Review 6: Extraction from Demon-Fucked Cleveland 1996
We move now into the wild and wooly realm of pamphlet adventures! "Extraction from Demon-Fucked Cleveland 1996" is a system-agnostic adventure that was written by Logan Dean with map icons by Highland Paranormal Society. I purchased the pdf version of this almost utterly blind going in, and I based my decision solely upon the title. It was pretty clearly inspired by the movie "Escape from New York" in content and tone-- the premise is that due to an occult mishap in the 70s, hell was brought to earth and Cleveland is now a quarantine zone under the control of demons. Naturally, planes carrying the president still fly over it, and now one has crashed, and the PCs are the squad sent in to rescue him in a short period of time (4 hours game time), before the government decides to nuke Cleveland. Not the most deep storyline, but if you bought something with this title, then that's probably not what you're looking for anyway. I thought that this would be a perfect candidate to run with Hell Night, the game of demonic bikers from the 80s.
Getting it to the Table
This adventure has two things going for it that made it exceedingly easy to prepare for the table. The first is that it's literally a pamphlet-- all of the content is contained in 6 panels, coming out to two pages in the pdf. It took very little time to read through and digest the game info, which is mostly focusing on capturing the correct mood and tone of the adventure. This concise presentation even includes its own time-tracking system for the mission, consisting of four clocks divided into four quarters, and rules for how to track time from travel and encounters. All of that is condensed into half of one of the pamphlet pages.
The second thing is that being system-agnostic, there are no stat blocks to decipher. If you refer back to the conversion method that I wrote about in the previous review, this means it's already in a format that is what is needed for statting the creatures for any system you like. You get some lovely demonic descriptions, with honorable mention going to the "meatbricks", depicted as "just piles of flesh and guts from dead demons that crawl together into wet battering rams". These and other demons inject a lot of great flavor into the game, and the intended end result seems to be a very pulpy and cinematic game session.
That right there is one of the main reasons I wanted to run this with Hell Night; that system is definitely set up for cinematic encounters and action, and the stats from its bestiary are incredibly light so that converting was exceedingly quick. The location key also fit pretty well with the system's theme-- cruising around demonic Cleveland on hellrides seemed natural and fitting, even when they had to peel out and escape the sweep of the gigantic eyelid that was blinking on the 1,600 foot eyeball that erupted from the ground beneath the city in 1988.
What Worked?
- Pamphlet size is perfect for a one-shot game session, and there is enough content crammed in here that you could even remove the time limit and expand it into a larger game
- The time tracker system is simple, concise, and can easily be borrowed as a standard method for other games
- Fantastic monster descriptions that really painted a picture
What Didn't Work?
- Not ideal for players who would get hung up on "story" or "logic"
- The Moon Citadel (the final structure where you are searching for the president) is almost too abbreviated, and the method for resolving that area is to keep rolling encounters until you roll the same number twice in a row. This could either make it end really quickly or drag on for a very long time. Additionally, it uses the same encounter table as you use for city encounters, and many of them are described as being outdoors rather than in a facility. Some flavor changes and on-the-spot editing may be required.
Final Thoughts
This was a great source of inspiration for me, and the players I ran it with had a great time playing it out as demonic bikers. As written, it sounds like it would be a good fit for any modern paramilitary type RPG, or even something with a retro cyberpunk vibe. This session also had one of the most memorable moments I've ever experienced in a game-- one player's hellride had a special ability that allowed it to self-destruct on command, and when the group was in a tight spot before reaching the extraction point, he decided to have the bike jump a ramp and do a slow-motion glide into the ranks of the demons blocking the way out; we decided that this all happened to the tune of Winds of Change by the Scorpions. Pamphlet adventures like this can be perfect for a last-minute game, because they have to keep things short and sweet and usable.
You can get the pdf of Extraction from Demon-Fucked Cleveland 1996 at Logan Dean's itch page and it is currently pay-what-you-want. Thanks for reading!