{"id":7675,"date":"2021-12-11T07:11:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-11T12:11:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7675"},"modified":"2021-12-04T13:55:24","modified_gmt":"2021-12-04T18:55:24","slug":"legacy-of-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/?p=7675","title":{"rendered":"Legacy of Blood"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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By Jonathan Hicks\nOpen Ended Games inc\nAgainst the Darkmaster\nLevels 2-3<\/pre>\n\n\n\n
Once one of the mightiest families of all the Nine Kingdoms, the Leorics have now fallen on hard times. Dark tidings and unspeakable rumors surround this once noble house. But a chance at redemption may still be at hand. In a desperate race against time, the heroes must recover a cache of lost magical artifacts before they fall into the hands of agents of the Darkmaster. Only this way they can restore the fallen noble family\u2019s legacy, and stop the darkness spreading through their domains. Can they reach the treasure before the agents of the Darkmaster pursuing them? Can they sneak past the dragon who has made Castle Dulgroth her lair? Can they survive this Legacy of Blood?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This 37 page movie uses 22 pages to describe a fantasy novel. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Like what the fuck man? What the serious fuck. Are you proud of this \u201cadventure?\u201d This is what you dreamed of doing? This is what you lay awake thinking about? No? It\u2019s just a fucking paycheck for every single person involved? Oh? Rlly?  I couldn\u2019t tell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This thing is crap, from start to finish. I\u2019m not sure there\u2019s anything good about it at all. It doesn\u2019t feel like a cynical money grab, but, rather, a product mired in the past. As if someone active in RPG\u2019s from an earlier era decided to produce something and had learned absolutely nothing in the meantime. Cycnically, I think it\u2019s just pushing out product and who the fuck gives an actual fuck the morons are going to buy the fucking thing anyway so why actually give a shit in producing something good?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is now, what, the second fucking review in a fucking row of a movie plot adventure? You don\u2019t have agency here. What you have here is columns long read-aloud text in which NPCs dump fucking exposition at you. All in italics, of course, because no one gives a flying fuck about usability or readability. And then the overly dramatic read-aloud exposition is then followed by mountains of DM text all arranged in just normal paragraph form. It\u2019s fucking impossible to find anything in this. There is NO scanability, at all. This is Dungeon magazine, the worst of Dungeon magazine, all over again. In 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
You ready for some hooks? How about an exciting one, like \u201cThey are looking for new opportunities and have swords and spells to hire out.\u201d Yeah, that\u2019s the extent of the fucking hook. The others are similar. A fucking hook that says absolutly fucking nothing at all. Why the fuck is this included? Do you seriously think that this is adding value to the product? Do you seriously think that this is helping someone run their game? No? It\u2019s just fucking boilerplate? THEN WHY THE FUCK WAS IT INCLUDED? Because there was a word count, perhaps? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blah blah blah, \u2026 Desperate Race Against Time. Uh huh. You put that fucking shit in your adventure description and I know its crap without even reading it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ok, so, what\u2019s up here? The actual adventure? It\u2019s a fucking movie. You will get almost no choices at all. You will go overland and get attacked by The Darkmasters forces. You will win, and then an overwhelming force will descend upon you. The goal is to get the party to run, so there can be the next section \u2026 The Exciting Chase! And of, course, whats an exciting chase without a rescue from a mysterious ranger?! And then, of course, the chase must resume so you can flee in to a barrow and have the entrance collapse just in time separating you all from the darkmasters forces. And then you explore to escape only to find a tunnel that leads to where you want to go \u2026 pursued by the forces breaking in to the barrow. Only to come to a vault. Where the ranger betrays you! Ohs nos! And then the darkmasters forces arrive and attack! Ohs Nos! And then the dragon above shows up! Ohs Nos! <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAnything can happen on this journey; perhaps a small scout force of Orc wolf riders intercept the players as they head to the barrows.\u201d Yeah. That\u2019s what you\u2019re fucking paying for. To be told anything can happen on this journey. This thing is padded the fuck out. Backstory and motivations. The animated skeletons \u201chave sworn to protect the riches of the barrow and they will do so!\u201d Uh huh. That helped me run the game. \u201cThe water is ankle deep which could signify that the barrows are below the water level of the lake and the water is getting in somehow. \u201cWlel, just fucking wonderful. The price of tea in Taiwan while we\u2019re at it? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The absolute worst kind of drivel. Cinematic bullshit. Meant to tell a fucking exciting story. It might as well be a video game that is nothing more than quicktime events. This is why we play D&D? To have no choices? To just roll dice in combats? To have no control over the fate of your own lives? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My cynicism here is strong. It\u2019 is SO depressing to see shit like this. I get that different games have different vibes and the extreme agency of exploration D&D is not the vibe of every game. But to have little to no agency at all? Like the serious fuck? Didn\u2019t that go out decades ago? Shall we forever cursed to relive this shit, because of designers or publishers unwilling or unable to liearn from the past? Shall I be generous to people who have made little to no effort to learn and update based on the times? Is all there is just banging two rocks together, forever, with no progression beyond that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is $9 at DriveThru. The preview is four pages. You get tp see that magnificent hook page and a couple of pages of irrelevant backstory. So, terrible preview that in no way helps you make a purchasing decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
https:\/\/www.drivethrurpg.com\/product\/374191\/Legacy-of-Blood?1892600<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
 Hello. This is the Bryce Emergency Review protocol. Bryce writes about three weeks ahead and has not written a new review in about three weeks, so this script has snagged an emergency review to post instead. Bryce has also been emailed and told to get back to work instead of engaging in whatever delight he is currently using to manage ennui. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Jonathan Hicks Open Ended Games inc Against the Darkmaster Levels 2-3 Once one of the mightiest families of all the Nine Kingdoms, the Leorics have now fallen on hard times. Dark tidings and unspeakable rumors surround this once noble … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reviews"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/legacy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7675"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7684,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7675\/revisions\/7684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tenfootpole.org\/ironspike\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}