Review 41 - Tides of Rot
When you think of "weird west", you mind often immediately goes to something like Deadlands-- lots of magic, monsters, and "fantasy western" elements. This can very easily get repetitive, since nearly every game with this theme does it, and there is also an unsettling tendency to drift towards steampunk. Frontier Scum was a breath of fresh air in this genre, as it doesn't limit itself to "the west"; there are a variety of environments in the core setting, and it ends up feeling a lot more industrial than pure cowboys-- think Deadwood instead of Deadlands. The adventure I'm reviewing this week is focused around a port town, which is definitely not your usual spot for a western themed game, but it works!
Tides of Rot is a new adventure written for Frontier Scum by Karl Druid and Brian Yaksha, with art by Chalkdown and Chris Wright, and editing by Andre Novoa. Like Putrescence Regnant, one of the main features is the fact that it is printed on an LP sleeve and booklet, and it comes with an accompanying soundtrack by The Dead Robotz, which is always a nice addition. I ran this with the intended system, using the unofficial character generator for the inevitable replacement characters.
The basic premise of this one is a heist at its core-- the PCs learn of a trove of silver that is left unguarded in the bank after everyone flees the town, which is in the grips of both a plague and a massive storm. There's also rumors that the sick don't die like they're supposed to...
Getting it to the Table
One of the things I love about Frontier Scum is how the game content is designed to look like a historical document, usually a newspaper or catalogue. Tides of Rot starts out with a massive headline followed by some news clippings setting the stage for the events leading up to the adventure. The first page also includes a "what's really going on" section as well as rumors and the details of the NPC (Corderoy Swill) who recruits the PCs to go on the heist.
Next, we're given various bits of detail about traveling to the city and the various potential points of entry. Most helpfully, there is a section that gives the GM advice on how to get the adventure started-- setting the stage, giving the players a map, and encouraging them to plan their route based on what they know from Corderoy's information. In practice, this is a great way to handle a heist-type adventure, because you get to feel like a bunch of characters in a movie figuring out The Plan. I also really liked the different entry/exit points on the map, and how they each had their own challenge to deal with-- the procedure for getting a train running at the station was a particular favorite when my players dealt with it.
The next sections are single-page spreads detailing the major points of interest in the town, and all of the information that you'd need for a particular location was right there; maps, stat blocks, and special rules (shout-out to Splatter Chains!) all arranged logically with the area descriptions. The area key itself was also nice and concise yet evocative, with plenty of detail about smells and all that good stuff. Some of the maps were a little bit lacking in detail (the Whaleknuckle Cannery in particular was a little difficult to grasp with the various levels and where doors and windows were supposed to be), but this wasn't a major issue because exactitude isn't really something that you need in a game like this. It's far more concerned with the vibe and the theatricality of the situations than it is about precise distances and counting squares.
The final two pages detailed the Epilogue and the Stages of Rot; the former was a fun little addition that, in my case, provided a nice capstone for the one-shot versions of the game that I ran. They could potentially be used as hooks for further campaigning, particularly with the "good" endings. The Stages of Rot was a new mechanic unique to this adventure; the PCs are not immune to the effects of the curse afflicting the town, and the more they interact with the situation, the greater the effects become. As written, the players are meant to make a Luck check at the end of each session, with the roll modified by their actions during the session (things like, "Did you eat food from Dredge-Upon-Rock?", "Did you hurt or kill another person for your own gain?", etc). As they advance through the various stages, they gain some boons, some penalties, and above all some behavioral changes. I highly recommend to any GM running this that they encourage the players to make these rolls in secret.
The second time I ran it, I was limited to a single four hour time slot, so I made a couple of modifications to help speed things along, and one of them was in regards to the rot-- instead of rolling at the end of every session, I set a 30 minute timer once the PCs set foot in the town. When the timer went off, I had the players make their first check against the Rot, and then set the timer again. They kept the results secret and had a handy cheat sheet so they could see how their behavior would be changing as the curse ran its course, and I can tell you that it was a fantastically fun time as we got into the final half hour of play.
What Worked?
- Solid and usable layout. Each location was detailed on a single page, and when using the gatefold of the album as a GM screen, you had all of the random encounter and other travel info you needed right in front of you.
- New mechanics. There were several effects that could occur in response to the actions the PCs took or the random events that came up during the travel across the city. The best was the Splatter Chain-- every time a rotter (one of the infected townsfolk) was killed, another PC would get a free attack at another rotter in range. Since rotters are not particularly tough, this would very often result in a huge number enemies being taken out in quick succession, just like in the movies! I think our record was a group of 24 rotters being taken care of in just two rounds. The players loved how that felt, though there was still a very real risk of death since it would usually just take one round of attacks by the swarm to drop a PC or two (thanks to another simplified mass combat mechanic made for this adventure).
- Fantastic design. They knock it out of the park again with this one, with all of the little ads and decorations tossed in like an old newspaper.
What Didn't Work?
- Other new mechanics. Some of the ones that were meant to be triggered from random events felt a little bit too situational and hard to keep track of in an intuitive way. For example, event 19 on the table grants an effect to "any rotters within 4 blocks", which sounds simple but requires some sort of indicator that will help you remember to apply a special thing to the swarms of rotters. This could easily get overwhelming if other effects are triggered, so you could potentially have a whole map full of special areas to keep track of. Honestly I found a swarm of rotters dangerous enough without any special bonuses, and the players still felt that the stakes were high.
- No reason to loot. The travel rules detail what happens if the PCs decide to spend time looting the abandoned buildings-- essentially you end up finding more rotters, or else you roll on the House Loot or Pocket Loot tables from the core rulebook. Now, these tables are excellent and full of weird stuff, but there is also a lot of stuff on there that a desperado would not even consider taking with them if they were looting a house in a situation like this, for reasons of practicality or value. A piano, for instance. Truly creative players will probably be able to come up with good uses for many of the items, but I would have preferred a bespoke table that represents conditions in the town and the kind of things you'd be willing to risk almost certainly attracting rotters in order to take.
Final Thoughts
This was an astoundingly fun adventure to run, and it turned out differently both times I ran it. The first, online and spread over several sessions, the players fully explored each area and interacted with a lot of NPCs, made an alliance with the Chum Unionists at the Cannery, and finally had to have a desperate struggle against Corderoy as the rot took hold of him and they needed to secure his part of the vault combination before he ate one of their faces. The second time, it was in person and limited to a single session. It was a fast-paced, frenetic, and exciting heist undertaken with great haste and gusto. The PCs became more rotten over time and we had players splitting off from the party to "secretly" feast on the same corpse multiple times, with each one whispering to me "do I gain an Ace now that I've satisfied my hunger?"
You can get Tides of Rot in physical form from Games Omnivorous or in digital form from DriveThruRPG, and the soundtrack can be streamed for free on Tidal or Spotify. I recommend this one so dag-blasted much, consarnit. Thanks for reading!