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Message: <blockquote data-quote="kenjib" data-source="post: 2009062" data-attributes="member: 530">Otherworld Creations was kind enough to send me a complimentary copy of Acceptance of Fate in exchange for this review.  I was encouraged to provide a completely honest opinion on the product.  This adventure is the third in a trilogy and set in the world of Diomin.  I have not seen the first two adventures nor do I have any exposure to Diomin.  As a result, my perspective in this review will be that of someone trying to use this adventure standalone (which the adventure claims is easy to do).  There will be some spoilers in this review.Acceptance of fate is 80 pages long and $15.95 US.  Four pages are mostly blank and used as separators for  the introduction and each of the three acts into which the adventure is divided.  The artwork is of mixed quality.  The cover is a nice piece technically, but I must admit that I am not fond of it stylistically.  The interior artwork is of two different styles that do not flow together very well.  One of them in particular was a bit rough and could use a bit of improvement, but I liked the other, more smooth, style.The maps have three dimensional representations that I found rather effective in portraying the spaces they represented.  In particular a map of a prison tower in the third act really gave a great feel for how the different levels and areas of the building fit together.  Unfortunately, none of the maps had scale nor a grid provided, which I find to be a significant drawback that would make it much more difficult to use miniatures in play.  There were also two major cities used as backdrops for significant portions of the adventure, and no maps were provided for these cities.  (There is a third city as well, but it is not as central to the adventure so lack of a map is not a real concern.)There were some problems in the editing of the book.  Standard typos are easy to ignore and not really worth mentioning.  I typically only worry about editorial errors when they lead to possible confusion.  There were some more severe layout errors though.  What came to my attention most were several places where the shaded description text was misplaced.  This was a bit confusing to follow but I was able to figure out where everything was supposed to go.  In another place a portion of the text was missing and repeated in the wrong place.  These more glaring errors were ones that I feel should have been caught in the proofing process.The content is a mixed bag.  Some of the ideas and encounters were very interesting.  There are new rules, including rules mechanics for mecheidolon - magical devices fueled by captured souls.  I thought this was an interesting idea with good potential for expansion.  There was also a template for the "Glorified" - a character who transcends to become a special agent for a deity.  This concept could also be useful for a variety of different campaign situations.The adventure itself is rather epic, placing the players into a pivotal role in a conflict between gods, and (hopefully) saving the world from destruction.  There is more than one way to accomplish this task, which gives the players more options in deciding their own course to take for the adventure.  Unfortunately there are other parts of the story that rely heavily on railroading the characters.  Several different factions are involved in the struggle, each with their own interests.  A few of them are not given much detail in the adventure though, so without the Diomin campaign setting a good amount of adaptation is required.Act I entails a flight from pursuers and an enigmatic prophecy.  I felt this was easily the weakest part of the adventure.  For the most part this is due to heavy railroading in setting up the flight.  The first encounter in the adventure is one which the PCs must flee from.  If they can not be made to flee, there are no hooks to keep the adventure moving.  The advice given recommends that the DM fudge the dice to make the enemies seem very dangerous in order to scare the players if they do not "cooperate" by fleeing.  In addition, there is one NPC whom it is pre-determined will die during this first encounter.  In fact, stats are not even given for this NPC (although they are given for every other NPC involved in this encounter) since it has already been decided that he will die from "a thrown axe in the back of the head."  Finally, after receiving the gibberings of a mad prophet toward the end of the act, when the prophet walks away, it has been pre-determined that the players will not be able to track the prophet or follow him in any way, although no explanation as to why this is so is given.  I can only assume that the DM is once again required to fudge the dice.Act II gets better.  It involves the PC's in the investigation of a murder (or attempted murder if they succeed in preventing it) mystery.  Plenty of leads are given for the players to track down the culprit.  There are also some tips on ways the DM can introduce new information to the players if they get stuck or progress is too slow.  In addition, it is also okay if the PC's simply fail to discover the assassins.  The main plot does not rely on the characters' success in this portion of the adventure -- it is more of a side quest.Act III is the strongest part of the adventure.  An objective is given along with the important locations related to this objective.  There are several different ways to achieve this objective though, and I found this to be well done and flexible enough for the characters to have the freedom to make their own decisions and follow their own initiative.  Interestingly, if the PC's make the ultimate sacrifice and place their trust in fate at the expense of their own well-being, they will receive the greatest rewards.  One of the paths the players might find themselves taking is the daring raid of a truly grisly prison called "The Bleeding Dungeon" which I thought was very interesting as well as easily reusable for other adventures.  The potential final battle also has some very interesting imagery but it is here, unfortunately, that a slight problem shows up.  There are two factions that join in the battle to assist the PC's.  Unfortunately, while the DM will know who these people are and why they ally with the PC's, there was not really any means for the PC's to know anything about one of the two groups involved, so their showing up at the last minute will not make much sense to the party without some additional work by the DM.  This could have been easily rectified by creating some additional quick encounters and rumors in this chapter to define this new faction for the characters.One other thing to note about this adventure is that it is designed for characters of level 7-10 but it does not always adequately account for the abilities that characters of this level might have.  Long travel distances are worked into the timing and flow of the adventure, but it is quite possible that characters of this level range will have access to teleportation spells.  The adventure also fails to take ressurection into account.  One of the plot points is a dead prince who passes on his destiny to one of the players, but there is no reason given why one of the high priests of the world would not have performed a true ressurection for such an important person (upon whom the safety of the entire world hinges, it seems).The adventure presents a wide range of challenges to the party - combat, intrigue, diplomacy, rescue, and mystery.  It also provides some new rules material that can be useful even outside of this adventure.  The scope of the adventure is truly epic and provides some really memorable moments, but requires a fair amount of patching to really run smoothly.  With the possibility of the players becoming glorified agents of their deities, the potential impact of this adventure on a campaign is dramatic - and the adventure explicitly says so much.The adventure would be difficult to port into other settings as a great amount of the story is closely tied to Diomin-specific groups, locations, and races.  The book does provide several paragraphs with tips on porting the material to a more generic D&D setting, which is quite useful, but still requires certain pre-requisites in terms of how certain factions relate to one another.  The adventure would also introduce many new elements into the world as a necessity for the storyline - most notably the new rules for mecheidolon and the potential glorification of the characters.  In addition, the adventure also has a fair amount of continuation from the previous installments of the trilogy so the DM would have to set up certain things with the PCs before starting this adventure if he has not gone through the first two adventures.  Most importantly, the characters must ally with the Gnolaum (a Diomin specific race - elves would work well in their place) and steal a magical relic from the race presented as the primary enemy in the adventure.</blockquote>

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