Our wonderful friends at Limitless Adventures launched a Kickstarter campaign for their new D&D 5th Edition adventure path, the Blood Queen’s Defiance today.
You can check out the campaign link here.
The Blood Queen’s Defiance is a three-part adventure path designed for five 1st to 4th level characters, but the caveat? This entire adventure can be run without a Dungeon Master! That’s right, your tired and possibly burnt out DM can finally have a moment to pause and play with their players.
Taken Directly from their Kickstarter:
Who was the Blood Queen’s Defiance written for?
- DMs who want a break, or who would like a turn as a PC
- Groups without a DM
- Groups that would have to cancel a session due to player and/or DM absence
- Adventurous gamers who would like to try something new
“This DM-less adventure is meant to reduce gamemaster burnout, as well as provide those groups that don’t have a dungeon master a way to still get together and roll dice with their friends. Every day we hear from DMs on social media who wish they had a chance to play their favorite characters, but that they are the only member of their game group who will run a campaign” said Andrew Hand, co-founder of Limitless Adventures.
Three adventures are included in the product. Additionally, each comes with the following:
- 2 nonrandom start/end encounter cards (6 total)
- 5 combat encounter cards (15 total)
- 5 puzzle encounter cards (15 total)
- 5 roleplay encounter cards (15 total)
- 5 skill challenge cards (15 total)
- 5 wild cards (15 total)
For a grand total of 81 encounter cards and a game manual.
With the five categories of encounter cards, this product sports high replayability compared to conventional adventure design.
How does this DM-less adventure work?
According to their Kickstarter page: “We’ve written a typical 5e adventure, but instead of publishing it in a book for one DM to read and run for their group, we’ve taken the encounters and placed them on cards. The group then divides those cards up among themselves and chooses the encounters that will make up the night’s adventure. The encounters are divided into five categories: Combat, Puzzle, Roleplay, Skill Challenge, and Wildcard. The players then take turns running their chosen encounters for the rest of the group, controlling their character as normal.”
Final Impressions
This will be Limitless Adventures 10th Kickstarter campaign, and I’ve historically featured their products time and time again on this blog. The quality of their content and their commitment to reducing game prep has now elevated into focusing more the person behind the DM screen in a fun new way. There is an excellent potential to have such a product for a playgroup, and the replayability is quite appealing, in addition to the ability to adjust the gameplay to suit their needs.
Encounter cards as a whole is a great tool to have for even DMs, and I see this product being a great template for future product designs in the future. Ironically, this design also reminds me a bit of the tabletop game, Mice and Mystics from Plaid Hat Games. If you want to learn more about Limitless Adventures, please check out the various reviews I’ve done on their products in the past (here, here, here & here).
A PDF Print & Play is available at the $20 USD Reward Tier and at the $40 USD Reward Tier sits a beautiful game box with all the encounter cards and the game manual. The campaign ends on August 1st, 2019. At the time of this article, the Kickstarter was already 33% funded.
Check out the Kickstarter following the link: http://kck.st/303936z
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