|
Post by jongjungbu on Aug 26, 2009 17:57:33 GMT -5
Has anyone tried this solo before? I didn't even know it existed until this year, and the T&T compendium thread mentioned there was a 2nd one maybe unpublished. I know, realistically, infinite [quality] replayability is next to impossible. But, the premise sounds as if it would have more replayability than the typical solos (as in not City of Terrors). I was wondering if anyone has this solo, and if so what experience they can relate about it. I was thinking about buying it through "that company" (i've never seen it elsewhere, say as an original), but wanted to hear some opinions first. I like the idea that Ken wrote it. But also, I've spent plenty of money this month on T&T to buy another product just yet. Maybe after Labor Day
|
|
Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
|
Post by Hogscape on Aug 26, 2009 20:48:57 GMT -5
Hi there Jongjungbu, I have a copy of the this solo and from what I can tell (because I haven't played it yet) it's a collaborative effort. Ken kicked it off then others have offered paragraphs. It is a substantial solo - much larger than City of Terrors (currently my fave) with numerous story lines.
The introduction tells you that some of the story lines have a conclusion - others don't and if you find yourself at the end of an unfinished tale - that's your opportunity to write the conclusion or at least a paragraph or two to push it along.
I imagine that Outlaw would then edit it and add it in to the next print.
I think Gristlegrim is along the same lines - it started off as a fairly slim volume but grows each time Outlaw translate a new set of Ken's room cards...
On size alone, Infinite Adventure is worth a look, I'll let you know some more after my first delve over the weekend. ;D
|
|
|
Post by jongjungbu on Aug 26, 2009 22:41:40 GMT -5
Hello, Hogscape. Thanks for the info and clarification It sounds quite intruiging. A Gristlegrim for solo almost? I admit to never using Gristlegrim before in any sessions, but I always thought it was pretty cool how they keep expanding it. I like the idea that its thick, thats more replayability; whether you die or escape... having more options to do like City of Terrors is the one factor that makes that one of the best IMO. I ordered a print of Rogues Gallery because it is supposedly thick mega-solo. I look forward to hearing about your first delve. And good luck heheh.
|
|
Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
|
Post by Hogscape on Aug 26, 2009 23:32:00 GMT -5
Yes, Rogue's Gallery does look good. It's currently the subject of some playtesting at Trollhalla and seems very interesting. Please let me know what you think.
|
|
|
Post by jongjungbu on Sept 5, 2009 12:10:36 GMT -5
How's The Infinite Adventure been, Hogscape? Had a chance to play it? I'm still contemplating it. In the meantime, I ordered Bedlam, Wytches, and Death Castle from Boozer/AR Holmes. Will be a while till I see those though coming from the UK to US heheh. My copy of Rogues Gallery just arrived last night though. I haven't had opportunity to play it yet, but it looks great and a thick high quality solo with lots of illustrations. There's a random charm table, a Magic Matrix, and a chance on that matrix for it to spin off into Wild Magic on the Wild Magic Table. There's Wandering Encounters, with a reaction chart that includes language for that since not every encounter will be automatically hostile. And a sub-chart of Wandering Persons off of that just like in City of Terrors. And lastly, Wandering Rooms? Weird concept but a chance that a dozen of the rooms will be different each game, becoming a Wandering Encounter after you've "cleared" that room for future visits. So basically then you have about a dozen rooms in the Gallery that are randomly located throughout with each new character trying the solo. Pretty cool idea, you won't know what room you will enter just because you played through it with 10 different guys. All in all looks like it was well worth the money. I'll let you guys know what I think once I actually play it
|
|
|
Post by ragnorakk on Sept 5, 2009 17:17:15 GMT -5
sounds really neat!
|
|
Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
|
Post by Hogscape on Sept 6, 2009 3:52:28 GMT -5
Okay, the Infinite Adventure.
It comes with a full-colour cover containing some attractive if cartoony characters and a snowman come-polar bear monster that doesn’t look to scary to be honest. The back cover also has a colour illustration of a brutish orc being savagely attacked by a hobbit.
For your cash you get a 32-page full-size booklet printed on quality shiny paper stock that will stand up to many play sessions. The inside back page credits several writers including Ken, Andy Holmes and me!
The one-page introduction advises that the adventure is for one or two lower-level characters of any type or kin designed for either 5th or 7th edition; it doesn’t give any range of combat adds that might be appropriate.
Ken explains that the adventure is a collaborative effort written mostly by him with others taking the helm at various points. This is a multi-thread adventure so you can play several times, take different choices and uncover different plots and situations. Flipping through the booklet there’s a good deal of artwork some I’ve seen before and most of it pretty good.
The adventure begins with your character(s) spotting a sign for Acrasia’s Bower of Bliss. You roll one-die to determine where in Trollworld you happen to be when you see the sign. My character espied the sign in Khost. I choose to board a caravan to Khazan to learn more of the Bower, and this costs all of my remaining cash but I’m thinking – strength in numbers.
Anyhoo, I get to Khazan but now can’t afford the bliss on offer at the Bower. After a good 20 paragraphs I get to the end of one thread but it’s an ‘unfinished’ tale so according to the intro- my mission is to either write the conclusion or wait for someone else to publish it. Not a great outcome but what I read to that point was well written and certainly intriguing. It will take a long time to fish out all of the different stories her and find the ones that don’t have an ending.
First impressions are pretty good. It’s a novel concept with a fairly glaring issue – in a few months time, the Infinite Adventure may have grown from contributions to 64 pages but despite having already paid for half of it, I’d have to buy a new copy of the book. I’m still happy with what I’ve got and it will certainly give me a lot of play and replay value and no doubt a few dozen ideas I can transplant into my own games.
3.5 Hogstars from me.
|
|
Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
|
Post by Hogscape on Sept 6, 2009 3:54:56 GMT -5
All in all looks like it was well worth the money. I'll let you guys know what I think once I actually play it Jong, that sounds really quite brilliant. In the Trollahalla sessions we met several characters that joined the party. I don't know whether this was Ken's improvising or part of the solo but jolly good all told. I will definitely grab a copy pending your extra comments.
|
|
|
Post by jongjungbu on Sept 6, 2009 9:06:09 GMT -5
What follows is a synopsis of a short trip into the Rogues Gallery. I opted to bail out early to save my skin. I decided to take my level 2 Magician, Jongjungbu, who escaped out of Gull, into the Rogues Gallery. After trekking to Boran, I found the locals don't really like the Rogues Gallery; putting a bounty on it and reward for mapping it. It's popular due to delvers wanting their chance at glory and gold. All the local maps all vary from one another; this makes sense since there are "Wandering Rooms" in the Gallery so it changes with each person entering. I pass through the Courtyard, observing the portraits of other adventurers who have made it out alive. There are few. (You can find the list and descriptions of the portraits in an Appendix.) The Gallery is huge, seeming to raise forever into the sky. If I could fly, I could go up there to see an upper level. But alas, I am but a human wizard who has not yet learned the Fly Me spell. So I enter the Gallery through the front door with a hireling (hired per 5e rules, a Warrior named Grok the Shield); once I entered I find myself alone. That gold was wasted. Where I ended up was a random location (not to be confused with the Wandering Rooms). It was a room lit by torches for half of it, the other half pitch dark with a faint green glow and two pathways. I decide to stick around here and investigate, using my Will-o-Wisp magic to light the way. There, I find a pool containing the remains of some previous delvers...and a few coins. Very few really, enough for a few provisions if I make it out alive. I discover now what the green glow was. A snakelike creature with seven legs and two heads! It is too dumb to speak so I must battle it to escape. I manage a TTYF only taking some flesh wounds in the process (It's MR was 40; a base of MR 20 + 10 x my level, so 20+20=40. This is how all MR's are scaled in this solo so that any level of character may have some kind of challenge perhaps.) I lost quite a bit of ST because of that snake-creatures ability to sap 1d6 of my ST each round of combat. As my prize, I find a golden broadsword that emits a golden candle light. It's magic and whenever I make an SR, I must consult a table and roll to see some odd side effects (such as growing an extra arm, losing attributes, gaining armor-like skin, etc). The number of awfully bad things balances out the number of good things I suppose. After this, I opt to take one of the paths out, ultimately encountering an Ogre dining on a feast. He turned out to be friendly and he gave me a deal where I could best him in an arm wrestling match and win one of his weapons. I managed to do so, somehow, and took a main gauche (based on a die roll of max ST weapons available). He then asked me to stay and dine with him, I took his offering of provisions but opted not to sit and eat with him. I figure let's not push one's luck, and I took the door out of this room that read EXIT. I had to find an Exit Guardian before leaving, similar to other solos like Beyond the Silvered Plane; a monster coming off the Wandering Encounter table ignoring treasure rolls. It was yet another Ogre! But I made mince meat of this one using the last bit of ST I had via TTYF (but just enough ST left to keep myself conscious haha). I escaped not much worse for wear, with a strange loss of time. I had to consume a rolled number of provisions or suffer CON loss due to starvation. No idea what magic inside the Gallery causes this fluctuation in time; but a portrait was automagically on display in the Gallery of ME! (It notes to write your name and description of the portrait into the Appendix of the Gallery of portraits.) That was fun. I should like to go back in, but maybe I will get rid of this Golden Broadsword first. I was lucky with one SR on my way out, it caused an effect equal to "enemies that hit me lose 1d6 ST temporarily". This doesn't do much against MR monsters without having to calculate or convert (I'd just ignore this effect for MR-based opponents personally). But the risk of some of the negative effects can be quite nasty! I didn't get to run into a Wandering Room or meet a Wandering Personality, my magic spells luckily never warped into Wild Magic, so I can't say about how those factors were like. All in all I would give it 4 out of 5 stars! There were a number of 2 page spreads with only 1 small illustration for that entire view. But, there were still quite a few illustrations and a beautiful color cover with an excellent portrait of a Wizard on the back, but by far not as many illustrations inside as City of Terrors. A full 70 pages though, with blank character card sheet as Page 71. It reminded me more of a combination of Beyond the Silvered Plane and Buffalo Castle, than City of Terrors in the way you trekked into it randomly to attempt to come out wealthier or more powerful. Each time you go in could be totally different. But once you are inside the Gallery you can keep exploring it; it's not just limiting you to one or two rooms like Silver Plane that warps you back. You could remain inside and attempt to explore it fully before making an escape when given such an opportunity. I am concerned bout the scaling, especially difficulty of the SRs, the ones I encountered were all made at level 1. Flipping through the book quickly I see a LOT of level 1 SRs. So that does not scale in the cases you run into them. The monsters might scale to MR 80 but your SRs would all still be at level 1. I would have to say one should houserule that all SR's be made at one's own level, as in City of Terrors. That would properly balance out the solo for higher levels. So, a level 7 Warrior would fight that snake-like creature as an MR 90 critter, ok maybe that is not that tough but it wasn't that tough for my level 2 either so that's okay, and make L7 SRs, ok that might be tough.
|
|
Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
|
Post by Hogscape on Sept 6, 2009 10:54:44 GMT -5
Awesome review Jong. Many thanks. It's definitely on my wish list now!
I know where you're going with the SRs. I'm sure there's a solution but I'm not sure that save at your own level is the one. Unless you're a pumped-up non-human kin.
Now, I must exalt you for your review... Let me see, is it the red button or the green one...?
|
|
|
Post by jongjungbu on Sept 6, 2009 11:45:18 GMT -5
Thanks, Hog. And an exalt for you and your thorough descriptions (twice!) of The Infinite Adventure. It's now on my want list, too... I like the replayability idea, even if there still may be some missing conclusions in the latest print. Those kinds of solos make good short sessions when you have some time to kill but not a whole night as a delver heheh.
Yeah I'm not sure what to do about the SRs. Because raising an SR by one level is 5 points, they can really get quite difficult quite quickly if one manages to bring in a mid-level or higher character. I've never had a character live past oh level 7 or so anyway, but Level 7 SR is what...50? What's the average attributes of a level 7 player I wonder. They're not all gonna be that high.
|
|
|
Post by mahrundl on Sept 6, 2009 15:38:12 GMT -5
Maybe try SR level = half of character level, rounded up, if SR level = character level is too hard.
|
|
Hogscape
11th level Troll
Stalwart of the Trollbridge
It's not the years, it's the mileage.
Posts: 2,126
|
Post by Hogscape on Sept 6, 2009 23:24:57 GMT -5
Good call Mahrundl. Saving at your own level is only a goer if you take plenty of LK advances (and the SR is on LK of course).
I like Skulltossers approach to SRs, which is: level 1 is usually hard enough particularly if it's the character's least favoured attribute. Level 2 is is a challenge and level 3 is 'come on, don't be silly.'
You can go higher of course but if success rest on two or more doubles, expect to be disappointed most of the time.
|
|
|
Post by jongjungbu on Sept 7, 2009 0:19:33 GMT -5
Yeah, it might be best to leave well enough alone for now. After all, I didn't go through every single paragraph to see how high the SR was (there were 70 pages heheh). If I roll up a new character for the Gallery, he may have a tough time as it is. I suspect as you mentioned there was some playtesting already over at Trollhalla. Still, I am pretty sure a Level 7 character will have a much easier time in Rogues Gallery on the saves than a level 1. I guess that's the same for most solos though.
|
|
|
Post by fellgore on Nov 3, 2009 4:22:32 GMT -5
Hi, I'm a new member, though I have "lurked" for a couple of years. I never really had much to say before. I have been playing T&T almost 30 years. I have all the FBI solos, including the pocket adventures and "Elven Lords", as well as several mini's from Magazines (e.g. "Hela's House of Dark Delights" from Different Worlds and "The Mad Dwarf" from White Dwarf), and the aptly named Judge's Guild "Toughest Dungeon in the World." I guess I'm saying I know solos.
I have a lot of "that company" material as well. "The Infinite Adventure" is the only time I truly felt ripped off. It is not infinite. It is unfinished. As far as I can tell none of the story arcs are completed. This is fine for an ongoing online project at Trollhala, but actually paying money for a bunch of dead ends is ridiculous. It says in the introduction to use characters you don't care about (why would I play them if I didn't care?) and leave them in the book until you buy the next version (fat chance!) If only this were mentioned in the product description at "that company"' website I would blame myself for wasting my money. It is not.
Don't get me wrong; I love a lot of "that company"' products (especially A.R. Holmes' stuff - hoped for a new Halloween mini this year, but then again most of his writing tends toward the horrific). "The Tree of Life" (both levels) are also outstanding. "Enter the Dragon" is very interesting and I will probably end up getting "Scandal in Stringwater" since it is by the same author. "T.E.R.R.o.R." is a nice update of "D.E.D.", but again the website didn't tell me that was what I was purchasing. Still, it is a fine product and I don't begrudge the Trollgod the royalties.
On a related topic, and one already raised on this thread, I have a few words regarding "Rogues Gallery." jonjungbu remarked " It reminded me more of a combination of Beyond the Silvered Plane and Buffalo Castle, than City of Terrors." That is because almost every situation is lifted from "B.S.P.", "D.E.D" and "Sorcerer Solitaire." The wandering monster table is almost identical to that in Buffalo Castle. Very few of the "borrowed" situations are even changed materially. The one truly fine exception is the explanation of how the weird two headed creature from "B.S.P." got that way. Anyway, all these solos were published a long time ago and I would recommend "Rogue's Gallery" to anyone unfortunate enough not to have them. I personaly was disappointed since I do have them (even the older, funny "Sorcerer Solitaire"), as well as "T.E.R.R.o.R.", which as I mentioned before, also rehashes (in a much better way) the "Deathtrap Equalizer Dungeon."
|
|