Setting is good, and characters seems interesting enough.
The plot seems tied together, but honestly it just comes off as vague rather
than mysterious. Like, ok, there’s Elgin, Alee-onna, and some wolf gang, and
some coins; but, the further you go along it feels like you’re just adding onto
dead ends because you’re not given any better information on the coins or the
gang. Not to mention, the party has no significant reason to even try to figure
out more about the gang or the situation unless morally inclined or they want
the coins for wealth. Add in the threat of the werewolves and you immediately
want to just get it over with and bring elgin’s head to the town. If you
question Elgin, he just keeps freaking out about the gang coming after him.
There’s no other exit to avoid the wolves, and so you run right into them on
the way out (If they were outside and elgin knew about them, why didn’t we see
them on the way in?? Did they hear us??). Then, you instantly realize that even
a party of like 6 players is absolutely screwed at level one with next to no
magic, and every martial character is useless because they need silver weapons
to hurt the werewolves (which is dumb to keep as a rule for game mechanics, and
makes no sense even in a fantasy realm). So, it feels like the party is forced
into fleeing, and oh boy guess what! It’s gonna take about 2 sessions just to
get the minecarts going for some damn reason, because obviously the best thing
for a chase and high tension is to put in a bunch of irritating mechanics that
slow down gameplay (needs a pacing touch-up). Then, on the way out there’s
almost no chance of the cart staying on track with the barrage of dex nerfs and
dex checks. The whole campaign feels like it’s just a wild goose chase where
you’re excited about this goose, then you start to think that the goose is just
a DM that really wants everyone to fail and be absolutely obliterated by the
gang of wolves, and now the goose is actually 30 geese all with chainsaws
surrounding you. Then, after feeling railroaded and cornered into a situation
of being surrounded by these werewolves, failing to flee, being very close to
consider suiciding your character (which may be a plot point for some
characters if they hate lycanthropy as an abomination of nature or something),
then you realize that werewolves are intelligent and have reasons for actions
and are allowing you to surrender. You realize that this whole setup might be
to have the party join the gang and be a bunch of werewolves, which is a very
very cool and badass plotline for a campaign, and then you notice that “Wait,
why isn’t Elgin in wolf form right now? In the middle of broad moonlight?”
Then, stuff finally strings together that he is probably not actually Elgin and
was telling the truth earlier. I see that the campaign is meant to be a
detective case, and that we need to really delve deep into little hints. But,
when every lead is just searching for any semblance of an answer, and you miss
a few hints, it just feels like a railroaded, unfair, unfun, confusing game
that just leads to a party wipe. I hadn’t even considered surrender to be an
option after being chased and bitten to near death; I think a few characters
would outright deny it as an option for their lore sake. I think I’m starting
to see the merit of the potential this adventure has; but, as it stands now, it
is not fit for publishing if the big set up for the campaign is to be cornered
and surrender or somehow manage to flee with upwards of 50 checks and mechanics
along the way. It needs to be more flexible and have more ways to set up plot
points, and maybe a little bit more for the party to work with and investigate
the mystery with. I would also have liked the potential option of winning
against the gang somehow; but, I can see how that would immediately end the
campaign abruptly. All in all, I believe the campaign has potential if
everything goes right; but, if the players don’t follow what’s intended, they
can expect to be very frustrated and angry, feeling railroaded and start to
question the merits of their DM even if they’re just following the campaign. I looked up a bit of where the campaign comes from, and apparently it's an official WOTC playtest. I love their work; but, I'm not about to skimp on criticism. I hope this can be useful if you are sending feedback to someone.
