The Lost Prince is a 24 page adventure for the Fantasy Craft gaming system. This adventure is a SAGE (Society for Adventure Gaming Enthusiasts) adventure set in Revenant Games' Wyrmstone campaign setting. SAGE adventure are similar to RPGA adventures in that they offer 'worldwide organised play', although this is the first such type of organisation I've seen devoted to the recently released Fantasy Craft gaming system. This adventure WSG09-01 sees the PC approached to find the whereabouts and remains of a long-lost adventuring prince, and along the way make a few discoveries that will haunt them for a long time. This is a Menace III adventure.
The adventure comes as a single, well-presented pdf file. The Lost Prince, like most organised play adventures, is arranged in a style dissimilar to typical adventures, and instead adopts the more formalised and regimental approach often associated with organised play adventures. The adventure is divided into scenes, each with their objectives and .challenges, thereby allowing rewarding of the adventure to take place using the XP reward/penalty sheet provided. The adventure is well written and designed, and despite the formal approach (required, largely, for organised play), I quite liked the way each scene had been sculpted and created. Editing and design is good as well, and the product contains a fair mixture of some good art and layout design. Overall, a neatly presented adventure with a good standard of presentation.
The adventure starts with a very helpful introduction and synopsis, providing the GM with an overview of each scene, the expected outcome, and the progression of the adventure. This adventure takes place over quite an extensive area as well as extensive time, and will see the PCs travel widely across the land in search of the remains of a lost prince. On their way they will have to uncover clues as to the last adventure of the prince, deal with the bureaucracy of an important library, find hidden clues in ancient ruins and eventfully navigate the path to the prince's last known location. Naturally along the way the PCs are in for a few surprises, as are they when they reach the adventure's conclusion.
The adventure contains an excellent mix of combat and roleplaying encounters, all using Fantasy Craft's system of resolution. There's an opportunity for most character types to shine, and players will enjoy the assortment of challenges, events and encounters that come their way. I'm also quite pleased to see that the adventure requires players to think, as the outcome and resolution of each scene will require some ingenuity on the players' part, and some canny detective skills to decide on the appropriate course of action. While it's true that the adventure remains largely scripted, at least the PCs will feel that they had some part in the script of the adventure as the story unfolds.
Overall, despite this being an organised play adventure, I enjoyed the way it had been designed, how the events interacted with one another, and generally thought the action was challenging and would keep the players interested for the duration. Naturally due to some of the times involves, multi-day long journeys will need to be shortened as not much is catered for in between the various scenes. The outcome is left a little vague near the end, although perhaps that is best so as to give the GM further use for the characters and NPCs of this adventure in future scenarios. Good adventure, and good to see a Fantasy Craft being taken to organised play.
|