| Destiny | |
| by Rob Ashton | |
| Alcritas’ Review | |
Destiny, by Robert Ashton (Tiddlyflop@aol.com), winner of Best Small Scenario in the Third Scenario Design Contest, begins with your group — a novice band of adventurers, being assigned the task of delivering the annual tax collection to the local lord. The scenario takes several rapid turns after that, plunging the party into a seemingly unrelated series of increasingly cryptic events.
The scenario eventually breaks down into four parts — some early meandering around your home town and a neighboring village, a voyage across the seas to get to the local lord, an exploration of the lord’s land, and a fairly strange segue to what the scenario refers to as your ‘Destiny’. (Hence the name, one would suppose).
It is unfortunate that, with the exception of some early foreshadowing in the scenario, very little is revealed as to what exactly is happening, or why, until the traditional bad guy’s lament of, “Here’s why I did it... And I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for you pesky kids!” This lack of plot construction is especially troubling given the theme of the scenario — notably that your party has embarked on a monumental and fated quest, with immense ramifications.
Beyond the lack of mid-scenario plot development, however, Destiny plays out fairly well. A short scenario, each of the successive stages varies nicely on previous ones, giving the scenario a fair amount of flexibility and diversity for its size. The ship sequence is quiet nicely done, and the exploration of the ruined city is also quite interesting. Figuring out what to do next is perhaps a bit vague, but it never rises to the level of a headache, as simply exploring everywhere within your power will eventually reveal all necessary secrets.
Technically, the scenario is a bit rough around the edges. Thankfully, there were no fatal glitches. However, glitches did impair scenario aesthetics on several levels — the most notable being the many dialogue nodes with no picture specified (leaving the basic cave terrain as the only visual accompaniment).
The scenario does include a fairly interesting “Ring of Recall”, which enables the party to summon a friendly merchant to wherever they are. However, this innovation isn’t put to particularly great use, as the item is granted late in the scenario, and there is very little additional shopping/selling that will need to be done by the time the item is acquired.
Finally, the ending of the scenario itself felt far too abrupt. Given the scenario’s length, I was more expecting a “To be continued...” rather than the abbreviated conclusion I did get. Furthermore, given the ending’s two pronged choice, I was a bit disappointed by the reprimand my party received when I explored one of the possible conclusions. I’m not quite sure where it came from (the author does not inject his opinion elsewhere), and why it is necessarily true. Contained within the overall dynamic of the scenario, I frankly felt it inappropriate.
All said, however, Destiny is quite a fun little scenario. It is designed for low level parties, and is rated PG.
My score — 7.8
— Alcritas