Editing Tales of the Scarecrow (section)

==Conclusion==

On the whole, this module is a bit of a mess. It presents a situation that's a ridiculous contrivance and more of an exercise in putting together a meat-grinder trap to slaughter PCs than anything sensible; most of the treasure is gated behind common decency and/or will only be found by doing horrible things for no reason; most of the "escape hatches" are obtuse and weird; and it throws a magical item an entire campaign could be based around in as an ''afterthought''.

In other words, it's probably one of the better modules James Raggi's ever written.

Seriously, while the ''situation'' is pure dick, and occasionally confusing, the advice it gives the GM / Referee, outside of instructing them to entice their players into the deathtrap of a cornfield and the weirdness involving examining the scarecrow, mostly revolves around transparency and respect, and the times it tells them to fuck with the players are in situations where said players richly-deserve to be fucked with. ("Just not noticing" that the magic-user is throwing around cleric spells; are you shitting me?) And it tones down many of his worse impulses by, for example, making the poisoned corn and parasites potentially detectable and less lethal than they could be, or making the corn grow back in minutes rather than seconds so a party could blow and chop their way out with the right tools and spells. It even gives the GM some tips on ways players might manipulate the downsides of one of the magic items it has lying around to their benefit ''without'' ordering they be punished for their clever thinking.

And while that "design the finale" bit isn't perfect (as presented, it works only on a meta, not an in-game level), it's not a terrible idea on paper, [[Wraith: The Oblivion|in a "pick which fist I hit you with and how hard" kind of way]].

Still probably not worth running out of the box, but there's more ideas here worth pillaging than usual.

[[Category:Roleplaying]]
[[Category:Modules]]
[[Category:Lamentations of the Flame Princess]]