Dungeon Crawl Classics: The Accursed Heart of the World-Ender - RPG Review
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2024
- A review of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG 0-level funnel adventure, The Accursed Heart of the World-Ender, along with some tips on how to run it like a pro! If you're looking for a short RPG adventure -- perfect for conventions -- filled with a heavy metal tone and grisly encounters, check this adventure out!
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Thanks for the review, it seems to be a pretty cool adventure.
A very heavy metal one too
It makes no sense to me that the "Templars" would turn against the PCs, since ALL of them tried to do THE SAME THING as the PCs in the past.
Why would their motives change to exactly the opposite, instead of becoming even more zealous, after the attempt transforms them?
If the templars intend to betray the PCs, then why would they share ANY useful, true information with them in the first place?
As a GM, I would instantly seize upon any PC whose player made the mistake of buying a DESTINY-(dis)advantage for them, and ASSIGN the "spear puller" outcome to them, if a disadvantage, or "the guy who recovers the spear from the lava-crusted corpse of the spear-puller" if they bought Destiny as an advantage.
Upon seeing the "Sword-In-The-Stone" setup, why wouldn't a mage immediately cast "Shape Earth" or "Shape Stone" to remove the material around the magic spear? What will you tell your players? Surely, this will work, right? This is exactly the same as a successful spear pull, right? Even if you rule that the "Lava Burst" happens because the spell works, WHY is there lava? Is the lava just a magical attack, or is it a natural geological source? Why isn't the entire area volcanically active, then?
What, if anything, prevents a mage from using "Earth Vision" to gaze upon The World Ender beneath the spear? Surely the PCs will decide to leave the spear where it is, right? And perhaps, cover it up permanently? *Maybe* that could mean one fight, if "evil" templars want to stop them from a cover-up, but even then, why wouldn't an evil templar just wait for the PCs to depart and dig out the spear later? At least, back to the "half-buried" level?
The moment when the players discover that a spear pull attempt can mutate them or worse, the players will want to rearrange the order in which their PCs try, if at all. So... maybe don't tell them the spear is stuck at all until AFTER the templars make it clear that trying to get the spear is what mutated them. Maybe you decide in advance, by order of the templars, which PCs can pull and in what order, and what happens to each, and then you can rapidly tell everyone at the table what happens to the PCs who make failed attempts, down to the unlucky lava-puller. Perhaps the templars will control the order, but a PC might jump the queue! Will that PC succeed? How will the templars react to that PC?
Why would The World-Ender have enough power to send his heart flying away, but need 24-Hours to recover? How would the PCs know this? How would the PCs understand the "tip of the spear was in the heart, and THAT kept him in torpor, and we ruined it"?
Sure, some players might guess this, but unless they are TOLD somehow, they can't be certain what to do. Is he spending all of his fatigue to cast a "Red-Bull-Gives-You-Wings" spell upon his heart, and then passing out from the strain?
Why couldn't the PCs just use this as an opportunity to destroy the rest of his body, or neutralize it somehow?
If a player with the spear decides their PC "rides away", how does the adventure NOT immediately end, with a disaster for all in the near future?
How are the PCs going to understand that the deer are corrupted into monsters BECAUSE of blood from the heart?
How could Lord Featherstone beat the PCs to the cave where the heart is, unless he was present at the spear-pulling and SAW what happened?
Why wouldn't Lord Featherstone try to pull the spear FIRST, before any of the PCs?
If a PC who's already been afflicted encounters the bloody river, can they be CURED? Do they get a 2nd corruption?
Why would a blood spurt from the winged heart in the cave cause an "acid effect", when we've already seen that its blood causes a MUCH MORE interesting corruption effect everywhere else in the story?
AND MOST OF ALL, it is a LOT of work for a GURPS player to make a good character, so why would we EVER deliberately create an adventure SPECIFICALLY with a deliberate intention of killing most of them?
I mean, even NORMAL adventures are incredibly dangerous....
So I don't see any reason to make this one *particularly* dangerous OTHER than as an underhanded ploy to create a false sense of "high stakes".... if the characters are all NEW low-Character Points PCs anyway, throwing lots of PCs into the story to "make up" for the extra danger doesn't seem like a good idea to me. Some players will have more PCs die, or ALL of them, and then they don't get to play as much for the rest of the game session. And then no player has as strong a reason to be emotionally invested in any particular PC, if they think they're likely to lose most of them anyway.... Which runs the risk that the Players won't be emotionally invested in the game, and might not show up at session #2. Moreover, I don't know why "survival contest" is the only thing on offer at a game convention. If the RPG doesn't have more to offer than "survivor" at the end of the game session, then why go to a game convention at all? You could just stay home and play a MUCH better long-term campaign with your regular RPG friends. That is, why does anyone ever NEED or WANT a funnel at all?
Yes
Funnels are not for everyone - I view them as akin to arcade games. No one cares when Pacman gets gobbled up by a ghost, because you have a couple more lives. And these characters don't have spells, special abilities, or much else -- it truly is old school. I don't think I'd recommend running a funnel in a game like GURPS either -- they really work best when you've spent literally seconds rolling up your character, and your attachment grows over the course of the session. As soon as one of my players got turned into a centaur, and I randomly invented that the centaurs used to be the royal guard of the Old Kings, that player was thrilled and loved and protected that character above all the others. That was a cool moment.