Matthew
2009-08-23, 05:36 PM
Picked this up a couple of months back and finally got round to reading it recently. I reviewed this with an eye towards using it with a lighter system, but since it was written for D20/3e I thought this review might also be useful to the folks on this forum that play D20/3e.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Plle200/Reviews/GMG4600CoverLarge.jpg
JG1 Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor (http://www.goodman-games.com/4600preview.html)
Authors: Robert Bledsaw and Robert J. Conley.
Contents: 64 perfect bound black and white pages, 1 title page, 59 pages of adventure, 4 pages of appendices, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Goodman Games.
Product Code: GMG4600.
Retail Price: £10.75 or $15.99.
Overview
An adventure for 4-6 characters of levels 10-12, the Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor presents a five level dungeon combined with a small fortified settlement. The module was originally written and designed for use with first edition, being published by Judges' Guild in 1981 as the seventh instalment of their Judges Guild Member Subscription. It was adapted for use with third edition by Robert J. Conley, being published in 2004 by Goodman Games in cooperation with Eostros Games and Judges' Guild. The binding is clean, the cover stock and internal pages are durable, the printing clear, and the maps well rendered on full pages in black and white. The cover illustration by Stephan Poag evokes the early years of the hobby, and the interior illustrations by William McAusland are workmanlike and typical of the art direction Goodman Games uses for its Dungeon Crawl Classics line.
As one would expect, the default location for the fortress is the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, in this case several hundred miles south of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, but it could reasonably easily be placed in some other swords & sorcery campaign setting. The back of the module suggests that the adventurers have been hired to track down a bandit leader named Cragen, and the text offers a number of other possible hooks to get the player characters involved, such as rescuing a missing elf maiden or seeking fabled treasures in the mysterious tombs of the Dragon Kings. The adventure is written in a fairly open manner so that there are significantly different levels of difficulty, depending on the objective of the party and how far they need to penetrate the dungeon as a result.
The outside world believes that the fortress of Badabaskor is the stronghold of an evil cult, but it has in fact been in the possession of brigands for at least two decades. There are several bands united under the leadership of Cragen, who styles himself duke but maintains the facade that the cult still controls Badabaskor. The bandits are in league with orcs, trolls, and worse, occupying the upper works and first two levels of the dungeon. The third level is the lair of an ancient red dragon, her mate, and her brood. These serve to divide the bandits from the remains of the evil cult, who have been living on create food and water spells for twenty years, and the tombs of the Dragon Kings. This set up feels a bit forced and is something of a strain on suspension of disbelief.
Nevertheless, the fortress is full of interesting details, factions within factions, and independent groups with their own agendas. There is a lot of room for negotiation, deception, and political intrigue, as long as the party does not simply try to take on the bandits in open battle or plough through the dungeon by force of arms. The author mentions that if the fortress is used as an evil town or base of operations it might be suitable for characters of levels 5-9, and that is probably a more reasonable power range if it is hoped that the party will rely on stealth and subtlety to complete their objectives. The adapted upper works are home to less than two hundred bandits, which is maybe a quarter to a fifth of the number in the original adventure. Since most are normal man types, it would not be beyond a strong party to sack the settlement.
Technicalities and Errors
There are rather a lot of editing errors and odd turns of phrase in Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor. Nothing that really harms playability, but it is a little irritating when sentences simply peter out, such as with the end of the description of the crown of the crystal mind on page 34. I similarly found disconcerting the occasional use of "role-play" in place of "negotiate", as though the former was a limited action, rather than the ongoing mode of play. That is pretty picky, though, and deadlines are what they are. There are occasional layout issues, such as the squeezing of the description of the town of Zothay onto page 61, but for the most part everything is given sufficient space and reads very easily.
It was somewhat disappointing that there were only four internal illustrations in addition to the maps, each taking up a quarter to a third of a page. This was doubly irritating when weighed against the number of repeated and overly large statistics blocks that plague third edition products. Indeed, it would be safe to say that maybe half of the page count of Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor is taken up by statistic blocks, which I understand was also distasteful to the author. Though this matters little for the purposes of running the adventure for first edition, it should probably be noted that the statistic blocks often do not correlate accurately with the text. For instance, the orcs in area 9 on page 26 are said to be armed with spears and shields, but are listed with great axes in their statistics block. Far more commonly, the text will indicate the presence of a different number of creatures to the statistics block, as with the hell hound(s) on pp. 27-28. Although this may completely undo my credentials, I also noticed that Angall of the Perpetual Void was listed s having the "two weapon fighting" feat tree, when in fact he should have been listed with "multi weapon fighting" (having four arms).
Conclusion
If I were going to run Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor then I would be inclined to make some significant changes. The dragons I would remove or reorder so that their lair was below the tombs of the dragon kings. I would then change the relationship between the bandits and the cult so that the former had been hired to serve the needs of the latter, but had since become difficult to control, if not outright defiant. As tensions reach boiling point the adventurers arrive and find themselves in a potentially Yojimbo sort of position. I would also have to take the number of classed characters in hand. I am told that Judges' Guild took something of "a class for everyone and for everyone a class" approach, but I find it somewhat unpalatable. Regardless, this adventure has a lot of potential and plenty of interesting detail. Conley's expansions on the original material do it no real damage and often add a new dimension. There is no "read aloud text" and brevity remains the rule outside of the statistic blocks. Indeed, Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor could make for some very memorable evenings of play.
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i226/Plle200/Reviews/GMG4600CoverLarge.jpg
JG1 Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor (http://www.goodman-games.com/4600preview.html)
Authors: Robert Bledsaw and Robert J. Conley.
Contents: 64 perfect bound black and white pages, 1 title page, 59 pages of adventure, 4 pages of appendices, and 1 open game license page.
Publisher: Goodman Games.
Product Code: GMG4600.
Retail Price: £10.75 or $15.99.
Overview
An adventure for 4-6 characters of levels 10-12, the Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor presents a five level dungeon combined with a small fortified settlement. The module was originally written and designed for use with first edition, being published by Judges' Guild in 1981 as the seventh instalment of their Judges Guild Member Subscription. It was adapted for use with third edition by Robert J. Conley, being published in 2004 by Goodman Games in cooperation with Eostros Games and Judges' Guild. The binding is clean, the cover stock and internal pages are durable, the printing clear, and the maps well rendered on full pages in black and white. The cover illustration by Stephan Poag evokes the early years of the hobby, and the interior illustrations by William McAusland are workmanlike and typical of the art direction Goodman Games uses for its Dungeon Crawl Classics line.
As one would expect, the default location for the fortress is the Wilderlands of High Fantasy, in this case several hundred miles south of the City-State of the Invincible Overlord, but it could reasonably easily be placed in some other swords & sorcery campaign setting. The back of the module suggests that the adventurers have been hired to track down a bandit leader named Cragen, and the text offers a number of other possible hooks to get the player characters involved, such as rescuing a missing elf maiden or seeking fabled treasures in the mysterious tombs of the Dragon Kings. The adventure is written in a fairly open manner so that there are significantly different levels of difficulty, depending on the objective of the party and how far they need to penetrate the dungeon as a result.
The outside world believes that the fortress of Badabaskor is the stronghold of an evil cult, but it has in fact been in the possession of brigands for at least two decades. There are several bands united under the leadership of Cragen, who styles himself duke but maintains the facade that the cult still controls Badabaskor. The bandits are in league with orcs, trolls, and worse, occupying the upper works and first two levels of the dungeon. The third level is the lair of an ancient red dragon, her mate, and her brood. These serve to divide the bandits from the remains of the evil cult, who have been living on create food and water spells for twenty years, and the tombs of the Dragon Kings. This set up feels a bit forced and is something of a strain on suspension of disbelief.
Nevertheless, the fortress is full of interesting details, factions within factions, and independent groups with their own agendas. There is a lot of room for negotiation, deception, and political intrigue, as long as the party does not simply try to take on the bandits in open battle or plough through the dungeon by force of arms. The author mentions that if the fortress is used as an evil town or base of operations it might be suitable for characters of levels 5-9, and that is probably a more reasonable power range if it is hoped that the party will rely on stealth and subtlety to complete their objectives. The adapted upper works are home to less than two hundred bandits, which is maybe a quarter to a fifth of the number in the original adventure. Since most are normal man types, it would not be beyond a strong party to sack the settlement.
Technicalities and Errors
There are rather a lot of editing errors and odd turns of phrase in Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor. Nothing that really harms playability, but it is a little irritating when sentences simply peter out, such as with the end of the description of the crown of the crystal mind on page 34. I similarly found disconcerting the occasional use of "role-play" in place of "negotiate", as though the former was a limited action, rather than the ongoing mode of play. That is pretty picky, though, and deadlines are what they are. There are occasional layout issues, such as the squeezing of the description of the town of Zothay onto page 61, but for the most part everything is given sufficient space and reads very easily.
It was somewhat disappointing that there were only four internal illustrations in addition to the maps, each taking up a quarter to a third of a page. This was doubly irritating when weighed against the number of repeated and overly large statistics blocks that plague third edition products. Indeed, it would be safe to say that maybe half of the page count of Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor is taken up by statistic blocks, which I understand was also distasteful to the author. Though this matters little for the purposes of running the adventure for first edition, it should probably be noted that the statistic blocks often do not correlate accurately with the text. For instance, the orcs in area 9 on page 26 are said to be armed with spears and shields, but are listed with great axes in their statistics block. Far more commonly, the text will indicate the presence of a different number of creatures to the statistics block, as with the hell hound(s) on pp. 27-28. Although this may completely undo my credentials, I also noticed that Angall of the Perpetual Void was listed s having the "two weapon fighting" feat tree, when in fact he should have been listed with "multi weapon fighting" (having four arms).
Conclusion
If I were going to run Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor then I would be inclined to make some significant changes. The dragons I would remove or reorder so that their lair was below the tombs of the dragon kings. I would then change the relationship between the bandits and the cult so that the former had been hired to serve the needs of the latter, but had since become difficult to control, if not outright defiant. As tensions reach boiling point the adventurers arrive and find themselves in a potentially Yojimbo sort of position. I would also have to take the number of classed characters in hand. I am told that Judges' Guild took something of "a class for everyone and for everyone a class" approach, but I find it somewhat unpalatable. Regardless, this adventure has a lot of potential and plenty of interesting detail. Conley's expansions on the original material do it no real damage and often add a new dimension. There is no "read aloud text" and brevity remains the rule outside of the statistic blocks. Indeed, Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor could make for some very memorable evenings of play.