The Ronin is an unusual product, which does something quite innovative: it gives a point-based system for the DM to track the actions of the players during their interactions with a traveller, the result of which determines how the final act plays out. It is an attempt to have the actions of the players matter, with the aforementioned traveller judging them on their behaviour.

It’s a great idea. The format for the product has two pages laying forth the interactions with the traveller, a wounded ronin who has been tracking bandits, and three pages of statistics and the tracking log. Yes, it’s another short pdf, but an ambitious one. The statistics pages are formatted so they could be slid into a landscape customisable DM screen for easy reference.

The product is fairly rough. It needs a bit more editing, and some text is missing from the morality table. It also relies a lot on the DM’s judgement: I really would have liked a description of how the ronin judges various actions. In an encounter with some bear cubs, I’m not sure if he’d judge attacking the belligerent cubs as a good or evil action. The idea is good, but the implementation needs more work.

I think a little more development of this adventure would not go awry, but I compliment the author, Martin Rooke, for trying something unusual with it.