I appreciate how deliciously thematic this is! 

Thank you for participating Gman! 

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.

Castle of Hope

Writing:

 This adventure is an endearing one about a small party of samurai (the PC’s) taking on a terrifying, yet very important task, and only right before this adventure these PCs had just faced their greatest failure in life. Should they prove successful, they would make a name for themselves on this day.

The content itself offers many examples for how the main Roles in L5R can contribute to the success of the mission, (roles being bushi/shinobi, courtier, priest/monk). Although the success of the play session from a fun standpoint may rely on having some initiate players who create characters who care about restoring their name, protecting the innocent, or protecting the Empire at large.

Page design:

The text is legible, the scenes are spaced out by line breaks in the page. It would be nice to see some colored headers, a change in layout, or some imagery to make this adventure stand out.

Fun:

Part of the fun is that the adventure calls it’s shot, saying that the party can and will succeed this day, despite the odds. With that in mind, the players are challenged to come up with a winning strategy and, with help of the dice and a bit of roleplaying, they will reach the satisfying ending of redeeming their PCs and memorializing the position they are defending. If they don’t rise to the challenge and they let fear dictate their retreat, well, they may be surprised at the ending they get.

Theme:

The theme here of overcoming the fear of being overwhelmed, taking a chance despite the odds, is apparent here. With the protagonists taking on the role of underdogs, the message hits home.