Rituals of Choice

This is a guest post by Chris Perrin. He will be reviewing an adventure path from Rite Publishing for Dungeon Mastering. Chris loves red dragons so he should fit right in with us!

Rituals of Choice – adventure path review

Welcome to the first of several posts about Rite Publishing’s line of adventures titled Rituals of Choice.  Rituals of Choice is a mind-blowing twenty-five book Adventure Path for Monte Cook’s Arcana Evolved that takes characters from first level all the way to twenty-fifth.  Over the course of those twenty-five adventures, characters will save the helpless, slaughter evil monsters, and perhaps, unwittingly save their world or doom it to utter destruction.  (For more insight into the first Adventure, A Witch’s Choice, you can check out my review of it on GameCryer.com)

Rituals of Choice – Player’s guide and DM’s primer included

Rituals of Choice is big.  It’s epic.  It even has its own Player’s Guide and DM’s Primer which give player and DM alike a feel for the world in which they are about to adventure.  Also, both books give glimpses at the larger story arc that Rituals of Choice tells.

The Player’s Guide describes that Rituals of Choice is an idealistic campaign where the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and, as it says, “the untrustworthy few stand out from the crowd.”  It also does a great job of providing a large amount of setting detail told as a first person narrative.  The information can be read cover-to-cover (it’s only about twelve pages of text with pictures), but it is also written as a great reference so you can easily lookup a city or area.

The DM’s Guide is much smaller, only a few pages, but it does a great job of laying out the overall arc of the Rituals of Choice.  From that book you find out that there are five major arcs of five adventures each.  You also find out that there’s something bigger going on.  Events in the campaign have been orchestrated by a master villain with a dark purpose at heart.

What’s next?

In terms of judging the quality of the series, at this point, all I have to go on is the two guides and the first adventure, A Witch’s Choice.  However, if the next adventures are anywhere as well written, then many of the Rituals of Choice adventures may go down as some of the best Dungeons and Dragons adventures written.  Yes, that’s a bold statement, but A Witch’s Choice was obviously a labor of love written by a person (Steven Russell) who loves the setting and can translate that into a good book.  They are tremendously well thought out and full of detail.

They are the type of books I want to use as a DM because I have everything at my fingertips I need to run the game.  This includes things like the history of objects and artifacts, backgrounds on characters, and in-depth write ups of various locales.  These are always very helpful when players start to ask detailed questions and do object readings or scans on the loot they find, the NPCs they encounter, and the places they end up.

Instead of having to think up details on the fly, I can consult the text for relevant information.  In a published adventure, that’s a great tool to have.  It lets me advance the story and let the characters use their powers without having to make up stuff which may not make sense for the overall story.

How the Patronage Publishing Model changes RPG products

It occurs to me that Rite Publishing’s model might be at least partially responsible for the quality of the books.  Not to take anything away from Steve’s ability to write, but the fact that Rite Publishing has gone with the patronage model may account for the books’ quality.

In Rite Publishing’s patronage model, a group of individuals pay between ten and forty dollars for a book before it has ever been written.  Once a certain amount of money has been supplied by patrons, Rite Publishing begins work on producing the work.  Now, some will argue that paying ten to forty dollars for a PDF book (and more to get a print copy) is high, but you are paying for more than just a copy of the book.

Being a patron means, at a minimum, you can interact with the designers, artists, and layout team as the book is being written.  Patrons may also have early access to the manuscript and get to beta test it (which allows them to find errors and suggest places where more detail should be added).  At higher levels of patronage, you can actually affect the overall layout of the adventure and suggest changes to how the story should be told.  That’s not something you get when you shell out $40 at your FLGS for a copy of any old book.

(In case you think I’m only a fan of patronage because of my relationship to Rite Publishing, I also have been a patron for Wolfgang Baur’s Zobeck setting because I love the model and the setting.  I also like the ability to have my say!)

More importantly, though, I think patronage leads to better products.  First, Rite Publishing already has a huge built-in base of beta testers (all the patrons.)  Secondly, Steve knows who he is writing for and communicates with them daily via the Rite Publishing forums and email.  Knowing your audience means you can write something you know they will like and it makes you more accountable to your audience.

As a side effect, it also produces more unique product lines, like adventures that take you to twenty-fifth level (when other publishers stop around level 15 or 20.)  It also inspires writers and gives them the chance to write game products on settings that are no longer published, like Arcana Evovled.

If that sounds like something you would be interested in, you are in luck.  There is still time to patronize To Kill or Not To Kill, the second adventure in Rituals of Choice at the ten, twenty-five, or forty dollar level.

Having an overview of the entire Rituals of Choice Adventure Path will let us delve more into the first adventure, A Witch’s Choice, in our next article.  We’ll look at tips for running the game and discuss how to convert it to be fully Pathfinder compliant.

What do you think of the patronage model? What about adventure series as opposed to stand-alone products?

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