Re: [DL] Devil's Tower, Stone, Etc. (spoilers)

[Xotzil@aol.com]

>>You know, I may just have to break down and buy the d@mned trilogy now.
>>I have no interest in running it (I love Deadlands, but am not interested in
>>HOE), but some of the plot elements sound... interesting.
>>Anyone able to vouch for the quality of the writing, etc?  How does it read
>>for interest's sake, as opposed to as a series of modules to be run?

Well...the modules do not necessarily HAVE to lead into HoE. They can act as a magic door, but you can easily remove that option from them and disavow all connection to the other game with very little tinkering.

The first part: "The Road to Hell" is probably one of my own personal favourite modules that PEG has put out. A lot of action, interesting bad guys and enough material on the settings that it is involved in that you don't need to own anything other than the basic rulebooks to run. The uberstory is also plausible enough at this point for the posse to want to get involved in it. It also can quite easily stand on its own without connecting to the other two should you choose to go that route.

The second part: "Heart o'Darkness" moves slightly farther into the realms of the implausible. Your posse also finds out some pretty huge secrets about the Deadlands world (major revelations about Grimme and that nasty chap from the cover of the DL book) from events that take place in this module, and have run ins with two (and it could be argued three) of the heaviest hitters in the DL arsenal of badness. It kind of reminds me of an old D&D module in its own way (A2 Secret of the Slavers Stockade, if you really must know), which can be both a good thing and a bad thing. At this point, should your posse be somewhat altruistic, heroic sorts, they do have reason to do the things that are asked of them, though the longer they are in the module, the more likely they are probably going to be wanting to cut their losses and run. As such, it is difficult to make this module stand-alone, though the details of Rock Island Prison can be useful should you ever want your posse to go there!
.

The second module is also where "Black Sunday" happens, and if you want your posse to be involved in it, it's worth a buy just for that.

The third part: "Fortress o'Fear" has been lambasted and apologized for in the past, and there's no reason to bring up a lot of that again. It is a highly railroaded module, although the bottom line is that the IDEAS are really sound and I rather like them. The story of the Crossbreeds and their degeneration does make for great cowboy steampunk and their alliance with Kang does make a great deal of logical sense.

The "adventure" itself jars for me in many places, but I have a feeling that should I ever decide to run it, I could make it work. It works very well as a setting book (in the same way that Canyon o'Doom can if you decide to ignore the adventure aspect of it), and, again, you can use it as a magic door to get your posse into HoE should you decide to.

If you're looking for the story of what's inside Devil's Tower, by all means buy the module. It's really quite clever.

If you're looking for a way to mesh the Weird with the Wasted, by all means buy the module. It does do this in a highly convincing manner.

If you're looking for a good adventure...well...buy the module anyway, but be prepared to tinker with it a great deal.

My own personal $.02 on the manner. Take it as thou wilt.

--Jacques (Chris' friend)