Review: Ubersreik Adventures (part 2)

Thoughts on the other three adventures in Ubersreik Adventures. Once again spoilers abound! Part 1 of my review can be found here.

Slaughter in Spittlefeld (by Ben Scerri)

A really nice “locked room” scenario packed with atmosphere. The PCs are stuck inside a tenement building just as the cordon sanitaire is erected around it due to having been identified as the source of a mysterious disease spreading through Ubersreik. Various reasons are suggested why the PCs might end up stuck inside (sleeping off a terrible hangover / just arrived in town and needed somewhere to stay / asked to investigate) but in any case, they’re pretty much immediately handed the central puzzle on a platter: track down the dying physician’s diary, which allegedly contains the solution to the disease.

The tenement is a lovely towering affair, which looks like bits of houses stacking on top of each other, and oozes atmosphere. Various inhabitants are detailed (a surprising number being non-human – an ogre manager, two dwarf criminals and a washed-up High Elf explorer, who is my favourite character), with a number of other families getting a single line to provide some inspiration to the GM. The PCs need to track down the diary, which has been stolen by a little boy from the unofficial orphanage operating within the tenement – they can do this either via a chase, or by performing an errand for the mistress of the orphanage, which involves getting medicine off the Dwarves. Then they need to translate the diary, unless one of them reads Tilean, which involves gaining access to the High Elf; it turns out this requires dealing with the Dwarves too (so either way they have to interact with them).

The diary then spells out that a Vampire did it, and the Elf announces it must be hiding in the basement. (In fact, it turns out the Vampire is spreading Blood Rot whenever she feeds since she fed on an infected victim.) There follows the best bit of the adventure as the PCs try to find the Vampire in its lair; since the basement is a maze of forgotten rubbish, this requires Track rolls and a wonderful table to encounters for the PCs, from stepping on a rusty nail, to finding minor treasure, to disturbing a Snotling nest. The Vampire is a pitiable creature, half-mad and unaware of its own nature.

I like the scenario quite a lot. There’s a lot of atmosphere and some fun NPCs to interact with. It’s quite likely there is no combat until the very end, and in lieu of that we get roleplaying and social skills, a possible chase, and Track and Stealth skills being tested. It is a deliberately standalone scenario, which I think is nice. My main criticism is that the players could quite easily guess the cause of the ‘disease’ – given that victims are all described as having “bruised necks” – thus short-circuiting 75% of the scenario, and I’m not quite sure how to avoid that. I’d like a few more detailed NPCs (to flesh out the tenement), but that’s easily rectified. And I think the scenario might be improved by requiring investigation – as it is, its basically a series of mini-quests with barely any investigating required. In spite of those gripes though, I think this a very good short adventure, and comfortably the strongest in this book.

Bait and Witch (by Mac Dara Mac Donnacha)

Bait and Witch, image copyright Cubicle 7

A short but decent adventure, in which the PCs are recruited by an apothecary to prevent two “witch hunters” from following her; only for the PCs to realise they were actually bounty hunters after a real, deadly witch hunter. Aside from the presence of a couple of low-level spellcasters there’s nothing supernatural here. The bounty hunters and witch hunters are well-drawn characters (in particular, I much prefer this witch hunter to the cool-looking but relatively vanilla one in Heart of Glass). There’s a rooftop chase, which is always fun, and the potential for plenty of farce with different parties chasing the witch hunter and/or the PCs. I think this could be a lot of fun.

One flaw is that the second half of the adventure relies on the PCs actually caring enough to pursue the apothecary once they realise her life is in danger; it’s entirely possible they might just walk away and consider this not to be their concern.

The Guilty Party (by Dave Allen)

A really, really odd adventure. This is intended to be a bridge between an Ubersreik-based campaign (using the scenarios in Ubersreik Adventures and possibly the Starter Set) and The Enemy Within, a sparkling new version of which Cubicle 7 were in the process of releasing when Ubersreik Adventures was released.

In any case, this is a scenario with a complicated set-up: one NPC employed by a coaching company is trying to undermine the other two coaching companies by creating accidents for their coaches. As she comes under suspicions, she concocts the brilliant plan to get an agent to publicly investigate her and make an accusation that will be proved wrong, thus exonerating her. Its an interesting if convoluted set-up, but the adventure does nothing at all with it! This NPC literally does not appear in the adventure, and there is no possibility entertained of the PCs uncovering her ruse. 

Instead, what we get is the PCs being offered a job (by the agent of the principle NPC) to investigate a missing coach, which takes them out of Ubersreik and all the way to Bruckthin, a village just south-east of Altdorf. There are various ways that the PCs can deduce that their employer is rather shady, coupled with various encounters supposedly demonstrating that the PCs have upset people back in Ubersreik by being chummy with Altdorfers (who are the interlopers in the town, since they’ve displaced the previous rulers). We also get some brief but good descriptions of the various coaching inns en route, plus some fun encounters (the best one being a drunken highwayman). Finally they find the missing coach which has been waylaid by Goblins. There’s a combat. The PCs continue to the next inn to meet their employer, who has travelled ahead. There’s a brief dialogue scene with a representative from one of the other coaching companies who gets mad that the PCs haven’t found anything to incriminate the Main Absent NPC, then both he and the PCs’ employer leave without paying them. The end.

The Guilty Party, copyright Cubicle 7

I can’t overstate how strange this adventure feels. The bulk of it is reasonably decent if not particularly stellar. I like the travel section between Ubersreik and Bruckthin – there are some nice details and encounters. The Goblin camp is pretty standard but detailed quite well for that (attention is given to the advantages PCs can gain by being perceptive and stealthy). And then the adventure just ends. All the set-up information is rendered pointless because there is literally no way the PCs can discover any of it. Even for the GM, its not at all clear what the in-universe purpose of the situation is. Its really strange that this guy employs the PCs to investigate a missing coach, and then travels ahead of them – why couldn’t he just investigate it himself? (He is literally an Investigator!) All in all, this is a pretty transparent attempt to achieve a goal (getting the PCs out of Ubersreik and to a position to begin The Enemy Within) without adequate in-universe logic as to how that would work.

I can understand the logic of wanting to do this. Cubicle 7 have published lots of material set in and around Ubersreik; they will want their players to buy into their big expensive campaign, and a lot of groups will undoubtedly be interested to run TEW as well. And players may well feel attached to their existing characters and want to keep using them. But ultimately the adventure demonstrates how much depends on the actual situation of the characters. The Ubersreik-based material is not a ready-made campaign, its a series of adventures with some suggestions for connecting them, so the result is that C7 have no idea going into The Guilty Party of what the PCs situation will be. Are they trusted agents of Emmanuelle Nacht (spymaster of the Altdorf interlopers)? Have they got chummy with Captain Blucher (the ranking loyalist officier in Ubersreik)? Who are they friends with in the town? Because the writers have no way of knowing, we end up with the vaguest and most generic attempts to “burn bridges” with unspecified “friends” in Ubersreik. In order for this adventure to fulfil its purpose, it needs to actually be tailored to the situation of the PCs.

At the end of the day, I can’t see any way this adventure could work. Cubicle 7 could have done better with providing loose suggestions for how to burn bridges with various characters (or types of characters) in Ubersreik, perhaps providing motivation for them to take this job in the first place – rather than leading them out of town and then using encounters clumsily designed to say “and don’t think of going back”. 

Conclusion

Ubersreik Adventures was one of the earlier publications in the 4th edition line and I think it provides a pretty decent start for WFRP 4th edition. The adventures consistently have interesting hooks and generally do a good job of providing an interesting twist. They all share a nice sense of “groundedness” – i.e. they feel like they take place in real locations, without a proliferation of fantastical elements. There are some fun NPCs here and there, and some decent challenges.

Unfortunately they do a bit less well in terms of player freedom. None truly approach the heights of something like Rough Night at the Three Feathers or the best bits of Shadows Over Bogenhafen; and at their worst – as in parts of Heart of Glass and much of The Guilty Party – there is a definite sense of railroad tracks.

I can’t overstate how much I enjoyed the artwork, and I really appreciated how “WFRP-y” all of the adventures feel. There are classic WFRP themes here – corrupt law enforcement; Chaos cults infiltrating society; dangerous witch hunters; and of course stupid and/or venal characters who are just out to make a buck.

Recommendations

I’d say that Slaughter in Spittelfeld is pretty much essential; that If Looks Could Kill, Mad Men and Bait and Witch are all well worth looking at; and Heart of Glass has some really fun bits and with some work could be absolutely excellent. The only adventure I wouldn’t recommend is The Guilty Party.

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