[HoE] The Boise Horror -- my review (LONG)

[Kirt Dankmyer <loki@triadntr.net>]

Below is my review of the HoE adventure _The Boise Horror_. It contains
spoilers for the adventure itself, _The Last Crusaders_, and any other part of
the HoE universe I feel like ranting about. You know what to do. If you're
considering buying this adventure and you have _The Last Crusaders_, do
yourself a favor and have a look. If you don't have time to read it all, skip
to the end.

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Okay, first off, a warning. I don't like prepackaged adventures as a general
rule; it's one of the reason I'm glad they're no longer in the sourcebooks.
Prepackaged adventures are usually overly railroaded, and never fit my
campaign. A good adventure, in my opinion, sets up a situation and lets the
PCs loose on it, covering a lot of locations the PCs could end up in and a lot
of NPCs they could interact with, without a linear "plot" or "story" the PCs
must follow. A good example of the sort of adventure I like is _With a Long
Spoon_ for Over the Edge. (Obscure reference, I know, but this shows you how
few adventures I actually like.) I present this as a warning for GMs who like
prepackaged adventures more than I do... I have a bias, so a grain of salt is
in order.

That said, I tried to view the adventure on its own merits, disregarding my
tendencies. Too bad that IMHO even if you like prepackaged adventures, this
adventure fails, fails, fails. As a player, I would be sorely pissed at any GM
who ran me through this adventure. As a GM, I can only shake my head.

Let's start with this: The Boise Horror is Baphomet. Yup, the damn demon in
Simon's head. (See _The Last Crusaders_. If you don't have the Templar book,
there's no point in running this adventure anyway, IMHO.) I have only one
thing to say about this:

LAME. LAME. LAME. And one more time for emphasis: LAME.

The whole story about ol' Baphomet -- including his ability to possess people
-- is in _The Last Crusaders_. Now, despite this, Pinnacle tells us that it
isn't going to tell us what the Horror is, but don't worry, it'll be cool.
Always drink your Ovaltine.

I trusted Pinnacle on this point. I said to myself: "The Horror being Baphomet
is so bloody obvious that they wouldn't do that to me." In fact, at one point
I had convinced myself that it said in the text that the Horror wasn't
Baphomet, tho I went back and re-read the relevant passages long before _The
Boise Horror_ came out and realized it wasn't true. But I still thought it
wasn't Baphomet, because that would be too easy. It would just lead to the PCs
killing Simon, not every epic at all, really -- we knew as of _The Last
Crusaders_ he was doomed. In short, I had faith.

LAME. LAME. LAME.

There was no point in waiting for this adventure. I could have run a perfectly
good Boise Horror adventure of my own if Pinnacle hadn't implied to me that
they had a neat surprise up their sleeve. Now, I really dislike it when stuff
is hidden from me as a GM, it makes it tough to run a game where the PCs have
any real impact. But, Pinnacle hadn't let me down so far -- the full deal on
the Junkers was cooler than I could ever imagined, and the addition of the
Saints to the Templars added a world of interest to them.

LAME. LAME. LAME.

There were absolutely no surprises in the Boise Horror. It was obvious that if
Baphomet was the Horror, he was possessing people to kill with, and that was
why he was never caught. The whole thing where the possessed victim tears
himself to shreds is a nice twist, but it's only a twist, and not even that
devious a one. Not worth the whole mysterious act.

The moral of this rant: If you're going to hide information from the GM, make
sure what you're hiding is actually cool. Otherwise, give us the information
and let us run our game. Those who like prepackaged adventures will buy the
adventure and those who don't, won't, but the sourcebooks shouldn't introduce
plots and then ask you to buy a very poorly written adventure to find out
what's going on. At this point, I'm probably not going to buy any more
prepackaged adventures from Pinnace, especially since I don't like information
being hidden in an adventure in the first place.

Okay, now that that's over with, let's take this adventure piece by piece,
trying once again to judge it by its own merits, ignoring the lame factor.
Unfortunately, it fails here as well.

The adventure opens in Boise, after the events of the "Kill Brad" adventure
from the back of _The Last Crusaders_. I actually like this fact, it creates
an interesting amount of continuity, and gives Simon a good reason to like the
PCs. However, the adventure does a good job of explaining why the PCs would be
asked to help Simon out even if they didn't kill the most powerful
Anti-Templar in the world. It's pretty much assumed one of the PCs is a
Templar or a Companion, but that's okay -- I don't see why they'd care about
this adventure otherwise, though an interesting alternate version of the later
plotline could unfold with the PCs as a Purple Doomie or Chamber team, coming
to the negotiations (more on those later) from another angle. Too bad this
angle isn't covered, but the name of the adventure is _The Boise Horror_, not
_The Iron Alliance_, so I'm willing to forgive this point.

The first section outlines Boise pretty well, and between that and what's in
_The Last Crusaders_, there's more than enough to run adventures in Boise. In
fact, this is probably the best part of the book. This part of the book also
introduces two Templar NPCs, a former sci-fi and gaming geek named Denis
Carlton (he loves this "white knight" thing) and an ex-athlete with poor
social skills named Winnie Franklin. They're both amusing and interesting bit
NPCs, too bad we don't get to see much on them before they're capped. As in
killed.

Anyway, the long and the short of it is after the PCs have time to hang around
in Boise for about a week, Simon calls in the PCs and the aforementioned NPCs,
tells them he's going to need them for something, but not what. The full moon
rises, and Baphomet kills someone by possessing them and having them tear
themselves to shreds. There is some interesting and well-written
cloak-and-dagger with Biletnikoff (the pet Librarian of the Templars), who
suspects Baphomet might be the Horror. Regardless, Simon tells them to knock
off investigation as there's a summit to go to, and marches with them to a
remote location with little time for them to prepare.

The summit is a meeting between Joan's Doomsayers, Junkyard, the Templars and
the techno-mages of the Chamber to attack Throckmorton before he gets too big.
The text does a good job of explaining why each faction is interested, and
also does a good job of explaining Simon's motivations and why he acts the way
he does. This quality holds throughout the text, though it's sort of annoying
that we finally get inside Simon's head most thoroughly when he's fated to die
in the same adventure. Actually, I take that back, it's *very* annoying.

In the next section, Simon and the PCs are met by a big Hellstrome Industries
blimp from Junkyard. There's a neat scene between the captain and Simon (the
captain doesn't stand on ceremony and/or security, but Simon feels
differently), and they're on the airship, which is described in excellent
detail. There's even a map.

This is where the adventure breaks down. See, Throckmorton has gotten an
assassin cyborg, an infiltrator model with some nasty Harrowed powers (notably
Marked For Death and Death Mask) who's killed and taken on the appearance of
one of the crew. (As a minor nitpick, I note we don't know how strong this
Cyborg's manitou is, so we don't know if he can power all his equipment. This
is an especially glaring error as the Heavy later in the adventure *does* have
this outlined. This is a minor nitpick because the assassin doesn't have that
much equipment, so we can just assume he can power it all.) He sabotages the
defenses on the dirigible so that Raptors can swarm the thing and drop off
automatons to capture Simon.

What the PCs are expected to do is run. This is where the adventure breaks
down for me. They're supposed to take Simon and flee, rappelling down ropes,
leaving Carlton behind to hold off the automatons in a noble sacrifice of his
life. While the text does admit a PCs might take his place or go with him, it
seems the author doesn't seem to think this is likely.

I have two problems with this. The first is that this is a cool dramatic
moment that many players would give their eyeteeth for, and they're expected
to hand the hero role over to an NPC they only met a short while ago.
Ridiculous. My second problem I'll get to later -- it relates to something
that happens later in the adventure.

Anyway, during the confusion the Thockmorton assassin whacks and replaces
Franklin. Yup, both interesting bit NPCs die before the adventure is half
over. Whee. There's not even much time for the players to come to like them,
no reason to be upset by their deaths.

Regardless, once on the ground the PCs walk to Junkyard. During that time they
might get to tangle with the viper in their midst, posing as Franklin, or
perhaps Simon just kills him when he tries to grab Simon. There's a Black Hat
ambush near the gates of Junkyard where the Militia watches without
intervening, which annoys Simon. On the way, Simon tells the PCs about
Baphomet, so they can later calculate 2+2. This section is okay -- not
terrible, but not great.

Okay, once in Junkyard they're hustled to a safe location and the Horror
strikes a couple more times in Junkyard. There's more cloak and dagger with
Biletnikoff and the local Junkyard police, and some reasonable flavor info on
Junkyard, nothing that someone with the _Iron Oasis_ book couldn't have come
up with. The writing he is solid but uninspiring.

The Summit info is interesting and well-written. Simon walks out on it because
Junkyard works with road gangs, and the PCs are expected to talk him back to
the table. The author bends over backwards to encourage the PCs to have an
in-character chat; they can't just make a Persuasion roll. I approve of this.
I wish there were more opportunities for this kind of roleplaying in the
adventure, rather than all the hot, screaming death that comes later. The only
glitch is several important paragraphs of setup for the Summit are missing;
they've already been posted to this list, but it's still kinda annoying.

The the Combine cell in Junkyard attacks the building. Yes, attacks. They have
two automatons, a Heavy cyborg (wearing Dreadnought armor, no less), and 40
men! The PCs are expected to deal with all this, and tear gas as well.
(Another nitpick: The text doesn't say what happens if someone fails the Vigor
check against the gas. I suppose it's in one of the rulebooks, but it's still
annoying.) At this point, they're expect to take a stand, and they're also
expected to be capable of taking 6d20 massive damage when Simon hews through
an automaton and it explodes.

This scene points out my second problem with the blimp scene. If the PCs can
handle this scene, they can handle the blimp attack! If they grabbed Simon and
ran on the blimp, why shouldn't they do that now? The Summit is pretty ruined
anyway -- the first thing the Combine does is hose down the Doomsayer and
Chamber representatives. (The author gleefully points out this is why they
didn't give those characters stats, because they die by author fiat during the
attack.)

The combat is very confusing, made even more so by the fact THERE IS NO MAP of
the building the PCs are in! Perhaps if there was actually a map I might be
able to grasp why the PCs can't run. This error is especially glaring given
the blimp, where the PCs are supposed to run, *does* have a map. What the
hell?

Therefore, if the PCs had to run in the blimp scene, they're gonna get creamed
if they stick around for this one. If they can handle this scene, then they
can handle the bad guys on the blimp, in which case they skip talking to Simon
on the ground, and don't get the information about Baphomet. So, either the
PCs miss some cool roleplaying because they're too competent, or they get
killed. Whee.

And if that isn't enough, during the combat the Combine grab Simon. Assuming
the PCs survive, Biletnikoff gives them Simon's sword, which he dropped when
he was grabbed. The PCs have to go Down Below, where they get ambushed at
least once by Morlocks (with surprise, no less), and then they find all the
Combine people dead and Baphomet out and ready to play.

Yay, we get to kill Simon now. Simon takes over briefly, and tells the PC his
soul is linked to Baphomet, so if they kill him, they both die for good.
Baphomet gets upset and tries to run. The PCs have to cap him with Simon's
sword. And he isn't an easy opponent -- he heals one wound level per hit
location per *action* unless hit by Simon's sword, and has a variety of other
nasty powers to boot.

The PCs are supposed to be "true heroes" and kill Baphomet now. Now, if
they're that cool, I have no idea why they can't handle the automatons in the
blimp scene, and why they can't be "true heroes" then. The author doesn't even
consider the possibility that the PCs won't be able to kill Baphomet, wounded
(or chip-low) as they are from the Combine assault.

Anyway, assuming they win, Biletinkoff encourages the PCs to keep the Baphomet
thing quiet. (No tale tellin' for these PCs, apparently. Heaven forbid the PCs
actually get a Legend Chip for killing the Boise Horror.) Jo comes in to
replace Simon, signs the papers, and the Iron Alliance against the Combine is
formed. End of story. Huzzah.

So, to summarize: To be fair, there is good, well-written info on Baphomet,
Boise, the Iron Alliance and Simon, plus some bit NPCs, that can be mined by
the GM for their own adventures. These bits make up less than a third of the
book, however. In my opinion, they're not worth the price, really, especially
considering how lame the "revelation" of the Horror turns out to be. The
adventure itself is flawed: Either the PCs miss some of the better roleplaying
in the adventure, or they can expect hot, screaming death. I predict a _Night
Train_ level of lethality, and for no good purpose. On top of this The
adventure is too linear (requiring this manic-depressive "run when the plot
says so, and don't run when the plot says so" thing) and doesn't take into
account how actual heroic characters might be expected to act. Even those who
like prepackaged adventures will have a problem with this one.

Oh. I almost forgot. The art is terrible, the worst I've seen in an RPG
supplement in a long time. I normally don't care about this -- if the text is
good, the art can be crayon drawings for all I care. At least if the art was
any good, I could treat the adventure as a neat prop book for HoE by ignoring
the text. But I don't even get that much.

To summarize the summary: Don't waste your money. I'm sorry I did.