt. This might be mitigated somewhat in campaign play, when PCs are more prone to search for treasure than in a one-shot.

Bottom line: The Sunken Temple of Set is a fantastic 5e adventure with old school charm. It can be easily slotted into an existing campaign (my regular group is playing through Descent into Avernus, so the sunken temple became part of that plane’s hellscape) and can serve as a fun side quest or one-shot.

Module Review: The Museum at the End of Time (MCC #8.5)

Posted on January 30, 2022January 31, 2022 by sullijo

The Museum at the End of Time by Jim Wampler may be my favorite module to run. Set in the post-apocalyptic world of Terra A.D., the adventure follows young tribe members setting out on their Rite of Passage, a dangerous journey to find technological artifacts from the pre-cataclysmic society and return them for the good of the tribe. The PCs stumble across the titular museum and must face it’s wonders and dangers if their are to succeed in their quest.

The module does a great job of presenting a sandbox location for players to explore. Railroading is kept to a minimum and exploration is encouraged as players encounter historical displays to interact with and indecipherable artifacts to play with. This also means there are only a few pure combat encounters in the whole adventure — which isn’t to say the museum isn’t deadly. Only the craftiest and luckiest of PCs will survive as the technology found in the museum can prove to be as lethal to clueless PCs as any monsters. This includes my favorite encounter in the module which, without spoiling anything, features a surprising twist on the TPK.

I’ve run the museum multiple times at cons and for friends, and it never fails to delight and surprise even veteran players by highlighting what makes Mutant Crawl Classics so distinctive: a heavy reliance on bizarre random effects, placing PCs in situations in which ordinary (to the players) objects become alien and unknown, and clever references to a variety of classic science fiction stories and tropes (Museum directly references 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dune, and Critters, among others).

The Museum at the End of Time is a level 1 adventure and was the first module released for the Mutant Crawl Classics RPG in 2016. It can also be used as a zero-level funnel for 16-20 PCs. It can be comfortably run in four hours. A PDF version of the module is available as a free download from the Goodman Games web site.