Tales of the Scarecrow - Adventure Review - Dungeon Master's Blog

Reviewing Tales of the Scarecrow

A fun little adventure that can be dropped into any world or scenario

A few weeks ago I led a few young ladies through the adventure Tales of the Scarecrow, part of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess sets of adventures. It was a fun little trip into horror/fantasy role playing, and I'd advise any game master or dungeon master to consider adding it to a campaign as a fun, one-off jaunt that can really add some flavor to their campaign setting.

Tales of the Scarecrow - the Premise

This creepy module sufficiently adds a ton of horror tropes to a dungeons and dragons campaign setting. You could also use it for any other RPG, as the module itself doesn't discuss what the rules are for your game. The premise is simple. The adventurers, for whatever reason, have found themselves at a farmhouse in the middle of a cornfield; I used the "chased by wolves" trope. The path back to the main road closes behind the party, and any efforts to get back to the road, or escape the cornfield by any means, is met by the attacks of some horrid beast that attempts to literally pull the player characters apart. The farmhouse itself is safe, the players can interact in that area without threat of the beast in the corn rows, but if they choose to stay there, they will either die from the poisoned water, or starve to death. There is also a looming, creepy scarecrow out in the cornfield, that poses its own problems, but mainly just adds to the ambiance of total creep factor going on in this place. The objectives aren't actually stated in the module (which is pretty cool in and of itself, the players or DM can make up any objective they want), but basically, the players need to escape the cornfield, alive, with as much loot as they can manage.

TL;DR - Tales of the Scarecrow is pretty fun, but might need some modification

So, Lamentations of the Flame Princess is a group of adventures that I usually stay pretty far away from. Their profession of wanting to allow more "weird" fantasy into the cannon of adventure modules is a good cause; aside from the Ravenloft adventures, which I have my own misgivings about, there really isn't much in the Dungeons and Dragons cannon of the best modules out there that approaches the real apprehension and horror that could be applied. Sure, you could move on to Cthulhu or some other Lovecraftian scenario for some built-in creepiness, but usually it's all up to the dungeon master to raise the stakes and make everything creepy.

LotFP, in my opinion, accomplishes this, but goes many steps too far. I want creepiness, not innuendo-laden gore. Tales of the Scarecrow, though, is pretty great. It's like some odd combination of Children of the Corn and Tremors, and even a high-level party should be sufficiently creeped out by the scenario to make it work.

One of the best parts about this scenario is that it is short. Ridiculously short. If you only have a few hours, or if the dungeon master is struggling to get ready for the next epic part of the adventure, this is a great one to just drop in as your adventurers are walking along a road or path on their way to their next dungeon to crawl. That being said, there is some small modification that I would recommend. First, get rid of the bit about the scarecrow book. In the module, it appears as if it is a prompt to solve the issue of how to get out of a monstrous cornfield by making up ways to screw over your companions. Personally, as a DM I find it exceptionally easy to get players to screw each other over, and the nature of the beast in the cornfield (and the scarecrow itself) is enough to make them willing to do some horrible things with and to each other in an effort to escape.

Second, the dungeon master needs to come prepared with an objective (though the players might be capable of making that one up on their own). I personally inserted an NPC, a halfling merchant who had hired the players to help him get to the next town. The wolves chased them away from his wagon, and if they could get Otis out of here, even without his goods in his wagon, he would double the pay for any survivors.

Finally, the last modification to the Tales of the Scarecrow I would suggest before you run it is to pay very close attention to the powers of the beast. If you're playing with a higher powered party, you might have to ramp it up a bit. Add more grapple capabilities, or add to the number of attacks per round. The monster isn't scary if it can't kill your strongest party member in the 2 or 3 rounds it would take for them to flee to the edge of the cornfield.

One of the cooler parts is that there is no firm solution. The players always, as many times as I have run people through this, always come up with more and more elaborate plans to escape. I've even seen a party disassemble the roof of the farmhouse to try to construct a cantilevered platform to help them escape (the engineering proficiency is a wonderful thing). In the end, though, you, as the DM, need to be ready to improvise. Even if they make a perfect plan, you still need to make the monster scary enough that it's not a smiling excursion off their cantilevered bridge, or whatever the case may be.

In conclusion, Tales of the Scarecrow Is Pretty Fantastic

All in all I cannot think of a way to tell you not to try this. It is pretty great. The magical items left in the farmhouse (the sword and the second book next to the Scarecrow book) are great prompts into another adventure. The deadly corn rows scenario adds awesome flavor to a campaign setting (I'm immediately thinking that it is an elder god, for some reason stuck in this area, but able to act out above ground for short periods of time......unless some future cultist were to release him onto the world). It can be rushed through, like by applying a timer to it, finish it in an hour by saying every fifteen minutes of real time is a day, and in 4 days they die of thirst. Incentivise the players by threatening them with disadvantage on future rolls the longer they take and the hungrier they become.

Seriously, Tales of the Scarecrow is great. Its a wonderful flavor aside from the stone hallways of typical dungeon crawls. It also puts players who might be acustomed to kicking in doors and killing orcs to have to apply thought to their scenario and get themselves out of there. It also forces role playing, since the solutions usually involve sacrificing your fellow party members. Then, they may still survive, which is an awesome thing to watch, when a screwed over party member staggers out of the cornfield, facing the ones who left him to the tentacles..