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Saturday, June 19th is Free RPG Day and with it comes a slew of new and interesting little releases. Invariably they are tasters for forthcoming games to be released at Gen Con the following August, but others are support for existing RPGs or pieces of gaming ephemera. Amongst the slew each year there will always be one or more hotly anticipated they will always be joined by regular releases that support existing games. One such stalwart always seems to appear from Exile Game Studio for its popular pulp action RPG that goes where only Doug McClure has gone before, Hollow Earth Expedition. For Hollow Earth Expedition: Free RPG Day Adventure 2010, Exile Game Studio gives us A Nightmare at the Museum.

In previous years, the offering from Exile Game Studio has focused on getting the players and their characters to the Hollow Earth, whether via steamship or a giant mole machine. In A Nightmare at the Museum, the scenario remains strictly bound to the surface, opening with adventurers in New York at the invitation of a physicist to witness the unveiling of his great new invention. At which they – and the players – will witness one of the most groan worthy puns I have ever seen in an RPG release. Of course, these being 1936 things are bound to go awry, especially if certain black shirted gentlemen intervene. Cue madness and mayhem, and of course a desperate race to save New York.

A Nightmare at the Museum is a short scenario, being just five pages long, and can be played through in a single short session. It is supported with an explanation of the Ubiquity System rules and four sample characters. In a change from previous years these do not come solely from the core rule book, but from later supplements such as Secrets of the Surface World. They include the Intrepid Reporter, the Paranormal Investigator, the Promethean Scientist, and the Rugged Explorer. Given the action orientated nature of the scenario, the players will have to be inventive if they are to make full use of their characters’ Talents and Resources.

Of course, A Nightmare at the Museum is a bit too short a scenario. It would have nice to have something that was not quite so combat orientated all of the time. Certainly, there is room available as not every character sheet has to have guide to combat actions and use of Style Points – the game’s equivalent of Hero Points – on its reverse side. After all, the GM is only going to copy one sheet four times, not each appearance of the sheet the once. Another nice addition would have been some background for each of the characters to give the players something to hook onto and develop some relations between the characters. Also, considering that this is another scenario that gets the characters inside the Hollow Earth, what about an adventure actually set in the Hollow Earth itself? Perhaps next year?

Despite these reservations, A Nightmare at the Museum is silly, pulpy fun that does a good job of showing off the basics of the Ubiquity System for Hollow Earth Expedition.