By Duane Nutley, Staff Reviewer d20 Magazine Rack
Sizing Up the Target
Party of One: Leda is a new concept in d20 roleplaying created by Expeditious Retreat Press . Written by Suzi Lee, this 262 page pdf module (or 86 pages if you use the printer-friendly option) module is actually just for one player, no GM input required. Available from RPGnow for $5.00.
First Blood
Party of One: Leda is very reminiscent of the old
Choose Your Own Adventure or
Fighting Fantasy books and if you are a fan of those you will more than likely like this module. This module is a one person, no GM where you read the text and at the end of each passage decide what you wish to do and click the link and go to the next passage. All checks and combat use the d20 rules and for combat you can either run it yourself (and decide what actions the enemy take) or just see what happens and read the combat itself. However if you read the combat for some parts, you still have to decide some actions as these will determine how the combat goes, but there is no dice rolling with this option.
The module follows the life of Leda, an elven apprentice wizard/rogue who has been living in a human city for the past five years away from her family. She is apprenticed to a gnomish wizard, an old adventuring companion of her mother. Things have been rather bland until an old friend drops into town to ask for help with a problem he has. The main part of the adventure happens when Leda accompanies her mentor, Caramip, on one of her excursions for herbs in a secret location. While finishing up there they are attacked by hobgoblins looking for a specific cave and thus begins the journey for what and why the hobgoblins are searching. Without delving too deeply (and spoiling it for those who have not played it yet) they find an old book that relates some of the ancient history of the gnomes and the enmity of a deity Maduban. It is clear to see that this is the start of a large campaign around which Caramip will revolve, being a gnome and a wizard interested in history.
At times I found the module not boring, but bland in that you went from one passage to the next, and did not require to choose what to do after that. And after finding the book there is not much choice in what to do, but follow the story as Leda travels back home and enjoys an elven festival. The main objective for this type of ending is that Leda is introduced to a dwarf, Dugal and the story continues in
Party of One: Dugal.
The appearance of the pdf is quite nice and different, thankfully, to their first pdf,
Magical Medieval Society: Western Europe. The screen version is 262 pages long, with a nice deep green background and a thick page border that wraps around the sides of the page. The border art I find is appropriate as I felt it was very elven in feel. The text is in one column and with a fairly large font. Each passage fits nearly on a page. There is no artwork in the pdf at all. The printer friendly is just plain white background with no border art and text is 2 columns to a page. Both version follow the same format, with a slight introduction to the concept of the book, the whole module, a biography of the heroine, and finally the combat appendices for those who wish to roll the dice and control the combats.
However I did have a few problems with the text. The author seems to assume that a course of action will happen, even if the reader decides to take the other option. For example, Leda finds a trap on a locked door and (I) successfully disabled it, but a couple of passages later the text says that Leda feels the poison course through her body and to make another Fortitude save, even though there was no contact with the dart. Another example is towards the end of the adventure Leda is given the option of using a scroll of
identify on either a found magic item or scribing it into her spellbook. I decided to learn it and identify the amulet at a later date. A number of passages later, though in the same day as scribing, the amulet was
identified even though I had not actually identified it as of yet and the note was to take the magical item off the inventory. How can I take it off the inventory when I didn’t put it on there in the first place?
I do not think that this concept of d20 will work for those brand new to d20 or with no access to the
Player’s Handbook. If you know the rules of by heart, especially combat, then you can just have the book and your dice. If you are relatively new, it would be best to keep your
Player’s Handbook close to hand if you decide to run the combat yourself and decide to cast a spell and see what effect it has. Otherwise the author states what roll is required and which passage to turn to for its outcome. There is a great possibility that readers will decide to cheat and always take the preferable outcome, but I believe that most won’t as they won’t get the full benefit and enjoyment out of the module.
One other aspect of the module that I believe is a plus, is its value for learning GMs. All experienced GMs know that it can be difficult when first learning how to describe events, places or people. I found that the description given in the text was excellent and a learning GM can learn a lot from taking note of the wording. More modules of this type would be welcome by those gamers who do not have a regular party to game with and still want to game in some way.
Critical Hits
This is a niche product for those gamers who cannot game regularly and still want to play. I think GMs might want this product as well as it contains a number of ideas that they might like to use in their own campaign. Depending on how the rest of the series go, I think a GM would be able to transport this one player series into a full campaign for a party.
A good mix of variety for all types of players – combat, spellcasting, sneaking around and using roguish skills, decision making in what to do and a good deal of interaction with NPCs.
Critical Misses
As noted above, the few passages that don’t seem to fit with the choice made previously. Also there were a couple of times where I wondered if I had gone to the correct passage, as the text of that passage didn’t fit with what had happened just beforehand.
Coup de Grace
Party of One: Leda is a new concept in d20, but based on a solid principle. I know that I progressed to roleplaying after reading
Choose Your Own Adventure and
Fighting Fantasy books. This module fits this niche perfectly. If you have no-one to game with and want more than the childish predecessor then this is for you. Even if you do not game alone, the module may have benefit if you are looking for new ideas in running your current game or creating a new one.
To see the graded evaluation of this product and to leave comments that the reviewer will respond to, go to The Critic's Corner at www.d20zines.com.
