TL;DR:
Overall - 4.8 Hapless Henchpeople out of 5
art - 20/5 buy it now you mook
fun - 4/5 (numerous unlucky deaths, possibly receptive sexual partners turned off of RPGs entirely)
tone - 3.14579 out of i, beautiful and you may actually be doing a tarot reading on yourself while playing (don't/very much DO play whilst intoxicated)
James P is here
Stefan P is here
Doug's website is here
In a fever dream, or maybe awakened with anxiety in the witching hour, I fumbled in the dark for my glasses but found the hard copy of this instead. I recalled kickstarting it, and losing track because of 'zinequest but there it is. Did i put it there?
These days, when I read modules, i'm usually in bed, hunkered down, ready to fall asleep. This'n's no different. My eyes don't work so great. They tire easily. I desire to read things digitally but frankly, digital sucks. This DCC module came in the mail last week, or maybe right before the 'Rona struck. It sat in the DONT TOUCH pile or something, because, corruption, you see. So i forgot about it. I'd looked through it already when the digital version arrived - must have bounced off my tired brain. Intrigued, yawning, i fell asleep without grokking fully. through the gates of the silver key etc etc
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| The eponymous dwelling, pulled by ollyphaunts |
This one, this "The House of The Red Doors" by James Pozenel. I like it. I think we used to interact on the GeePlus, maybe?. I kickstarted it because it's a solo DCC funnel, something close to my heart. Interestingly, not solo as in "I play masturbatorily by myself" which mine is, but rather "We two people play you through this module and I am the DM and you are the player." I don't know if I will ever use it, but I like it. I like it inspirationally. I like it for a number of reasons. Maybe I will play it with my kid, but right now it'd be too scary for her, in my opinion. She's 6 and runs out the room when the tarantula shows up in Animal Crossing (BRB got an idea)
Anyways, this is great. Dreamy. I mean dreamy as in "relies heavily on symbolism". There is some amazing Doug Kovacs B&W art for Lotteria-inspired images. Not quite Tarot/not quite Archetype. The player is meant to pick up clues at the start, maybe decide to adhere to an alignment, and follow the prompts in the narrative to get either killed (medium likely), bad-choice out (fairly likely as a frequent possible choice), or "win" and become a full-fledged character candidate. You could come away with some cool stuff (a mirror, a knife, a holy symbol), maybe better stuff (for example the deed to a whole haunted castle!). It's evocative, creepy, dreamy, rife with Appendix-N symbols. There is even a Bull-Headed Clockwork Bird thing as a monster. All the DCs for success are fairly low - in the DC5-DC8 range, as befits pre-heroic nobodies slinking away from the pub one night to take a stab at a better life.
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| Sneak around 'im, if you are able. I named him Poag |
Worth buying for Kovac's and Poag's art, alone, the prose is pretty good and a great model for short adventure design. Fairly linear, with meaningful choices in the scope of the narrative. There is even a score sheet included for the Judge's ease of use, and it would be handy if you were trying to run it as a tourney (which is suggested). I like it so much that I would probably steal the idea and re-write similar, limited scenarios for certain classes. I've had a follow-up for HHSOLO1 in my head for thieves for a long time but it's too tangled but this is great bite-sized game for two lonely (or quarantined!) people. Love the art, Stroud's fingers are in it, Teigler's too
Run don't walk. Seems to me you could internalize the whole thing except the faux "reading" and use it to introduce curious passers-by. I geas thee: now go and retrieve it and get thee from my site
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| a smattering of the symbols/lotteria page by Doug Kovacs; erotic, don't you think? |
