Roll Player Adventures: Silver Threads of Fate Preview

Roll Player Adventures is one of the games I point to as being the closest to a role-playing game due to its combination of adventure, narrative, character building, and combat. It’s a game I’ve played quite a bit and always enjoy having played the base campaign one and half times through, and I’m on the last chapter of Gulpax’s Secret.

So I was ecstatic when I was given an opportunity to take a look at the next expansion: Silver Threads of Fate. This is a lost chapter story that uses components from the base game. The events of this game take place simultaneously, and in parallel, with Chapter 4 (and you’re using that map), but since it’s with new starting characters, it’s recommended to play this after you’ve completed the base campaign.

Gameplay Overview:

If you’ve played Roll Player Adventures, you already know the basics, and if you haven’t my original review can provide a basic overview of how to play.

Generally, the game mechanics use cards that allow you to manipulate dice or add additional dice to the pool so you can work through challenges like skill checks and combat. Silver Threads of Fate has plenty of that but also brings some new ideas to the platform. The challenge is not giving away the story or spoiling your first play of this adventure.

Ideally, you’ve played through the base game, so you’ll know the scenario setup and many of the characters you’ll meet along the way. This adventure uses new heroes and has some limitations for cards that should be removed from the deck.

Throughout the story, you’ll recruit familiar allies and you can interact with them and various items in locations. Some of these folks don’t like others, so depending on which allies you pick up, will determine if others will join you or not.

Game Experience:

Much like the base game, each story is replayable as your choices will unlock different outcomes. Silver Threads of Fate is a massive RPA adventure at over 100 pages, and it might take two sessions to play through. I’ve only gone through it once, as a solo character, but already know there’s a ton I didn’t experience based on who I allied myself with.

I expect the game to largely play out similarly in that specific areas must be explored to advance the story. Throughout the game, you’re collecting Threads (it’ll make sense, and no, you didn’t give up adventuring to become a tailor), and you need a minimum number to get to the end game. In a way, this is like a maze with multiple paths from the start to the finish.

At first, I thought the adventure was being generous with the loot as I was hoarding cards like Lando playing Sabacc (although I think there’s a hand limit in Legendary mode, which I wasn’t following because #CareBearLife). As the end game unfolded, I realized why I needed so many cards as the game, not quite as generously, took them back.

The end game used dice on the map as a different sort of puzzle where another navigation die had to match either the color or the number to allow you to advance, and you could spend XP to play cards to manipulate either. And if you were passing two dice, you had to match either color or value of both. Good thing you’ll have a thick stack of cards to manipulate away with, but you’ll need to spend XP you’ve accumulated to play cards, making this a challenging resource management puzzle if luck isn’t in your favor.

Much like with Gulpax’s Secret and even late game of the base campaign, Ullos tends to go full Planescape, and this story is no different,t helping differentiate Ullos from many fantasy worlds with its mix of high fantasy, technology, and planar travel.

I’m hesitant to expand more about the experience for fear of ruining your first play. There’s a lot to unpack with how the game unfolds, and even as it progressed, I realized there were areas I could’ve (and probably should have) gone back to, to either gain an ally or an item. And while I don’t know how those allies and items would impact the rest of the game, I know there would be an impact. The Threads tracker has seven spaces, but I didn’t get that many so even there, I know there’s more content I haven’t seen yet.

The biggest issue I have with games like Roll Player Adventures is that campaigns are tough to finish (see my aforementioned not having finished Gulpax’s Secret and the frequent ribbing I get from others on our Discord about having never met a campaign game I’d love not to finish). And that’s where I think content like Silver Threads of Fate can be fantastic. It’s a great one-off adventure to introduce people to the game and its mechanics. The story may land as well, or as impactfully, for someone walking in cold to this game world, but you get a chance to start and finish a story in a single long session.

I’m planning on backing this, despite already having the full PDF, because I want Thunderworks Games to produce more adventures like this that leverages existing content and doesn’t take up a ton of extra shelf space. I’d love to see other one-offs in the world as either parallels to the main campaigns or just fun side stories.

Final Thoughts:

Especially with the uncertainty of import tariffs going forward in the United States, and even with books possibly being exempt from higher tariffs, I really like the idea of digital content (despite generally preferring tangible books) as a way of helping gamers utilize content they already have.

But taxes aside, this is a fun adventure that will change based on your choices, making it that could be a great adventure to come back to periodically when you want an RPA fix but don’t want to restart (or *sigh* finish) a campaign. For me, at about the same price as seeing a movie, it’s an easy decision to back it.

If you are interested in checking out Silver Hands of Fate, head over to their Kickstarter campaign page for more information.