Every so often, I go through a phase of buying old D&D adventures I don't have yet; I've now got most of the 1st edition releases, along with a lot of the Basic/Expert line, but my 2nd edition AD&D collection is very poor indeed. My last spasm of purchasing found me picking up the three Marco Volo adventures: Departure, Journey and Arrival.
(Journey hasn't actually arrived yet – it's somewhere between here and America as I type).
I'd never read the adventures before. However, their mere existence is one of the reason I gave up on the Forgotten Realms. At the time, the Realms had recently been convulsed by the Avatar Trilogy of adventures and novels, and then by a few other big events: The Horde. Maztica. Both of these were very clearly inspired by real-world historical events, and that wasn't what I wanted in the Forgotten Realms. Thus, when I saw that TSR were publishing a set of adventures that seemed to be riffing on Marco Polo's journey to the east, I washed my hands of the Realms. From then on, my campaigns would be set in Greyhawk.
(Yes, Greyhawk had some dreadful products, but – mostly – the world was ignored by TSR during the 90s, which suited me).
Yesterday, two parts of Marco Volo arrived, and I amused myself by reading Departure. Astoundingly, it didn't suck. This isn't to say it was a brilliant adventure, but I actually enjoyed reading it and could see myself actually running it.
Of course, any adventure that, in its introduction, invokes Sabatini, Dumas and Steven Brust is already starting well.
The adventure's story goes like this: Marcus Wands, a feckless bard and scion of the Wands noble family of Waterdeep, who occasionally uses the name "Marco Volo", has stolen a magic item from an evil wizard. He's then sent an anonymous letter to the wizard informing him that Volothamp Geddarm was the thief, who is the author of the various Volo's Guides. Unfortunately for Marcus, the wizard, unable to find the real Volothamp (who is in hiding due to the reception to his books) has decided that "Marco Volo" is in fact Volothamp, and sends assassins to deal with him.
Meanwhile, Marcus's grandfather, Maskar, is fed up with his grandson's acts. So, he gets the characters to "hire" Marcus and take him to Shadowdale to deliver a message. Unknown to the players and Marcus, the message tube also holds a magic item that Maskar is sending to Lord Mourngrym. And that item is being sought by another wizard, who sends agents to hunt it down.
So, the adventure has the players and Marcus making their way towards Shadowdale whilst being chased by two groups of antagonists. The adventure notes that "Marco Volo is written as a picaresque adventure, light-hearted but never farcical or slapstick". Honestly, I've seen much worse ideas for adventures, and the basic ideas I find really amusing. (But then, I'm a big fan of Brust and Dumas).
What are the adventure's greatest crimes and successes?
It's called Marco Volo. It probably seemed amusing to the designers and editors. It may have amused others. It didn't amuse me. This is the scheme of naming that gave us the horrible "Amadeus Wolfzart" in the City of Greyhawk boxed set. Please, please – no.
Do this, or be imprisoned for crimes you didn't commit! Starting adventures is hard. Hired in a tavern is used lots of times for a reason: it's the least offensive for the players. The fact is, the D&D community has changed its opinion of railroading as time has gone by. A very large amount of the Pathfinder Adventure Paths are railroaded, and they seem quite popular. The fact is, railroading is fine in moderation. You need to make it believable. You need to make the story follow logically. Railroading is at its worst when the group get to what they think is a decision point and are forced in one direction when it's obvious they should go the other way. There's a certain social contract with published adventures: the DM has money getting it and time preparing it, so the players should at least give it a chance.
There's no doubt that it's still clumsy. The adventure means well: it has the group meet Marco Volo first, which leads into a bar brawl that gets them arrested. Then they meet Marco's father, one of the nobles of Waterdeep, who threatens to leave them in jail unless they 'hire' his son and get him out of Waterdeep. Personally, I'm fine with the group being forced into situations by the misuse of power. It makes up for all the time they think their actions have no consequences…
It's linear. Honestly, if you're doing the story of a road journey, there's not many other options for the adventure: you're going to have one encounter after another. So this doesn't bother me too much.
It has interesting NPCs. Impressively, Journey manages to set up the main characters so that they are entertaining to run and have "believable" motivations. Well, believable within its genre, that is. There's one particular problem with the plot, which if you can ignore it makes everything else follow. (That problem is just Marcus calling himself "Marco Volo" and then being mistaken for Volothamp. He does have a Wisdom of 6, though).
It evokes Waterdeep. With a party at Mother Tathlorn's, a visit to the jail and a meeting with Lord Wands, the adventure does do what I expect to happen in Waterdeep.
It's too short. Unfortunately, this is the biggest of its crimes. Departure is a 32-page adventure with big font, generous margins, and just too few encounters. It's a big problem of this part of the 2E era: A lot of TSR's products had much less content than you'd expect for their size. These adventures aren't the worst offenders; there are others that are even worse! This one spends a lot of time on the set-up, and by the the time the adventure starts going, it's over almost before it starts. (In total, there are about 11 encounters, some trivial, way too few for an adventure of this length).
It feels entirely too slight. If all three parts had been published in one 64-page volume, then it'd feel much more substantial. As it is, it looks like TSR were looking for products to pad their schedule (as if their crowded 1994 schedule needed more products!) and so split one adventure into three.
In fact, there are some good encounters here: there's plenty of opportunities for role-playing and there are some interesting combats as well. The interior artwork, by Liz Danforth, varies from adequate to good, and the cover artwork, by Laura Lakey, is attractive, although I've often wondered at Lakey's technique: why do her characters always look as if they're two-dimensional?
Ultimately, I enjoyed reading Marco Volo: Departure far more than I expected to. I guess I'll see whether parts two and three live up to the potential of the series' beginning. That this was published on its own was a terrible mistake; it's part of an adventure, not the entirety of one, and it feels terribly incomplete. However, what is here amuses me – far more than it would have in 1994, I warrant!