Thank you for participating Cayce!
Since we had only a handful of participants, we figured we could share some written feedback to hopefully encourage you as you go forward and create more adventures in the future. Mind you, these are all personal opinion and in no way reflect your standing in the competition.
The Chain of Duty
Writing:
Love the imagery of duty being used as a chain to drag someone to hell in that first paragraph. Sounds very dramatic and it will get people hooked! You were able to include great background to the adventure and the antagonist while only having a page to do it with, great job. Also, ohaguro was a new piece of history for some of us, and something neat to consider for hiding something sinister.
Page design:
Enjoyed seeing a black page with white text, it speaks to the darkness of the adventure. Also enjoyed the justified alignment, it makes the piece look like published work. The segment lines between the headers also create a nice break for the eyes while reading along, likely creating a moment for the reader to absorb what they just read. The type used is bold and very clean, which made the small text easy to read. Great job.
Fun:
In this adventure, it feels open for players to choose how they approach the issue. They will be shown increasingly horrible behavior and the declining nature of the antagonist which in hopes will spring them into action to find out exactly what’s going on. Having a list of clues and events without tying them to a specific chronological order makes it easier for the GM to improvise exactly how and when the PCs will come across these pieces of information, which is great. It’s also interesting to see the rules that are included for when a PC decides to die in protest to the antagonist, specifically because the character’s influence will continue throughout the story via ghostly possession. That is both novel and cool.
Theme:
Overcoming of Fear in this adventure comes from choice the yoriki must make, whether their fear of failing their duty will keep them from doing what’s right. But as they push forward, the stakes escalate, and the nature of this fear is compounded by some dangerous forces. Overall, great use of theme.