For the last three years, I've run a Planescape¹ campaign through almost all of its modules. Now, after successfully finishing it, I want to look back and review these adventures, highlighting the pros and cons of each one.

Each module will be rated in three categories, up to 3 points in each:

• Presentation: how easy is to understand and run the adventure.
• Openness: how open the adventure's scope is, regarding the freedom of choice.
• Quality: Overall quality of the adventure, including the originality and richness of its content, and players' enjoyment.

The full list of currently published reviews is available under the #planescape tag.

The March Begins

Wherein the heroes make their way to the ordered city of Automata to right an old wrong on behalf of a Book and a Cat, only to witness the start of the Modron March.

• Designers: Monte Cook and Colin McComb
• Source: The Great Modron March², Chapter I
• Party: 4-6 characters of 1st-3rd levels
• Play-time: 1 session
• Locations:
  • Sigil
  • Outlands / Automata

Overview

This is the first adventure of eleven, united by an event most unusual and unprecedented — the Great Modron March that started 150 years too early. The reason for such out-of-order occurrence is explained in the Prologue chapter, but the problem is, for the most part it will be kept for DM's eyes only, which is quite unfortunate.

The adventure starts just when the party gets somewhat familiarized with Sigil. They discover (or rather get forcibly drawn to) a long-abandoned clerk's office, where they get approached by a talking cat and a talking book. The cat's name is Ydemi Jysson, and he is a petitioner from Beastlands. The book's name is The Book, and it wants to hire the party to find its creator — a wizard by the name of Heiron. During his mortal life, Jysson bought The Book from him, and now it wants to be delivered to its creator for a generous reward.

Wizard's last know location is a gate-town of Automata, and The Book already knows the portal and the key to it. Being a threshold of the Mechanus, Automata presents itself as a boringly-orderly place of extensive bureaucracy and governmental procedures, and the party can either follow the code, or go rogue to minimize the time and monetary expenses.

As you would expect, nothing is as simple as it looks. Heiron is missing and is currently hunted by the Council of Anarchy — a local criminal organization. So, unbeknownst to them, the party soon becomes followed by a rival group of thugs. The investigation part is quite bare-bones, and might be in need of some embellishment if your players enjoy detective work.

The agents of the Council of Anarchy reveal themselves just when the party is negotiation with the secretive wizard, and the climactic combat ensues. Just when the city guards arrive, they get distracted by another occurrence — steady ranks of modrons that start pouring out of the gate from Mechanus. The Great Modron March has begun.

Presentation

🖋️🖋️ useable

Alongside the Prologue, there is an Introduction chapter covering the specifics and rules that apply to all adventures in the book, particularly, the march route, modron ranks and numbers, their behavior, movement rate, equipment, knowledge, behavior, and stats (presented in the Appendix). The information here is quite extensive and did prove its usefulness during the course of running the campaign.

If you want additional information on Automata, I would recommend looking into A Players Primer to the Outlands³ which has two pages of text and a whole city map. The map is what you might expect from such orderly place though, being a perfect grid of square city blocks. Thus, you won't miss much by not having it.

The adventure itself has all the information required to successfully run it, including descriptions of some locals, stats for the agents of the Council of Anarchy, and an isometric map of the couple of city blocks where the main action takes place.

Openness

☀️☀️ semi-linear

The adventure's hook is way too forced for my taste, but its main part is still left open for the players to demonstrate their detective skills. As you can imagine, the finale of the adventure's events is mostly scripted, though the outcome of the battle still lies on the characters' shoulders.

Quality

★★★ outstanding

The module proved itself to be enjoyable for the players, despite its short run time and linear portions. Overall, it gets its job done in placing the characters in the right place at a right time to witness the start of the March and prepping the ground for the following adventures.

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1. https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17267/Planescape-Campaign-Setting-2e?affiliate_id=850783↩

2. https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17302/The-Great-Modron-March-2e?affiliate_id=850783↩

3. https://www.dmsguild.com/product/17301/A-Players-Primer-to-the-Outlands-2e?affiliate_id=850783↩