Traum Park
Since The Curse of the Khalîf I have acquired the Dream Park rules, but there is no need to reiterate the excellent reviews of Papyrus and Evan Waters. For those who don't have the time to read them, here is a summary of the Dream Park 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 — 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. This means that instead of playing a character in an adventure, you play an actor playing a part in a hightly interactive TV show.
You'll need the Dream Park rules for the game mechanics, but, as in the other two adventures, there is a four-page introduction explaining the setting and a few rules pertaining to the size of the player group and the opposition encountered. And throughout the adventure, actions pertaining to the rules are highlighted in the text. This isn't exactly a necessity but nice, considering you get it for free with the rest of the book.
Der Story
The PCs are US superheroes who have been called together to form the "Warden Project" at the start of World War II. With the skills they used in prewar crimefighting they now battle Nazi spies and infiltrators in the Americas, Axis army mechas (Mechas!) around the globe and, of course, the evil superheroes of Germany and Japan.
As always, the characters are dropped right into the action, in this case a bank-robbery by American super-gangsters and their mundane henchmen — or so it seems. After that, they board an experimental stealth bomber, which takes the heroes right into the heart of the Reich, to the Falkenschloss, home of Baron Wilhelm von Falkenberg, aka. the Red Falcon, who heads the Führer's "Waffen-Übersoldaten" programme. Some kind of secret uber-weapon is being designed there, it is said, and the Warden heroes are to destroy it and make sure it can't be built again.
Complications galore! The heroes are dropped miles short of their target and must hike across enemy territory, eluding German patrols and evading or punching through checkpoints. And even after infiltrating the Falkenschloss, battling SS stormtroopers and minor German supervillains, they'll have to find the secret laboratory. The final third of the adventure involves a major, double twist, which I won't reveal in order not to spoil the fun.
Das Source Material
Just like Race for El Dorado and The Curse of the Khalîf, The Fiendish Agents of Falkenberg tries to give the reader something more than a scenario. To this end, there are six pages of source material outlining the peculiar nine-tenths-historical world in which the adventure takes place and three adventure ideas that can be run in it. The author even explicitly proposes using the source material in other role-playing games, and if there are rules for it, it should be easy to convert statistics between Dream Park and another RPG since Dream Park isn't exactly rules-heavy.
Each adventure seed consists of a short outline and a section on how to run them. I find them quite good, and given the same covering as the main adventure, they should be on par with it. The source material, however, is terribly thin. About half of it is a dry recount of the Warden Project's history, including the future post-war detente and cold war. Even in the light of the big, double twist mentioned above, this should be of no consequence to the player superheroes, whose immediate and pressing business is defeating the Axis.
The other half is a shopping list of superheroes, equipment, vehicles and mechas. Mechas? Yes, mechas! Japan is, after all, part of the Axis, so there are diesel-powered walking fighting machines. In my opinion, this is completely unnecessary. I know Dream Park is about playing with the audience's expectations, but involving mechas in WWII just spoils the fun for me. Mechas! In desert warfare! But even if you're not a rabid anti-mecha like me, you'll note that mechas don't enter into the adventure (save for the occasional random encounter). So there is absolutely no need to involve mechas.
Another way in which the Dream Park philosophy shoots the author in the foot is the comparatively large number of American superheroes listed in contrast to the few Axis or Russian ones. It makes some sense keeping in mind that the player characters are actors playing American supers designed largely by the (GM character) director. Nevertheless players are likely more interested in playing superheroes they designed themselves, and the GM might rather have a few more supervillain NPCs instead.
Die Presentation
While in the same style as the rest of the Dream Park line, The Fiendish Agents of Falkenberg shows signs of having been rushed to the printer. Typing errors abound; the type is uneven, often too tight even with a condensed typeface; in-line hyphenations (e.g. char-acters, p. 10) show paragraphs changing during typesetting; and there is a character card missing a title on p. 10.
I won't count the frequent non-Germanisms against the author. Actually, I've seen enough "Furhers" to appreciate the fact that William Moss at least tried to get the German words correct. So I put the occasional "Stürmmaschinengewehrs" down to atmosphere; they are just another stock Hollywood Nazi cliché after all. As an afterthought, I daresay that the exfiltration route via "Leichtenstein" gives a far more sinister ring to the name of the tiny alpine tax evasion resort, though.
The illustrations try to capture the look-and-feel of classic comic books — I think. I have to admit that I don't know too many classic comic books. As a youth, I read the occasional Superman and Batman pulp comics, but I know none of the more recent superhero graphic novels. Compared with 70es Batman, the illustrations in The Fiendish Agents of Falkenberg fail, mostly because they are in black and white. Compared with the blocky colours in the comic books, the hatching looks out of place. The illustrators should have used greyscale for shading, perhaps.
Den Verdict
The Fiendish Agents of Falkenberg offers a nice mix of stock clichés taken from Hollywood Nazi flicks, superhero comic books and the occasional SF novel with a few original twists and ideas thrown in. Sadly, it doesn't achieve depth. Everything remains flat, if solid, and this means the supplement has a very generic feel about it. As I said above, I can't put a finger on it, but I think it is because there are too many clichés back to back to back to allow the story to develop properly.
Additionally, the main adventure is extremely railroaded. I have to admit that the other Dream Park adventures are railroady, too, and that railroading is a feature of Dream Park and that the outcome paragraphs in Race for El Dorado and The Curse of the Khalîf aren't more than shunts to shortcuts along the way. True, true. However, in The Fiendish Agents of Falkenberg there are few provisions for characters coming out second in an encounter with the bad guys. Most of the time failing an encounter means Hitler winning the war. To me, this looks like a recipe for diaster, the GM either has to bail the players out or end the adventure prematurely. Both isn't very satisfying.
An example would be the PC superheroes killing the German scientist Dr. Weitzer (anybody remember the Zucker film Top Secret?). Remember the PCs are to destroy the Nazi uber-weapon and make sure the research can't be reproduced. This includes terminating with extreme prejudice any scientists scurrying around. But if they off the good doctor, the Nazis will win the war and the party will miss the whole second part of the adventure.
In summary, The Fiendish Agents of Falkenberg presents an interesting adventure, but it needs work to run properly. With the exception of the three adventure seeds, the source material isn't very valuable, too. The production is clearly below average as well, so I'll give The Fiendish Agents of Falkenberg a rating of 2 in both Style and Substance.
