Kickstarter's Zine Quest was a pretty cool event in retrospect. It was crazy to have so much content to pick from (I could not buy them all, sadly). I had some background involvement as a co-creator ( Donn Stroud launched The Lesser Key to the Celestial Legion at the same time) and watching our KS and others come to fruition was awesome. One of the wildest things to come out of Zine Quest was Terror of the Stratosfiend , the bizarre brain child of Sean Richer . For reasons I still do not fully understand, Sean really liked Fae Hard . He gave it a shout out in during the KS and he thought his twisted, gonzo, space horror setting would be a perfect thing to mix with The Red King, Alboran's, Die Hard inspired adventure. To which I said, "Sounds like fun. Let's do a mash up." A half year later and Sean hits up on the Twitter about ideas for his upcoming KS for issue #2 of Terror of the Stratosfiend. One thing leads to another and instead of re-skinning Fae Hard,...
So post Gen Con analysis of the House of the Red Doors begins. I am happy about many parts of the adventure. I love the story and the fact that a successful conclusion requires paying attention and solving puzzles. There's certainly times for dice rolling, but in most cases they do not revolve around combat. A player can find enough fighting to get their fill, but will their PC survive? (Spoiler it's not likely.) I'm also happy with the overall vibe. It's untethered and not narratively linear. The parts don't have to make sense as in a "real world" dungeon. The encounters take place in an otherworld or dreamland. The inhabitants are likewise unchained from reality. This is a great freedom in the design. The endings all have several solutions. That was a conscience design choice. Picking the right solution is the main objective. Puzzles do not have to be death traps with a single linear solution. Like your dungeons, they too can provide more avenues for...