Please note that this post reveals some spoilers about the adventure presented here.
A few days ago I was contacted by my good friend Ed who wanted to start another round of blog and podcasts posts about a common subject. This time around, the subject was to be Goodman Games’ Master Dungeon series of D&D 4e adventure.
The Master Dungeons series is about bringing adventures that are extremely challenging for players. It is aimed at DMs and players who’ve been around the block a few times and are ready to take on a little more.
I had really liked the first one, Dragora’s Dungeon, having played it as the first part of my 4e campaign. So I was eager to see what the next installment was to be.
Curse of the Kingspire is not a sequel to Dragora’s Dungeon. It’s a stand alone 64 pages adventure for 5 PCs between level 4 and 6.
Being in the Master Dungeons series, this adventure is not for the beginning DM or for introducing players to the 4th edition of the game. Partly because the encounters in this adventure are very hard for level 4 PCs but also because the way they can be sprung on careless players can spell rapid doom to even the best built party.
Curse of the Kingspire is unlike many of the adventures I’ve read, across several editions of the D&D game. It manages to mix both site-based and event-based encounters in relatively restrained adventure area: a hamlet, a swamp and a ruined castle standing in the middle of the swamp. It does that by making good use of the groundhog day trope.
The adventure’s core plot revolves around a cultist ritual gone wrong that snags the PC into an ancient curse that sends them back in time. There the PCs must forge alliances and battle constant threats while dealing with nothing less than a recurring time loop where everything resets after a set amount of time.
I must raise my hat to Harley for tackling something so definitely out of the established adventure format. In fact, it’s so much out of the beaten track that I’m not sure I could DM it properly! At least not with my current group. I’m not all that comfortable with dealing with time loops where we have to replay the same scenes over and over again.
However, if you like dealing with insane cultist NPCs, a spectral battlefield with hundred of ghost soldiers, a court of Evil Feys, a powerful yet cursed artifact and several ‘think or be severely wounded’ tricks and traps, this adventure is for you.
The adventure does have a few weaknesses, mainly that the final solution to break the curse is a bit anticlimactic. If played right, chances are the players will spend a long time wheeling and dealing with the factions of the Eladrin Court stuck in the Time-loop in order to decide what is the best way to escape the curse. However, whatever the faction they side with, breaking the curse is done in just one way and PCs do not get to see ‘different endings’ based on their choices. As soon as the trigger is ‘brought to light’ the adventure ends abruptly in a way reminiscent of Sarah Connors’ day dream in Terminator 2.
Then again, since the adventure is aimed at DMs with plenty of experience, the adventure is wide open for hacking and can be adjusted to fit the needs of pretty much any gaming group, ending included.
I’d probably do it in a very satisfying way where the Magnificent Bastard NPC featured in the adventure dies horribly just has he touches what he seeks… leaving the PCs with a pile of bones, a useful but scary McGuffin turned piece of Phat lootz and a feeling that they aren’t in Neverland anymore.
Hmmm, maybe I will play it after all…
So all in all a good adventure for DMs seeking to break out of the 4e model featured in Wizards of the Coast products and ready to put in some elbow grease to fit their natural styles.
Want to learn more about Master Dungeons? Read on…
- Atomic Array: Episode 017: Master Dungeons
- Game Cryer: Curse of the Kingspire Review
- Gnome Stew: Mastering Goodman’s Dungeons
- Campaign Mastery: The Plot Thickens – Hooking Players Into Adventure
Drop by Goodman Games to pick up your copy today!
Huh… Sounds cool actually, I had an idea for something like that, But it was a lighthouse light reflecting off of something… in the distance, that caused it.
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Sounds pretty cool. I’ll have to look into that!
Eric Maziades last blog post..What We Learned – Because Every Game Session Yields Questions.
Your players will do such silly things once they realize the whole world resets after a given amount of time…
Aside from that, re-playing scenes would seem to get kind of boring. But I do greatly appreciate those times when you get to play with the minds of your players. I would enjoy ‘resetting’ a scene, with the PC’s oblivious to this fact.
Yes, I would bask in the darkness of their confusion and frustration when the whole town acts like they never saw them, while they slew Stinky McEvil, the [insert chromatic value] dragon yonder behind ye olde hills, for them just minutes ago… Muha
Sorry for not showing up before. Was a busy end of week.
I think that pulling off a groundhog day scenario can be workable (and fun) if, like a movie) the group only replays what’s different. So for instance, if there is a fight in a room at a certain time… well the group only plays it once and we all assume that it went the same way, unless the group agrees to replay it in order to achieve a different outcome.
I’d do the same for all scenes that are repeated.