Post originally by Graham Wills at 2003-10-28 09:54:34
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Well, essentially, I think much of the review is personal opinion, which is to be respected as such, even if disagreed with. There are several items that need correction:

"The specifics of that pseudo-Wiccan coven seem to go against HPL's spirit"

One important point that CoC raises often is that not EVERY threat has to be Mythos. There are a lot of just straight occult societies. Is it against HPL's spirit to include Voodoo? Wicca? Historical occult societies? refusing to allow non-HPL societies into your game will lead to player boredom as they meet their 800th Mi-Go threat.

"there is a concrete, and possibly solvable, reasons as to why Dunwich is such a decayed and run down place"

Yes. There is. in shadow over innsmouth there is a concrete, solvable reason why the town is what it is, and it IS solved. It;s one of HPL's best stories, but it breaks your desire for an ever-present, unbeatable threat. Go back and read HPL. MOST stories have the threat solved. In fact, you even mention it later:

"It's mentioned in the story that "The thing has gone forever.", "It has been split up into what it was originally made of, and can never exist again."
But the scenario basically says "Woops, HPL wasn't right, I know better than he did, so just ignore what he wrote.""

So solving problems IS actually in HPL's spirit.

you dislike HPL revisionism; perhaps you should read the story again. it is armitage who says it is gone, not the author. If you want Armitage to be infallible, sure, go ahead and complain. I'm not sure why you want this, but go ahead.

"It somehow features a "non-malignant" form of Nyarlthotep. That just about made me sputter when I read it."

Maybe you should have read more than just that line. You will be glad to find out Narly is just as inscruitbale as ever. Again, i'd suggest reading the whole adventure before reviewing.

finally, I note that you want to remain faithful to "HPL's spirit" EXCEPT when it involves going into caves. I respect your voicing opinions, but it's an oddity.

Finally i note your scenario notes: "More importantly, it doesn't work very well as a scenario. The set up hook is implausible - they are sent back to Dunwich by Dr. Armitage. But why would he trust them? If he knew them, and trusted them, why wouldn't have have asked their help in "The Dunwich Horror"?"

Did you actually READ the scenario, from which I will quote:

"Exactly how much Armitage reveals .. depends on how well known they are to him", "If less sure of the investogators, Armitage is more cautious". So the scenario SPECIFICALLY deals with different levels of trust in the investogators.

Asking "why would he trust them?" is an odd question. When I started the adventure, I asked all characters for a connection to Armitage. End of problem. If you write characters in a vacuum, i guess it might be a problem, but who does that?

Why didin't he ask them before? Well, the text specifically states that he is too weak and drained by his experiences to go back. And that's apart from the fact that it's a very different job; not just dealing with a known menace, but an investigative task.

I consider this a very effective supplement. It has a wide variety of things to investigate, allowing a wide variety of characters to be used. It is not a "mythos creature of the week" adventure, and features a range of occult activity from mostly harmless to apparantly non-malignant to straight-out nasty. It rewards physical characters, clever characters, sociable characters of high and low classes and the players can solve problems on many levels. I liekt he fact that players have a chance to win big. I would not like to play a game where the players are doomed to lose. THAT is not in HPL's spirit.

Are there problems? Yes. The organization could be better. There's a feeling of a ton of stuff a round without an obvious way to get into it. A few more trails into the stories would nhave been appreciated. I would have liked an overall timeline of how events were likely to play out without interference. The caverns were a tad too D&D-like for me too. More strangeness there is defintiely called for. Overall, though, high marks from me