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| Snapshot of my notes that I printed out based on the Retired Adventurer’s Better Notes series of blog posts. These were very helpful all the way through the adventure. |
Adventure Reflections
This will be the name I give to posts where I look back at larger groups of sessions, whole campaigns, groups of one-shots, etc. and reflect on them in a more general sense. It won't be focused on the particulars of each session or the details - I'm trying to provide a "big picture" view of things.
General Thoughts
Overall, The Darkness Over Nijmauwrgen was not what I was expecting, but still a very good adventure. A lot of my frustration with it came from that mismatch in expectations - I had no idea I was getting into a 15+ session long campaign. That said, I took it as a challenge and I'm glad I did.
My skills as an RPG referee have undoubtedly improved over the course of this adventure, and the longer narrative arc allowed for a lot of immersion and memorable character moments. The dark humour and Lovecraft flavour both come through strongly in this one. The way we played it, it wasn’t very horror focused, it felt more like a Lovecraft themed adventure than a spook fest or an eerie mood piece. I think the dark aspects could be played up though, and there were certainly some stand-out eerie moments and set-pieces that have stayed with me. The temple, for example, has a really dark, oppressive atmosphere.
The module will require a lot of quick thinking from the GM and a little extra seasoning to fill in the blanks throughout. There’s 41 locations and a lot of them are just a single paragraph. There are events and NPCs hinted at, but not fully fleshed out. This will be a challenge for newer GM but I do think it’s a challenge worth taking on as it will be good practice.
Layout
The layout is pretty to look at, but hard to reference at
the table. Looking at the city map and then flicking forward to the locations
to match them felt like spinning plates, especially with no distinct city landmarks
or districts to orient around.
The text is also very densely packed in there. It’s the Merry Mushmen editing flavour, which I appreciated in a dense zine of articles to be read like Knock, but for adventure layout I found myself frustrated with it. It also has a fair few typos to watch out for.
Length
I did not expect this adventure to last 15 sessions. That’s
something I wish I’d known going in. I’ll know better from now on what kind of
things make an adventure long and “sticky” – lots of things for PCs to trip
over and get involved in. This one could really double up as a city setting, as
Brad and Yochai mentioned on their podcast review recently.
Expectations
In addition to understanding the proper length of a given
game, I learned too that tone is an important thing to consider before diving
into a game. I didn’t quite anticipate the tone that this adventure would take,
and I think I was expecting a bit more Elric due to the tone of the core
rulebook. That was really my own mistake, since the adventure text is very
clearly Lovecraftian in tone, and I should have just adjusted based on that.
Rules preference
I’ve also refined my personal palette for what I enjoy in
RPGs over this game, as well. I’ve decided that Black Sword Hack is a
little on the light side for me when it comes to longer games. Some of the aspects,
like player-facing rolls and roll-under ability checks as a core mechanic, are
not things I gelled with, and I often found myself wanting to rule things
differently.
I don’t like roll under ability checks as a core component because they tie roll outcomes too strongly to ability scores. In contrast, other games such as Delving Deeper only give players a small bonus to certain actions if their Strength score is 15+. This de-emphasises ability scores, and emphasises player strategy, character traits and usage of things like items, environment, etc.
Balancing
I also think that if you were to run this game system yourself,
you may need to house rule a few of those background special powers. At-will
invisibility and assassination were the most potent combination, and the two
players were able to trivialise quite a few encounters throughout this
adventure. It’s okay to have these things tempered a little either in-fiction
or simply as an agreed upon house rule.
Variety
Something I really enjoyed was introducing variety
throughout the adventure. In session
#8, the players took the role of two different characters for a session (I used A Man
on the Road and it was awesome). In session
#14, I used By This Poleaxe to run a large-scale city skirmish, “zooming
out” the action from the two main characters. These diversions were fun dashes
of heterogeneity to the adventure that I think worked very well and served to flesh
out elements of the world that wouldn’t be accessible through the eyes of the
two usual player characters.
Thanks,
Feirsteax