For Death Love Doom to be effective, it has to be unnerving and uncomfortable to not just the PCs, but the players as well. In truth, for that to happen, the GM is going to have to be a bit unnerved by the whole thing himself.
At it's simplest, Death Love Doom is a haunted house type of story. As such, it is dying to be used as a sort of Halloween type gaming session. I used to use Ravenloft one-shots for that stuff back in the day, but this - this would have been the "piece de resistance". Nothing would ever top it. That being said, I don't think I'd find players who would want to run it, or something like it, a second time. Once is probably all that any has in them.
If I have one complaint, it's the art. Not that it's bad - it is amazingly well done and horribly disturbing. My complaint is that it is interspread throughout the adventure and there aren't second copies in the back. These should be handouts or visuals for the players, because as we've been told numerous times in our lives - "A picture is worth a thousand words."
Here, I'll give you a small piece of one of Kelvin Green's pieces:
Uhm, yeah - it gets much more graphic. But that's worth at least it's share of a thousand words.
It's good though. A guilty good. Guilty good in "I'd love to run a group through this just to see if any 'tap out' before the end" ;)
Is it a thing of nightmares? Perhaps. I can't recommend this for everyone. This is graphic, emotional and mental horror. If you aren't into that type of stuff, give this a wide berth.
I tend run a lot of horror games, it's just the way I like it as they often end up being more about investigation and exploration than combat that will almost certainly end in PC death. So i wrote up some advice. Scroll down to the bottom, as a fellow GM has also thrown in a few more ideas.
ReplyDeletehttp://shortymonster.wordpress.com/2012/08/13/some-advice-on-running-a-horror-rpg/
Thanks for the review! You make a good point about the art; I'll see what I can do.
ReplyDelete?__? I don't get whats the problem with rated nc-17 art.
ReplyDeleteif your players are over 17 years
old and there are no hyper-sensible-bigots I see no issues.
otherwise maybe you can make photocopies covering
the "forbidden art" with paper pieces.
ciao :)
@LuciusLudicus - I think you need to reread my review. I never said I had a problem with the art or that the adventure in general probably rated at NC-17. I did mention that some might be uncomfortable with the subject matter and should avoid the adventure if that's the case. It is not a comfortable adventure to read or look at. That is it's strength.
ReplyDeleteI was asking if they could put the art so that it could be used as handouts to even more unnerve the players. As it is, the only samples of art are in the relevant parts of the adventure, so it's kind of impossible to show your players without also showing the accompanying text.
So, I want to further expose the art, not cover it up.
So you can easily find the relevant paragraph:
If I have one complaint, it's the art. Not that it's bad - it is amazingly well done and horribly disturbing. My complaint is that it is interspread throughout the adventure and there aren't second copies in the back. These should be handouts or visuals for the players, because as we've been told numerous times in our lives - "A picture is worth a thousand words."