The Hollow Earth Expedition Adventure - RPG Review

A look at The Hollow Earth Expedition, the introductory scenario in the HEX core-book. While it's got all the basics for a solid Pulp game, I have some tips and suggestions to make it better.
Pick the PDF of the rule-book up here: www.drivethrurpg.com/product/23437/Hollow-Earth-Expedition-RPG?affiliate_id=1017650
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Also, I have SHIRTS! teespring.com/stores/seth-skorkowsky
Guest Starring Jack the NPC.

[@Shannovian]

Player: "You have to lead us there! The Nazis are after it!" Person who disappeared in 1928: "What's a Noughtsi?" Player: "It's the Germans. The Third German Empire." Person who disappeared in 1928: "The Kaiser has returned!?" Player: "... No."

[@caseybillings9685]

"World War...2?"

[@alexandredesouza3692]

Somehow... the Kaiser has returned.

[@jokertim777]

Your review of this adventure is not only entertaining, but also proves a point. Rather than discard a packaged adventure that objectively has pacing and agency issues, a good GM can simply modify the adventure using their own creativity to fix whatever issues they find. And, doing so takes a lot less time and energy than writing a replacement adventure from scratch. I call this process MIYO (make it your own) and have found it makes adventures more fun for the GM and the Players. New GMs will have a harder time with MIYO due to a lack of schema, so they should stick to running adventure scenarios that have a proven track record instead while they get up to speed.

[@kevingooley9628]

Hey Seth, a suggestion for spicing up at 6:50, load weight balance is even more important for airships that sea vessels, if none of the players have mechanic or navigational skills to fix or steer the zepplin, they can still be pulled in to aid the steward and the crew with securing and moving the ships cargo, ie, part of the cargo has broken loose and shifted, causing the airship to tilt and lose elevation, maybe causing it to head towards a mountain peak, and they have to make a mix of strength, dex, or intelligence checks, (or the hex equivalent) to get the ship back on an even keep so it can be steered safely away.

[@AlluMan96]

Another idea I got in mind while listening to this review was to liven up the tribesmen. I think it'd be neat if they first approached the player with fear or even mild hostility, perhaps surround them and imprison then to take to the chief. I find it kinda weird how this isolated tribe of people see all these modern people with technology and just greet them with open arms. Especially with the fact that we have pulp-nazis abound, it would be a good idea if the nazis had been giving them grief and upon seeing you, think you're one of them. This can lead to an actual payoff for a character knowing Amundsen beforehand, with him recognizing a friend and calling the tribesmen off. If nobody decided to incorporate that, then perhaps this results in the players either meeting with the tribe's clear-seer to be proven as unhostile or maybe they partake in a sort of ancient trial of trust in their culture or maybe it gives the party's face a chance to shine by attempting to negotiate with the tribesmen. Just a bit of excitement to meeting this tribe rather than it being a convenient spot to set up the next set-piece. In fact, to go back to the idea of the nazis being dicks to the tribe, have the tribe request your assistance with dealing with the nazis for defiling their tombs and stealing the sacred magic orb, rather than it just sorta happening because someone tipped you in on it.

[@adamp4046]

Nothing to watch just before bed on a Wednesday? Suprising no one Seth delivers again.

[@williamfawkes8379]

Well, I don't even need to see the bottom of that shirt to know that it is awesome. Tortured Picard and the 4 lights is a common reference used in our group. 2 thumbs up on that one, Sir.

[@patrickd1968]

Solid review. Thanks. I really enjoyed the added action suggestions to get the drama going.

[@fireinthedust]

Danger 5 is a great source of inspiration for this game, and had episodes like what's being described here. Strongly recommend. Seth's tips to Liven things up: Nazi dogfight attacks the airship? Or do Seth's saboteur in the air: a Nazi jumps off the airship and their parachute has a massive swastika on it, and you know there's a bomb on board they have to find! And you could introduce specialized Nazi agents: someone who switches their face with disguises, etc.

[@adammclauchlin7605]

I was already in bed but I guess I’ll just watch this then the rest of your videos, on repeat, till I die.

[@wyvernquill2796]

Movie Research for you Pterodactyl Attacking Aircraft = The People that Time forgot German U boat in arctic secret land = The land that time forgot Damaged Zeppelin lands for repairs and gets separated from the landing party = Island at the top of the world

[@kevingooley9628]

Maybe we can get ro see jack in the Doug McClure white turtleneck.

[@Lallander]

I love your work. Fantastic reviews with fantastic suggestions. The format is wonderful too. Love Jack and the players cutting in. Keep up the great work.

[@gregbanks5624]

So excited for this one when I saw it pop up! Another great review. I'd love your continued reviews on the the remaining book supplements as well as any of the adventures available.

[@StephMcAlea]

Top. Men.

[@worldbigfootcentral3933]

INTERESTING IDEA including Raold Amundson as a plot mechanism, Amundson is pronounced AH-mund-sun, by the way. Great video, as usual.

[@tychoknight]

All the scenario adds are essential IMHO , nice and informative review ! Well done sir !

[@DnDnBeer]

Fucking love Jack

[@MaxWriter]

Nicely done. Good ideas. I own these books but have yet to play the game though I love the concept. Thanks for sharing.

[@orinmayer1276]

Thanks Seth for another fine video review

[@ClutchSituation]

I appreciate that Seth never holds back. You really gotta wonder the GMing experience level of the person who wrote the adventure.

[@SSkorkowsky]

I don't think it was a less experienced author. I'm pretty sure it wasn't. The module is designed to be played in 4 hours, which means they had to trim some fat to get the players from, "Here's a brand new system you've never played before," to "We finished the game." Also, HEX is designed to be fast, running point to point. I just feel that they trimmed a little too much, because the result is we have several scenes before the PCs become involved, and there are places that make some assumptions as to what the PCs will do (which assuming anything as a GM is extremely dangerous). Most of my suggestions here still give the same results (like leaving the airship behind), but simply give a reason to do it. Most of the rest is missed opportunities. Having the PCs hear about Amundsen in the briefing, and potentially know him, gives the PCs a personal interest at the beginning, and makes his role much less random. It's like Indiana Jones, they bring Indy in because he knew Ravenwood and before he leaves he discusses Marion. So now Indy has a personal interest in the mission and in this other character. That's much more powerful than Indy running off to some guy he's never heard of, only to pick up a random side-kick/love-interest that was the guy's daughter. Same goes for that big .50 cal on the airship. That thing needs to be used. Players get excited when they see a huge mounted gun and they can't wait to blast something with it. But the module gives you the gun, the temptation and unspoken promise that it will be useful, but then misses the importunity to get properly used. So if you bring in a few flying dinosaurs, even if they don't pose much actual threat, you get to see a player's face light up as they take that massive machine gun and start going to town.

[@Myrth1]

@@SSkorkowsky Throwing my 3 cents to it (and necromancing this): I don't even think this is about experience of the person who wrote it or trimming things down. For me that scenario suffers from the exact same issue as majority of starter scenarios for all sort of games suffers from. Namely, it's a cool, exciting story (or even a decent set of story boards for a B movie), and not a game session with problems to solve for people. It always reminds me the first game I ever played and of course playing the example scenario from it. Long story short, it was "the damsel in distress is actually an evil vamp" twist, but thing is - nobody in my group was as eager as the scenario assumed to defend her in the opening scene (because it was also "you all met in an inn"), not to mention doing it as a whole group. Instead, we started asking the "brigands" after her, which completely killed the scenario dead in its tracks. The GM had to pretty much force the fight on us, even if he didn't want to do that either, because he lacked experience to find a way around the scenario. And it had few other such moments down the road, with outright assuming the outcome without any real tools to reinforce it. And of course for the most part of this excitement, nothing actually happens, it's just exposition and descriptions. I have massive sentiment to that scenario, obviously, but it taught me the most important lesson: modules and pre-packed scenarios are rarely written to be actually playable. And it's something that I saw more times than I care to remember. The Hollow Earth Expedition is no exception and it has another fault of such pre-packed adventures: it boils player actions or even entire agency to combat. Short fot that Observation check, I don't think it even has a non-combat roll included. Which is a good thing (relying your entire scenario on people passing one, specific roll is a horrible design, and I'm looking at you, Chaosium), but in the same time shows where the focus was: it's this new cool came for cool, fast, mass combat, and not this is this new cool game for pulp adventures. As much as I like HEX and always try to promote it everywhere (it wasn't even translated to my native and pulp never truly developed natively, so imagine the hurdle), I find that the focus of the whole game was put in the wrong spots, and this scenario nicely shows how good it could be with just minor reorientation

[@Chestbridge]

Thanks for the great review! Your suggestions on how to improve this scenario are very helpful. I'd love to see a review of the adventure from Secrets of the Surface World as well! ;-)

[@chriskirby9408]

Yes! I love Hollow Earth!

[@Vagenlitefoot]

Holy crap, Jack found the Holy Grail... well this does explain how he exist in everything from the medieval times to the far flung future. Is this cannon?

[@SpeakDemon]

Maybe that's the flask he keeps sipping out of?

[@Myrth1]

Forgot to report in: This weekend, in a preliminary attempt to raise awareness about the game's existence prior to its translation into my native, me and my friend were running two tables at the local con. We were both using the default adventure, in both cases reworked to be a lot more action packed (a car chase in NY vs. a horseback one near Longyearbyen after a Nazi spy, depending on player actions, the tips from comments on how to enhance the flight, an extra possibility to actually stove-away on the submarine, and many more) and far less grounded in the assumption players will know historical figures (we actually made a tally: out of 54 people we "served", only 11 correctly wrote down the answer for our "contest" on who Roald Amundsen was, and 4 of those were in a single group), not to mention a free reign in doing things their way. As predicted, the scenario worked out fantastically premise-wise, after applying all the various tips from the video and comments below it, proving once more that it wasn't the scenario that was at fault, but the horrid execution of it as printed in the book. We both "served" 4 groups of 6 people each, with a diverse range of experience (from total greenhorns to people playing for decades), getting times between 2 to 4.5 hours (the longest one, but the group consisted of 5 people who had never played a TTRPG prior and their only "grog" let them have fun with it). We used pre-defined characters that were tailor-made for the scenario (majority of the pre-mades from the book are ill-fitted for the adventure) and each group had 9 to pick from. Generally speaking - lots of fun and probably the best promotional event I ever took part in, even if the whole "promotional" part was self-declared, as we are still in the process of securing all the legal stuff regarding the translation. People had zero issue with the game, its resolution system and even the greenhorns handled it with ease once it "clicked" for them how archetypical everything is, giving them option for some genre fun, rather than stumbling in the dark. God, I hope we manage to get all the stuff going before Indiana Jones 5 hits cinemas, because piggy-backing on its marketing will make fundriser for the translation and printing so much easier.

[@seanstefansson2021]

I'm actually currently waiting for the core rule book to be shipped right now. Hopefully I can convince my gaming group to give it a go.

[@chrisgerardy2877]

It sounds like an interesting premise. I enjoyed the Raiders of the Lost Ark bit.

[@imreadydoctor]

10:26 and then watch 2:54 on his review of Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

[@larsdahl5528]

Against the Cult of the Reptile God: kzbin.info/www/bejne/kJXNmpqjn7l3irc

[@midnightblue6668]

I try not to give adventures printed in RPG core books too much of a hard time because they are going to be limited by page count...so you can't really delve into all of the nuance and possibilities that you might in a scenario printed on its own. But then again, I'm of the personal opinion that ALL published scenarios need to be gone over by the GM to add personal touches for her/his player characters. Really nice review. I'm a big fan of the Hollow Earth Expedition products and I have a good number (most?) of the third party Ubiquity System games, like the large number produced by Triple Ace Games. I'd love to see more HEX here! =)

[@Coophack6584]

I NEED THIS

[@NefariousKoel]

Heads up! "Leagues of Gothic Horror', which also uses HEX's Ubiquity system, is currently on a Bundle Of Holding pdf package deal! Also comes with the core 'Leagues Of Adventure' 1890s pulp book and the extended option to add 'Leagues of Cthulhu' & others. LoGH series has some excellent material.

[@Notmadenough]

Okay. You convinced me to buy it. I've been looking for ages to run a "journey to the centre of the earth" "land that time forgot" kind of game.

[@stephennielson717]

great review for a cool game. Like to see more hollow earth rpg

[@Dorian_sapiens]

One-Eyed Jack!

[@nicknumber1512]

But somehow no sceptered queens or suicidal kings.

[@The_Kentuckian]

Here's hoping Seth covers some other HEX scenarios.

[@hidalgoplaza843]

Seth! Would you consider reviewing City of Mist? I'd love to hear you take on it!

[@Sofus.]

2.30 into the video and already impressed.

[@keithparker1346]

Could probably rework this to make a rpg from Richard Lupoff book Circumpolar which is set on alternate earth where its donut shaped and the characters journey from the known side of the earth through a hole in the earth to discover or explore the other side

[@chazaktyler]

There are four lights!

[@swordandshield9041]

Hey Seth Can you do more reviews for this?

[@jayoungr]

I played through this adventure at a con a few years ago. I was having fun right up until the crystal got broken and the GM informed us that we all died in the explosion--I guess because we were out of time by that point--which was kind of a flat and depressing ending. I always thought we did something wrong by breaking it, but apparently that's supposed to happen?

[@Daniel_Montenegro]

What do you guys think about the "polar illusions", supposed to be narrated by the GM at the zeppelin, did you just ignored it or there's a way to spice it up a little bit? Great review and suggestions. I'll run it soon and will apply a lot of them.

[@randomusernameCallin]

Good overview. I can see there are problem with the gaps between game play. What are your thoughts of Mansions of Madness from Fantasy Flight.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Haven't played it. I'd like to, but just never have.

[@nathanparis3573]

Great boardgame but expensive... most missions have a hidden timer so you got to move fast.

[@randomusernameCallin]

Arkham horror and Eldricth horror has a time limit to them. I need time to play the card game. It just seems like Mansions of Madness could be a good fit for Seth Skorkowsky as a game and augment for his RPG.

[@Loehengrin]

Amundsen was the first man to reach the south pole. If the PCs are polar explorers they will know of him. If the RPG group has people interested in exploration - as is likely with this genre - some of them will know of him. Especially here in Blighty, where every town has a memorial to Scott and his ill-fated race to beat Amundsen to the pole

[@braddoc4087]

I got that book, an intresting read, but the system wasn't too much our style.

[@KuyVonBraun]

Man I really miss this game! I hope the core rulebook gets another printing, especially as a hardcover because the prices can be pretty astronomical these days. My own copy is falling to bits from overuse!

[@SSkorkowsky]

Yeah, my hardcover is a tad beaten up. I got it used and the previous owner must have really loved it hard.

[@Sofus.]

The last thing I've heard was that a German publisher said they had the German rights for a new edition. They waited on the finalization, to start translating that ting. It was about 1-2 months ago in an interview.

[@Chestbridge]

@@Sofus. This is amazing news. Do you have a link to that interview? Or do you remember which publisher it was? Thanks in advance! =)

[@Sofus.]

@@Chestbridge It was an interview from Orkenspalter TV but I do not know exactly where.

[@Chestbridge]

@@Sofus. Thanks, I'll try to track it down! ;-)

[@Brainstrain]

Hall O’ Earth

[@NoFlu]

Little nitpick here: When Munsen, or however that guy is named, got lost in 1928 or sth, I don't really think he knew about the Nazis or why they have to be stopped. They weren't in total power yet, maybe he heared about Mein Kampf, but the biggest things those boyos did until then was a failed coup in Bavaria.... But I guess a quick rundown of their believes would convince him to help....

[@SSkorkowsky]

It's easier to say that the PCs tell Roald the Nazis want it than to stop the video and give a history lesson on the timeline of the rise of the Nazis and how they need to tell this to Roald. The "Oh, and Nazis are bad" can be assumed.

[@NoFlu]

@@SSkorkowsky Yeah it was just one of those moments were my wanna-be historian sense started itching....

[@davidgantenbein9362]

NoFlu Good point. But he could still know about the facist movement as this one was in full power in Italy at that time. The nazis are still just a part of the whole facist movement. So if the players talk about nazis, they just have to tell him about them being extreme facists and he probably understands fast. As a European Amundsen should know about Mussollini, which is the direct role modell for Hitler anyway.

[@tazmokhan7614]

I really want to get this game but its so out of print and its super expensive especially the GM screen. Love the review!

[@SSkorkowsky]

It's still in print in paperback (which is smaller than the Hardback, and a bit of a gripe of mine), though you can still find used hardbacks at a decent price if you lurk Ebay or the like. Can't help you with the screen. Those things are mondo-expensive. I was just lucky when I stumbled on mine at a used bookstore for cheap. On amazon the hardbacks are about $50, while paperbacks are $20. amzn.to/2CtvKZe

[@chrishutchinson6114]

How many lights are there Jack?

[@samwhary5498]

Hey Seth, have you ever run a long term campaign in a hollow earth setting? Any system. Like a huge under dark game, or a CoC campaign in which they explored a hollow earth environment across a lot of sessions. Let's say... 10 session minimum? I know you've got huge sessions but I'm hoping for a grand story.

[@john-lenin]

The Red Tent is an amazing movie about Nobile and Amundsen. www.imdb.com/title/tt0067315/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_10

[@Saganen]

Norge means Norway in Norwegian :)

[@jeremiemarin4055]

I don't know how you all think it was the North pole , it was the south pole obviously a re direction is happening.

[@rickeymariu1]

What does his shirt say?

[@SSkorkowsky]

"There are four lights!" with Captain Picard's screaming face in the middle.

[@blogsblogs2348]

1928 aircraft??? 1941 b25 With military finish.. ie aft weapon station

[@dallasjacob99]

Do you have any tips for 5th edition dnd and the modules for those?

[@SSkorkowsky]

Sorry. We played D&D 5e for only one year, and not using any of their pre-written scenarios. We then flipped back to Skill-Based systems because they're more our style over Level-Based games like D&D. That being said, I have several 1e scenarios I've done and will be doing, but nothing specifically for 5e.

[@MrKarma-dp8ud]

15th!

[@SabreXT]

I don't know what it is about games with interesting or rules-lite systems having few pre-made adventures, and said adventures are fairly bare bones. It's as if they saying "This is the perfect system to get new players into the game, but we're going to do the bare minimum to get GMs up to speed." Maybe you're expected to use campaigns from other games like Pulp Cthulhu or Savage Worlds, but it seems to be a recurring problem with these kinds of games. And I might as well ask, does anything happen in Norway except random trivia? From your review, it sounds like you could skip Norway entirely and get straight into the adventure.

[@SSkorkowsky]

Yeah, that's all that happens in Norway. "Here's some trivia and a Nazi submarine left a week before you got here." Personally, I love sample adventures in the core books. I think they help a whole lot for new GMs to either run or read to see how the games should be setup. But.... doing the bare bones effort on those is so weird. I think they should put a spectacular adventure in as their free sample. Make that scenario so good and so GM-Friendly that everyone love it and buys more books. This is one of those areas I always praise Chaosium for, because they know that a killer sample adventure is golden. Meanwhile you have games that either don't offer any sample scenario or games that pretend to have a sample scenario, but it's really just a story hook with nothing more (Kids on Bikes being the queen mother of games with "modules" that lack details like plots or objectives or villains or really anything but a marketing ploy to trick people into buying it.)

[@baleeet7323]

Fourth!

[@grimgirl99]

I loved this review, but Seth's pronunciation of Roald Amundsen and especially Norge, made me laugh so hard I think my ribs broke. No offense to you, Seth. Norwegian is difficult to pronunce, but holy hell you fumbled your other language roll.

[@leathery420]

3:46 Not that it's a big deal or anything, but my obsession with firearms that borders on autistic, compels me to point out that you'd almost certainly not see .50 caliber machine gun on an air ship. .50 BMG was only developed at the very end of ww1, and then wasn't put into use until the 1920s. By time ww2 kicked off baloons/air ships stopped being used in any capacity that would require them to defend themselves, so they were only mounted on planes and heavy ground vehicles. The Vickers/maxim machineguns which are THE ww1 machinegun were all about .30 cal. So it's not impossible for people working with the US government to have one. Though If you consider air ships were dying tech at the time it's pretty unlikely the US government would stick their newest piece of tech onto one of their older most useless ones. Now giving them a airship and old surplus .30 caliber machineguns and not really caring if they lose the gear or not seems way more US government pencil pusher logic to me. Anyway with that said good review, and hope to see more.

[@kevingooley9628]

The US navys k class airships did mount 2 .50 BMG, entering service in 1938. They were dedicated to anti- submarine operations, though, and probably wouldn't have diverted one for some weird spy mission.

[@user-cx7kg6ok9b]

If Jack is here to give the players' perspective, shouldn't he be "Jack the PC"? Also, if the players are going to the North pole, why woud they travel from the US to Norway first? Just go straight North from your starting point. I mean, you're talking a couple thousand miles worth of trip in an airship, adding at least a week to their journey. If time is of the essence (trying to beat the Nazis), then it just doesn't make sense, especially since doing so means having to fly over (or very near) Nazi airspace. Whoever wrote this mod didn't think it out very clearly. Finally, this - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latham_47#/media/File:Latham_47_Roald_Amundsen_1928.jpg - is what the crashed airplane should look like.