A review copy of “The Yeast Heist Fiasco Getaway” was provided by the publisher. Find more DMs Guild Reviews on my website and YouTube channel.
Support my work by using my affiliate links and pledging via Patreon.
Designed by: Leonardo Andrade
Inspired by the cool-crime thriller genre (aka Tarantino-like), The Yeast Heist Fiasco Getaway is a unique adventure designed for a solo player character at fifth level. The PC must escape a city in lockdown after a heist-gone-wrong, leading to several meaningful choices in how the sole survivor escapes with the McGuffin.
The stolen McGuffin is a pair of yeast samples taken from the Brewer’s Guild in the town of Breowburh, a densely populated city run by trade guilds, with access to powerful wizards and guards armed with rifles.
The player character is the last survivor of a party that was tasked to infiltrate the powerful Brewer’s Guild and steal its yeast samples. But something went wrong. Now your crew is dead, the city is in lockdown, and the law is banging on the door of your safehouse.
It’s an awesome start to an intriguing post-heist adventure, with several optional backstories that the player and DM can incorporate, or a list of questions you can use to build the backstory together.
The player is given a handout with several criminal contacts who could help them, including arms dealers, thieves’ guild members, and a moneylender with a strange talking cat who is actually their warlock patron. The PC is free to engage with any of these detailed NPCs, each of which has a quest they’ll demand before helping.
It’s an effective open-ended narrative structure that’s highly rewarding for the player, but very complex for the DM to run. It doesn’t help that the layout is unattractive, with tiny text, little artwork, and huge walls of paragraphs – though I did appreciate sketch portraits for the major NPC contacts, as well as full color grid battle maps.
The PC could agree to assassinate a member of the thieves’ guild for Orvid, recover a stolen song from a disguised hag for Nymlaeth (or choose to flip and work for the hag Granny Hvitta instead), or give up half the stolen yeast to gain entrance into a smuggler’s tunnel run by Ekkil.
The player is free to stop, start, and drop any of these quest leads, some of which intertwine with each other. The choices the player makes can result in different paths the story takes, from assaulting the main entrance gate with newly acquired NPC party members to a daring escape in the trap-filled tunnels.
Organization is a bit messy, however, and would’ve greatly benefited from a flow chart denoting where quests begin and end. There are no chapters or acts to follow; instead the DM has to be hyper aware of which paths lead where, and where they could intersect or change other paths.
Despite the subpar formatting and structural issues, I did enjoy the overall mission design of The Yeast Heist Fiasco Getaway. The inciting incident and background makes for an awesome start to an escape adventure in a hostile urban environment, and multiple paths, detailed maps, and memorable NPCs should offer a rewarding experience for the solo player.
Pros:
- Intriguing post-heist, solo PC scenario with multiple avenues of escape.
- Optional backstories and character creation questions.
- Detailed NPC criminals, pursuers, and suggested improv aids.
- Over a dozen encounters reflect a dangerous city in lockdown (or an equally dangerous sewer).
- Full color grid maps.
Cons:
- Needs an editor to clean up grammar and syntax.
- Unattractive layout and confusing order of quests and tasks.
The Verdict: With an exciting post-heist intro, suitably shady criminal factions and NPCs, and multiple avenues of escape, The YEast Heist Fiasco Getaway effectively captures the cool-crime Tarantino theme for the solo PC adventurer.
A review copy of “The Yeast Heist Fiasco Getaway” was provided by the publisher. Find more DMs Guild Reviews on my website and YouTube channel.
Support my work by using my affiliate links and pledging via Patreon.
RogueWatson 