LEGACY OF DRAGONHOLT

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Nikki Valens’ Runebound-universeset ‘Narrative Adventure’ puts its characters, setting and plot before all else, inviting you to create a hero (or anti-hero) with no stats, who must engage empathetically with a world through decisionmaking rather than dice-rolling or card-playing. Valens’ ‘Oracle system’ complements a Fighting Fantasy-style numbered-entry book approach by weaving in a well-implemented passing-time mechanism and a grid of story points which feed each possible story branch. She also provides a fetching town map, which acts as a hub and prevents your modular, mini-campaign from being a repeated ‘travel/kill/loot’ sequence. You can help out with the harvest, do a bit of shopkeeping, and even attend a same-sex wedding (Dragonholt is laudably progressive and diverse). It’s not so good played with others, given its inherent text-dependence, but as solo RPG experience it’s hard to beat.