I wanted to like Wildspace. I really did. After falling in love with the core Spelljammer set and the Rock of Bral accessory, I had hoped this too would be great.
But it wasn't.
(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD)
First off, the adventure is intended for characters of 6th to 8th level. Excuse me? Who ever heard of an introductory adventure for 6th to 8th level characters? Ok, sure, it's intended to help ground-based campaigns move into space, but shouldn't the first Spelljammer adventure - one of the first adventures for AD&D 2nd Edition - accomodate 1st or 2nd level PCs?
By the way, I call this a capsule review because I only ran part of the adventure - I couldn't bear to keep going beyond a certain point. I imagine you'll see why shortly.
Essentially, the PCs are in town minding their own business when an anchor attached to a *very* long rope (don't get me started on the Freudian implications) falls from the sky. For the first part of the adventure, the anchor just sits there. Politicians and sages and such come to talk about the anchor. Merchants sell replicas of the rope. The town guard shows up and actually discourages the PCs from getting involved. Right - an anchor just fell from the SKY and the town guard doesn't want the help of experienced adventurers who have seen all sorts of weird stuff.
Finally, a handful of people come down the anchor on a rope. One of them introduces himself as the captain of a flying ship and claims a terrible monster is coming to destroy the city. He needs adventurers to help him stop it. Naturally, the PCs are recruited. (Forcibly if necessary.) Ok, fine.
By the way - the captain is actually a polymorphed beholder mage and his crew contains a stone golem and several polymorphed animals. It is piloted by an orbus (a stunted beholder with the innate power to control spelljamming vessels) but it also contains a WORKING spelljammer helm. Ok...see...helms are expensive. Sometimes they're difficult to obtain. The captain isn't expecting to have to use the helm; he just has it around for appearance's sake. SO WHY KEEP IT AROUND? Of course, later on in the adventure the PCs need to use it, but the in-game justification remains flawed, IMHO.
Furthermore, the captain KEEPS LYING TO THE PCs. I'm reminded of an episode of "Judge Judy" I saw once where Her Honor launched into a rant that featured the line "If you won't believe this, how about this? If you wan't believe that, how about this?" Or something similar. Anyway, the guy keeps changing his story. Evidently this adventure was designed for the stupidest players on Earth.
Eventually, the PCs reach their destination: an asteroid containing an apocalyptic device that the beholder mage wants to use to get revenge on the beholders that were mean to him. They're attacked by a scout ship piloted by rival beholders and the captain's true identity is revealed. The orbus is also disabled so the PCs have to use the spelljamming helm to get into the asteroid. They manage to do this using a secret entrance built by the Arcane, who helped the beholders create the asteroid and the device within but later regretted their decision. (Ok - let me get this straight - the beholders want to create a doomsday device so they hire CONTRACTORS? Do you have any idea how many Evil Overlord Regulations that violates?) The PCs go in, explore the asteroid, find various rooms filled with illusions (as well as some extra spelljamming ships), and hopefully save the day. Of course, since as I noted this module was apparently designed for players with an IQ of about 4, that seems doubtful.
There are at least one or two additional flaws throughout the module. For one thing, the main text refers to magic items supposedly described in the appendix - except they aren't. What the...?!
Furthermore, at one point the PCs encounter murals designed for and by beholders. Naturally, these are supposed to conform to beholder sight. You can see the front and part of the back of everything in the mural. Well, that's fine, except I don't see how it compensates for 360-degree vision. If you had eyes all around your head, you'd still wouldn't see part of the back of everything. I have to confess that I don't know what beholder murals would ACTUALLY look like, but I can't imagine they'd be as described in this adventure.
The concept behind this adventure is really neat. As I said, I wanted to like it. But the various flaws throughout the module ruined it for me. I imagine I may simply fix the flaws and run a better version someday - but it's useless as is. If you're looking for ideas, and you can get this adventure for a very low price, go for it. But if you're looking for something you can run when you don't have anything else prepared, look elsewhere.
Go to forum!
(Due to spamming, old forum discussions are no linked.)