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| The horror! |
A few days ago I got a call from Dread Rosgool, Associate Vice Deputy Director of Blogging Operations at DiceChucker Enterprises. Dread Ros had this to say:
Dread Rosgool: Your position with DiceChucker Enterprises is dependent on content, and you're just not producing. The Board wants your ass fired last week but I've convinced them to give you 48 hours to come up with something. If you don't, they'll replace you with a friggin' bot from ChatGPT.
Me: Oh, that might be interesting.
Dread: And they'll cut off your subscription to--
Me: I only read it for the articles!
Dread: --the Cheese of the Month Club.
Me: Oh, that. Heheh...
Dread: Moving on. As you've specialized in obsessing over dead modules from the 80s--
Me: Hommlet came out in the 70s.
Dread: Shut up and let me finish--
Me: Just saying, so that the pedants don't get after us.
Dread: As if the pedants are still reading the dessicated corpse of your blog? Anyway, why don't you take a crack at B5 Horror on the Hill.
B5 Horror on the Hill--by our old friend Douglas Niles of Reptile God fame--was published in 1983. By this time TSR had gotten over it's awkward
pubescence; the acne had cleared up, voice had settled down, and they'd
traded in their 70s bell bottoms and Fonz t-shirts for 80s polo shirts
and dockers. [EDIT: I've since learned that the Dockers brand was not introduced until 1986; what were we calling the trousers worn by douchebags in 1983?] Reflecting the new fashions, this is the first "B" module to feature TSR's new "trade dress" characterised by the dragon ampersand logo still in use today and removal of the list of other D&D products on the back cover.
Here's the setup to the adventure: your [level 1-3] PCs are chillin' at a river outpost named "Guido's Fort" which is dominated by an ominous, smoke-spewing hill across the river. Sadly--and this is likely the reason that no one ever cared about this module--we don't learn much about Guido's Fort other than it's got an inn named the "Lion's Den" wherein can be found an "Old Timer" which is not, as one might suppose, a venerable clock but rather an elderly NPC.
Side note: the wikipedia page for Horror on the Hill mentions a review from Imagine
magazine which praises the lack of detail of Guido's Fort as a positive
feature because "it can be easily incorporated into an existing
campaign." To which I say to the chowderheads at Imagine: how many people decided that they couldn't
run the Keep on the Borderlands because it was too difficult to
incorporate such a detailed keep into their campaign?
Anyway, the "Old Timer" is willing to share--at the rate of one rumor per beer consumed--his knowledge about The eponymous Hill across the river. Let's take a minute to discuss the river. It's called the River Shrill, as in high pitched, piercing; one expects a fast running, boulder strewn, cacophonous confluence, right? But this River Shrill is a mile freakin' wide--Shrill indeed, this is a subsonic bass drum of a waterway!
Side note to the dullards at Imagine: wouldn't it be rather difficult to squeeze this module into your existing campaign if you don't have any mile-freakin'-wide rivers in it?
And just as a visual reference, I did a non-comprehensive survey of rivers of North America and came up with 3 that are ~1 mile wide for a significant stretch: the Hudson south of the Tappan Zee, the St. Lawrence downstream of the Thousand Islands to ~the Ogdensburg-Prescott Bridge, and the Columbia for a stretch where it forms the WA-OR border east of the Cascade Mtns. Those of you who live near one of these reaches can run out and have a look.
Rosgool's reason for choosing this particular old-timey module was
that it hasn't garnered much
attention in the digital age. After
reading it, I can understand why. It's not that this modge is a turkey, it's
just sort
of ... fine. It's got a significant hexcrawl component followed by a dungeon
exploration through an abandoned monastery dedicated to a demon god. Pretty
standard fare, it exudes the competent blandness of Mentzer era D&D. It lacks a plot--unusual for a Niles module--and also fails to provide a significant town component, which could have been its saving grace. Which is why I've given up on this project and decided to review a different Douglas Niles work that does include a town: X3 Curse of Xanathon.
I'm not a big fan of...mm, MOST of...Niles's work. B5 isn't one I happen to own, though some fairly creative types have had mixed-positive reviews of the adventure.
ReplyDeleteX3, on the other hand, is one I do happen to own. And loathe.
But I've never run X3 so maybe your forthcoming review will change my perspective.
; )
I've never been able to fully articulate the reason I'm glad I started playing D&D with B/X in early 1983, mere months before those rulebooks were replaced with the Mentzer line. (Although I knew it had something to do with Erol Otus.) But you've encapsulated what followed in two words: "competent blandness". Succinct and accurate. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteI had exchanged on RPGNet about this module - my idea was that Guido's fort was crammed with refugees/hardy settlers eager to seize the goblinoid lands and that the two Magical Old Maids were moneylenders who'd love to end up as ladies of a rich manor with a lot of peons in servage until they had paid them back with huge interests.
ReplyDeleteThe part I liked best was the Neanderthals - eager to help against the goblinoids but either to be horribly massacred to motivate the players or to be kicked away by the hardy settlers once the goblinoids were defeated.
My interlocutor had an idea of a deliquescent goblinoid empire hard-pressed by human invaders.
Finally
ReplyDeleteUgh... yeah, the blandness of it all. There are some good spots in there, but altogether it just seems a paint by number affair. Which is weird considering it has some good elements that could be good. And great art in between.
ReplyDelete