The Edge Of Night review

Roleplaying and board games reviews, podcasts, videos and interviews

51NoGcD%2BYTL._SL500_AA300_[1]By Paco Garcia Jaen

The Edge of Night is an adventure for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition. Written by veteran of Warhammer universe Graeme Davis, it did promise from the very beginning to be an interesting product. Coming from Fantasy Flight Games, it did also promise to be of very high quality production.

So what’s in the box? As per usual, the adventure comes in a box that contains the main book describing the adventure, new talent, location, item and action cards. Also all the tokens you need for the creatures present in the adventure and the handouts to give your players as the adventure progresses. Needless to say, opening the box is a very exciting experience and going through the tokens, the lavishly illustrated and perfect bound book and the tokens is a real pleasure that makes you want to open the book and start reading right away.

The adventure is pretty incredible in every single way. I kid you not when I say you will have pretty much anything you could wish for, and it is all in a format that will allow any half savvy GM to take bits in and out as it suits your style of play.

First things first… the plot. This adventure will take the players into the high society circle of Ubersreik, where a newly arrived noble has organised a masquerade to impress the rest of the nobility and the eminent free citizens of the city. The city is buzzing with the excitement and the trade this masquerade is creating, while at the same time Morrslieb, the Chaos Moon, is showing an even more chaotic behaviour than usual. With all this going on, most, if not all,t he citizens of the city are not noticing the risk of something ruining things up for the city in a big way. The players’ mission is to find out what it is and how to stop it… if they can.

The adventure is pretty sandbox. Yes, there is an underlying plot that has to evolve and be followed, but the order in which that plot is followed is pretty free until the very end, where the climatic end unfolds and a mix of wits, charm and sheer physical strength will determine the outcome of the adventure. Although ideally the players will have played the original adventure that came with the core box set, it can easily be adapted so any party could play it just the same.

The mix of action and interaction with NPCs is as close to perfect as you could expect it. With detailed biographies and characteristic for every important NPC, the GM will never be short of information to draw upon and immerse the players in the atmosphere. The political intrigues are complex, but so well explained that you’ll never get lost, and if you do, finding the answers you need will just be a matter of seconds. All the locations are terribly well illustrated by Graeme expertise with words, but again leaving more than enough space for the GM to have a say about changing them.

The action comes in little drips, constant enough to keep players on their toes, but not too often as to detract from the true drive of this adventure, the fancy dress ball. However at the end the players will have to get used to the idea of some serious fighting that will demand both careful planning and cunning if they want to survive to tell the tale. Again the action can be customised to match the mood and style of play of your party. With the descriptions and the ideas offered by this adventure, you can turn the end into a quick frenzy, or let it linger in the shape of a classical dungeon crawler for a few weeks.

Edge_of_Night_02[1]There have been several things about this product that have impressed me immensely, but, as usual with my reviews, I will start by the things that I didn’t like.

The outside box… That’s it.

The box has been lovingly designed. Gorgeous cover art, great photography at the back and great descriptions of the product written all around it. However it is on flimsy cardboard that will get squeezed and torn if you have a dodgy courier or if you use the box a lot. I would be more than happy to pay another £2 or £3 (about 5$) to have more solid and long lasting box.

Needless to say, that is a minor point.

The rest of the product is as good as you could expect from Fantasy Flight. Heavy, full colour paper in a binding that will be with you until you choose to. Thick and sturdy tokens and very high quality cards that will wipe the fear of handling them off your mind as soon as you touch them. Great handouts very well thought… all round the production values are second to none.

The writing is as impressive as it could be expected from someone like Davis. His knowledge of what makes a good adventure oozes throughout the adventure. His sense of humour makes an appearance from time to time to bring a smile to your face in the right times. The amount of detail giving is just what you need without being overwhelming. The adventure hooks throughout the book are terribly inspirational and very welcome…

All and all, this is a terrific product in line with a terrific brand and company. To hire a true professional of both the setting and the media, has paid off in a big way with results that will leave long lasting memories in anyone who plays this product. I think if you haven’t added this to your Christmas list, you’re running late already!

Have you played it already?… what did you think?

 

Leave a Reply