NOTE: The following article is a session review/highlights of the LotFP adventure "Tower of the Stargazer" and contains numerous spoilers and plot elements. For a link to this adventure, please see the end of the article.
Billed as a LotFP "tutorial" adventure, "Tower of the Stargazer" is pretty darn good. Each section has a sort of 'Notes for the GM' box that explains why certain things are happening, hints as to how to describe certain areas, and generally a host of helpful tips. For a tutorial adventure its pretty brutal by other game standards but fairly typical of a LotFP session - the Tower claimed three characters in last night's game, and a fourth will be dropping dead in 5 days time.
The adventure started off straight forward with an easy hook. The group's warrior, V, had heard of a tower to the north that had been abandoned for ages yet he was sure it was inexplicably still filled with untold riches - this alone got the party interested.
The entrance to the tower was sussed out quickly too with the ranger, John, succeeding in a Save against the snake door handles. The players realised that this was going to be an adventure that required some care, which is why I found it odd that they went on to be so careless.
Through some good rolls, they found their way into the first dungeon floor and managed to get into the Workshop. V, eyeing up the body on the table, pulled out the golden thread resulting in a battle with flopping organs. This was the second most boring moment of the night as for about 6 rounds no one managed to hit anyone. This was repeated with the ghosts to the south when they came up against them, and it just hammers home how frustrating the roll-to-hit AC system can be.
In a game where a character can be killed off in a single dice roll, it always seems so jarring when combat can go on for so long without any blows being traded. The players get bored and its hard to maintain any sense of urgency or drama as we take it in turn to roll d20s around the table. I plan to implement "Symmetry between Stabber and Stabee" in the next session to see if this helps somewhat.
The mirrors caught their attention and John managed to succeed in the first mirror, resulting in a boost in Intelligence, Charisma, and Strength - he marvelled at his improved self, causing the other characters to pull him out the way to get a chance at the fun. As they played around with the various mirrors not even a battle with a mirror clone of V could dissuade them to move on, until Evelyn the cleric gazed into mirror number 5 and became trapped in the mirror. The players sobered up a bit at this point as John tried to smash the mirror, killing Evelyn completely.
At this point I thought, "Cool, they'll smarten things up now." which goes to show how I can be a horrible judge of situations at times.
Up stairs in the servants quarters, the characters decided to blow the door open to the Wizard's Chamber. This resulted in two of the characters being flung down the stairs and - this is where I got to utilise +Daniel Sells "How To Die Properly" chart - Patricia coming away with a -1 penalty to all physical rolls due to a knackered arm.
They had fun winding the wizard up a bit with a discussion of having a foursome on his bed in front of gaining some traction, and exploring the library didn't interest them too much, but they were fascinated by the telescope. They spent some time getting it activated properly and with excitement Jane fired it up, propelling her to Necropoli Centauri. The other characters looked around stunned in the face of what had just happened, till V piped up, "Oh yeah, one of the books was about travelling to other planets!" and promptly prepared and fired up the beam again, teleporting V this time to Necropoli Centauri.
The remaining characters at this point decided to leave, reasoning that they already had a good whack of treasure to take back to civilisation and that they didn't really want to waste time investigating to see if the teleported players could be saved (not one of them looked through the telescope when the laser wasn't activated to note that no, the characters were not in a position to be rescued).
Verdict on the Tower of the Stargazer? Its brilliant. It certainly wasn't an ideal fit for my group, who aren't so keen on the puzzles involved, though. While there's some great rewards for those willing to risk it, I'd say this is a great tutorial and its an ideal way to remind players in an existing campaign of the dangers in being careless. Two players lost their characters tonight that had survived 3 adventures so far so its going to be interesting to see how they handle future sessions with their next characters. One player is convinced that she came away the victor but in 5 days time she's going to drop dead and have a parasite pop out of her. Such is life.
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