As LotfP-fans and backer of the RPG Day-kickstarter, I plan to review all the scenarios of this campaign, as well as the ones from the July-campaign, ones they get here.
This is the first one and it contain some spoiler.
Lamentations of The Gingerbread Princess
- All gimmick, little content
A local lord has in fit of intolerance chased of all the local halflings, but now misses them and their skills, so he sends some “heroes” on their way to get them back. Unfortunately the Halflings have ended up in the wicked, crazy and sweet sweet Land of Milk and Honey, hidden behind a magic hedge in the forest.
That's the plot in "Lamentations of the Gingerbread Princess, and while there are plenty of interesting ideas in the scenario, it’s also seriously flawed, I think.
What it first and foremost lacks is structure.
It starts out with a short background story, explaining the mission of the scenario, and then goes straight into the encounters of the scenario. There is no synopsis; no overview of the plot or what is going to happen or general presentation. This makes a mess of the reading experience.
Throughout the text you get very little explanation of the critters and encounters the characters comes across. For example, you hear of the Dark Heart of the Wood, but it’s never explained what it really is (apart from something that hates lawfuls and clerics) and when the big villain first turns up, he is not described until several pages later in text. It’s also unclear whether the poor girl that the characters encounter is one of the Halflings or another girl, just as the Halflings turn into ‘villagers’ at some point of the text. And there’s no numbers or links to which room is which on the lone map.
The text is filled with small haw-haw notes from the author (“any elf poser be straight trippin yo”, “because who wants to chew through black licorice? Blarg.” etc.) and stuff like a pixie demanding that the characters “perform a nearly impossible sex-act”, making it sound more silly and childish than edgy.
The whole theme of a candy village inhabited by teddy bears and cherubs is novel, but, even for said creatures wickedness, is rather silly and hardly in tune with what I expect from LotfP.
The editing is ok, if a little sloppy. There's some uses of different fonts in the text, that looks messy, but could be intentional, and there is several inconsistencies in spellings, that should/could have been fixed with a thorough proof reading (Dark Heart of the Woods or Dark heart of the wood?, Mistysparkles or Misty Sparkles?).
The cover art is by the always excellent Cynthia Sheppard and the interior art (by Amos Stern) is fine and fitting.
So no, this will not be my print scenario of choice.
