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Review of Expedition: Endurance
Blurb from the publisher: '1914 NT: The Endurance is lost at sea! What really happened to the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition?
Prepare yourself for a horrifying journey to the frozen wastes of Antarctica!
In Expedition: Endurance, the fourth expansion for T.I.M.E Stories, a temporal anomaly of the worst sort has opened up in 1914, in Antarctica. This is the year that the crew of the Endurance attempted to cross the continent and failed, and your efforts to unravel the mysteries of this temporal anomaly will carry you into a realm where temperatures drop below -40 and, as Bob warns you, there may be supernatural forces at work.'
What you get: Your USD 29,99 or equivalent will buy you Expedition: Endurance, the fourth expansion for the T.I.M.E Stories game line, the hybrid boardgame/RPG/PC adventure made for tabletop gaming. The adventure can be played within 90 minutes by two to four players. The product contains 115 cards and nothing else; the basic game is needed in order to play this scenario.
Spoiler warning: each scenario of T.I.M.E Stories, just like any RPG adventure, is very likely to be played once only to fruition, even though this will happen in more than one run. As much as I am not going to describe, let alone detail the scenario, parts of it might be revealed while discussing its strong and less strong points. This will not make the scenario unplayable, mind you, nor any less enjoyable. If you enjoy surprises however, you might want to stop reading now.
The strong points: The icy wastes of Antarctica with mentions of supernatural forces mean only one thing: the Mythos. Expedition: Endurance is based upon events from the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-17, as retold through a horror lens not unlike the one used in H. P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness. The adventure is rather linear, with no puzzles to solve. It is however griping thanks to its style, the claustrophobic atmosphere in the frigid wastes. Its innovations rules-wise beg for some serious role-playing: characters are likely to become insane with afflictions like agoraphobia, paranoia or kleptomania. See how that last one works when you have to share objects around your group! On numerous occasions the players are instructed not to reveal the contents of the cards, keep cards whose contents only they themselves know etc. Suspicion and mistrust will rear their ugly heads, stalling your group.
I like how T.I.M.E Stories keep reinventing itself not just through different genres but also through different play styles. Not every style will be for everybody. Those however that had enough with the mapping or the puzzles from the previous adventures, have something really different here. Expedition: Endurance is an adventure that feels a lot like a book, even though it has its fighting moments. It gives choice, yet this choice doesn't instantly branch out into different results. It also demands a high level of participation not in the gamist but in the role-playing sense. There's no other way to put it: you have to role-play in this scenario. The more you do, and the better you do it, the more enjoyable it will come out as.
There are better and worse ways to approach this adventure. Seeing how there is no gamist sense of urgency, exploration will allow the participants to better understand what is going on and immerse themselves on the setting. That is very interesting, seeing how some previous adventures encouraged the mad-dash-to-the-finish-line approach. The downside is that one doesn't know this in advance. With only minimal exploration, the adventure might come out as short or even not fully developed. Even though the scenario is short compared to some other ones out there, not exploring it to the depth it deserves would be a pity.
The opening scene deserves a special mention. This is practically a scene set for failure. The trick is that the players are not aware of this, and they will fail. When they return to that time frame however, they will do so two days earlier, with a vastly different view of what happened. Those who have watched both iterations of The Thing will rejoice. While the 1982 movie showed what remained from the Norwegian expedition, with that films heroes trying to figure out the details, the 2011 movie showed what actually happened to it. Here, this same feeling is created in two consecutive scenes. Fantastic stuff!
I enjoyed the mentions of other scenarios, both the ones that preceded it as well as the hints towards what comes next. A certain mad Arab scrawling blasphemous notes and proclaiming 'meet me in 1419!' is a very ominous sign, seeing how the next adventures of the game, Lumen Fidei, takes place at exactly that time. We will examine it together shortly. The campaign aspect is also enhanced, with certain, ahem, conditions, that characters will carry over in the future. I really like this approach. All T.I.M.E Stories scenarios are self-contained both in content as well as genre, yet an overarching plot keeps developing. I don't want to ruin anything, but why are the AIs malfunctioning the way they do?
The choice of characters is good when it comes to their number (six). One of them is even a dog! Unfortunately, that's also how many women are included. I understand the historical parameters, yet one woman and four men is kind of hard to swallow.
The art is on the usual high standards of the game line, even though each scenario is designed by different artists. I will once again mention the change between scenes one and two, the bleak aftermath and the events as they happened. The drawing is exquisite, and at times bone-chilling. There is gore and disturbing imagery around. A dead woman, hanging from a fan. Half a body. A body eaten by a pack of hungry dogs. And all that in freezing temperatures. Damn.
The weak points: This is clearly not a historical scenario. It is a Mythos scenario, superimposed on a real-life expedition. If you are expecting historical hurdles and challenges or anything of the kind, you will be disappointed. I personally liked it, yet I must say that as a Cthulhu enthusiast I could infer some of the things happening from a mile away. Then again, I can't blame the scenario for that. Clearly, it is addressed to a much wider audience than the Mythos dabblers.
This isn't the first scenario that inserts the Mythos in this campaign; Asylum, the basic box's scenario did it first. I don't necessarily think that this is too much Cthulhu in your campaign, I am however certain that some might.
The Mythos works because it is unstoppable. No matter what the heroes do, no matter if they score small or even big victories, ultimately they, and everything else, is doomed. That doesn't work well at all with an AI extracting you when you fail. The supernatural on one hand and super-science by your side on the other need a lot of attention in order not to create a self-defeating loop. The horror can be felt as long as one forgets that he will be extracted. Yet, he will be extracted, and he can run the gauntlet again. From there on, the only thing to scare the characters (or the players), are the conditions they will carry into future games.
The successful end is as anti-climactic as they get. After all this atmosphere and imagery, the card has absolutely nothing setting-wise. There is no explanation, just a description which as as minimalist as to be useless. It's all about the scores and the accomplishments. Even worse, the actual instructions at the beginning are not what terminates the scenario. On the playtest it was felt that the scenario ends abruptly, with the players being uncertain as to why it had ended and how they have achieved what was asked from them. From a horror perspective, this is disappointing.
If you are overly concerned about providing a family experience you might find yourself feeling awkward at times with the imagery of this adventure and all the dead bodies lying around. Also, no need for me to repeat the issues of sleeving the 70 x 120 mm cards (a pain in the ass when it comes to finding the right sleeves). I wish the game had opted for 80 x 120 mm, a size that is both bigger (cooler aesthetics!) and easier to sleeve. Unfortunately, it's too late for that.
Conclusion: Expedition: Endurance is one of the simplest and most formulaic T.I.M.E Stories scenarios. It is also however one of the richest in texture and feeling, one where immersion matters. There is juice in the T.I.M.E Stories world; I am curious to see where this is going to lead.
For more info on Expedition: Endurance and T.I.M.E Stories overall, visit Space Cowboys at http://www.spacecowboys.fr or Asmodee at http://www.asmodee.us.
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