Theo wrote: ↑Wed Apr 10, 2019 3:55 am
I'd be curious on your thoughts, if nothing else.
Reading through it myself now. The stringing-together of the originally unrelated scenarios for the mini-campaign seems like classic Sargent - clever, but occasionally hard to follow and with a rather inconsistent tone. (The Enemy Within campaign notes, meanwhile, seem really perfunctory - you can sort of tell his heart wasn't in that.)
As someone who is pretty amazed by the amount of work and thoughts you're putting into your own TEW campaign, I doubt I can add any thoughts of value to you, but I'll try.
First of all, I'm easy to impress. I'm one of those guys who can enjoy almost every book, movie, or TV series because I'm looking for the stuff I like, not searching for stuff that's worthy of critique. I'm investing time into something, so I'd rather enjoy myself than be angry about stuff. Over the years, well, decades, to be honest, this approach has led to some kind of non-analytical thinking by myself. I just lean back and enjoy. That means I will only ever find the biggest of plot holes, and be perfectly content with what the writers throw at me. Call me a sheep, and you would be right. But at least I'm enjoying myself before the wolves get me.
So, why am I telling you this? To begin with, I'm perfectly fine with TEW as it is. I find the Kislev part pretty interesting, and while certain elements in EiF are problematic to handle, I think it's a fantastic ending to the campaign. There are those who rightfully claim that certain plots are never resolved, or that certain elements needed clarification or better presentation. While I agree to that, I've always embraced these unfinished elements, because they gave me (as GM) the opportunity to come up with my own ideas and solutions. Kemperbad, for example, is one of the most important locations in DotR, yet it has what, three pages in the whole book? But these three pages were an opportunity for me to design most elements of the town as I needed them. The NPCs presented have always been a part of that, and radically different each time. I've enjoyed this freedom.
Now, in regards to The Restless Dead, I can see people might find some shortcomings, but I think the editor came up with some pretty nice ideas how to connect the different adventures. In the end, it is, indeed, "just" a collection. But if you play certain things right, it's perfectly suited for everything you want. Just add an NPC here or there to create more consistent and long-running plots as you need them, play what is there to your own and your party's strenghts, and TRD should be immensely enjoyable.
For example, I've made use of Johann as much as I could. I played him as a whining, depressed individual who always turned up at the worst moments, crying about all the pain and sorrow and suffering he endured, but then again giving great advise on embracing life while you can and telling jokes and stories whenever the party was down because of some development in the main plots. So the party became more and more invested in Johann and therefore the plot to help him.
And let's not forget that TRD includes some of the most iconic stand-alone adventures every created for WFRP, including the legendary Rough Night (which is right now developed into a mini campaign itself for 4th Edition). If you don't use the book as a campaign OR as an addendum to another campaign, the more or less loose connections between adventures enable you to take it apart and only use what you want and need. I've always found the intro to these books one of the most interesting features, the fact that they told you how to use a book in connection with other books or campaigns they had created up to that point. You may find these explanations lacking in detail, but I think they provide the general idea what to do with them, and you go from there depending on what your campaign actually looks like.
I think Sargent knew exactly what TRD was and what it was not. It's a collection of WD classic adventures, to be used as you see fit. That's why the campaign hooks are a bit weaker, so you can use them or not. I love most of the adventures in here very much. There are good ones and not so good ones, but let's face it, it's Warhammer. It will always be good enough to provide for a great session. All you need is a greenish moon in the sky and a party who knows they are doomed from the getgo.