Witchburner

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• It was in the trash because a witch did it.

  "There is no witch".

  That's exactly what she wants you to believe, chum.

• She turned me into a newt but I got better

• Yeah, everything about this adventure is great -- except maybe it's adaptability to most D&D campaigns? The writing, art, imagination, and characterization are all really well done. But toss it to murderhoobos . . . At any rate, it took my players about four days to frame someone, collect the reward, and get the hell out of town. They were convinced that if they didn't hurry, they'd be framed for it instead.

  More cross-referencing would have been useful. Also, while the personalities of each major NPC are neatly summarized, their histories are presented in narrative form; a bullet-point summation would have been a useful addition.

  Because history ends up being really important to this one, I found. The town is vulnerable to this witch panic because almost everyone there is scarred by war -- by invasion or service or otherwise marked by violence in a way that PCs (at least my players) shrug off. I found it a neat way to try to draw some lines between the worlds of PCs and NPCs and show how very different fortune-hunter PCs are even in a violent world. But that did leave me wanting easier ways in to each NPC's history on the fly.

  The "Rightmaker" is a pretty interesting character since she is satisfied as long as the council is satisfied. She is a force for order (or Law), but only inasmuch as the panic ends -- she doesn't care any more than the PCs whether the "real" witch is caught, only that everyone involves is satisfied with the accused. This is how paladins now work in my world! Give her _true sight_ and _detect lie_ and all the other powers -- but they are not meant to find "truth." I'm in.

  There was a random encounter with some smugglers after a couple of days of investigating. Unfortunately for the smugglers, all role-playing and no dice rolling makes my players kill happy.

  Oh, and I also decided the witch is real. It's just a side project of the Phaen Witch in "Praise the Fallen" as her research into entropy continues.

• First of all, with this review, I'm surprised to see this product tagged with "The Best."

  Second, it sounds like this adventure could have been greatly improved if it had given the GM options, where "there is no witch" is only one of them. The same is true with explanations for the weird goings-on. I can imagine combining this adventure with another so that the whole witch hunt is a red herring but SOMETHING is actually going on.

  • It wasn't. And then I changed it this morning.

    It's usually pretty easy to look at something and make a judgment. When something is hard to use and doesn't encourage interactive play it's pretty easy to see that. [For most people, or maybe just me because I've seen so much of it?] The vast majority of what I review has the same strengths or faults. This thing is different. You can see me struggling in my addendum. Luka has, with laser focus, raised an issue: the role of the red herring adventure. It is totally dedicated to that conceit and explores it quite thoroughly. I'm not sure, one way or another, that I'm comfortable with that conceit. And I mean that: I don't know. Looking at What Ho! the comments made it clear what my problem was: the world is straight man to the party. I knew something was off in that product but didn't know what, and I knew id seen things like that before. In this, I know what the issue is but I don't know yet how I feel about it. Yeah, more cross-referencing, a little more support in a few areas, but that's not enough to send an otherwise good thing down in my garbage pod. And ... I don't know if it's good. It might be. Is this a case of Bryce Doesn't Like Fey or Bryce Doesn't Like Barrows? It seems like there's an important play point in this, the role of the red herring adventure, and I'm not sure I know how to feel about that. I'm CLEARLY uncomfortable, and I've made references to the "it was all a dream" lack of consequences stuff. In this case its not a lack of consequences but a purposeful muddling of ... Whats Right? Certainty?

    There are so many sins a DM can commit in this area. Forcing characters to do things. Hiding truths they should know. Fucking with them in uncool ways. Is this an overreaction to that, or another case of some underlying principal like World is Straight Man?

    Fuck if I know.

    • Sounds like perhaps 'no regerts' would have been a better tag. This review sounds like one of the weakest "The Best"s to come along yet. If something like ASE or DCO is the best then I'm not sure how Witchhunter is also the best. Maybe you need another category in between no regaerts and the best ;)

      • It's easy to overthink these things. It didn't sound like a 'best' to me either. Bryce, your opinion is greatly respected for it's honesty and insight. It doesn't matter what your readers prefer....it's your thoughts we're here for.
        Personally, they've served me extremely well and I'm sure granted much needed exposure to those that deserved it.

    • Fair enough; the category is far less important than the text, and your ambivalence certainly comes through.

      My issue with the red herring concept as rendered here is, as I allude to, the fact that it is forced. It could have easily had exactly the same content but with a lot more options.

      • Do see my comment below, to Edgewise. Options for there being a witch are delineated and even given some guidelines.

  • There is an option in the adventure for the GM to designate a witch and helpers, if they choose to do so, with some guidelines on what the witch's goals might be, dependent on which town faction they're in.

    • OK that's good to hear.

• I think it's an issue of trust being a vital part of the social contract of role-playing. When playing tabletop, what the GM tells you is the only available source of information about the world of play. The GM is basically a substitute for the sensory input you would base your actions on if you were actually experiencing what happens in play. If the GM tells you, "an orc comes bursting through the burning gate in front of you", then you have to be able to rely upon that information being at least mostly accurate.
  It's probably fine if it turns out to be a spy disguised as an orc, or if upon further inspection the gate only looks like it's burning because of some trick of the light, but if you react by counter-charging the "orc" and the GM then tells you that actually it's a giant or twenty orcs and now your in trouble... that's is uncomfortable to say the least. Some amount of deliberate obfuscation is all well and good, and in fact can lead to great play experiences ("wait, for how long has he been a doppelganger?"), but the misapprehension has to be plausible. It's plausible that Sigvaldr the Barbarian would mistake a disguised spy for an orc, less so that he would mistake a giant for an orc.

  I think the issue in Witchburner is that it comes across as a 'gotcha' adventure. In the context of DnD or other fantasy rpgs, it's perfectly plausible that a witch might be tormenting a community. Especially so in the case of this adventure, given the rich amount completely unexplained, creepy-ass happenstance, that draws on real world cultural imagery concerning witches and witch-hunts. So when it turns out that actually this was all just superstitious villagers, mob mentality and unexplained happenstance, this a) really stretches the social contract between players an GM to the limit, and b) leaves you with some very unsatisfactory plot holes; like how the hell did those teeth get in that pumpkin? And if the GM handwaves the explanation, "oh, just a random but rare magical mutation of the common pumpkin", then boy does that run the risk of feeling bad. The GM risks seeming ingenious and thereby ruining the credibility absolutely necessary for play.

  I'm not saying that Witchburner is bad for doing this. Tomb of Horrors does basically the same thing by deliberately trying to trick the players, taking advantage of their experience and expectations as DND players, and enforcing a strict regime of mistrust and paranoia. And that module is a classic for that very reason. The vital difference is that Tomb of Horrors is pretty straight-forward about the fact that you're being played, so the mistrust is focused on the module rather than the GM (unless you're the cruel GM who unleashes it on new unsuspecting players, expecting to be heroes like on Critical Role - in which case you're a prick...). I think the lack of openness about the fact that the players are being played is the main problem with Witchburner. If expecting an old-school fantasy dnd-like game, which is what's implied by the product, then Witchburner can easily play out like a cruel joke. If played it as a straight up horror game, no/low magic, set in faux New England, or even as a Warhammer scenario (where the characters and players are traditionally supposed to struggle) then I could see it working fine! But I think the GM would do well in playing up the question of whether or not there actually is a witch and making that the crux of the game.

  As is, Witchburner seems a bit like the adventure module version of performance art, trying to make a point by subverting your expectations. That can be cool if your group of players is into that kind of thing, but otherwise it's probably better to either put in an actual witch or pick a different module.

  • Yeah, I think you've totally latched on to it. And this also ties in with the It Was All A Dream adventures and the principal that the DM needs to communicate information so that the players can make meaningful choices. Otherwise, they all lead to Gotcha DM'ing. A paragraph up front in Witchburner that has the DM play the first two encounters straight and then lead the party more and more in to the realm of "Yup, this is all BS" can be followed up by temptation. They are gonna pay you, etc, if you continue down the path you know is wrong Then it's party, balancing the forces in the village, IF they choose to go down this path. Thats it, and it fixes it.

• Interesting discussion. I haven't read/played this one but the thing that comes to mind is, does it support the possibility for the PCs to determine there is no witch and put the kibosh on the witch hunt? If not that seems like a missed opportunity.

• I'll say that my players figured out early that there was no witch -- or at least set that hypothesis on equal footing with any other. They didn't seem to feel "got" so much as pressured to find someone to blame before blame turned to them.

  The players and characters have a lot of resources to figure out what's going on -- familiars, detect magic, commune, class knowledge, all sorts of things. I wonder if it is really going to take any group long to figure out what the lack of a unifying actor behind all the straaaaaaange actually means.

  At any rate, I can see how this adventure might lead to Gotcha-ism, but probably only if you're already that kind of DM. What I liked most about it is that it tests player ability to navigate a weird and unfamiliar space that has danger different from but equal to the kind of danger they normally face. I don't think it's perfect at it and could have used a little more in the toolkit (and probably also, for most games, some built-in way of getting a little dice rolling in the mix).

  And Adam W., the adventure explicitly addresses the possibility of the PCs realizing that there is no witch or that there's no one they can identify. And it also tells you where many of these citizens keep their treasure. So "rob 'em blind and ditch" is explicitly one of the ways this can go.

  • I don't know if Adam's looking for "rob 'em blind and ditch" so much as "de-escalate the situation and save some innocent lives". Are the fears and prejudices of the NPCs described well enough that you could discern what kind of answer to give them to calm everyone down?

• Or maybe The Adventure As Journey Rather Than Destination.

  In the end, the real adventure was the friends we made along the way.

• Here's a quote from Tolkien's forward to the 2nd printed edition of the Lord of the Rings:

  "As for any inner meaning or 'message', it has in the intention of the author none. It is neither allegorical nor topical. As the story grew it put down roots (into the past) and threw out unexpected branches: but its main theme was settled from the outset by the inevitable choice..."

  Two things I've always liked about that: 1) The author is a honest reporter, not a moralist 2) The story grows as the logical results of choice. I think both are good tenets for D&D.

  In a political landscape that increasingly needs to influence me as a pawn in its route to personal power, I have grown less well disposed to medium-with-a-message (never bothered me as a kid, just soaked it up gleefully). I know laying blame on your neighbour and burning people who are difference is wrong. Mass hysteria is real, etc. But I lack the stomach to play that out with my players over an evening of anticipated "fun".

  Perhaps that was not the author's intention, and it really was just to construct a "Red Herring Adventure" so that the players experience an interesting twist---like the plot of a well-crafted movie. If the latter, I applaud the effort to bring something new to D&D. But this context...just seems a bit heavy for a night of escapist adventure and, from the review, I get the impressing it was a bit forced. If we look too closely at morality through the lens of D&D it can get a bit complicated---heck, it grew out of war-gaming.

  In the same way the DM shouldn't be actively trying to kill the party (but its OK if he's rooting for the monsters like a fan on the sidelines), he shouldn't be trying too hard to obfuscate either. I think its okay if DM-as-designer constructs a scenario that is easily misconstrued, just so long as it's not so ridiculously stacked against the players to "sucker you in" that it comes off as forced or railroad-y. Most of the fun as DM is seeing what the players do. Which party members will jump to the wrong conclusions while you play it straight-faced?

  Thanks again for a thoughtful review and some interesting comments. Discussing D&D is a great way to fill the void between playing.

  • Your reading of Witchburner as Red Herring Adventure is on point—it doesn't have a political or moral message and one of my key goals was to present each of the NPCs with redeeming features. I never run my games as "gotchas" and in play, and I'd say that the morally "cleanest" solution here is to walk away ...

    ... or, perhaps, find a rabbit in the woods, polymorph it into a human, present it as the witch - sell everyone on it - and burn it. Everyone's happy (except the rabbit) and all ends well.

    I should have more explicitly highlighted that DMs should watch Monty Python's spanish inquisition and peasant commune videos before running this game. Hmm.

• Bryce, thank you for the brilliant review!

  I honestly like to hear how it makes you feel ambivalent. I agree - it does subvert the traditional D&D adventure and quest, and I agree - it could be better. In many ways it tiptoes the line between setting and adventure, without quite coming down on either side.

  I've read a few commenters worrying about the players feeling like there was a "gotcha." I absolutely never encourage that kind of play, but perhaps I should have added a few paragraphs on how to deal with that in the context of the adventure. The way I recommend running it is straight and with empathy for the NPCs. None of them are completely bad, but they will do bad things as they get more and more frightened.

  The reason I didn't put in a "good ending" is ... because I didn't really see one. This is a town that has 'decided' that there must be a witch, which makes sense in their worldview, and that finding and destroying the witch will cure them of their woes. Honestly, the best "good" option I saw was walking away (but as reflected in the previous comment, a bit of deception with a polymorph spell would also work).

  It was also incredibly challenging to present the framework of an investigative adventure whose inner seed is a red herring, one that can be solved in three days with a "trick" or by walking away. I ... think I got close to that? But it's a hard task.

  That said, I hope the NPCs by themselves, and the setting they allude to, are interesting enough to serve the DM as fuel for their own imagination.

  One commenter mentioned players itching to roll dice: that is a very fair point. In a classic D&D game, players expect to roll dice and kill baddies. This adventure makes that very hard and makes for itchy dice hands.

  Cheers,
  -Luka