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Ten Buried Blades: An Adventure for Godbound
 
$4.99
Average Rating:4.7 / 5
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Ten Buried Blades: An Adventure for Godbound
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Ten Buried Blades: An Adventure for Godbound
Publisher: Sine Nomine Publishing
by A customer [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 02/12/2017 22:15:24

Even though I've only just started playing Godbound, and haven't really tried Ten Buried Blades yet, I did buy and read through the adventure. I have to say: this is a really impressive, detailed, and fun read. I mean, technically, it's not so much a linear adventure than "here's the different people and events. Do them at your leisure", but I guess that's a part of Sandbox-style gaming-just going around, doing the things you want and skipping over what you don't want (if that be anything).

The main story behind Ten Buried Blades is that the characters are going to a village in Dulimbai- a heavily East Asian (mainly Chinese)-themed land for those who haven't bought the main game yet-and dealing with problems like a corrupt, but also bankrupt and desparate, government official, an exiled monk who wants to achieve immortality through forbidden magic, a bandit leader who is attacking the townsfolk, and a spirit of a dead warrior who has rised to (basically) minor godhood and wants to spread his old tribes beliefs. One of the best parts of the story is the "Yin and Yang" concept; basically, for almost each character, you have a choice to do two different versions of their goals, be it more aligned with internal or external struggles. It was a fascinating concept and, while I couldn't completely wrap my head around it the first time, I'd love to try and do it for a different game.

However, as good as this was, there was a few problems I had that took away from the experience-some subjective, others objective. For one, there was the "Ten Buried Blades"-altogether, despite their name being the title, they took a very low role in the present adventure. They were these special artifacts made by one of the characters, apparently, but we don't really hear about what they can do and they seem to kind of come out of nowhere. It just seems a little strange, for me at least, that the adventure would be named after the blades and yet they'd have such a small role-but that's just me and it could be that the GM or players are supposed to come up with those details themselves. The other was the Yin-Yang concept once again: the two didn't really have different themes in terms of goals. They just more appeared to be different things the characters wanted to achieve (such as one character either wanting to live no matter the cost versus trying to have his tribe's beliefs continued). It's a small one, but it didn't take away from the story as whole.

The others, however, were the terms and concepts brought up. Since Godbound is a fairly recent game, with only the nation of Ancalia being given a sourcebook (and even then, that was more as an experiment and the creator might not do other sourcebooks), then there is a lot of information in this book that is put out like you can understand exactly what they are. You can probably put the pieces together for some things-like an "ideotribe" being a tribe that follows a certain ideology-other things are left in the open like they're common knowledge. Therefore, if you're like, it can make you get a bit lost, since we don't really know-beyond the short description in the core rulebook-about what Dulimbai is like and what its culture is. Therefore, things like the Tao and its beliefs are a bit confusing. Are the followers of the Tao like our world's version of Taoism or something else? Another would be the Golden Lord: they mention his ideotribe, so what are some Dulimbaian beliefs? I'm sure some of this is for the GM, but suggestions would have been nice.

Finally, this story doesn't really have an ending: just different things that happen. While I can see this as being part of the sandbox-style gaming, where you are allowed and supposed to come up with your own conclusion, I felt some ideas for an appropriate ending would be nice-especially since I'm not sure if an adventure could end with solving all of the problems or you can only focus on one or two.

Due to some of the more confusing aspects, I'd say that I would rate this as a 4.5-but I'm rounding it up since a) a lot of this is my own opinion, b) I've been more exposed to linear adventures and c) there isn't a 4.5 rating. So, altogehter, this is a really nice way to introduce the players to Godbound-while it probably isn't good for a story about where and when the characters were when they become Godbound (unless they're from Gongfang), it still has a really great idea, memorable characters, nice expansion to the rules set in the core rulebook, and can give some really good ideas as to what Godbound adventures are like. A definite recommendation from a happy customer!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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