{"id":8291,"date":"2022-11-16T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8291"},"modified":"2022-11-02T10:35:39","modified_gmt":"2022-11-02T14:35:39","slug":"hillfort-of-the-pagens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=8291","title":{"rendered":"Hillfort of the Pagens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Andrew Cowley\nBrittannia Games Design Ltd\nChivalry & Sorcery 5\nLevels 10+<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
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An advanced game, exploring the idea of corruption as a force, represented by demons and<\/p>\n\n\n\n
otherworldly entities.  The game takes the characters on a surprise visit to the Royal Hunting Lodge on the outskirts of the mighty Cordelon Forest where they are sucked into a world like none other they have ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 84 page adventure details makes a lot of wrong decisions. Emblematic of the modern style, it looks nice but glosses over the play in favour of \u2026 I don\u2019t know? I seriously don\u2019t know why or how it is as long as it is. A lot of conditionals?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m deep in to my request list now, hence a C&S adventure showing up. There\u2019s a reason these things have not been reviewed. This adventure starts with three pages of fiction \u2026 which does not endear me to grabbing it to review \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m struck by two things in this adventure, once of which is common these days and one not so much. Second, there\u2019s an almost mania in not actually covering the core parts of the adventure. In any adventure there are things that stand out a pivotal moments. And to generalize, in any encounter there are aspects to the room, or encounter, that are clearly meant to be why it exists. THE MAIN THING. And yet there\u2019s this thing going on in this adventure in which these elements are glossed over. Its strange, to see the most important parts of the encounter given almost no words at all. I seem to recall the WoTC adventures doing this a lot, Tiamat in particular, when I reviewed it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And, firstly, this thing is emblematic of all of the adventures published by the minor game systems. You know what I\u2019m talking about, all of the RPG\u2019s other than D&D. C&S, Cthulhu, Runquest, basically every third party publisher of core RPG systems. There\u2019s an emphasis on the product looking good. Glossy pages. Nice art. Layout that looks nice \u2026 but is essentially non-functional. While wandering around GenCon I would pick up A LOT of adventures and thumb through them and see the same thing over and over and over again. As if everyone is copying off of each other. Or, more to the point, as if they are going through the motions of producing an adventure, hitting the surface level stuff. The Trade Dress stuff in the OSR comes to mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There is an interesting little paragraph or two on Demons & Devils. On how they don\u2019t actually want to kill people because that would work against their main purpose, corruption of the soul and spirit. After all, you don\u2019t want them going to heaven, you want them to be corrupted. A nicel take and another aspect to them that is glossed over. I\u2019m forced to think, again, about my monster book project that covers things like this with monsters instead of the mundane aspects of killing them and where they live. And now, on to the bad!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, though, my usual bitching. Long sections of italics read-aloud. Just like everyone else does. Long read-aloud is a non no and long sections of italics are a nono. We don\u2019t make things hard on the DM and we don\u2019t compel the players to pull out their phones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But, now, my gripes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s like the designer doesn\u2019t want to cover the core concepts of the adventure. Corruption, ad so on. There\u2019s a part, early on, where the party is at an inn. There\u2019s not much description, in spite of their being A LOT of words. And I don\u2019t mean just the inn, but what goes on at the inn. We get the following: \u201cMany of the NPCs will have tails to tell, of Trolls and Dragons, who have slaughtered even the mightiest of knights and heroes. Try to instil a feeling of desperation and fear from the NPCs in the group, making it infectious to the player characters.\u201d This IS the heart of this part of the adventure. It\u2019s why the inn is here. And yet this is all we get. There\u2019s nothing more. The inn is five pages long, including the NPC\u2019s, but they are little better. No stories for them to tell. Just \u201che was in war and got scars there.\u201d Give me a sentence. Give me something to riff off of. You\u2019re not dictating the game by doing this, you\u2019re helping the DM run it. And then there\u2019s a section that says something like \u201cDo some gambling. Do some brawls.\u201d  And I\u2019m not really being an ass here, that\u2019s all there is. Why? WHo\u2019s brawling with who? Why? Give me some grudges, a cheat, something. You need something to hang your hat on and it\u2019s just not here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A core part of the adventure is finding a camp at the base of the titular fort. It\u2019s got some missing soldiers in it, engaged in a bacchanalia. We get \u201cThe camp is a tough roleplaying encounter, the gamesmaster needs to prey on the characters beliefs and vows and try to get them to say or do something against these vows, beliefs or dogmas. That is, the people here are placed to try to corrupt the characters away from their beliefs.\u201d But that\u2019s it. There\u2019s nothing more for the DM to riff off of. Oh, there are a lot more words, but to no effect in gameplay. THIS is supposed to be the heart of this encounter, and a major theme in this adventure. But there\u2019s nothing here to help the DM run it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But there is text. Paragraphs of text. Columns of text. PAGES of text. Encounters, rooms, that take two pages in some cases. His is not runnable. You can\u2019t run this at the table. You need a highlighter, notes, and copious time ahead of time to prepare it. And then I suspect its STILL a struggle. No dout the designer can run it, it is meaningful to them. They created it. But for the rest of us? No.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is clearly a product with a lot of work that has gone in to it. And, yet, it misses the mark in almost every way possible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $15 at DriveThru. The preview is the first six pages, enough for the title page, contents, and the start of the fiction piece. It shows you nothing of the actual adventure, making it quite hard to make an informed purchasing decision. Unless, of course, you can recognize the Tyle 2 demon from a mile away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/365045\/Hillfort-of-the-Pagans?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Andrew Cowley Brittannia Games Design Ltd Chivalry & Sorcery 5 Levels 10+ An advanced game, exploring the idea of corruption as a force, represented by demons and otherworldly entities.  The game takes the characters on a surprise visit to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8274,"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-8291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/hillfort.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8291","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=8291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8292,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8291\/revisions\/8292"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8274"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}