review of tower of misery scenario, written by William Kreber, Edited by Brandon West
Silver Games LLC
Matthew Paluch
August 19th 2014
Introductory scenarios have specific challenges to overcome, yet not dawdle upon - Tower of Misery handles that hurdle with some grace.
The starting hook can be introduced at just about any point in many current or starting campaigns, so this is a flexible adventure that can be used by GMs not only to start a new campaign, but as a side quest somewhere in the early stages - it does not feel forced or contrived.
The flavor text is overall very well done, and I especially appreciated the immediate description of the local town and area before bombarding the reader with other matters. The material I needed first thing to set the scene was the first thing in the scenario - good design.
The treasure caught me a bit by surprise - while the very solid description of the adventures location is excellent, and has some standard encounters and treasure, there are also a few cases where clever partys might get some rarer and more valuable items I would not expect to see in an introductory adventure, but all of them require players to have either an odd skill, or beat a very high DC after taking "smart"actions. It will reward those who are not on autopilot, but the treasure balance is just fine assuming PCs do not find either of the two difficult secret rewards. I like this idea, so long as GMs don't sympathetically give it to the party without making them do the work. In fact it would be an excellent teaching tool for new players (who again, will get a fair share of loot just from doing "the basics") if the GM revealed after the adventure how they could have additional loot if they had been a bit more savvy (or spent some skill points on more diverse areas). This is a big plus for me.
My overall impression is one of simple elegance but with some teasers added for smart players, or to teach new players how to think smarter - I liked it a great deal. The combats were a little tougher than I expected, but not too bad, so I think it would work well for a larger group as well, unlike many introductory scenarios. But as one of the few scenarios I have seen for beginning characters where a well-timed Knowledge or Profession role can be used to avoid a combat or gain extra treasure, this scenario's design is definitely thinking along lines upon which I heartily agree!
