Friday, 24 October 2014

[Review] No Country For Weak Men

The cover alone is extremely cool. I printed this PDF to booklet format using watercolor paper for colors for nice texture and "feel". In real life it looks awesome! You have to believe me in this.
No Country For Weak Men is an adventure written for Swords & Wizardry rules (very OSR compatible) using some house-rules provided with links within the PDF.

I get strong Death Frost Doom and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (as setting, not as video game) influences and themes here, which is cool. Cool as northern wind and snow. The adventure is written by +Anders Hedenbjörk Lager

The look is top notch. Layout is great and illustration is... great. Easy and enjoyable to read. For a free product (yes, this is free) the appearance is grade 10.

The dungeon where the adventure happens is 15 areas long. The dungeon map is great and well thought. There are some puzzles what remind a little of video game puzzles but I think they play well in roleplaying game too. The area descriptions are inspiring and there is enough variety in dungeon rooms to keep the adventure rolling and interesting.

I like how the dungeon is not "you're-screwed-after-you-play-this" (like LotFP and DFD what I get some vibes from) but it can be very tricky, and could end into a death trap... unless you are clever. And if you survive the dungeon, you still might be in trouble because of the setting location (C-O-L-D).

I like this because of DFD and Skyrim like feel and because this dungeon is not just delving to get some loot. This is a location, what you need to explore to find its secrets. I also like the cold wintery theme. You don't see that every day in adventures, do you!

Also the future premise is promising. You get an area map with different locations not covered in this adventure. Those are future premises, that the adventure in cold and harsh environment doesn't end here... it just begun (I hope Anders Hedenbjörk Lager doesn't stop here but finishes what his plans are with the area map!).

You should get this because:

  1. It is free. And not only because it is free but because it is commercial quality. I would pay for this, that's how good free product this is!
  2. You like Death Frost Doom* by Lamentations Of The Flame Princess and the setting of Skyrim.
  3. You like dungeons that are not just rooms to host treasure for players to find to get richer and more powerful.

And now, seriously, go get it!

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* I only got the original DFD. This link goes to new fancy DFD. At this moment writing the blog there's PDF available (LINK), but soon there will be prints available also... Follow LotFP and +James Raggi to keep up to date with new DFD!

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