From: ROBERTSON@sc.intel.com
Date: Wed 15 May 1991 - 09:56:33 EEST
A review of Daughters of Darkness
Chaosium, $14.95
Tom Hickie & Robert Innes
96 Pages, Double sided map
Being somewhat of a completist in collecting RuneQuest material (especially that produced by Chaosium), I picked up this little 'gem' almost as soon as I saw it. I feel now that I was *very* wrong to do so.
The Introduction states:
"Daughters of Darkness is a compilation of Runequest Scenarios
and background information for use by gamemasters seeking
material which can be fitted into an on-going campaign with
minimal work on their own parts. ..."
This is a nice purpose, but really means
"We wrote this, and we thought it was neat, and we ran this for
our group, and they thought it was neat, so we submitted it to
Avalon Hill, and *they* thought it was neat, so they published it."
The quality of material here is not quite abysmal, but is very bad. The first part of the book gives an over-view of the area in which the adventures take place. This has no known links to *any* previous product, and no suggestions for links (not even to QuestWorld). The location is the Autocracy of Menetia, an ex-Kingdom (after Regicide, the most powerful nobles formed their own government).
Three pages of text cover the geography, people, flora and fauna of the area, four cover Government, two and a half for Gods & Mythology, nine and a half form the framework for the adventures, mostly NPC descriptions and stats, and the remaining seventy (there are a number of full-page illustrations, so page counts will not add up here) detail nine scenarios, of which five are from a paragraph to one-half a page in length. the remaining four adventures are involved and tend to be of the 'hose the characters' type.
The monsters mentioned as being present include Walkatpus, Broo, Werewolf, Jack-o-Bear and Ogre plus two 'new' monsters, the Gargoyle (this was in RQII, but didn't make it to RQ III), and a chaos bat. Elf, Dwarf and Troll settlements are mentioned, but inter-species interaction is glossed over. It seems that all adventurers will be Human.
The primary focus of most of the adventures is the city of Santon, run by a corrupt Warden, and the inn called the Sailor's Rest. The Gamemaster hints suggest that the characters come from outside the area, and that they are broke, so that they must take on jobs provided by the InnKeeper or other stranger to remain solvent. This stuff is the worst tradition of Convention games, where the game-master must get a bunch of strangers into the adventure.
The illustrations included in the product are the (by now) usual bad Avalon Hill pencil work. I think that AH should be able to find an artist able to do interior illustration (and Exterior color artwork), after all, they *are* in the publishing biz.. There was a note a while back about who to contact at AH to protest their standards, this might be the time to re-issue that information.
A major source of irritation for me was the names of some of the characters. Cruella? last time I heard that name was in 1001 Dalmations, and I didn't find it evocative then (at least not of anything bad, as far as I am concerned, it is a comical name), yet here the meanest, baddest b***h in town is named Cruella. Or how about the ship Pequod, and her crew? (you should be able to guess the names). I am sorry, but in my experience, if you assign known names to a game character, they tend to get treated with a bit less respect (especially when I quote the beginning of Moby Dick as "Call me Fishmeal"...).
I am not sure if the authors of this product are just young & misguided (as RPG players), or things are different in Britain as far as state of the art role-playing (at least one of the authors is British). I can only give this product about half a star.
My Disclaimer: I am not asociated in any way with any of the people or companies mentioned, except in the consumereal sense.
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