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Dream Park
The Curse of the Khalîf is an adventure in the Dream Park line. For those of you who have read my review of Race for El Dorado, some of what follows may be a little repetitive, so skip the next section.
You'll need the Dream Park (q.v.) rules for the game mechanics, but there is a short section in The Curse of the Khalîf explaining the setting: The Dream Park is a gigantic, multi-area, near-future amusement park/TV stage. Using hologram projectors, virtual reality goggles, actors and high-tech animated puppets, the directors can create a near-perfect simulation of just about any adventure genre and style &emdash; fantasy, science-fiction, whatever. Ordinary people pay to run in a Dream Park adventure (the game has apparently been written before the advent of casting shows), which is broadcast worldwide on TV.
So playing Dream Park is role-playing once removed, because you don't play a character in an adventure, but a character playing a character in an adventure. I don't have the book either, so please look up the reviews for Dream Park in RPG.net.
The Story
The Curse of the Khalîf is just about as "railroady" as Race for El Dorado, but I think that's a feature, not a bug, since the story is supposed to follow the script of some unseen semi-NPC Dream Park directors.
As with Race for El Dorado, the freshly be-turbaned but almost un-briefed PC actors are dropped right into the cocoa. I wonder why they have to find out that they are supposed to be guarding the caravan raided by thugs. They could have been told before entering the game area without any negative effects. Heck, there is even an NPC actor who tells them if they don't react promptly to the attack. But this is a trifling issue, because the ensuing fight is just an introductory scene to give the PCs an opportunity to show their prowess.
The caravan arrives at its destination, the capital city of Zalîm, next day and the guards are dismissed. They are allowed a night on the town, which I find rather un-dream-parky. Although they might pick up a hint or two about the plot to come, it gives them an opportunity to draw out the adventure with actions that don't concern it. Whatever they do, on the following day the PCs are invited to the palace by the royal guard, because the Khalîf needs their help: The princess, his only child, has been abducted by some evil cult and there seems to be a traitor in the palace (ooh!), so he doesn't dare send the military.
Needless to say, through the course of the next 22 pages the PCs get help from a sorcerer, bust the cult headquarters, battle genies, demons and whatnot, and finally rescue the beautiful princess, the Khalîfate and everything. I can't elaborate on that without spoiling the fun of prospective players, since the plot has a major twist.
The Source Material
The remaining 14 pages of the book are source material, NPC statistics, maps, and background on the world of the Khalîfate. This is a kind of alternate history, where Arabian fantasy is real. The Arabic empire of the Khalîfate spans the old world from Tangiers to India and from Britain to the Horn of Africa. To the north are barbarian hordes, in the east there is an isolationistic Japan and unending struggle among four chinese states, nobody cares about sub-saharan Africa, and the semi-mythical new world beyond the great sea is out of reach. Caravans cross deserts and steppes filled with lost cities, demons and genies battled by guards and magicians.
Surprisingly, most of the world, including the Khalîfate, is polytheistic. William Moss doesn't mention any kind of monotheistic religion, which, like Islam, could have unified the squabbling Arab tribes and could have driven them to conquer most of the known world. This doesn't sit well with me. Maybe I can't remember most of my Arabian Nights, but do they really do without the ubiquitous reference to Allah the Merciful the Beneficient? However, this is a small matter and easily remedied to any GM's likes.
Out of the Bottle
Despite the author's labours, the world of the Khalîfate remains rather skeletal, in my opinion. Much more useful I find the five adventure ideas, fleshed out in a few words, that either stand alone or constitute sequels to the plot of The Curse of the Khalîf. This falls squarely beneath the heading of directly helping the GM. If I may generalise from just two adventures, this is what I would call the strongest point for buying Dream Park material. Throughout the book, the author gives explicit and concise advice on how to run the adventure, what to avoid or play up to, and what to do next. True, you can compile your own notes, but this takes a lot of time and the actual author of the adventure is much less bound to overlook something vital. Since I'm a slob, I like my adventures to have such a kind of genie from a bottle.
Verdict
The Curse of the Khalîf is a solid adventure, given the peculiarities of Dream Park. If you tone down its cinematic style and add a little realism, you can use it with just about any game system. The setting, though, is totally Arabian Nights, and I'm not sure if the adventure could be included in a non-Arabian-myth campaign. Production quality is good, with the exception of the illegibly red-brown-yellow smear on the inside covers, which easily qualifies as the worst map I've ever seen in a serious RPG product.
