Wednesday, March 15, 2023

Enter The Collection Review

Enter the Collection was the 2021 Free RPG Day offering from Renegade Games Studios. The adventure uses their Essence20 system and was designed to be used for the Power Rangers, GI Joe, and Transformers RPGS. This is an interesting choice because this dropped in October 16, 2021 and the first of those games (Power Rangers) wasn't released until January 26th, 2022. That meant this adventure was basically useless for 3.5 months. 

The characters have a contact that ask them to look into a situation in the suburban community of Crystal Springs. A local professor has made a strange discovery and her colleague has gone missing. The culprits are a criminal organization called The Collection. They are dumping chemicals in the local lake and kidnapped the missing gentleman when he got too close.

Part I of the adventure is investigative.  The characters can search the missing man's house, avoiding nosy neighbors and potentially coming into conflict with suburban security guards and local police. They can then search the local lake. Day and night time search yield different results. During the night they can stumble across agents of The Collection. They can then engage these forces which may lead to Part II.

Part II is a late night chase. The different skill rolls needed are presented.

Party III of the adventure finds the characters coming up on abandoned airfield. They must make it past The Collection's guards The Keeper (commander of this group), a Vault (heavily armored soldier), pilot, and co-pilot await them. The Keeper then sets a bomb and seeks to escape. The players have a variety of tasks they can attempt: disarming the bomb, taking the hostage and running, stopping The Collection forces.

After the adventure the party have made enemies of The Collection, which can come back to bite them later. Additionally they've uncovered the truth of the chemical dumping and can a local politician to justice.

The adventure is generic enough that I can see how it is appropriate to all three settings. While primarily mundane, some of the foes do have access to an alien war drug, which add a sci-fi element. The adventure adds the following threats, which can be used in any of the games. They are:

  • Longhall Homes Security Guard  - Threat Level 0
  • Crystal Springs Police Officer  - Threat Level 1
  • Collector Foot Soldier  - Threat Level 2
  • Carry-All Halftrack (Land Vehicle)  - Threat Level 2
  • Badger ATV (Land Vehicle)  - Threat Level 2
  • Collection Stalker  - Threat Level 6
  • Collection Keeper  - Threat Level 4
  • Collection Vault  - Threat Level 6
  • Sparrowhawk Stealth Jet (Air Vehicle) - Threat Level 3
In addition the Ajax Compound Inject and Camouflage Pop-Up are new pieces of equipment you can add to your game.

This seems like it a fun adventure and I will definitely use it when I finally get to run an Essence20 game. You can pick this one up on Ebay, Noble Knight, and other online retailers.

1 comment: