Silent Titans - a hot take

I've actually managed to read quite a bit of Silent Titans (DriveThruRPG) over the last few days, and even though I haven't pored over every word, I think I can make a few observations worthy of merit. Consider this a pre-review - if I have any further observations after finishing it, I'll create another post for them.

Just as pretty inside and far more colorful

To put it in perspective, this is a 112-page work, and I've probably read about 2/3 of that text. Plus or minus. I've done a lot of skimming on all of the regions of Wir-Heal itself, but paid close attention to the rules, the framing, the settlements and the usability of the document. I haven't even touched Stuart's interview of Into the Odd's (DriveThruRPG) creator, Chris MacDowell. That's supplemental information, though, so it's not strictly necessary to have an opinion about the bulk of the work.

In the spirit of the text itself, I'm going to present my thoughts in bulleted lists.

Map of the entire setting

What it is

• A tabletop RPG campaign setting with lightweight built-in rules. It was written by Patrick Stuart and illustrated by Dirk Detweiler Leichty.
• Essentially five surreal pointcrawl regions (i.e. dungeons) with slightly less weird surrounding settlements. Keep on the Fucked-Up Borderlands.
• The setting is a nexus of time and reality itself, with an emphasis on England in our world.
• PCs arrive together from different times, confused about how they got there.
• The land is cursed and chaotic, so they will want to leave, but it is not clear how to do so.
• Built-in rules are a stripped-down iteration of Into the Odd.

This guy welcomes you to your new life

Things I like

• Fast and idiosyncratic character generation is a variation of ItO's mechanics.
• You can jump right into the disorienting introductory encounter.
• The art of Dirk Detweiler Leichty is spectacular. It's also integral to the mood, and it complements the text very well.
• Lots of solid advice for GMing to keep you grounded.
• Open-ended campaign setting.
• Scads of plot hooks, especially in surrounding settlements.
• Heaps and piles of vivid and dreamlike imagery, with plenty of colorful characters.
• Loads of humor and abundant dark elements. Both were used tastefully, at least in accordance with my fairly loose standards.
• All that colorful content is ultimately focused on playability.
• Lots of useful tables for generating content, laid-out nicely.

Check out these guys

Things I don't like

• Many of the maps sacrifice usability for artistry to an extreme degree. It was often maddening for me.
• The bulleted style of the location descriptions doesn't mesh with the verbosity of the writing. This works a lot better for very terse descriptions. Bullet after bullet of lush hypnagogic imagery is another thing.
• It's also hard to discern hierarchies because indentation is reduced and some bullets are hard to see. This was to spare whitespace and the page count, but bullets were always going to be very wasteful of space.
• The unrelenting surrealism could benefit from some occasional relenting; consider the role of the straight man.
• Most of the NPCs are very colorful, but I haven't spotted any who were actually likable. I find that it only takes a couple of likable NPCs to dramatically increase player engagement with the setting itself.

Very pretty, but this is a map?

In summary

Silent Titans is a fascinating work that sometimes sacrifices usability for high concept. It's beautiful but cold, highly playable but, at times, frustratingly obtuse. I like it overall, and there are parts that I love.