Magnetic Press Play, $15.00
Sci-fi, 2022

Badge of Blood is a solo adventure set in the Carbon Grey Role Playing Game setting and uses the system of that game. It’s not a bad idea—folks attracted to the artwork and system as well as setting don’t have to wait for a DM to try out the whole thing, they can now try it themselves by playing the gamebook and living out a campaign all on their own.

Here, you are a decorated Allied Front officer singled out to train and later carry out a mission. It’s a rescue operation code-named RED KITE, all in caps because that’s how urgent and important the mission is. You have to either sneak or slaughter your way into an enemy structure, rescue someone, and destroy some secret weapon.

What? Who? What the…

Well, that’s the thing: this is a secret, secret mission, so you are given barely any detail to work on in the first place. Hey, you are a decorated officer, having received one of the six awards given out, and five of them were awarded posthumously. Where’s the fun in giving you a dossier, right? Just go and find out on your own what you are getting yourself into!

First off, this is a gorgeous product. Chances are you’d get your hands on the PDF version of this baby, from places like DriveThruRPG, and you’d wish there is a hard copy that you can thumb through and admire the art while you are sitting on the toilet bowl or something. The typesetting, illustrations, color scheme, all are so nice to look at.

On the other hand, the campaign is… well, it plays out like this: pick a direction or a course of action, roll die, repeat and rinse. The premise promises all kinds of earth-shattering kaboom and insane excitement, as you’re basically Die Hard-ing the whole thing like you are a character played by the sexy and dangerous butt baby of Nicolas Cage and Bruce Willis. Due to the repetitive structure of this campaign, however, you instead find yourself rolling die, keeping track of numbers and notes, and feeling the real lack of agency you are getting in here.

This is where this baby will make or break where you’re concerned. If you like number crunching and data tracking like a master RPG accountant, then this one would be fun. As promised in the back cover, the optimal path—save the prisoner, securing the enemy’s weapon, and destroying the enemy base—may take a few plays to attain. However, the ending to that route is a single paragraph that is equivalent to the two authors patting you in the head and telling you that you’ve done a good job, now here are some milk and cookies and be off to bed with you. Hence, the fun isn’t in getting to the end, but in the journey itself, and if you don’t enjoy the journey, then you’re not likely going to be satisfied with the payoff.

All this is likely intentional, as the people behind Carbon Grey Role Playing Game wants you to try out the mechanics yourself, hopefully like it, and then buy the tabletop RPG products and tell all your buddies about it.

However, this also means that if you want a campaign that has a strong story element (lore, flavor, dialogues, etc), then Badge of Blood is going to leave you feeling tad left high and dry. This is kinda odd because the narrative is actually good, and the introduction is gripping and flavorful. It is only once the campaign truly begins that it is taken over by die rolls and game mechanics, and if you don’t enjoy how these elements take center stage at the expense of everything else, you may not be having fun much.

Perhaps, the moral of the day is that while gamebooks and tabletop RPG games are somewhat like siblings in the same family, it may not be a good idea to treat both as interchangeable. What works well for an adventure module may not work the same way for a gamebook, and vice versa.