Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

Largshire is a 30-odd page system agnostic module for any fantasy roleplaying game, by Stuart Watkinson. It details a town intended to serve as a base of operations for a campaign. It is a peaceful seaside town with a dark underbelly.

Largshire heavily illustrated by Sam Wannan, and the consistent, sketchy art style feels like something drawn by the beach. The map is a frankly beautiful sketch, but the key is difficult to spot and needed bolder choices to be called usable. Layout is difficult to follow, and would benefit from more generous spacing, bolder headings, or other approaches (it doesn’t have page numbers!) to making the text easier to navigate.

The biggest strength of the layout is breaking locations down structurally into what in perceived the referee needs most: hooks, rumours and NPCs. This is consistent, with every location in every district — that’s 17 locations across 4 districts — featuring these subheadings. In addition, 3 major town-wide events are taking place and are alluded to throughout the module. Most locations take about half a page with all said and done, although some are longer; I’ve got to say that for those that outstay their welcome they don’t offer a lot in compensation, and probably needed a bit of an edit. These longer locations — the Pier Inn and Wellington’s Shop — feel like they are from an earlier version of this town far was more traditionally designed.

Because what this module doesn’t give you are the adventures. Your players want to fight in the underground pugilist competition? You’d better be confident to improvise it. Are they going to break into Zilindor’s Mansion? You’d better have a mansion map handy and a few hours to key it. This is as intended, and a referee with a good ruleset under their belt and a wealth of experience can make this town sing. But you need to work to make it sing, finding other modules to plug its gaps or designing your own forays between sessions. This is the antithesis of a low-prep module: It’s a module designed to make you do extra prep.

But the personality! Largshire is a lovely place to spend time in! The NPCs are kind and pleasant to get to know, although not as interlinked with each other as I’d prefer. The vibes here are impeccable, and pretty unique. It makes for an interesting, seaside mystery town vibe for your campaign which is quite frankly a pleasure.

I’m torn, to be honest. A lovely town, but high prep by intent. if you’re looking for something to inspire you with a specific vibe, and are happy to do the work — perhaps you’ll seed the town with encounters from other modules you already own, or make your own — you can’t beat it. If you want to have a town with all its interests fleshed out, this is not it. I’d love to have seen this fulfilling the promises it made in its hooks and secrets, because that would have been an exceptionally excellent setting and one to bring to the table immediately. As is, Largshire is a mixed proposition.

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