Adventure Site Contest - St. Durham's Home for Wayward Youths

Making Orcs in farmers

Back with another review for the Adventure Site Contest. Apologies for the gap, my wife's vehicle blew a head gasket and I've been dealing with the consequences. Hopefully the rest will come out quickly.

This entry is a rather interesting one from Trent Smith, for some TSR system (ad&d can be inferred), for some level range. The premise is absolutely wild, a rehabilitation center for non-combatant humanoids (goblins, hobgoblins, orcs, etc) of Evil alignment. The goal being to change them to Neutral or Good alignment. It's wacky and a lesser author would likely have stumbled and produce something that could only be placed into settings with specific metaphysics. But that is deftly avoided by the module not taking any specific stance on whether or not such a conversion is even possible. The head Proprietor is a true believer in the mission, while his assistant is simply using it as a cover to enrich herself by selling "tamed" humanoids as slaves. She does this secretly, and puts on a more kind and caring face to the residents, to the disappointment of the disciplinarian minded head proprietor. On top of this, a secret religion worshiping Moloch and headed by a goblin shaman (who is indistinguishable from all the other goblins by virtue of their dress code). Moloch has given his most faithful servant access to the spell Obscure Alignment, which will confound any Paladins who happen to come by and TSA the place.

This module is laid out basically as a heist set up. It gives the daily routines of all the residents and staff, as well as the rules the residents must follow and the punishments for breaking them. The map is extremely functional and highly information dense. With a massive 28 rooms fleshed out and described. That plus the excellent NPC descriptions come with outlook and attitude, to help a referee run them in the moment. Good stuff.

Sadly though, that is pretty much all the good I have to say about this particular entry. As good as the map, NPC information, daily schedules and premise of the location all are, this module has a killing weakness. There is not a night of gaming in this entry. This location just doesn't offer much for a party to do once discovering it. The hooks presented are fairly generic, either being contacted to raid and destroy it and it's inhabitants by disgruntled citizens or the opposite, raid and free the inhabitants for some humanoid tribe or other. Those are fine but they don't really play into the strengths of the module. It becomes a generic military action, which is at least worth a session. But the players miss out on the main gimmick of the location, that being stealth and infiltration. The other hook about dumping of prisoners is equally weak. Players are likely to simply leave their prisoners and go. It's not like they care if the place is on the up and up, they just want fewer mouths to feed.

The central problem is one of discoverability. If the players simply stumble upon it with neutral intentions (i.e. not already set on raiding it militarily), then they simply see the surface of the place. It's a bit weird, but it doesn't scream "TREASURE HERE." I could very easily see players going "Oh that's neat" and leaving. Secondarily, if they do actually want to interact with the interior (and have a chance of discovering anything of the deeper secrets) then they are going to need to take very specific steps to do so. The best way would be becoming guards / inmates themselves. This can work, especially if you have someone with good Disguise. I believe that this module would be at it's best as a sort of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest infiltration mission, but I simply don't think that there is enough information on the surface for the players to grab onto that as a potential idea.

Thrashing aside, I do think there is some hope. This works great as a repeated location. The set up works simply. Stick this someone where there are going to be alot of non-combat prisoners and the players need to return to anyway. Let's use the perennial B2 - The Keep on the Borderlands as an example. Say the church and abbot are replaced by a small chapel and this location, with this location being a few miles from the Keep. Stress to the players that letting non-combatants go is causing problems and then waltz the Abbot in front of them as a solution. The once they are comfortable dropping prisoners off and have a few levels on them, mention how slavers farther away have been getting a huge influx of exactly the same types of humanoids they've been dumping off. Now, you have an intrigue, and a reason for players to go past the surface level of the location as presented. This would make for a great capstone to a low level grind, and invert the normal play-style of dungeon delving.

Minutia and conclusion, there are quite a few magical items here. Many swords, and armor. A party raiding it militarily might very well make out much stronger that they were. Actual treasure is pretty low ~4500 GP. I don't believe magic items give XP in ad&d but I could be wrong on that front. This entry has potential for good, maybe even great gaming, but not in the contest parameters I don't think.

Sail On,

-ShockTohp