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John Rickards
11-30-1996, 12:00 AM
> S&C on the other hand was bad. The basic premise was ok (the "main"
> villian trying to start the war) and the starting parts weren't too bad.
> But the backdrop of the "ultimate bad guy" was, to put it bluntly,
> rediculous. The resolution was especially stupid. Here you have a guy
> who would toast the players without a second thought as soon as he is
> aware of them. But instead he lets them run rampant through his place
> (to "test his followers", yeah, right) and when they finally meet him he
> just chides them a bit, asks them to return anything they looted
> (without checking other than visually), and LETS THEM GO. Give me a
> break! Ludicrous!! (I was trying to not give out TOO much about the
> plot in case anyone is, unfortunately, playing through this)

I've not read S&C, but I can speak for the Sword of Roele and Warlock
of the Stonecrowns.
The Sword of Roele had a great idea behind it - the search for the
sword fo the last Emperor, and all the history and so on that that
entails, but it fell down in the execution. What had the feel of an
epic quest became a standard linear AD&D 'weirdly-named-monster-hack'
involving a load of entirely inappropriate plot elements none of
which had much of a BR feel about them. Sorry, but it weren't exactly
my cup of tea. :-(
Warlock was better, having a more 'Birthrighty' feel about the whole
thing, and elements that would have required tweaking to set outside
Cerilia (SoR could've been set anywhere really). Even so, it was
little more than a glorified dungeon-hack, with very little other
elements. Not a bad one, but still not particularly good (sorry
guys).
Legends was a bit different. It is true to say that the scenarios
were short, fairly simple and linear, but then as short adventures to
'fill out' the Random Domain Events table, that's all they should be.
While short and simple, they were, for the most part, adventures that
were suited mainly for Birthright, and which were not just hack'n
slash - treacherous plots at grand parties, tournaments, advisors
vying for attention, traitorous lieutenants and the like. I think, on
the whole, that Legends was a great deal better as a set of
adventures than the singly-published ones, which have been a
disappointment (although I wouldn't include King of the Giantdowns as
an adventure, more of a regional sourcebook - and a very good one at
that - with adventure seeds).

My (slightly more than) 2GBs. ;-)


John Rickards

"He who is looking for something has lost something."
"And he who is not looking?"
"He gets run over."



PS. Dan. Hahahahaha.

Bill Seurer
10-08-1997, 03:12 PM
> Excerpts from mail: 7-Oct-97 birthright-digest V1996 #316
> birthright-digest@lists. (32732)

> 6. Adventures, adventures, adventures. Although this one comes
> with
> an admonition. We certainly do not need any more one-note
> adventure
> elements like the ones in Legends of the Hero Kings. While they
> are
> interesting kernals, they are for the most part, totally linear
> and
> without any real challenges for smart players. I call your
> attention
> to the adventure in the Dungeon magazine -- Seeking Bloodsilver.
> This was a great, exciting adventure for my players (although they
>
> weren't fond of travelling into the Shadow World) with sufficient
> complexity to keep them on their toes. A book of these would make
> me
> eternally grateful.

Actually, I am exactly the opposite. I like Legends very much and the
one "full" adventure I looked at (Sword & Crown) was extremely
disappointing.

I can weave Legends into the campaign and tweak things without having to
throw out most of the material. The adventures are compact and make
quite a bit of sense. The NPCs had enough info that I could flesh them
out to fit my campaign without having to do them from scratch.
Consideration for many player actions was taken into account in the
descriptions of possible resolutions. The overabundance of magic items
for every NPC was disappointing, though.

S&C on the other hand was bad. The basic premise was ok (the "main"
villian trying to start the war) and the starting parts weren't too bad.
But the backdrop of the "ultimate bad guy" was, to put it bluntly,
rediculous. The resolution was especially stupid. Here you have a guy
who would toast the players without a second thought as soon as he is
aware of them. But instead he lets them run rampant through his place
(to "test his followers", yeah, right) and when they finally meet him he
just chides them a bit, asks them to return anything they looted
(without checking other than visually), and LETS THEM GO. Give me a
break! Ludicrous!! (I was trying to not give out TOO much about the
plot in case anyone is, unfortunately, playing through this)


- - Bill Seurer ID Tools and Compiler Development IBM Rochester, MN
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