The Road to Hell

By Newt Newport
D101 Games
S&W
Levels 3-5

[…] So, at the end of a long trek made at your own expense northwards, you find yourself outside the door of an inn where Dr Dee has paid for your lodgings, according to a letter you hold that details your current employment. It’s an ominous missive that details Dr Dee’s precarious position as Warden of Christ’s College in Manchester, and worst still that he has divined that your journey north from Chester will take you along a “Road to Hell”.  Its nine in the evening, there should be music and sounds of revelry from within. It’s strangely silent. You look at each other expectantly. Someone is going to have to take the lead and open that door and go inside.

This 74 page adventure uses about forty pages to describe four environments in an interconnected plot of an (evil) NPC to travel to hell to save his (evil) sister. Mountains of backstory for everything and meaningless window dressing encounters aside, it’s just a hack with nothing more interesting than stabbing going on. 

The adventure is in four parts. Following VERY explicit instructions, you end up in an inn. It’s a  bloody mess with headless zombies and ghouls and shit running around, as well as a few survivors of what happened. Which was a portal to hell being opened. You then go to a village nearby, to a church. To find the town on fire and the undead and devils and cult mobs running around. From there you go to a clearing, meeting some dudes along the way you turn out to be good werewolves who want you to clear their manor of undead. Stopping, or not, you end up in the clearing, transport to pocket hell, and meet the dude who opened the portal who has traveled there to save his sister. Lucifer would like you to do that also, for it seems that this pocket hell was created by John Dee to imprison the wickedly evil sister, and Satan don’t like the competition for Hell space. Or you can side with the devil in charge of this place, which is what John Dee wants you to do, and save him and kill the evil knight NPC dude so his sister remains imprisoned. I note that there are no real consequences outlined for either of these scenarios, as follow ons to your campaign. 

Nor is there any real treasure to be found for your level fives. While listed as a S&W adventure it’s got a VERY LotFP vibe with the whole post-Elizabethan England thing, John Dee, etc. But, also, the treasure seems VERY light for even LotFP. It’s basically non-existent. So, good luck leveling. Someone will, I’m sure, tell me that’s not the point. Then why was it written for a Gold=XP system? 

Let us, though, move on to the actual adventure. Do you like backstory? Well have I got good news for you! “Chester is near to the border with Wales. The city was established during the time of the Romans, when it was known as Deva, and was to be a strong base for the conquest of Wales. After the Roman withdrawal, the city was further fortified by the Anglo Saxons, against the invading Danish, and was the last city to fall to William the Conqueror during the Norman Conquest. During the Middle Ages it became great trade centre, not only with the local North Western region of England but also with neighbouring Wales and internationally via a port just north of its Water Gate.” Note: the party doesn’t Chester. The inn they stop at is nearby Chester. This is CLEARLY just padding out the word count. As is the ELEVEN pages of title and backstory before we even get to the players introduction read-aloud shit that begins the adventure. Absolutely none of this is needed. I can see, though, that you are not convinced, so please allow me to continue flogging this horse. “Five past eight. Mrs Weston, who is in the main bar, goes mad, runs screaming into the entrance hall (see room 1) and bolts the main door before sitting down next to the headless body of one of the customers, John of Rochdale. Mr Weston, who is in the bar initially, flees upstairs pursued by a headless zombie, who he pushes onto a large hanging candelabra from the first-floor landing, leaving it impaled there. He then hides in the upstairs water closet.” Ah! A timeline! No, not exactly. For the party arrives at the inn at nine. These are all past events. A detailed timeline of past events to explain absolutely every room in the inn portion of the adventure. THIS IS FUCKING MEANINGLESS. The inability of designers to focus on ACTUAL PLAY AT THE TABLE is maddening to me. It seems so fucking obvious. But, then, that’s not a kickstarters goal, is it? Designed to be sold to be read is a far different thing than designed to be played. 

“As well as being headless he is missing his trousers (which he left in his room, see7a upstairs). John was getting dressed at the time of the miscast spell after sleeping off the worst of the afternoon’s drinking (he took to his room at three in the afternoon) and ran downstairs, to see all the commotion. He made it across the bar, saw all the head exploding mayhem and decided to flee the inn via the front door, at which point his head exploded, thus ending his escape”

Hey, in the inn you can meet a Level 23 time and dimension travelling elf. Who doesn’t really talk to you much, and certainly not about anything relevant. He’s been asleep. Then he disappears. That was great, eh? Oh, hey, yeah, there are also two irish demi-gods hanging out in part three in a small cottage. No, they don’t get involved in anything. They are just there, pretending to be old people, with no sign that they are demi-gods. This is all self-indulgent shit. “Oh, tee hee hee, look! Demigods in the cottage! Isn’t that cute” says the READER. 

Of the actual encounters? Here’s one. This is in the satanic church in the burning village in part two: “This area is filled with twelve wooden benches, arranged in two columns of six rows

Crammed in to this area are twelve cultists, dressed in fine clothes. They follow one of two paths: one of Black Magic (Sorcerers) or one of arms and force (the Warriors).” And then some stat blocks. Do they attack? Are they hostile? Is there ANYTHING to this encounter? No. There is not. Almost every single encounter in this is a stab. Just mindless attacking. A very few are someone appealing to you for help/to join their side. With no real information as to what happens if you do. 

It’s a fucking hellscape of an adventure. Mountains of backstory, no interactivity to speak of beyond stabbing. Swords & Wizardry my ass. And to top it all off, a long myth in italic that takes up a good deal of a page. 

This is $11 at DriveThru. The preview is eighteen pages, most of which is that shitty long backstory. You do get to see two pages of inn, to bask in the padded out encounters. It could use more sample pages of actual encounters, to help folks make an informed purchasing decision.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/270306/the-road-to-hell?1892600