Frugal GM Review: A Single, Small Cut

I've had A Single, Small Cut in my wishlist for a while now and finally decided to pull the trigger because the descriptions and the cover really pulled me in...I thought this might be a good "short adventure" to add into my campaign, with a few tweaks.

Of course after buying it and reading through the five pages of content it is readily apparent it will not even come close to something I can use in my campaign. This isn't the adventure's fault because it is just a severe misalignment with my campaign. If I was running a "normal" campaign it'd fit right in with some tweaks.

Now I'm not familiar with the Lamentations of the Flame Princess, but I've seen it labeled as a "weird fantasy". While the cover creature is this adventure is certainly "weird", I didn't get any such vibe from the adventure itself. Definitely no more than any other fantasy setting. Aside from the main creature this product centers around, the adventure setting seems pretty straight.

The main DriveThruRPG page for this product bills it as a "short encounter" but it is essentially a single encounter. Normally I'd be a bit PO'd at spending $2 expecting a short encounter adventure and getting a single encounter. In normal play this would be an encounter....a big encounter with some potentially HUGE campaign ramifications, but a single encounter nonetheless. The majority of the text depicts the building the encounter takes place in, the history behind the  BBG, and a fair amount of set-up, along with a good few paragraphs about concluding the adventure. The map isn't anything to write home about, but I think it is perfect for the needs of this encounter.

Odds are you'll have to do a little tweaking to the setup to fit your campaign, which shouldn't be a surprise. The PDF isn't secured so you could easily change small bits of text or add some PDF notes easily. I think I'd probably get a nicer map of an appropriately sized church (or make my own) and add this location as a known location for my players. Get them familiar with the congregation and the area, and then hit them with this encounter. What I'd usually find an excessive setup for a single encounter would really come in handy when using this as an area the party will revisit from time to time. It would even be possible to have other minor encounters here in this space to get the party familiar (maybe overly-familiar?) with this church so when this encounter goes down it has even more of an impact.

All-in-all A Single, Small Cut is a pretty good resource, regardless of what fantasy RPG you play. There are a couple of great ideas in this encounter that might really shake things up in your campaign.