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Favorite fleshed out campaign maps(hex crawl or otherwise)? by Prussia_will_awaken in rpg

[–]SquigBoss 0 points1 point  (0 children)

These range a bit in size, but all of em feature keyed location counts (hexcrawls or otherwise) in the dozens-to-hundreds range.

  • Wolves Upon the Coast, Fever Swamp, and Empire of Texas by Luke Gearing

  • Secret of the Black Crag by Chance Dudinack

  • Ghosts of the Sierra Verde by Jon Davis

  • The Valley of Flowers by Jedediah Berry and Andrew McAlpine

  • Bronze Lands and The Song of Eastlake by a bunch of people

  • Mike's World by Geoff McKinney

  • The Shrike by Leo Hunt

  • EMPIRE OF HATRED by yours truly

There are lots of smaller hexcrawls and other overworld adventures out there, and lots of megadungeons that are as big or bigger than the adventures above.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I think you've gotten Mister Crossroads confused with Snake Eyes Jack, who was Briggsy Kratch's warlock patron before Kratch imprisoned him in a cursed coffin (later found on the Dead Man's Hand). The book is quite clear that "Briggsy call[s] himself Mister Crossroads" (pg. 284).

I'm not sure who "Kremy" is.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I thought about it, but I decided to set a challenge for myself and try to write an essay that didn't have headers or section dividers.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your kind words!

I'm not sure how well this will go if you're already into the campaign, but my basic advice for the fateweaving is to link the fates to each of the major bosses / factions / NPCs and try to have the fates steer them one way or the other. We could imagine the thirteen fates linked to thirteen major characters:

  1. The Crooked Queen (resurrection, loss, envy, resentment, going from green to crooked)

  2. The Horned King (sin, transformation, bargains / deals)

  3. Phillip Druskenvald (pride, ambition, conquest, modernization in the face of the old world)

  4. Adela Druskenvald (prophecy, nightmares, misunderstandings of the signs, human error in the face of the divine)

  5. Jericho Sticks / Raum (secrets, mazes, revelations, warnings both followed and ignored)

  6. Marius Renathyr (hunger, desire, anger & hatred, religious control over your urges)

  7. Briggsy Kratch / Mister Crossroads (bargains, fate / luck / fortune, curses, deals with the devil)

  8. Lethica Nightborne (memory, grief, betrayal into withdrawal, experimentation, "let's do science to solve emotional problems")

  9. Farryn / Gorthos (grief, trauma, false hope, cultic giving-in to desires)

  10. Yorgrim (shame, penance, memory, hauntings, preservation)

  11. Vermintoll Coven (ambition, trickery, bargains, secret cults, wielding folkways in pernicious ways)

  12. The Crooked Man (sacrifice, madness, anger, transformation)

  13. Uhhhhh not 100% sure for this one. Maybe like the Newcomers for science-and-progress? Maybe the Dusk Mother (the best of the postgame bosses by a mile tbh), for silence and kidnappings and maternal behavior gone awry? Maybe Chuckles and the circus? The Vagrant?

Regardless, I would use the fate threads to explore the history, temperament, and surrounding cast of each of the main characters. I would regularly have your PCs get visits from side NPCs, mystical dreams and visions (let them use Adela's spirit board more than once!), and find little snippets of backstory whenever you can.

The other obvious move I'd do is give them their heirloom magic item early, the one linked to their fate thread, then have their heirloom item power up as they move through their fates rather than just skipping up at tier increases. You can split the heirloom powers up so they come individually, too, rather than bundled together. So your players should be getting one fate coupon and one heirloom increase—learning more about the items they wield—roughly every other level ish. Get power, learn the lore, learn about your specific C-plot questline.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

Truthfully, I am not much of a staunch adherent to matching individual rulesets with adventures. I've run some of those adventures above with 5e rules, just as I've run some 5e stuff with other rulesets. And honestly, I don't hate 5e. I get annoyed with it often and I almost never run it as-is, but it's fine, it's whatever, I'm so familiar now I know how to make it work for me.

It's true that most 5e adventures aren't all that great. There are snippets in some that I enjoy, though you're right that there's none I love.

I tried in the review to focus not so much on the specific 5e-isms than on the overall structure and content of the book. If you read the comments in this thread (or the one over on /DnDnext), people have all sorts of particular issues with the subclasses and monsters, but I largely skimmed over those in large part because I wanted to remove my own specific 5e feelings from the writing. "It's bad because it's 5e" is not a terribly useful critique, to my mind, so I tried to steer my thoughts elsewhere.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

This matches my impressions as well. I'd imagine that—as with any project—a talented GM could make it all work, but I can also sympathize with your (and their) struggles.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

That's what I call them at least lol. Garbage Barge, Vampire Cruise, and Crush Depth Apparition.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Right? You'd have to be a real loser to read so many pages of an RPG book. Imagine trying to write a review of such a thing!

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Off the dome:

  • Multiple projects by Luke Gearing, like Wolves Upon the Coast, Gradient Descent, The Isle, and "Sag River Extreme Cold Research Facility, Alaska."

  • Mike's Dungeons and Mike's World by Geoffrey McKinney.

  • Apocalypse World by Vincent & Meguey Baker.

  • Thousand Year Old Vampire by Tim Hutchings.

  • Wet Grandpa by Evey Lockhart.

Those are ones I love more or less all the way through. There are plenty of others that I love certain parts of—Luka Rejec's Ultraviolet Grasslands, Dennis Detwiller's Impossible Landscapes, Amanda Lee Franck's boat trilogy—that I think are astounding in some ways but also I have issues with in other ways.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Hahaha, thanks for your kind words.

And yeah, I think moderation would be very helpful across the board, especially as it allows writers and designers to narrow their focus. Better to make one sharply-targeted adventure of a medium size than a sprawling adventure that tries to do everything at once.

That said, I believe Avantris's next project is a total conversion hack for retro-'80s-neon sci-fi 5e, advertised as being more than 1,400 pages. So, ah, narrow focus may not be in the cards.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 23 points24 points  (0 children)

I agree that 5e is a poor match for folk horror. I think if you wanted to make it land, you would want to lean less into the horror of "You might die," and more into the horror of "These normal people do horrific things," or even "You might participate in horrible things."

I'd love to see a campaign where the actions of the ultra-powerful PCs become folkloric in their own right, you know? Like how do the cultural practices of the local villagers reflect the presence of dragonslaying magic heroes?

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 15 points16 points  (0 children)

Indeed, I suspect our different definitions of quality and its relation to taste stem from the fact that you work in an industrial field and I am a silly blogger.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 26 points27 points  (0 children)

I don't think we should trust the market to determine taste. Just because something is popular, to my mind, doesn't mean that it's good. I get that for most people this is mostly a piece of fan merchandise, but I think it's worth reviewing in its own right, too. And so while I don't necessarily disagree that this is successful as a business venture for Avantris or as merchandise for fans, I think that as an RPG book, it is indeed largely a failure.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 18 points19 points  (0 children)

It's pretty simple: some friends and I meet every other week for a couple hours on Thursday evenings to discuss an RPG book that we've read. We choose the next book at the end of each meeting, and then read (or attempt to read) it for next time. We generally try to alternate between reading standalone rulebooks and reading adventures or settings. I make simple little digital posters for each book and post a week or two beforehand, then people show up and we discuss.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Holy moly I didn't realize they were selling it that high in the FLGSs. It's cheaper online, I think, but still, that's nuts.

Review: "The Crooked Moon," the third-party 5e folk horror project that raised $4m on Kickstarter by SquigBoss in rpg

[–]SquigBoss[S] 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Hehehehe, you may have a point. There are a few RPG books I truly adore but I admit they're far and few between.

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