It's pretty good. I've noticed combat tends to be pretty hit-or-miss, as in, either you miss or you clobber something in one hit. Which might be a good or bad thing, depending, and it's not overly severe.
Combats also aren't all that challenging, from what I've seen, but I tend to favor a more casualty-heavy system than many others. I also happen to be on the waiting list, so, you know.
The graveyard thing was pretty boring, since the first few turns consisted of "Go north one. What happens?" and then the answer is "You go north and the noise goes south. Have a map." Contact with the groundskeeper made it more interesting, but it still had a lot of "We all move north one, what happens?"
I'm somewhat conflicted about the puzzle element you were trying to add with it. It seems to be more of a "right answer" type of puzzle, where you have to do X, then Y, then Z, as opposed to more of a "here's a situation you can't stab, figure something out" type deal. I tend to prefer the latter, but I can appreciate the former.
Trouble is, it wasn't especially clear that it was a puzzle, and what kind of puzzle it was; I think you mentioned something about it, and you certainly said the groundskeeper was invincible and they needed to figure out a way to escape, but that's not exactly a graceful solution. There also should have been better clues about what they should have been doing next, since currently the answer is "wander around until we stumble upon a key, head for a gate, get meta-informed by the GM that we need to go to the shed instead, go to shed." I think there either should have been more room for improvisation, or more thought into what clues should have led players to the right answer, how they'd know they were wrong if they didn't get it right the first time, and so on.
I also think the other party's journey through the mansion could have been a bit more graceful. There's nothing innately wrong with it, but it kind of feels like just letting them explore the mansion in one turn, or giving everyone their own room or two to explore, might have been quicker with basically the same result. I didn't particularly get any kind of suspenseful "what's behind the next door" vibe, so I'm not sure having an enemy or two justifies the dungeon crawl style. I suppose it makes good filler to keep one party from finishing before the other, but that would seem to indicate a different sort of problem.
Author
Topic: CvRTD: End Of The Line (Read 191134 times)