Close
Close
Browse Categories
$ to $















Rescue of the Blackthorn Clan: A Couple's Adventure Module: OGL 5th Edition $8.99
Publisher: Urban Realms
pixel_trans.gif
by Krzysztof W. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/24/2021 01:53:52

Overall a very good adventure so far. (I am about halfway through it with my wife and will continue playing in a week or two). The adventure is written primarily for an opposite-gender romantic couple where each partner alternates taking turns being the DM in each chapter. That being said the game is built in such a way (and they mention this throughout the book) that the characters can be any gender, played by friends, and a single player can dm the adventure if you so choose. Technically speaking a third person could be a DM and oversee the two players as another option.

The couple (or two players or whatever) play two pre-generated characters: a ranger and a sorcerer. Action in the adventure stars right away where the ranger is rescuing the sorcerer. The rest of the adventure plays out as a bit of mystery where the players are figuring out who was behind the kidnapping, etc.

The game introduces a fairly easy to use 'Attraction point' mechanic where basically each player's action can make the other player feel more or less attracted to them (like there's specific rules and everything with a healthy amount of player agency in how they are implemented, etc). This attraction system, while a major part of the romantic theme of the adventure, is optional and can be played without it. For our adventure we secretly rolled randomly to determin what our characters are attracted to and not attracted too and its been fun trying to have our characters discovering that between themselves. Who knew that my ranger randomly enjoyed being resued (a running joke between my wife and I is "Everyone asks me to save them, but no one asks if I want to be saved sometimes")

The adventure itself is designed in 4 chapters which each can be complete in about 2-3 hours and thus the entire adventure would take 8-12 hours to complete. The adventure is not too difficult and not too difficult to DM either. This was actually my wife's first chance dm-ing and she enjoyed it. Anyone who has ever run an adventure with less than 4 players knows that party balance is hard to achieve and the way this adventure does it is by making combat slightly easier at the start and by occasionally including some NPC's that would help players out.

I also appreciate the print outs they do for the back of the book and assembling the maps themselves is fairly easy and there's enough overlap that you can easily tape it together so it looks amazing.

While I am loving the adventure and loving spending time with my wife running the adventure together there are a few critiques I have

1) The use of pre-generated characters: While I understand that in an adventure with very few players, the remaining players MUST each fit in a specific mold (you see this in 3rd party one player adventures and so on) it would be nice to allow some level of player agency in character creation. My wife being the sorcerer, for example, would have preferred to use a different cantrip, or my character being a ranger would have enjoyed the option of playing a different build.

Perhaps having two or three different character sheets of the players/animal companions that the characters can choose from? or perhaps allowing characters to pick spells or remake their entire character stats but strongly encouraging specific spells, player options, stats, etc.

2) Print out lines aren't thick enough: The use of print out maps was amazing and easy. That being said, the individual lines for the squares the players can move around in seem to sometimes be very thin and difficult to see. This could be a problem with my printer though.

3) I wouldn't mind more optional suggestions or rules if the players are a romantic couple. Its clear that part of the intention of the authors is to help spark romance between players. I understand that obviously they have to balance this with players that may not wish to be romantically involved or with players that are more or less romantic than others. It would be nice in the appendix (or in a separate file, perhaps even a separate purchase) to add these expanded optional rules, perhaps labelled with a consesual 'movie rating system' they mention earlier in the adventure

Despite these three critiques I am very much enjoying the adventure and look forward to finishing it. The PDF is not too expensive for a neat date night with my wife (or....you know, non romantic friends or whatever) and pretty well made. I definitely think there should be more adventures like this and am enjoying every minute of it.

EDIT: Just finished it. I liked it. The lore they mentioned at the end was neat. Could use a more 'final' sorta feeling conclusion, or a 'epilogue' but it's really good



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
pixel_trans.gif
pixel_trans.gif Back
You must be logged in to rate this
pixel_trans.gif
Rescue of the Blackthorn Clan: A Couple's Adventure Module: OGL 5th Edition
Click to show product description

Add to DriveThruRPG.com Order

0 items
 Gift Certificates