by jubez187
So a few years ago, someone had the genius idea (not being sarcastic) to make a modable Road to Legend app. It's called Valkyrie and can be checked out here:https://github.com/NPBruce/valkyrie/wiki
It seems this kinda laid dormant/had slow progress (which is completely understandable) for a few years while some "big names" got together to try to RtL-i-fy The Shadow Rune campaign, and therefore was dubbed the "Shadow Rune Project."
It fully launched on 8/12 with the complete co-op campaign being fully playable. I've done up to Act II (so yes, I had to go through the agony of setting up The Shadow Vault encounter on my small table) and wanted to share my thoughts and also bring some attention to the app.
Before I get into it more, I just wanna say that sometimes I kind of equate the campaign to the app. That's not necessarily the case as I don't know how much the app maker had to do with any of these campaign encounters. I just sort of lump them together because SR seems to be the only thing that's fully fleshed out.
The Software
Installation is actually a breeze and if you're someone who doesn't know anything about modding or going into deep files and changing stuff, have no fear. You literally just download RtL off steam, and the Valkyrie from the link above and just click the "import option" when you run Valkyrie. Done. That's it.
As far as how the app works, it's practically identical to RtL for all intents and purposes. The activations seem to be taken from the RtL itself and mostly all other functions are there. The shop screen isn't as pretty (again, I don't know if this is campaign dependent or app dependent), but it looks like the artwork used is still some sort of Terrinoth licensed artwork so, it works.
The app (or maybe the campaign, again, who knows), has a cool feature where if you are asked to reinforce a monster group, there is a "group limit reached button" and it'll reinforce a different group. That's not present in RtL so it was cool to see RtL being a little "outdone."
Also, there is a hard-save feature where you just go into the menu and save your game like a normal game.
I encountered a bug first thing when playing the campaign, and it was immediately resolved so I'm grateful for that. Another minor issue I've had with the app (or campaign) is the main theme plays a lot. I know the sound of rushing waterfalls and cave-water dripping isn't great, but hearing that 30 second main theme loop can get a little grating.
Overall, the creators did a great job with the app. There's a way to make a quest inside the app, but I would assume you need to know more about raw coding to make something compared to the official quest vault. I may mess around with it because the quest vault has pretty much been abandoned by FFG. This is a welcome addition to the homebrew/variant community.
The Campaign
Now for the actual campaign. The creators tried to fuse parts of RtL (morale, alternating turns, unrevealed map), but blend it with the encounters in SR. I did not expect this. I expected it to be more like RAOV (which is closer to playing vs overlord). I actually applaud the creators for taking on a more daunting task than already attempted. The problem with most of the variants (and to an extent, RtL) is the matter of "how do we get AI monsters to complete objectives." It was janky in RAOV because sometimes "Dash"s got used on sub-optimal monsters, and RtL just doesn't even try for monster objectives (more on that soon). This campaign definitely makes the best attempt at giving the monsters actual encounter-specific AI activations. I don't know if the likelihood they show up is equal to the other basic ones or not, but they're definitely there. The monsters are fully aware of what the heroes' objective is, that's cool.
Unfortunately, it also has it's negatives. Firstly, a lot of the "bite" has been taken out of the monsters. In RtL, there may be 3 monster groups all throwing the kitchen sink at you. In this campaign, 2 of those same 3 monster groups are probably just going to engage exits or villager/objective tokens. In 5 quests, I've had no deaths. I actually have too much healing in my party to even make use of. I'm currently sitting at 6 morale, my starting 4 and I got 2 more from a travel event. I don't think perils exist in this campaign as well. It seems that "wasting" time on Encounter 1 can lead to you having a disadvantage in Encounter 2, but none of the perils from RtL have made any sort of appearance.
Speaking of encounters, can I just say I loathe the 2-encounter system of the book campaigns. Setting up the map only for it to end in 3 rounds is such a headache. That, however, is just a byproduct of them trying to replicate the SR campaign (which is fine and understandable). One complaint I have is that it never tells you what/how you did in Encounter 1 affects Encounter 2. Not that it would make it much different, but I guess it would be cool for the player to know their efforts were rewarded.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm all on board for monsters having quest specific activations, but some don't work all too well. In Death on a Wing, Zombies were called on to "Grab" one of the villagers...but villagers (per the app's rules) were immune to conditions. Just a minor slip-up by the creator I suppose, but it makes the players decide what to do. There have been some other oversights too. Zachareth had no surge priorities (subdue for Immobilize would be nice), he also didn't respawn. So when he died in round 3, I just walked the casket down to the exit.
All of this combined has kinda made me feel like playing is just a formality at this point. Act II is a big power spike for the monsters, so I'll stick it out; but, half-way through the interlude I was thinking "I can't really lose without perils, should I just click my way to victory?"
No matter what, the software has some amazing potential, but maybe the barrier to entry for quest creation is too high for obvious reasons. Regardless, if you have never played the Shadow Rune campaign, this is still a good way to enjoy it. I would say it's more enjoyable than RAOV and you have to use less cards and table space. I still implore everyone to check out Valkyrie, whether you're going to make your own quests or play through this campaign.