Kara McCoil McCoil itibaren Karaoğlanlar Köyü, 10560 Karaoğlanlar Köyü/Havran/Balıkesir, Türkiye
Freedom by David "Zeb" Cook [I don't know why this is listed as a hardcover, 210 pages or by Troy Denning as this seems to be the module by David Cook.:] This module is the sum of every bad module, which is most of them for 1E and 2E DND. This module is the type of module that sets up the "players vs DM" attitude that was so prevalent in most of the games I saw. In this module, the players are not the main focus. They are allowed to watch as the real heroes, the ones from The Verdant Passage, do as was said in that book. Instead, they are relegated to slaves. Not just slaves but the lowest of the lowest slaves, workers. The first parts of this module are all "railroading" as it's called, to get the player characters (PCs) as slaves. There are several ideas but it all means the same thing, forcing the outcome. Once they are slaves, they are supposed to stay slaves and meet contacts that way. The module again blatantly says that they should not escape and always put them back as slaves. It isn't until part three that they have a few choices of what they can do but still forced as slaves. Further, the PCs can only watch as the "real" heroes of the story do their thing in part five. Part six goes back to the PCs for a bit and gives them choices but they aren't good ones. At the end of the adventure, the PCs are supposed to be glad that they got their freedom. This is a terrible module. Terrible. They PCs aren't allowed to be heroes. They aren't allowed to do great deeds. Instead, they are forced into slave labor and held there. The idea is that they meet people in there that help them escape and after that come to the attention of the Heroes. I don't know how often I had to read things like the following. "Don't let the PCs escape." "If they do escape, use another encounter to capture them again." "This shouldn't work." "Don't let the PCs do X." If I was a DM, this would be hard to do. Players don't like it when they can't do something or when they aren't the heroes. That's the point! I think this type of module was typical of modules and is not a good module design. While the story of the module is interesting, in that it gives some more glimpses into Tyr and what is happening around The Verdant Passage, the module itself will be hard to do. I mean, it's as if the writer wants the PCs to feel like crap, helpless and unable to do anything. I can only guess that the author thinks the PCs will feel that much better when they do rise up and free themselves, becoming smaller scale heroes in their own right. Assuming the DM has any players left at that point. jdg