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CE 1 - The Falcate Idol
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Terry O. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/29/2016 13:55:50

Daniel Bishop's The Falcate Idol, published by Purple Duck Games, is the first installment of the "Campaign Elements" series for DCC RPG. While written specifically for DCC, it is easily adaptable to the OSR game of your choice. As of the time of this review, there are five other Campaign Elements adventures (even a bundled version of 1-5), but here we'll focus on the one that started them all.

This adventure (as well as others in the "CE" line) helps the judge provide a short, 4-8 hour quest to respond to some new element in the campaign. Perhaps the wizard is hunting for a spell, perhaps the cleric is suffering extreme disfavor with her deity, perhaps the warrior is looking for a some clue of the fabled sword whereabouts, etc. The Falcate Idol is a fantastic drop-in quest for those situations, and many more. It is also an ideal one-shot for a con game.

Along these lines of versatility, the adventure suggests using 2-8 level 2 PCs, 1-2 level 3 PCs, or a solo level 4 thief. This is not "hot air" from the author; the adventure, as written, is that robust. Essentially, the adventure consists of a small temple with a secret underground portion. Ten encounters in all. In addition to planting your own hooks, you can use the ones suggested: a thief must steal the Eyes of the Harrower; an arcane caster must retrieve the Egg of Creation.

Thematically, The Falcate Idol, is quite tight in the way it presents a temple devoted to the Harrower, a neutral god of both the moon and death. Every encounter reminds the PCs of where they are, and what they are up against. Some "dungeon crawls" have generic rooms that could be in any crawl; this is not one of them. Every room says "Harrower" in one way or another. To enforce the feel, there are simple guidelines, as well as an "additional effect" table, to alter the way magic works within the temple; there is also a treasure table for looting corpses.

Like any well-written adventure, The Falcate Idol provides many areas of expansion into the present campaign. There is a curse, a "Walking God", a few supernatural/magical items (my favorite is the moon die!), and a creature's "transformative" special attack that could spawn a new adventure, just to find a way to undo the transformation.

In my own game, I've used it as a shared dream sequence for the party whose cleric was disowned by his god. This quest provided a means to regain some favor.

I highly recommend The Falcate Idol. Buy it and try it out!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
CE 1 - The Falcate Idol
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Seven at One Blow
Publisher: Kabuki Kaiser
by Terry O. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/27/2016 01:07:41

I come to this review from a Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) perspective. One of the features of DCC is its zero level funnel, where peasants roll the dice of fate (i.e., adventure) to see who dies, and who emerges a lvl 1 hero. Seven at One Blow takes an alternative view of this feature, but devotes more attention to it. This is an entire gaming system (with DCC influences, hence a chapter called "The Funnel of Doom") and an adventure. What I like is that it cohesively stitches together many ideas I see bubble-up repeatedly thought the rpg community: zero-level peasants, emergent abilities, classless PCs, and "old school" play.

Characters are classless zero levels, with only race, occupation, traits, and personality initially determined (just 4 items). Ability scores are emergent, rolled as needed. Situational resolution is handled by a roll-under ability score mechanic, generally referring to half the ability score unless the player can convince the GM that she's "skilled," the the full score is used (excellent chance for character development) There are injuries (crits) and fumbles, and a luck mechanic. The book provides a guide of converting any OSR system to this paradigm. Characters don't "level" through experience. Instead they can choose additional abilities, even very minor (non-DCC) deterministic spells, "cantrips" and "orisons", as well as abilities called "gests." In other words, there is no "level 1." One just becomes a more experienced peasant =). There is a section with advice on designing adventures, with useful tips whether you run this system or not. There's an excellent chapter of example play; this emphasizes many "old school" practices and is worth a read. Finally, you get a hex crawl at the end, packed with tables of plenty usable, and inspirational material.

Although it's pitched as a "Survival Horror Comedy Hack," it doesn't have to be that. The system is general enough to be high fantasy, low fantasy, etc. It's more of an alternate take merging together particular mindsets of play.

This is an excellent value and well worth your time. Buy it!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Seven at One Blow
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Dispatches from the Raven Crowking Volume 1
Publisher: Purple Duck Games
by Terry O. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/30/2015 20:11:12

I've finally had time to read Vol. 1 of Dispatches from Raven Crowking. I think it is excellent! There is so much fantastic advice regarding game-running and adventure writing that I'm sure many people, both novices and veterans, can benefit. Daniel Bishop does a great job of using clear, concise language to make his points with just enough elaboration to flesh things out without invoking "yes, I get it already" skimming. My favorite 3 articles are "Choices, Context, and Consequences," "Prepare for the Epic Endgame," and "Devising Initial Adventures for Dungeon Crawl Classics." I often found myself nodding along in agreement, and saying things to myself like, "Oh yeah, good point," and "Crap, I need to that more often." Excellent reading all around!

The only (very minor) gripes I had was that I felt like "Shanthopal," "Learning Spells on the Fly," and "Ammonites" seemed out of place and somewhat incongruous to the adventure-running-and-writing advice that occupies so much of the text. Admittedly, "Learning Spells on the Fly" may be a necessary postscript to "Devising Initial Adventures" but the inclusion of the other two articles was a little jarring. As I said before, these are minor gripes. In a perfect world, with no resource or time constraints, I'd have loved to see Daniel go beyond the brief examples given, and "break down" in detail selected elements of his Purple Duck adventures to elucidate the concepts he discussed. I think this would have tied everything together nicely and made a more coherent collection, rather than including the aforementioned 2 or 3 articles. I understand that such things are often impractical, but "squeaky wheel gets the grease" and all that.

I hope that "Vol. 1" means that a second volume is in the works. I have great respect for Daniel's artistry with the DCC ruleset, and hope that a collection of house rules and/or rules expansions/interpretations will someday be present in a unified collection (e.g., the Peasant Deed, Learning Spells on the Fly, etc.). Thanks again Daniel Bishop and Purple Duck Games for the great read!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Dispatches from the Raven Crowking Volume 1
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