13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
WELL DEVELOPED STORY HOOKS, July 7, 2006
This review is from: World of Darkness: Mysterious Places (Hardcover)
MYSTERIOUS PLACES is a supplement to the core book WORLD OF DARKNESS, commonly called the "mortals" line. This means that the material is not specific to any particular supernatural race but can be used with any of them, or be part of a non-supers story. I think of MYSTERIOUS PLACES and its companion books, ANTAGONISTS, and GHOST STORIES as Storyteller aids; they have characters, places, or storylines that you can drop into your current chronicle either as something to do when things get slow (as one writer put it, "when the plot seems to be going nowhere, have men with guns burst into the room") or as story seeds to get your own creative juices going.
MYSTERIOUS PLACES is specifically a collection of (mysterious) locales, each of which is presented with a history, associated characters, at least one plot device, different possible reasons for the player characters to become involved, and potential resolutions to the problems that the location poses. There is also information on how to adapt the setting to other types of territory: how to run a particular scenario in a downtown location rather than a rustic village, for example. The mystery is really what drives the plot for each location, so a lot of investigation is called for (in this case, the "guns" from the above quote are metaphorical). I believe the writeup for each location has enough depth to sustain a dedicated group poking at shadows without the Storyteller needing much prep ahead of time. It's not written in a story-line format, such that the investigators must do A to get to B to accomplish C; however, one could reasonably sit down, open the book, and play a few sessions straight from the chapter, provided the ST is familiar with the material from that section and limits the amount of outside influence in the story. It seems that MYSTERIOUS PLACES has this in mind, since each of the locations is designed to emphasize isolation.
In the final analysis, I believe that MYSTERIOUS PLACES is effective as a collection of story-seeds, with sufficient depth to the scenarios to be played from the book with no other preparation, although the ST needs to be able to run extemporaneously or have a good memory. As an aesthetic note, I found that I wasn't too fond of the scenarios as written on the first read, but I am more excited about them on the second and third. There are always changes that I would make for a better story, things to be added or subtracted. And this is probably the goal of the book, which is to take each location and make it your own. [As an addendum, I was pretty underwhelmed by the opening fiction. It involves particle physics, and as a particle physicist, it's hard to see any cosmic horror any smashing electrons and positrons together, unless you are working out the Feynman diagrams by hand . . . Sanity score ... dropping... ugh]
I am listing the "mysterious places" below, and I'll try to reveal as little of the mystery as possible. If you don't want any spoliers, here is a good place to stop.
1. The Swimming Hole: At the bottom of a body of water, there is a cave where you can trade your blood for wishes. As ol' Ben Franklin used to say, "If men were granted half their wishes they'd double their trouble." Even more interestingly, the force protects the water and the owner wants to drain it; too bad for everyone nearby.
2. The University: An unlikely cult has awakened a powerful force that seems to be the embodiment of the university itself
3. Swamp Indian Hollow: An undertaker makes "puppets" out of dead bodies, swamp grass, and stuff. The puppets live. What I find particularly creepy is that they don't even have enough will to be malicious (like zombies); they hide and wait. Neither does their creator have any plan for global domination; he just can't stop making the puppets. Oh yeah, and you can "wear" the puppets too, to effectively be one. That's pretty messed up right there.
4. The Village Secret. There really is a fountain of youth; it cures what ails ya and you can live a long, long time that way. Why haven't we heard about it yet? Because of the village.
5. The Statue of Weeping Alice: Someone discovers that when you make a sacrifice to the statue in the town square, good things happen. The greater the sacrifice, the greater the good. If you've ever met human beings in a crowd, you know where this is going. The fun part is where do you draw the line
6. Hillcrest Center for Assited Living: Lotsa old people = lotsa secrets. Some people take secrets to their grave; this is your last chance to catch them before they do.
7. The Whispering Wood: An arboreal Bermuda Triangle, except you need to be BAD to get there. And once you are, you ... change ... to show what kind of bad you are.
8. The Junkyard: sort of a mechanical version of #6.
9. The Empty Room: It's not really empty if you're stuck there, huh? For this mystery, I'd rather cut away all the fluff to get to the bright, shiny core: you're trapped in an empty room, you don't know how you got there, and you don't know how to get out. That's good enough for me.
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent addition to any dark world, September 23, 2005
This review is from: World of Darkness: Mysterious Places (Hardcover)
Mysterious Places is an excellent companion to Antagonists (1588464784) and Ghost Stories (1588464830), althoughy it's premade settings have more in common with the latter than the former.
As part of the "World of Darkness" role-playing system, Mysterious Places provides a variety of backdrops (along with inspiration and a few monsters) for any mortal, Vampire, Werewolf or Mage chronicle. Storytellers playing "mortal" games might find this book most useful (unlike Antagonists, which has several entries with supernatural protagonists in mind), but with a few adaptions, any of these stories could be challenging and interesting for even the most jaded players.
The only thing this books could use is a greater variety, and perhaps more for supernatural characters to interact with and challenge.
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