What I've got is we can basically turn TBWB into a three choice structure
Lawful - with the Priest. This involves "buffing" the Priest and his connection with the holy magic of Sir Brandon and his sword.
I think the smoothest way to play this straight is to allow the PCs to join Sir Brandon's Order of Knights.
Neutral - work with Vivian the Witch to find a modus vivendi to keep the Fey and Humans in balance, thrwart the evil magic of the "Goblin King." Hobgoon is "obvious" character to be behind the evil trying to undo the good holy magic of the crypts. Vivian and the neutral path want the goblins, Fey, and humans to share Brandonsford's woods.
Evil - work with the Goblin King, harness the Dragon to conquer Brandonsford and the Fey (Can the Fauns defeat the Dragon?), and why not backstab the Goblin King to rule it yourself. Make Brandonsford a better place than it was under the Reeve (is what you'd say to yourself)...
Of course for more epic, actually a "Black Spider" or someone is behind Hobgood, and behind that character is another evil character, and behind that character is an even greater evil.
That's a cool way to frame it! I tend to think in terms of resources/goals for the NPCs rather than distinct paths for the players.
At my table, my players found brandon's sword, were given george the hunter's (sentimental) axe, talked to vivian and learned about how the fauns want sentimental stuff, got the wine from the faun, annihilated hogboon and co without talking to them, fed the dragon the wine, blew it up with the gem from ingrid, and then left to go on the next adventure
A bit of a mix but everything's internally consistent. The PCs didn't care to parley with the goblins, vivian doesn't mind telling the players stuff as long as they entertain her topiary-based ramblings, george the hunter is missing an arm and wants vengeance, the PCs can deliver that, and father william tells the PCs about missing brother dirk and the magic sword
I've really enjoyed reading your critiques of HitO and this module. What are some modules that you find near perfect, however you choose to define perfect?
That has a lot of the stuff that I look for as imperfections:
The factions should have goals, obstacles, and methods to surmount their obstacles
It should be easy to know what to say when players enter a room
Traps (and secret doors) should describe the mechanisms by which they work and how players might discover their presence
I should never have to cross reference another room while running a different room
In-line stat blocks are generally incomplete/bad. Either provide full inline blocks (explain special abilities, provide move speed and physical descriptions) or provide a printable appendix that does this (this is my preference)
Magic items need to be mechanically described (just like spells) and need some sort of description. A sword+1 is totally fine, but you need to *say what it looks like*.
Bespoke mechanics (like digging through the rubble in the dwarves mine) tend to be really bad; just use mechanics from the system you're building for.
Related, build for an actual system, ideally a popular one with a SRD like Osric or OSE. Systemless modules means everyone has to convert and that's dumb.
Triple check your map; make sure your room key matches.
Properly balance your treasure. Unbalanced treasure for one shots is fine; unbalanced treasure for long-term play is really annoying. Aim for ~3-4x more treasure than monster XP in the keyed encounters. Aim for ~1 magic item for every 10000 XP.
Don't give out random treasure and don't key random amounts of enemies. Rather than make the GM roll this during play, roll this yourself and then write down what you rolled and give that to the GM instead. "2 gems" is better than "1d4 gems". "A 100g opal and a 500g emerald" is better than "2 gems".
Shrine of the Small God by Ben Gibson is extremely close to my ideal.
Aberrant Reflections is on a totally different level of production value, even going as far as to have a booklet of visual aids for the players that I could hand out for the complex rooms.
Beware the Beekeeper (Echoes from Formalhaut 01) is only held back by it's sloppy inline monster stats (no move speed, special abilities are not described) and the map does not have a grid or scale.
Castle Xyntillan could use more backlinking (and better inline monster stats), and preamble (i'd love a few paragraphs about the Grayl and a rundown of the Malevol family dynamics) but is otherwise fantastic.
Arden Vul is probably the best in terms of content, with the only negatives being how much of a commitment it is to digest and how dense the room keys are.
I'm running this right now, and this was helpful for pointing out a few potholes to avoid during game time. Much obliged for the attention to detail and general thoughts. I doubt we'll see a 3rd revised version, but you never know...
Really awesome stuff.
I'm thinking more about this.
What I've got is we can basically turn TBWB into a three choice structure
Lawful - with the Priest. This involves "buffing" the Priest and his connection with the holy magic of Sir Brandon and his sword.
I think the smoothest way to play this straight is to allow the PCs to join Sir Brandon's Order of Knights.
Neutral - work with Vivian the Witch to find a modus vivendi to keep the Fey and Humans in balance, thrwart the evil magic of the "Goblin King." Hobgoon is "obvious" character to be behind the evil trying to undo the good holy magic of the crypts. Vivian and the neutral path want the goblins, Fey, and humans to share Brandonsford's woods.
Evil - work with the Goblin King, harness the Dragon to conquer Brandonsford and the Fey (Can the Fauns defeat the Dragon?), and why not backstab the Goblin King to rule it yourself. Make Brandonsford a better place than it was under the Reeve (is what you'd say to yourself)...
Of course for more epic, actually a "Black Spider" or someone is behind Hobgood, and behind that character is another evil character, and behind that character is an even greater evil.
That's a cool way to frame it! I tend to think in terms of resources/goals for the NPCs rather than distinct paths for the players.
At my table, my players found brandon's sword, were given george the hunter's (sentimental) axe, talked to vivian and learned about how the fauns want sentimental stuff, got the wine from the faun, annihilated hogboon and co without talking to them, fed the dragon the wine, blew it up with the gem from ingrid, and then left to go on the next adventure
A bit of a mix but everything's internally consistent. The PCs didn't care to parley with the goblins, vivian doesn't mind telling the players stuff as long as they entertain her topiary-based ramblings, george the hunter is missing an arm and wants vengeance, the PCs can deliver that, and father william tells the PCs about missing brother dirk and the magic sword
I've really enjoyed reading your critiques of HitO and this module. What are some modules that you find near perfect, however you choose to define perfect?
Oh also! I posted an audit of a module here: https://rancourt.substack.com/p/audit-tower-silveraxe
That has a lot of the stuff that I look for as imperfections:
The factions should have goals, obstacles, and methods to surmount their obstacles
It should be easy to know what to say when players enter a room
Traps (and secret doors) should describe the mechanisms by which they work and how players might discover their presence
I should never have to cross reference another room while running a different room
In-line stat blocks are generally incomplete/bad. Either provide full inline blocks (explain special abilities, provide move speed and physical descriptions) or provide a printable appendix that does this (this is my preference)
Magic items need to be mechanically described (just like spells) and need some sort of description. A sword+1 is totally fine, but you need to *say what it looks like*.
Bespoke mechanics (like digging through the rubble in the dwarves mine) tend to be really bad; just use mechanics from the system you're building for.
Related, build for an actual system, ideally a popular one with a SRD like Osric or OSE. Systemless modules means everyone has to convert and that's dumb.
Triple check your map; make sure your room key matches.
Properly balance your treasure. Unbalanced treasure for one shots is fine; unbalanced treasure for long-term play is really annoying. Aim for ~3-4x more treasure than monster XP in the keyed encounters. Aim for ~1 magic item for every 10000 XP.
Don't give out random treasure and don't key random amounts of enemies. Rather than make the GM roll this during play, roll this yourself and then write down what you rolled and give that to the GM instead. "2 gems" is better than "1d4 gems". "A 100g opal and a 500g emerald" is better than "2 gems".
Hey Rupert! Glad you enjoyed :D
Shrine of the Small God by Ben Gibson is extremely close to my ideal.
Aberrant Reflections is on a totally different level of production value, even going as far as to have a booklet of visual aids for the players that I could hand out for the complex rooms.
Beware the Beekeeper (Echoes from Formalhaut 01) is only held back by it's sloppy inline monster stats (no move speed, special abilities are not described) and the map does not have a grid or scale.
Castle Xyntillan could use more backlinking (and better inline monster stats), and preamble (i'd love a few paragraphs about the Grayl and a rundown of the Malevol family dynamics) but is otherwise fantastic.
Arden Vul is probably the best in terms of content, with the only negatives being how much of a commitment it is to digest and how dense the room keys are.
Thanks for the thorough reply. I hadn't heard of the Gibson adventure.
Arden Vul is such a phenomenal feat of imagination. People knock it for its verbosity, but it fits the intricately detailed setting.
Thanks again for the recommendations.
I'm running this right now, and this was helpful for pointing out a few potholes to avoid during game time. Much obliged for the attention to detail and general thoughts. I doubt we'll see a 3rd revised version, but you never know...
Thanks! Hopefully y’all enjoy the game!