It was a long day.... I feel quite tired!
The adventure is mentioned in this website as well, under the BM projects, if I remember well. (EDIT: here it is: )
I rushed it a bit to be ready for this occasion and I think I understood how it can be further improved.
The characters managed to go through the investigation part collaborating well with each other, moved on to the action part, but when they were almost at the end there was a TPK. Final bosses are too strong if the players don't manage to pick up the best possible weapons early on, but as the investigation is very intellectual (involving libraries, police filing cabinets and the like) they end up not minding weapons at all. I probably need to put some good flag to prevent this overlook or reduce the strength of the final bosses. I'll have a lot of food for thought.

In some way it is a lovecraftian adventure set in the world of Blackmoor in an era that resembles Britain in 1930s (i.e. before the Throne of Stars). The players appreciated the atmosphere and the setting, that is the most important bit.

The plan was to continue my Simple Superheroes game . . . but with only 3 of the 5 players able to make it out, we decided to run . It felt right to run a Fantasy game.

A good chunk of the session was taken up with character generation. We ended up with a hafling cleric with awesome Dex stat, a halfling thief, and a human mage.

We then got to run through an epic fight with 3 goblins, and 2 dogs. One of goblins was riding a dog. The count up makes combat feel really dynamic, there was some threshold of pain's triggered, and we also got to experience near perfect defense, perfect defense, criticals and fumbles.

The mage used up all his spell points boosting the two spells he cast. The first "Yudders's Whistle of Hells Gate" which confused and eventually caused one of the dogs to run away. The second "Scorch" ended the fight, crisping the goblin rider, and causing his mount to flee while burning.

The thief got to kill one goblin with bow fire, and coup de grace another goblin that she dropped when she got a great damage roll on a near perfect defense roll -- an the goblin failed it's threshold of pain check.

The cleric mostly baited the goblin rider and dog, his amazing dex allowing him to avoid almost every swing. His puny strength meant that while he still was hitting a lot thanks to his good dex and decent int, many of the strikes dealt almost no damage. He also healed the mage right before the mage cast the battle ending fight. A good move as things could easily have gone another way!

Hackmaster is pretty crunchy and I tend to prefer lighter games these days, but the dynamism of combat really impressed me, and the rest of the players. I imagine we will be continuing the game at some point.

My Meleon group did not come together yesterday, but will come together once or twice in October, yet. Then, we'll, in all likelihood, have them make the acquaintance of a few, very strange swamp dwellers... :)