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

[PEGShane@aol.com]

Hi everyone,

*** Spoiler Space ***










I don't really care to get too deep into this, but I do have a few salient 
points for you to chew on.

First, Simon being the horror isn't the real surprise. The surprise is his 
fate, and exactly what happens to him at the end, and who will be filling his 
shoes.

Second, as to the "combat heavy" thing, this is the problem I have with 
reviews (and why when I take over the world the movie critics will be the 
first ones up against the wall). Jacques insightful review, by necessity, 
hits the "action points" of the adventure, making it sound like all combat. 
Truthfully, so what? Some should be ("Night of a Thousand Screams" by AEG is 
all combat and I think the premise--if not necessarily the execution--is 
brilliant). 'Fraid I'm not of the "deep roleplaying" school here. That said, 
John Goff is by far one of the most brilliant writers out there, and this 
adventure has it all. And as we've been playing, some of the best and deepest 
rpg'ing I've seen has happened while we tried to keep Simon from becoming a 
cyborg chew-toy (my character just lost a leg defending him--and I knew he 
was gonna bite it). ;)

Third, programmed adventures. Tough call. We have major storylines to 
develop, and we want you to be part of them. So we either just tell 
you--"Hey, a bunch of cooler-PCs than you tried to protect him but he died 
and here's the results." (Ever read the first Dark Sun adventures--and I was 
a big fan--but it was obvious you could have no impact on current events.)

 Or we do something like Boise Horror that I think is about as on-target as 
you can get.

Now let's briefly mention Fortress o' Fear. That project was cursed from the 
start. It was supposed to be written in-house by me to help pave the way for 
what *was* a tough secret to guess--Hell on Earth. But life, business, 
partners, and so forth conspired against it. So it was divvied up, written, 
and *supposedly* overseen by me--but I goofed it up and it didn't come out 
*anything* like it was suppposed to (all my fault). I still think it's a neat 
adventure and once played, leaves your posse with one HEll of a story to 
tell--but I also agree with a lot of the criticisms we've received on it.

So, the lessons we've learned--and continue to learn--will be applied to the 
Unity adventure, which leads you into Lost Colony and the secrets there.

Take care all, I"m at GAMA and can't answer my email too often, but I wanted 
to chime in on what I think is an EXCELLENT adventure and a further evolution 
of how major stories are told in a roleplaying game format.

Shanester