Knight Owl Review: The Pale Lady
I’m always on the lookout for good one-shots, as it’s hard to get a game together on a regular basis and a lot of the people I game with nowadays are new to the game and have a more one-and-done type of mentality. So, when I found Zzarchov Kowolski’s Pale Lady adventure for Lamentations of the Flame Princess, I was pretty excited. It looked just like the kind of thing I gravitate towards: short, useful, and full of flavor.
Even though I’ve had this adventure for a while, I never seemed to get the chance to run it until quite recently. I plopped it in as a one-shot side quest while covering for Ahi during his Black Blade play test and it went really well. The set up is simple: some kids are missing, probably getting eaten by a witch, and the PCs get persuaded to go check things out. When they find the lair of the witch, things get weird and the PCs have to make some interesting choices. No matter how they play it, the PCs will likely come out a little changed and will have some serious existential issues to sort out. I don’t want to give away too much of the story, but it’s definitely interesting (though probably requires a GM who is into role-playing NPCs) and maintains a really nice creepy fairy-tale tone throughout.
Playing it went well–it wasn’t particularly violent, instead tending much more towards role-playing and choosing what to believe/disbelieve. It was creepy and tense and just a little bit gross, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I changed the Witch’s house to a tower to make it fit the setting a little better, which worked out fine, and my rabbit-men were a little more hapless than in the book.
The book is super short and concise–offering just the essential information in an easy-to-use and accessible manner. Chris Huth’s artwork is perfect for the tone of the story (though I wish there was a little bit more of it) and the maps are clear and helpful. It worked great for a one-shot, clocking in at around 3 hours, and I would definitely run it again.
It is easily worth the $5 over at DriveThru http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/145008/The-Pale-Lady
