{"id":5170,"date":"2015-05-06T06:32:16","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T10:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=2552"},"modified":"2019-02-19T08:22:11","modified_gmt":"2019-02-19T13:22:11","slug":"the-devils-spine-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=5170","title":{"rendered":"The Devil's Spine"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ds\"<\/a>
\nby Monte Cook
\nMonte Cook Games
\nNumenera
\nFirst Tier<\/p>\n

It begins simply enough. Doesn\u2019t it always? A nobleman\u2019s estate needs tending in his absence. But what secrets lurk in its shadows? What deals has this man made with whispered voices in that darkness? And once such a discovery is made, can it be undone?
\nMechanistic and dull, this adventure is overly specific in areas that will only slightly impact the gameplay and far far too minimal in actual game-able contact. The result is a ham-handed set up with mountains of text about things are that are only slightly relevant with game-able content almost an after-thought. There are actually four adventures\/episodes in this booklet. Adventure 1 is the get infected\/hook. Adventure 2 is \u201cwipe out giant virus hive mind\u201d. Adventure 3 is \u201cloot the trapped tomb\u201d and adventure 4 is \u201cunder the sea castle explore.\u201d<\/p>\n

I LUV Gamma World and want to have millions & millions of its babies. I have only slightly less love for every other post-apoc game every written, up to and including Morrow Project. It will always be my first love. And just like Erica, from high school 30 hears ago, it shall remain unfulfilled. The trappings are here in the art, and in the various found objects and the environments. Most of it, though, lacks soul. It\u2019s presented without the love that a dreamer would have. Short, punchy descriptions that fire your imagination \u2026 are seldom found. Instead we get history and backstory and details layered on detail of things that won\u2019t matter. Assumptions have been made by the writer but not communicated, although you can kind of see them sideways in the implicit choices made in what do describe and how. Sure, the party doesn\u2019t HAVE to do X, but all of the writing is focused that way. But the up front doesn\u2019t present it in that manner. There are 3 main interstates between Indy & DC. Let me explain in detail the third and most non-obvious one \u2026. but you see, it\u2019s not explicitly presented that way. Maddenning and frustrating.
\nBaron von Butthump finds a horrid creature under his house and makes an obscene deal with it. Then he goes away with his trusted servants and hires some strangers (the party) to look after his house. Uh \u2026 ok \u201cHey, don\u2019t go in the basement; my secret alter to Mamon and doomsday device I\u2019m planning on taking over the world with is down there. Back in a month! Have fun in the pool \u2026 and don\u2019t forget to water the plants!\u201d Improbable setup leads to the party finding the secret basement and \u2026 getting infected with spine parasites that will kill them in 3 months! Yeah you! Mommy parasite will remove them for you, but you need to go on three quests for her to do it. Two to get the surgery tools and one strictly for her. The whole \u201cif you bring me the tools then I\u2019ll do it for you, and in return I want you to do Y\u201d is pretty ok with me. What\u2019s not ok is the transparent set up. If my DM pulled this shit on me I\u2019m sure I would not come back, unless it were a friend and even then I can\u2019t see anyone I game with not groaning. \u201cOk, ok, you want us to go on the fucking adventure. I got it. And you \u2018persuaded\u201d us by infecting us with a lethal disease. How about our characters just die and we start new ones?\u201d The BEST hooks motivate the PLAYERS, not the characters. 5 minutes after character creation you have a disease that will kill you in three months? Ok, I roll up a new character, Traveller style.<\/p>\n

This reminds me of another major major flaw: the railroading. Not in the traditional sense of do A, then B, then C. There\u2019s some of that in this adventure but I\u2019m instead referring to how the NPC\u2019s interact with the party. EVERYONE has motivation which is mighty convenient. The naga thing has a bunch of eggs and the party gets infected with them. She\u2019s super-worried about them, and thus struck the deal with Baron von Butthump to feed people to her\/them. Super protective. But also doesn\u2019t give a shit about the them and is willing to remove the parasites, her children, form the characters. This is explicitly said in the adventure. Her motivations are exactly what they need to be to force the adventure a certain way. Likewise there\u2019s a lot of \u201cthey always attack everyone until dead\u201d motivations, and super-powerful creatures who love talking to the players. The entire thing is just one big set-up, a play within a play for the benefit of manipulating the characters in to the adventure the writer THINKS they should have.<\/p>\n

The writing is dull and uninspired. There\u2019s no verve or zest in the descriptions. Mechanistic and going through the motions. It stands in great contract to the imagery invoked in Manor of the Black Manse. Short, punchy, vivid. Instead there\u2019s lots of repeat text. The entire thing strikes me as some cross between the Similarion and \u201clet me tell you about the adventure I ran last week \u2026\u201d It\u2019s conversational. It\u2019s full of dull things. It\u2019s not focused on the one thing it NEEDS to be: a tool to help the DM run a game. It meanders. That kind of nonsense is prefect for a fluff book. It\u2019s perfect for the fluff in the main rules\/setting guide. The adventure is a tool for the DM to help them run a game for his players.<\/p>\n

This makes you work, hard, to do that. This isn\u2019t about leading the DM around by the nose, and it\u2019s not about spelling out everything for the DM or the fact that a good DM could salvage it. This is about your buddy online talking to you about the game he ran last week vs. a product that helps YOU run a game for YOUR players. This product is not focused like a laser on doing that.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not worth it. I love the objects, the artifacts, the art. But it’s not worth it.
\n(Oh, and those virus creates are stupid dull. It\u2019s a fucking virus creature and you make it looks like a generic featureless humanoid green blob?)<\/p>\n

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

https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/120025\/The-Devils-Spine?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Monte Cook Monte Cook Games Numenera First Tier It begins simply enough. Doesn\u2019t it always? A nobleman\u2019s estate needs tending in his absence. But what secrets lurk in its shadows? What deals has this man made with whispered voices … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2551,"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-5170","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\/04\/ds.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170","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=5170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5632,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5170\/revisions\/5632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}