Here is part two of my reviews of this year's shotgun scenarios. Click here for part one. The list of all scenarios can be found here.
Lazarus of Exeter
I love scenarios with unnatural diseases. This one is not the most original, but it is well written and structured. It seems like you could just pick this up and run it. Not having to do much prep is always a plus.
Alphabet Soup
This scenario has its very own style, which is quite different from most other DG scenarios. On the one hand that makes it harder for me to immediately get. I’m also not a huge fan of second-person POV writing. On the other hand it’s fun and original, which is always good.
The idea of an Agent “birthing” themselves is horrible, in a good way, and the alphabet mechanic is neat. So overall I like it.
Carrion Luggage
I love the title and the hook is also cool. The time loop and the dead parents came out of nowhere, I really would have appreciated a summary of what’s going on at the beginning. Interesting scenario, but it needs a little restructuring to make it easier to understand on the first read.
Trace of Madness
The premise is interesting, I always like when technology and the unnatural mix. The execution could have been a bit better. I am mostly missing some more concrete clues in the investigation. It all seems a bit vague.
Ties That Bind: Operation GREEN DAWN
The Agents are sent to kill Agent Marcus (who is also a case officer in Impossible Landscapes). The reason they have to kill him is that he apparently is in the possession of unnatural “material”. It is never explained what this material is or if this is a lie by the Program. I would have liked it if this was clearly stated.
I like that the scenario can be used as an induction into either the Outlaws or the Program and it seems very usable. But aside from that it is nothing out of the ordinary.
Agent TEMPORE Must Die!
Another scenario where the players take the role of monsters/aliens/non-humans, this time Yithians. The mechanic with the pre-rolled D100s is cool and very fitting for creatures with partial knowledge of the future. The SAN loss mechanics are neat as well.
I don’t have much to complain about in this scenario, it seems good. I just usually prefer scenarios where you play as humans, atleast in DG.
Après le Pain
This scenario is a follow up to a DG short story that I only vaguely remember. I think it might be a cool scenario if all the players know this story. Otherwise it could fall flat, because it is nothing out of the ordinary: infiltrate a facility and destroy stuff. It would be better if the Black Lotus had a more interesting effect on either the Agents, the test subjects or the environment.
Glass Hound in a Glass House for a...
A fun idea, though I personally think think that time travel should be so easy (for humans) that the only thing that stops March Tech is the Hounds of the Angle. Speaking of the Hounds, normally I find them a bit boring, because almost every time travel scenario involves them somehow. But in this case they are necessary for the entire premise of the scenario, so I’m fine with it. The map is very cool. I like it!
Mellification
A friend and I wrote this one.
Operation Cannonball
The Agents have to go on a road trip from New York to LA, while they are being pursued by an unnatural storm looking for their child. I like the idea of a road trip from coast to coast and the scenario seems very usable. I wish the encounters along the way were a bit more interesting, but I understand that the Agents are under time pressure and don’t have much time to leave the car anyway. The eldritch storm god feels very mythological and not really like a cosmic horror entity.
Pearls Before Swine
I like this scenario. The awakened pigs are a cool enemy and also mechanically interesting. I’m only missing what kind of rituals they can cast, aside from Fascination. Some bespoke pig rituals would have been nice. But the scenario is also usable without this, as long as you have the Handler’s Guide.
Stuck on Repeat
A time loop in a DoE lab, March Technologies is involved… This sounds a lot like Observer Effect! However, this one adds another group of insane DG agents and removes the interesting resolution mechanic (incapacitate the observers). I think I'd rather run the original.
Lost Call
A PISCES scenario, but there is not much to do. The Agents can locate the phone box and take a call. A few hours later they get attacked. There is no payoff for the investigation or other interesting things to do. It would be cooler if the Agents could use the phone box somehow to send messages across time.
Endspiel
A WW2 scenario in which the players take on the roles of German soldiers. Interesting premise and well done. The structure and writing is clear and usable, though the NPC stat blocks could be a bit more compact. It’s good.
The Night That Murry Didn't Die
Serpent men perform experiments on mental patients. A classic horror premise, but I’m missing some hints towards the weird experiments the serpent men were doing in this hospital. This scenario is okay, but nothing special.
Delta Vice
A scenario about an unnatural drug. However, the effects of the drug don’t seem overtly unnatural. Some SAN and WP loss, some HP gain. For all the Agents know this could be a mundane drug. The investigative portion of the scenario is okay, but it needs a bit more weirdness and horror.
Left Undone
Most of my problems with this scenario are in the formatting. It’s too much and too inconsistent. We have bolding, italics, underlines, random highlighting in yellow, footnotes… It reads like notes you would take before writing down the scenario properly.
Lay On Hands
We have the old trope of a Christian sect that is actually worshipping a Great Old One. This is not a bad thing, though. In fact it is very interesting that the GOO is Glaaki in this case!
I like the scenario overall, but I think the cult could be a bit more fleshed out. E.g., how does their worship of Glaaki influence their beliefs and teachings? I think you could maybe do something with the Glaaki spines and relate it to the Spear of Longinus. There is a lot of potential there.
I also think an Agent should become a victim of the Dream Pull and I would incorporate that somehow if I were to run this.
Operation White-Snake Pt.2
I don’t get it, this scenario starts when the fun stuff has already happened. Why not write a scenario about that?
Neurocysticercosis - Or How I Learned to Love the Bug inside my Brain
The Shan trying to expand into the US is a good premise. This scenario also has a lot of details that I enjoyed, e.g. the Shan taking over the taxidermied bear. I just don’t get why Marrion Batron decided to leak the tape that starts the DG investigation. Did the Shan’s psychic domination not work on her?
Night Shift
The lengthy CCTV footage description at the beginning could be condensed, especially since the footage is recorded over anyway and thus not relevant for the investigation. This should have freed up some word count to flesh out the clues.
Overall, this scenario is good, but pretty standard.
VERTIGINOUS
Reading the Truth section of this scenario reminded me of Blindsight and Echopraxia by Peter Watts, especially the zombie soldiers in the latter. And sure enough, Blindsight is one of the books you can find during the investigation. Definitely a cool concept to base a scenario on.
However, the scenario lacks something that puts the Agents into danger. Threatening to turn them into p-zombies should do the trick. Dr. Grove should have some trick up her sleeve to do this to Agents, whenever she gets annoyed by their investigation.
Operation S.H.i.F.T.
A classic bug hunt scenario. I have never heard of the Squonk and normally I’m not a fan of cryptids scenarios, because they are rarely scary. But this creature is interesting and the scenario as a whole is well done.
UnnaturalVania
In general I like vampires, but I don’t think the traditional vampire, like the ones in this scenario, fit into the cosmic horror atmosphere that DG is going for. So, while the scenario seems to be well written and structured, I would have liked it if the vampires were a bit more weird and unorthodox.
Operation Express
A christmas scenario featuring horror versions of Santa and elves. The premise is too silly for my taste.
Sandcastles
The pattern is a very interesting threat. It seems like getting infected by it is pretty easy, as is advancing to the later stages. The effects are also quite harsh. But this is not a complaint, just an observation. Together with the fact that the Pattern is hard to get rid off this makes for a difficult scenario, but I like it.
The Boy King
It’s never clearly stated what Ironeyes Linguistics business model is. They create LLMs and book publishers use them to do what? Apparently creating summaries for books? Four employees also seems really small for a company that trains their own LLMs.
The NPCs are well realized, but instead of all these details I would have liked some more gameplay elements, these seem to be missing. And the only danger in this scenario seems to be that the Agent could stumble upon fragments of the King in Yellow. There are no weird manifestations or other threats that I would expect from a KiY scenario.
Bigfeet, Big Trouble
A bigfoot scenario, which I feel meh about. The text left some questions open for me, e.g. I didn’t get what the monitoring station is for. For the Sasquatch? And what is the connection to extraplanetary signal? Are the sasquatch Mi-go constructs like the Metoh-Kangmi?
I like the wilderness survival elements in this scenario, but I would recommend to condense the stat block to make it easier to use at the table.
Hero Complex
This scenario features a cool location and the premise of infectious timelines is interesting as well. The Hounds of the Angles are involved, like in almost all time travel scenarios. But in this scenario we have Hound/Human hybrids which is a little less boring.
Possible Floorplans
An extremely short scenario, which I appreciate. The premise is pretty wacky. ChiefMcClane already did a scenario with shrunken Agents (Operation RAGTIME GAL), which has more details to make it actually runnable.
Brain Freeze
A Itla-Shua scenario but in Texas. There is some really horrific imagery in this scenario, especially in the description of the infection stages. Nicely done.
EX LIBRIS BERMUDA CARDIFF
The premise alone of this scenario is absolutely bonkers. I would never run this, but I definitely enjoyed reading it.
Red Line
The teaser of this scenario is awesome. I wouldn’t call this a complete scenario, more like a situation the Agents have to deal with. But it’s an interesting situation.
Cryptophasia
I wrote this one. I received very helpful feedback through a playtest via the Star Chamber program. So, thanks to Sammy for organizing the Star Chamber and thanks to the anonymous playtesters!
A Town of Littlehope
This scenario needs an executive summary at the beginning. Even after reading the whole text I am still not clear on the connection between the sixteen bodies and the Deep One. Is there even a connection?
Herman, or rather his ghost, is creepy. I like him a lot.
The Nightside of Eden
Very obscure Great Old One, which is always cool. I also love the mathematical horrors in this scenario. I don’t know if it was on purpose, but it should be Banach-Tarski, not Tanach-Barksi.
The images are cool, but the formatting and structure of the scenario is such that the information density per page is very low.
Cargo
This scenario sets up a complicated situation with lots of interested parties. It’s cool and unusual, but I think I would need more guidance on how to run this. I think some of the elaborate timeline could be cut for this, or maybe remove one or two of the parties.
Break Out
The setup is cool, amnesic Agents have to escape from prison. This idea has a lot of potential. However, I would have liked more locations and situations that the Agents could encounter during their escape. The whole first page is spent on describing stuff that happens before the game begins, I think that could be condensed.
Internal Affairs
A short and straight-forward scenario featuring a rather nasty parasite. I don’t have much else to say about this one.
Recursion
Another time loop scenario. I don’t get why the wife immediately gets aggressive and attacks every time. It would be more interesting if there were some non-combat encounters.
Toothache
The creature in this scenario is pretty nasty. The author had to resort to bullet points to get all the clues and cool gameable elements within the confines of a shotgun scenario. I like all these elements, but it makes the investigation a bit hard to parse. The flowchart in the appendix helps a bit, but I still think this scenario would benefit from a full-length write-up. Overall, I like it.
Divergent Evolution
There are not enough archaeological DG scenarios, so I appreciate this one. The investigation is pretty standard and I would have liked it if there were some use cases for the Archaeology skill.
Highway Hypnosis
Yet again a time loop scenario. We have a lot of these this year. In this scenario the origin and nature of the time loop is never explained, unless I missed it. The scenario feels quite linear, but that’s okay, it’s only a shotgun scenario. The investigative parts, as well as the structure and writing, are quite good.
Return to Sender
I liked this scenario a lot. It has a cool bad guy with a cool motivation. The hook is good, as is the investigation itself. I was a little confused when Amy Ying was suddenly mentioned in the description of the case officer’s house. I think she and David Wells should already be introduced in the summary, as they are quite essential to the plot. But this is a nitpick, it’s a great scenario!
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