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Tsar Rising
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<blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2008647" data-attributes="member: 18387"><p>Altrough professionaly done this adventure is unusable in practicaly any given campaign.</p><p></p><p>Currently I am DMing a 3ed campaign set in Vosgard region of the old Birthright setting. For those who do not remeber, Vosgard is heavily inspired by the dark ages Russia. In addition my players are of the levels recomended for this adventure. Finaly I am quite capable of modifying the written adventures to fit my campaign. One would think that there is no way I will not be able to make use of "Tsar Rising". Wrong. Not only is the adventure so campaign specific that it won't port even into a slightly different Russian-inspired setting, it also deals with characters so central to the setting that only Tolarian campaign or a campaign without any political/religious backgound would be able to acommodate the main plot. </p><p></p><p>The plot is mainly a railroad with a few optional detours that do not affect principal outcome significantly. Furthermore, even though adventure deals with the important campaign events PCs, despite their relatively high level, are relegated to the role of observers/bodyguards their potential motivations not even considered.</p><p></p><p>Finaly, I have gripes about the Tolaria as a setting as well. It is clear that the author has a backing in Russian history and folklore however, contrary to the wonderfull Red Sails campaign setting from the Dragon, he does not focus to one period and one flavour. Many centuries and vastly disparate elements are all mushed together with main NPC character - the Tsar being rather unnatural mixture of prince Vladimir, Ivan Grozny and Peter the Great. Ther result is the setting that feels contrieved to anyone who recognises the Russian elements, and generic (altrough with strange terminology) to those that do not. The main plot driving element - introduction of Christian church (wierdly spelled I grant) into previously polyteistic society is an interesting one but leaves great many questions unanaswered - not to mention making the adventure even less portable. Maybe if we had a full book on it setting would prove to be interesting; thrown in as necessary but undeveloped background for the adventure it makes for both bad adventure and bad setting. </p><p></p><p>The plot-line has already been given in the Simon's review. What I will focus on is the question how can this adventure be modified to fit a non-Tolarasian campaign. First of all one has to lose the whole religious conversion thing as it is a rare home camaign that can handle something of that importance. This alone ruins the motivations of most of the NPCs including the main villian. Furthermore unless DM is lucky as to have such an unlikely character as Peter already in charge of a vast empire, Tsar has to be degraded to being a local warlord further diminishing the entire logical strcture on which adventure rests. Both of these can be done; however, the end result is almost pointless bodyguard adventure that almost any DM worth his salt could have come up with in an hour. In making adventure usable all of its uniqueness and flavour would have been lost. </p><p></p><p>Production value of the adventure is relatively high. Cover page is remarkable and few inside ilustrations are above average. Maps are standard CC fare which is to say ugly but readable. Most of the interior art is amateruish but likable enough. Other than lots of art there is no noticable filler. Prose is bellow average for the printed adventures which is to say - rather bad. </p><p></p><p>All in all besdes a preety cover there is realy no reason to buy "Tsar Rising" it is uselss outside its setting and does not have enough material to make setting itself a viable option. It has no neat ideas or rules that can be extrapolated to other campaigns and is not even a good read. That said I still give it 2 based on the production values but can not realy recomend it to anyone.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Messageboard Golem, post: 2008647, member: 18387"] Altrough professionaly done this adventure is unusable in practicaly any given campaign. Currently I am DMing a 3ed campaign set in Vosgard region of the old Birthright setting. For those who do not remeber, Vosgard is heavily inspired by the dark ages Russia. In addition my players are of the levels recomended for this adventure. Finaly I am quite capable of modifying the written adventures to fit my campaign. One would think that there is no way I will not be able to make use of "Tsar Rising". Wrong. Not only is the adventure so campaign specific that it won't port even into a slightly different Russian-inspired setting, it also deals with characters so central to the setting that only Tolarian campaign or a campaign without any political/religious backgound would be able to acommodate the main plot. The plot is mainly a railroad with a few optional detours that do not affect principal outcome significantly. Furthermore, even though adventure deals with the important campaign events PCs, despite their relatively high level, are relegated to the role of observers/bodyguards their potential motivations not even considered. Finaly, I have gripes about the Tolaria as a setting as well. It is clear that the author has a backing in Russian history and folklore however, contrary to the wonderfull Red Sails campaign setting from the Dragon, he does not focus to one period and one flavour. Many centuries and vastly disparate elements are all mushed together with main NPC character - the Tsar being rather unnatural mixture of prince Vladimir, Ivan Grozny and Peter the Great. Ther result is the setting that feels contrieved to anyone who recognises the Russian elements, and generic (altrough with strange terminology) to those that do not. The main plot driving element - introduction of Christian church (wierdly spelled I grant) into previously polyteistic society is an interesting one but leaves great many questions unanaswered - not to mention making the adventure even less portable. Maybe if we had a full book on it setting would prove to be interesting; thrown in as necessary but undeveloped background for the adventure it makes for both bad adventure and bad setting. The plot-line has already been given in the Simon's review. What I will focus on is the question how can this adventure be modified to fit a non-Tolarasian campaign. First of all one has to lose the whole religious conversion thing as it is a rare home camaign that can handle something of that importance. This alone ruins the motivations of most of the NPCs including the main villian. Furthermore unless DM is lucky as to have such an unlikely character as Peter already in charge of a vast empire, Tsar has to be degraded to being a local warlord further diminishing the entire logical strcture on which adventure rests. Both of these can be done; however, the end result is almost pointless bodyguard adventure that almost any DM worth his salt could have come up with in an hour. In making adventure usable all of its uniqueness and flavour would have been lost. Production value of the adventure is relatively high. Cover page is remarkable and few inside ilustrations are above average. Maps are standard CC fare which is to say ugly but readable. Most of the interior art is amateruish but likable enough. Other than lots of art there is no noticable filler. Prose is bellow average for the printed adventures which is to say - rather bad. All in all besdes a preety cover there is realy no reason to buy "Tsar Rising" it is uselss outside its setting and does not have enough material to make setting itself a viable option. It has no neat ideas or rules that can be extrapolated to other campaigns and is not even a good read. That said I still give it 2 based on the production values but can not realy recomend it to anyone. [/QUOTE]
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