Tuesday, December 31, 2013

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This is list of my foundry quests, if you want to give them a shot.  My reviews will be below this post.

The Thamus Blade
One of your contacts told you about a dwarf sage named Altair. He has a knack of historical items and owns a book store called the Introvert.

He is looking for a mercenary, although the details around his intentions aren't clear. Time to pay him a visit
Chapter 1: Rescuing Answers
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Chapter 2: Following the Horde
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Chapter 3: Forbidden Souls
UNDER CONSTRUCTION



Saturday, May 18, 2013

Dirty Politics

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The first in a 10-part campaign. Lord Alfraed is asking you to find and question Cevon, the young man looking to take the aging Lord's seat of power. But, there is more. It seems Cevon may be linked with a cult known as The Dark Creed. Several disappearances in the Blacklake district have been reported, which also happens to be the last place Cevon was seen.

Find Cevon, and find out his connection with the Creed.
At first, Dirty Politics seem to be a mixture of old school Dungeons and Dragons "epic" campaigns: You have big wigs of powers with factions behind them playing games with one another until someone chokes.  At least, that's the impression I've received during the intro.

The attempt is a good one, and it doesn't pull any punches when introducing the characters.  Before you fight your first monster, you'll shown five characters right off the bat and the interaction with these NPCs makes it very easy to see where their traits and personalities lie.

Even the structure of the quest itself is interesting, where you didn't feel at any given time that none of what you are doing is outside the realm of "being an adventurer" and like any other DnD quests, there is a hint of mystery involved.  It is by no means original, but it serves its point.

However, despite the praise, this is not a very well designed module.  The encounters here are tough, up to the point where I simply gave up because I used all ten of my injury kits to get through.  Here's a tip for anyone doing encounters: They scale on player level, and the higher level the player, the harder the encounters will be.  Throwing three bandit enforcers or one bandit enforcer when I am a Great Weapon Fighter at level 60 is simply an unwinnable scenario. 

Dirty Politics does these type of stacked encounters on several occasions, and it isn't an interesting fight because you have constantly kite around the enemy.  There is nothing wrong about making difficult encounters, but throwing them at points where it doesn't make sense (e.g. just strolling through a hallway, no real "objective" nearby), then you're just frustrating the player.

At this time, I cannot recommend this foundry quest.

Then it became friendly

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The second part of the campaign. Here you decide your allegiances, meet new characters and get to know some secrets that were hidden in the first part.

After the incident at the hideout, it's time to search for more work. It seems that somebody you know, wants to employ you. Who might that be?

Many questions still remain, but your choices can be final. Who are you going trust? Are you going to betray your employer? Can the halfling be trusted? All of these questions and more will be answered in the second and also in the last part of the campaign.
This Foundry Quest is a sequel to It Started with Burglary.  To say the least, the faults of the previous adventure don't apply here.  In this sequel, the storyline is far more fleshed out and there is a bit more interaction with the NPCs.

What makes this really unique though is how the Dungeon Master works.  This campaign is emphasized on choices, and although you can't record choices from one quest to the next, what you can do is simply ask the player questions on what they did last time.  The Dungeon Master does this right from the start and sets up the quest based on you answered, which is a very nice touch.

Like before, the environments work really well and the attention to detail is there.  The storyline is very good and the characters felt they had a more refined motivation as opposed to It Started with Burglary. 

The only major issue that I had with the quest is the encounters themselves.  There is a limit on how many times you can play the same bandit-type encounter until you get rather sick of it.  If the encounters were more varied, I would say this would be the perfect quest for what it was trying to do.  Despite that, it's still an amazing quest and I highly recommend it.

It started with a burglary

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This is an introduction to a three part campaign. It's short and supposed to pique your interest to see how the story unfolds.

While walking through the city, you hear some noises on the second floor of a house nearby. You see only dim light in the windows. Somebody broke in!

Who's the good guy? Who's the bad guy? See how this conflict starts and remember to listen to the Dungeon Master.
I'll admit that my first impressions of this Foundry quest weren't that positive.

What gave me a sour taste at start was the lack of flow in the starting scene.  The quest pits you off by wandering around the streets until you hear some noise coming from a house.  You go in, and notice that they are part of a break in.  Like a good adventurer, you dispatch the burglaries.  The "sour" part comes in when you see the owner of the home, and the best way to description this interaction is "go here because I told you so" with barely any development on the NPC side.

Railroading and linear quests is what the Foundry system was designed around.  However, I just felt this interaction, as well as the next one (no spoilers) could've been fleshed a little bit more.  Make me understand the character a bit more before I dwell in.  Make me care about the character so I want to help him, even if they are bastards.

Fortunately, after these two encounters, it really picks up the pace that I expect: Dungeon Master narration in a few key points to develop the surroundings and small moments where the story develops further into interesting terrority.  Finally, the attention to detail on the levels grabs your focus and serves to create more dynamic environment.  The writing, much like any other good DnD adventure, isn't as straightforward as it seems and I want to find out where it leads to.  I would recommend playing this one.

A Nobleman's Request

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After a night at the Driftwood Tavern you overhear some men talking about a noble that's looking for someone special. The next day you return to the Driftwood Tavern and spot a well dressed man outside the tavern. Perhaps this is the beginning of something wonderful.
If you are going to submit a review, play test it.  Telling me to go a destination with no marker isn't going to give favorable impressions.