This review (or rather pair of reviews) is going to reveal something about me. I like wonderful graphics as much if not more than the next guy. But when it comes to whether or not I like a game product, how it looks takes a very distant second place to how it plays.

To Stand on Hallowed Ground is a double-cover book, and I hate those things. The covers are adequate, and the interior art runs from mediocre to worse than that. The maps are serviceable, but that's it.

But onto the important stuff. These are two really good adventures. Really good adventures. Fiery Dragon is probably the company to watch right now.

"The Ghost Machine" has very interesting plot that takes you down into a dungeon full of undead. The most interesting thing about the adventure is the ghost machine of the title, a huge negative energy generator that has all sorts of effects on the adventure -- parts of it are spread throughout different encounters. You could easily drop this adventure into any campaign and not have to do a lick of work to it. All the rules seem quite solid, from the DCs of the bardic knowledge checks required to get the rumors to the stats at the end. If there's anything bad to say, it's that the adventure is short and pretty straightforward. But that's not so bad -- it would make a very fun session (or maybe two).

"Swords Against Deception" (a title a little too Fritz Leiber to be appropriate) is a great example of how to do a d20 adventure. Each encounter is handled with care. The writing shows not only a great grasp of the mechanics, but a real eye for the kind of stuff a DM needs -- round-by-round descriptions of NPC actions (in complex encounters), discussions of consequences of PC actions, and guidelines to determine how alert the guards in the adventure location are. The plot here is a little more complex than "The Ghost Machine," and the encounters in general are more robust and interesting.

At the risk of giving too much away, I have to say I loved the fact that there is a medusa assassin in the adventure. I'm glad that someone realized that prestige class requirements can be reached by some monsters without needing a standard class at all. Very cool.

(Let me also take this opportunity to talk about Fiery Dragon's format. I love the Plot and Mood synopses at the beginning, so as a buyer you know immediately whether it's something you want in your game. Judging from this and earlier products like NeMoran's Vault and the Silver Summoning, I now know that I can count on Fiery Dragon's organization to always make it easy on me as DM. On the downside, I wish they would take a look at the later Wizards of the Coast adventures and notice that it's not necessary to present stat blocks for monsters that are straight out of the Monster Manual. It's a waste of space and encourages a DM to use the inferior stat block presentation over the superior MM presentation.)

The Longest Night is as beautiful as roleplaying game products get. The cover is great, the interior art is mesmerizing, and the maps are very well done.

But on to the important stuff. While there are some commendable aspects to the adventure, it's not designed with a DM in mind, which is a real pet peeve of mine. Take the very first encounter. The PCs are forced into guarding a caravan. Okay, beginnings are tough. Then, there's an ambush. There's no way for the PCs to detect the ambush (there are no Spot check DCs or anything like that). There's a "cunning" spear trap that's never detailed. What if thePCs state that they're searching for traps? What if they run into the trap? The adventure gives us nothing. There's a device that makes fog. It supposedly can be sold to an alchemist, but most PCs (I think) are going to want to keep it and use it. Except that the adventure never tells you how it works.

That's unfortunately indicative of this adventure.

The steampunk-style setting of the scenario is interesting, although this product gives just enough to be tantalizing, but not enough to really use. I guess there's more content on their website about the setting.

The adventure's plot is also interesting, and well developed. I don't want to spoil it, but I will mention that it hinges on an old witchcraft trial. Sadly, there's not enough explanation of why there would be a witchcraft trial in a world where magic is fairly abundant (in fact, as it's presented, I think it comes out inadvertently misogynistic -- if they were killed because they were witches, and witches are just female spellcasters, but there are spellcasters everywhere...). But I'm not going to fault the adventure on its plot. Really, I think the plot is cool.

The frustrating thing is that this adventure is well written, just often not in the right way. Areas, objects, and people are described well (it's a very visual adventure), which I love. But many of the encounters are set up with only one described outcome, with little advice on how to handle other results. Just as bad, if not worse, the mechanics of the game are not represented well. Encounters say things like, "There is a 25% chance that a guard will hear and investigate," when d20 has a mechanic for handling that already -- and, I must say, a much better one (the method used here does not allow the PCs to try to be quiet). Clues and information presented should have Gather Information or Diplomacy check DCs attached to them. Items and traps need stats.

Speaking of stats, let's talk about the stats in the appendices. The first appendix is full of new monsters, and they are all pretty cool. Big ogrelike gorax, undead swamp shamblers -- all these things go a long way toward giving the new campaign setting its own unique flavor. They even have unique animals like the pygmy boar and devil rats. So that's great. Unfortunately, they are presented (for space, I presume) in stat block form. That means that these new monsters don't get entries for things like advancement, climate, and organization. That's a real shame. But what's much worse is that the monsters and the NPCs in Appendix B and Appendix C are full of mistakes. Strength bonuses are left out of some damage totals, Armor Class is not broken down, CRs are sometimes way off, skills and feats aren't figured right. A 10th-level sorcerer is presented with a note "Alexia knows a wide variety of spells." That's neither helpful nor, in the case of a sorcerer, really even accurate. Lastly, none of the powerful NPCs in Appendix C have any gear. No items at all. It's as though they're only half done.

I think there's every reason to believe that the next Privateer Press product will be better. If I did "half" stars, I'd give this one two and half. It's almost a three, but there would be so much work involved to use this adventure that I just can't give it a three. It'd be easy to improve this adventure with just a better grasp of the mechanics, and it was their first adventure -- so I'm fully expecting the next one to improve. I'm going to keep my eye on this company.

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