{"id":2744,"date":"2015-09-09T07:15:28","date_gmt":"2015-09-09T11:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2744"},"modified":"2019-02-21T10:02:50","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T15:02:50","slug":"dcc-87-against-the-atomic-overlord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2744","title":{"rendered":"DCC #87 – Against the Atomic Overlord"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"aao\"<\/a>
\nby Edgar Johnson
\nGoodman Games
\nDCC
\nLevel 5<\/p>\n

For a thousand years Mezar-Kul has known only war, and now the Overlord reigns supreme. From his gargantuan metal fortress he rules the blasted remains of the planet\u2019s last city. Hope seems lost \u2013 until visitors arrive from a distant world, bringing uncanny, magical powers. Your adventurers must pick a path through twisted ruins, ancient missile silos, strange monorail systems, and a conflict with four deadly factions to save a world \u2013 or destroy it!<\/p>\n

This is a frustrating sandbox adventure set on another planet, with mostly technology\/Gamma World theming. In a ruined city, with faction, the party is asked to seek out The Great Egg and use it against The Overlord. It is presented in some confusing style that is part sandbox and part linear. There\u2019s something here, but it\u2019s poorly organized \u2026 some maddingly generic-but-specific thing going on. My head hurts.<\/p>\n

The party is transported to the ruined planet. The pretexts given are all pretty light. \u201cThey find a spaceship,\u201d or \u201cA book transports them.\u201d While I\u2019m sure that, yes, one of those things can\/could happen, they are quite generic. For example \u201cThe party finds a device capable of transporting them to Mezar-Kul.\u201d Well, yes, true. But really very interesting, is it?<\/p>\n

That same sort of thing happens time & time again in the adventure. Very specific read-aloud for rooms the party is likely to never encounter, combined with generic imagery and prose. \u201cItai promises rich rewards from the Spider Goddess.\u201d Well \u2026 While perhaps factually true it\u2019s not very interesting for the DM. That last bit is supposed to be the main motivation for the party. It\u2019s not very inspiring, for the DM, is it? From that you need to create some rich rewards for the party.<\/p>\n

That little bit is from when the party meets the leader of the first of four factions in their area. When the party arrives on planet they are immediately attacked by The Overlords troops. (Faction: Evil Bad Guys.) This first faction, their arrival having been foretold, comes to the parties rescue, and escorts them to their leader whereupon they get their mission, Along the way are a couple of more Overlord attacks. The party isn\u2019t forced to ally\/accompany with the first faction, but it\u2019s what most groups would probably do.More on this \u201csandbox but not\u201d nature later.<\/p>\n

The first factions base is weirdly described. The various rooms get, essentially, two descriptions: one if you came willingly and one if the group is invading. This sort of weirdly specific read-aloud\/descriptions is present in many areas. It\u2019s as if the adventure can\u2019t decide what it wants to be: a sandbox or linear. The best possible reading is that a headquarters is presented for each of the factions, along with some descriptions of their mini-bases. The problem with this is the weirdly specific text, combined with the overall genericness. It\u2019s like the emphasis of the development was given to the wrong areas.<\/p>\n

The four factions are well-detailed in their motivations, goals, and how they react to the party and each other. It is a little repetitive, but the information on the factions is very good, even if the \u201cbases\u201d are ignored. They feel distinct and the information is more than enough to mox things up a bit with the players and work on an ad-hoc basis.<\/p>\n

The adventure doesn\u2019t tie itself together very well, or present much additional data beyond the linear path assumed to be taken. The \u201creward\u201d section above is a good example. The directive for detonating the egg (the Mcguffin) , and controlling its energies, while key to the adventure, doesn\u2019t seem to come out anywhere. Nor does the reaction between the first faction and the faction that has the egg. It\u2019s almost like someone assumed that there would be an additional section of data\/background provided, but it was never completed\/included. You can kinda figure out what the plan was, but \u2026<\/p>\n

In addition, going off script doesn\u2019t get much support. Yes, you can strike off on your own and there IS an encounter table, but it\u2019s more of the same very high level generic stuff. Some additional flavor regarding faction encounters, or the like, would have been a welcome addition to the wandering tables.<\/p>\n

This is a frustrating adventure. You can kind of figure out what is supposed to go on, but it clearly could have organized better. There\u2019s also a distinct lack of relevant color & flavor. The bush gets described (your mileage may vary on the quality of the description) but the core elements gets abstracted in to boring facts. I like facts. I also like color. Two great tastes that go great together. But not here.<\/p>\n

This is available on DriveThru.<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/154981\/Dungeon-Crawl-Classics-87-Against-the-Atomic-Overlord?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Edgar Johnson Goodman Games DCC Level 5 For a thousand years Mezar-Kul has known only war, and now the Overlord reigns supreme. From his gargantuan metal fortress he rules the blasted remains of the planet\u2019s last city. Hope seems … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2743,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/aao.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2744"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5654,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2744\/revisions\/5654"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}