Thu Dec 31, 2009 11:35 am
It's an Okay Review
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I already commented on his review below the article, so I won't add much here. I do agree with his 4 out of 5 rating. I really liked Revenge of the Giants, and I think a review of it deserved more than a few paragraphs.
Revenge is a big adventure at 160 pages with almost sixty encounters. It needs that much content because it takes characters from 12th to 17th-level. Like Flint said, Revenge is non-linear. Characters can decide where and when to tackle the adventure's tasks. I think Revenge did a remarkable job at creating ample opportunity for players to make choices pertaining to where the adventure leads and when.
I also think that Revenge points directly at the World of Greyhawk. The first paragraph of the adventure reads:
| Revenge of the Giants", page 4 wrote: |
| Giants have banded together under an alliance of three titan lords to finally gel their revenge for the defeats and insults of the past. Moreover, they seek to reclaim the world that they helped create, and to achieve this lofty goal they have set a plan in motion to free one the most powerful primordials - the master of fire, earth and frost. Piranoth the World Mover. |
I think there is enormous potential to wrap Greyhawk lore and background around Revenge. Mix in the GDQ adventure series (or GDQ1-7), Dungeon's "Istivin: City of Shadows" adventure trilogy and 3rd Editions Expedition to the Demonweb Pits and you can craft a pretty deep and immersive story in Greyhawk. These adventures constitute the failures the giants want to overcome.
There is an encounter involving Acererak, which I thought was a nice nod to Greyhawk. Other than that, as Flint said, a DM shall have to adjust locales and personalities from the D&D core to Greyhawk. But, the task of making these adjustments is a small amount of work. I think that 4E adventures are as "plug-and-play" into a setting as any D&D rules system has ever been. So, while not written for Greyhawk, there is much the adventure can offer a Greyhawk game.
Last, I want to bring attention to the many role playing opportunities in Revenge. Much to my delight, it was not all combat and dungeon delve. The multitude of skill challenges in Revenge offer lots of opportunity to role play, to get into your character, and to affect many outcomes in the adventure with the force of personality, rather than arms.
I recommend Revenge of the Giants because of its potential to tie into Greyhawk more than any other D&D 4E core product out there. Second, the adventure has great strength in its non-linear format. Last, it's just great content with terrific NPCs, interesting encounters and locales and a really, really good story.
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Don (Greyson)
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