The title of this post says it all. The Crypt of Krysuvik was dropped into my DriveThruRPG possession today . . . and it's beautiful.
I won't comment on the adventure or the writing, except to say that Doug did an excellent job editing and I really like Marshall's ideas and what he did with them.
But the layout, text, maps, and art . . . excellent. I'm very pleased that my book is so attractive. Not since DFM1 have I had such an attractive book, physically.
Thank you Doug!
You can see the cover here:
Crypt of Kryusvik cover
Okay, I finally read the adventure, a few questions and quibbles:
ReplyDeleteHow are the PCs supposed to find the crypts from the standing stones? There is nothing other than "they are nearby". Sure, I guess the PCs could just scout the area (actually I'm altering the Standing Stone's 'map' to include "encrypted Ogham" along the river, give them a reason to hunt down a Druid and get a translation).
Aside from the possible draw of the location, what is to lead the PCs to the son's secret place and the //required// clue to continue forward? (Ihis is a big one, it's right up there with the stumbling block in I Smell a Rat, but far, far, far easier to fix and justify on my end.)
There is "a lot of and the PCs just go there" in this adventure. Don't get me wrong, I really like the first 16 pages of scene setting (especially setting the town as a place for adventurers to set out from), but, all the cultural info is in Hall of Judgement (word for word) and as this is a Nordvorn adventure... I kinda feel that space could have been used to better lay out some "Rule of Three" extras (give the Players three different sources of info because they'll miss one, ignore one, and misinterpret the third). It also suffers a little from "how did this monster get there", but that's also a genre convention, so it's more one of 'my pet bugaboos'.
I'm torn on "It's a 125 point group adventure" being positive or negative. It's DFPRG, which calls out for some more good 250 point adventures, but it came packaged with Delvers to Grow, so supporting that is optimum. Overall, it looks dead easy to scale up, and that is usually the harder than scaling down, so I'm willing to just make the executive decision that "it's a positive" and ignore my "but I want more 250 point adventures" whining.
Those quibbles are fixable, and the adventure is far superior to "I Smell A Rat", but it's stuff to think about for the next Del'Orto and LaPira published adventure.
"How are the PCs supposed to find the crypts from the standing stones?"
DeleteWhich crypts do you think are not findable? Maybe we didn't put in enough detail.
"There is a 'a lot of and the PCs just go there' in this adventure." That's not an unfair criticism, but if you are playing delvers seeking treasure, and know of places that either contain the loot or a clue to the loot, wouldn't that be enough to get you there? Is there more necessary to be added to ensure they go and look for the loot, in a loot-driven game? A GM can always add reasons if the PCs aren't the loot-hunting kind, of course, but the adventure assumes that DFRPG is being played by guys who want to get money, and are willing to go and find it when others haven't been able to.
The whole reason for the adventure is support for Delvers to Grow. It's not like we decided to just add that in or focus on it - it was part of the pitch from Doug for a potential book.
"Which crypts do you think are not findable? Maybe we didn't put in enough detail."
DeleteIt's that the adventure states "Armed with the information on the stone, and a reasonably accurate map of the area, the PCs should be able to locate the Advisor’s Tomb."
Except there is no info on the Stone aside from "both tombs are nearby". If the PCs are just meant to quarter the area and search, yeah, so be it, they'll make a Navigation roll to avoid missing it as they grid search out in a spiral from the stone...
And there is nothing, no clues, leading them to the area they have to go to in order to get the info that leads to being able to find the Crypt itself. I can add those clues in myself, but I was just pointing out that they are not actually there.
Granted, the town's folk could just lead the PCs to the first two Tombs, they aren't meant to be hidden.
And yeah, I get that the adventure fits with Build-A-Bjorn tightly, but some of the tantalizing info that can be gleaned from it (Where Is Jarl Orm?) would go so well in the Nordlond Saga... though you could run this first and hopefully ladle that info on as forshadowing to later adventures in the Veiddarlönd... espeially if further Build-A-Bjorn adventures add to these things or make for good step-offs from here.
I'll take a look. That stone changed a bit draft to draft, so it's possible it needs tweaking of some kind.
DeleteThanks for the specific comments, by the way. I don't think I said that above.
Thumbs up. It's a good adventure, just those two things are a bit... absent. And yeah, I can see that they probably got lost in editing.
DeleteAlso kinda aiming these (hopefully constructive) criticisms towards Marshall cause it sounds like he's gonna be doing his own books next and I'd like to see that writing be as strong as possible!
About evileeyore's waffling about point levels of adventures, how hard is it to provide multiple stats (or recommendations) and make the adventure usable at multiple point levels? This is something WotC did a lot of in their 3E/3.5E era where most Dungeon and online published adventures had a section on adjusting for different levels up or down. 3E was exponential power growth so making an adventure work for a group 4 levels different than the design intent was a big deal but isn't GURPS linear? How much space or effort would it be to offer adventures with info to run at 150/250/350 so GMs can use Delvers to Grow, new characters at the default power level, and established characters? It seems that with few published adventures for DF that making each usable to the entire audience, no matter their power preferences or group experience level, would increase sales.
ReplyDelete