Post by Per on Oct 11, 2023 21:06:20 GMT
Here is my harsh and pitiless review of the 2011 Windhammer Prize winner by andrewwright, edited only to remove an incorrect plural suffix from three instances of the title and also use actual italics. Having previously reviewed all the 2008 and 2009 adventures, I meant to do this and also the rest of the 2011 ones (hence the bullet point review format I used for contest entries), but only ever got started on one other adventure.
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Sea of Madness by Andrew Wright
Premise and set-up
* "Like the Odyssey but shorter..." (but not really). Also, "epic" (but not really).
* Fabled Lands-style exploration, with more trading and sightseeing and less of the type of random encounters found in Isle of the Cyclops or The Hills of Phoros.
* 100 sections.
System and mechanics
* Six stats (three personal, two crew-related, one item-related), items, Fabled Lands-style Blessings, and codewords.
* A fairly simple "roll, add and compare"-type combat system with minor variations for personal and crew combat.
* Three predefined characters and a custom character generation system placed apart from the rest of the rules (which is slightly odd as the adventure already encourages you to skip reading the rules the first time, so does it think this section would be especially harmful to anyone who decided against skippage?).
Style and presentation
* Great mood-setting descriptions as usual from Andrew W. The drollness of names like "Xaxes" and "Karta" is tolerable, and there's room for a number of joking references. I didn't think the bad wizard himself was particularly interesting, though. Also, it felt odd with the non-mutated names for the codewords.
* Notable wildlife includes red herrings, death-auks and gray apes, and there are the remains of creatures like war-pigs and tusk-whales. It's not possible to get a couple of tusk-whales to pull your ship.
Twists and trials
* The location grid can be seen as a 3-by-4 with the two central slots combined into a random nautical turnstile that can be entered from anywhere. You can travel back and forth between the four locations on each long side of the map without expending resources or having to roll for encounters, while the two locations in the middles of the short sides have an element of risk (but under most circumstances smaller than going across the open sea).
* As usual in gamebooks, just going directly where you're supposed to go isn't going to get you a good ending. Sea of Madness doesn't kill you off, though, just gently pushes you back out into the world.
* There is one major objective and one helpful but not mandatory subquest; nearly all the things you can do basically help your cause by virtue of boosting various numerical data. It is possible to find information to clue you in on what's going on and how the subquest loosely connects to this, but it's just as likely you'll find yourself rowing around doing random things for unclear reasons. So my crew really doesn't care if I go back and forth over the sea in the stupidest ways possible? "Look, guys, I know we said we were going home, but if we get some tobacco into the cargo hold and spend a few weeks rowing down south, and we go ashore and head into the jungle, maybe we'll fight some apes, I don't know, and then let's say we stumble across these natives that will exchange our tobacco for a shipment of mangos, and we trek back to the shore and row east and north for a month and sell the mangos for money and then we use the money to get a better crew - I mean, I get a better crew, and then I take that crew rowing for a few months trading potatoes and sulphur, going west, east, west, east, beating up a few fish dudes and upgrading my ship until I have all this extra money, and then I'll be able to take that money and buy... this really rare bootleg!!! Guys, it's gonna be... guys? Guys, don't go. Don't be like this now. Who's going to row my ship, guys? Guuuys."
* This is an example of "ludo-narrative dissonance": what the game system sets you up to do in narrative terms goes against what you'd expect to be doing given the theme and story. However, running through this meta-motivated economic engine until you have optimized your stats at least means you have a bigger than 50% chance of getting through the boss fights once you decide to go for them.
* That is, if you didn't make an "Adventurer" type character with MIGHT no more than 3 and SORCERY no more than 4. It's kind of mean for an adventure to offer you the choice of being a generalist when there's a bottleneck that requires you to be a specialist.
* The moral of the story seems to be that men who go to war are upstanding and heroic and men who don't go to war are despicable and worthy of death. Hmm...
* In terms of gameplay, the evolving line of Wrightean Fabled Lands-style exploration and resource management games is still wobbling its roundabout way to wherever it is headed. The thing is, if you're going to let an economic subsystem make up a significant part of your adventure, that system should provide you with meaningful and non-obvious choices, with respect to both its own goals and workings (risk and reward evaluations, opportunity costs, etcetera), and its relation to the exploration and plot aspects of the adventure (time constraints, reputation concerns, etcetera). This does not quite happen in Sea of Madness. Without solid game design, not just gamebook design, this type of hybrid adventure can't be expected to meet its goals.
Bugs and problems
* The rules say nothing explicit about not owning a weapon; one might guess that being unable to inflict damage with your fists you must either Flee from combat or perish, and that the Gauntlet of Power can raise this surmised unarmed POWER of 0 to 1.
* 90 doesn't specify the benefit of owning a Breastplate.
* Loops are possible. You can visit the Archon's court any number of times and roll until you complete his task (rendering the Cloak of Shadows and the Parander Cloak pointless if you know about this). The same is true for examining the barrier outside Lopenos. Sailing back and forth between Praj and Bhintos you can get rich shipping slaves and raise your CREW MIGHT and CREW HEALTH to the maximum before taking anything on (such as going through the laborious process of establishing an unnecessary and equally plot-irrelevant teak-copper trade business). Repeat whenever necessary. The Thulian barbarians can be made to respawn in no time.
* 21 is obviously aware that you can visit it at will, but seems unconcerned with the absurdity of the meta-constraint of having to sail back and forth in order to do another search. Also it's unclear whether the number of times you've visited includes your original visit; 62 indicates that it doesn't, and that "here" means "this paragraph" rather than "this location".
* It's unclear whether your CREW MIGHT has the normal maximum when boosted by the War Banner. The Gauntlet of Power does apply such a limit, though, and assuming the same holds for the Banner, why would you want to purchase it for 4 talents when this is equivalent to raising your CREW MIGHT by 1, which costs 1 talent? Similarly, it doesn't say that the Blessing of Morez allows your MIGHT to go above the maximum.
* Why would a sorcerous character agree to fight in the arena in Karta if there's no way of using sorcery in the battle?
* Also, Vethena can command the waves to bring her eggs and toast but she can't slide her ship off a mud bank.
* Though it's not crystal clear, I assumed the Gauntlet of Power increases your original and current HEALTH when you gain it, and when you are told to restore your HEALTH to its "original starting total", the Gauntlet applies its bonus on top of that.
* Though it doesn't say explicitly, I assumed you can use both the Golden Wings and a Shield in the magic battle in 44. The Parander Cloak should also be effective.
* 11 and 87 allow you to stay and rest immediately after gaining that privilege, whereas in 27, 39 and 69 you are thrown out of the respective palaces and have to go back in to rest.
* It must be assumed in 15 that you just ignore your first round of casualties, not that you first add to and later deduct from your CREW HEALTH, which would not be effectual.
* 60 should probably read "equal to or over".
* It's slightly weird that you're given the option to Flee from the Fangpod Plant but at the same time your crew is of no help at all in fighting it. If you're always able to get clear of the plant at the cost of 1 HEALTH (except if you have the Cloak of Shadows or Golden Wings... wait, that doesn't make any sense either), couldn't you then all just chuck spears at it all day?
* 80 is strange because given the complete lack of information about the options, it's unclear what you may just have been successful at. ("Captain, the crew has heroically avoided the dizzying maelstrom that would have left us mystically unable to tell in which direction we're going!" "Great, so in which direction are we going?" "Uhh...") It should probably list a compass direction for each choice if nothing else.
---
Sea of Madness by Andrew Wright
Premise and set-up
* "Like the Odyssey but shorter..." (but not really). Also, "epic" (but not really).
* Fabled Lands-style exploration, with more trading and sightseeing and less of the type of random encounters found in Isle of the Cyclops or The Hills of Phoros.
* 100 sections.
System and mechanics
* Six stats (three personal, two crew-related, one item-related), items, Fabled Lands-style Blessings, and codewords.
* A fairly simple "roll, add and compare"-type combat system with minor variations for personal and crew combat.
* Three predefined characters and a custom character generation system placed apart from the rest of the rules (which is slightly odd as the adventure already encourages you to skip reading the rules the first time, so does it think this section would be especially harmful to anyone who decided against skippage?).
Style and presentation
* Great mood-setting descriptions as usual from Andrew W. The drollness of names like "Xaxes" and "Karta" is tolerable, and there's room for a number of joking references. I didn't think the bad wizard himself was particularly interesting, though. Also, it felt odd with the non-mutated names for the codewords.
* Notable wildlife includes red herrings, death-auks and gray apes, and there are the remains of creatures like war-pigs and tusk-whales. It's not possible to get a couple of tusk-whales to pull your ship.
Twists and trials
* The location grid can be seen as a 3-by-4 with the two central slots combined into a random nautical turnstile that can be entered from anywhere. You can travel back and forth between the four locations on each long side of the map without expending resources or having to roll for encounters, while the two locations in the middles of the short sides have an element of risk (but under most circumstances smaller than going across the open sea).
* As usual in gamebooks, just going directly where you're supposed to go isn't going to get you a good ending. Sea of Madness doesn't kill you off, though, just gently pushes you back out into the world.
* There is one major objective and one helpful but not mandatory subquest; nearly all the things you can do basically help your cause by virtue of boosting various numerical data. It is possible to find information to clue you in on what's going on and how the subquest loosely connects to this, but it's just as likely you'll find yourself rowing around doing random things for unclear reasons. So my crew really doesn't care if I go back and forth over the sea in the stupidest ways possible? "Look, guys, I know we said we were going home, but if we get some tobacco into the cargo hold and spend a few weeks rowing down south, and we go ashore and head into the jungle, maybe we'll fight some apes, I don't know, and then let's say we stumble across these natives that will exchange our tobacco for a shipment of mangos, and we trek back to the shore and row east and north for a month and sell the mangos for money and then we use the money to get a better crew - I mean, I get a better crew, and then I take that crew rowing for a few months trading potatoes and sulphur, going west, east, west, east, beating up a few fish dudes and upgrading my ship until I have all this extra money, and then I'll be able to take that money and buy... this really rare bootleg!!! Guys, it's gonna be... guys? Guys, don't go. Don't be like this now. Who's going to row my ship, guys? Guuuys."
* This is an example of "ludo-narrative dissonance": what the game system sets you up to do in narrative terms goes against what you'd expect to be doing given the theme and story. However, running through this meta-motivated economic engine until you have optimized your stats at least means you have a bigger than 50% chance of getting through the boss fights once you decide to go for them.
* That is, if you didn't make an "Adventurer" type character with MIGHT no more than 3 and SORCERY no more than 4. It's kind of mean for an adventure to offer you the choice of being a generalist when there's a bottleneck that requires you to be a specialist.
* The moral of the story seems to be that men who go to war are upstanding and heroic and men who don't go to war are despicable and worthy of death. Hmm...
* In terms of gameplay, the evolving line of Wrightean Fabled Lands-style exploration and resource management games is still wobbling its roundabout way to wherever it is headed. The thing is, if you're going to let an economic subsystem make up a significant part of your adventure, that system should provide you with meaningful and non-obvious choices, with respect to both its own goals and workings (risk and reward evaluations, opportunity costs, etcetera), and its relation to the exploration and plot aspects of the adventure (time constraints, reputation concerns, etcetera). This does not quite happen in Sea of Madness. Without solid game design, not just gamebook design, this type of hybrid adventure can't be expected to meet its goals.
Bugs and problems
* The rules say nothing explicit about not owning a weapon; one might guess that being unable to inflict damage with your fists you must either Flee from combat or perish, and that the Gauntlet of Power can raise this surmised unarmed POWER of 0 to 1.
* 90 doesn't specify the benefit of owning a Breastplate.
* Loops are possible. You can visit the Archon's court any number of times and roll until you complete his task (rendering the Cloak of Shadows and the Parander Cloak pointless if you know about this). The same is true for examining the barrier outside Lopenos. Sailing back and forth between Praj and Bhintos you can get rich shipping slaves and raise your CREW MIGHT and CREW HEALTH to the maximum before taking anything on (such as going through the laborious process of establishing an unnecessary and equally plot-irrelevant teak-copper trade business). Repeat whenever necessary. The Thulian barbarians can be made to respawn in no time.
* 21 is obviously aware that you can visit it at will, but seems unconcerned with the absurdity of the meta-constraint of having to sail back and forth in order to do another search. Also it's unclear whether the number of times you've visited includes your original visit; 62 indicates that it doesn't, and that "here" means "this paragraph" rather than "this location".
* It's unclear whether your CREW MIGHT has the normal maximum when boosted by the War Banner. The Gauntlet of Power does apply such a limit, though, and assuming the same holds for the Banner, why would you want to purchase it for 4 talents when this is equivalent to raising your CREW MIGHT by 1, which costs 1 talent? Similarly, it doesn't say that the Blessing of Morez allows your MIGHT to go above the maximum.
* Why would a sorcerous character agree to fight in the arena in Karta if there's no way of using sorcery in the battle?
* Also, Vethena can command the waves to bring her eggs and toast but she can't slide her ship off a mud bank.
* Though it's not crystal clear, I assumed the Gauntlet of Power increases your original and current HEALTH when you gain it, and when you are told to restore your HEALTH to its "original starting total", the Gauntlet applies its bonus on top of that.
* Though it doesn't say explicitly, I assumed you can use both the Golden Wings and a Shield in the magic battle in 44. The Parander Cloak should also be effective.
* 11 and 87 allow you to stay and rest immediately after gaining that privilege, whereas in 27, 39 and 69 you are thrown out of the respective palaces and have to go back in to rest.
* It must be assumed in 15 that you just ignore your first round of casualties, not that you first add to and later deduct from your CREW HEALTH, which would not be effectual.
* 60 should probably read "equal to or over".
* It's slightly weird that you're given the option to Flee from the Fangpod Plant but at the same time your crew is of no help at all in fighting it. If you're always able to get clear of the plant at the cost of 1 HEALTH (except if you have the Cloak of Shadows or Golden Wings... wait, that doesn't make any sense either), couldn't you then all just chuck spears at it all day?
* 80 is strange because given the complete lack of information about the options, it's unclear what you may just have been successful at. ("Captain, the crew has heroically avoided the dizzying maelstrom that would have left us mystically unable to tell in which direction we're going!" "Great, so in which direction are we going?" "Uhh...") It should probably list a compass direction for each choice if nothing else.
