Nothing To See Here

By Christopher Clark
Inner City Game Design
Generic
Mid-levels

While you were away, things did not go according to plan. Someone ran up a whole bunch of debts in your name. Someone made a lot of promises and commitments on your behalf. Someone even signed you up for some sort of inn time-sharing scheme. Someone was not very nice; not nice at all. But they looked like you, sounded like you and got you into more than a lot of trouble. Perhaps you’ll show them the meaning of the word trouble, once you find them.

This 37 page adventure has three locales, two of which are likely to be visited. It is the very definition of ‘terrible generic stat’d adventure’, with all that implies, such as long ponderous text. There’s a Tunnels & Trolls kind of very simplistic thing going on where you go somewhere, like a health spa, kill “barbarians” in dressed in suits, and then move on. It’s not the humor, which I usually hate, it’s light enough here to be ignored. But the text, oh my god, the TEXT! I knew it! I know it! This is the same terrible style & formatting used in Eldritch Enterprises products! I knew I’d seen it before!

You’re in a forest and see Wanted signs with your faces on it. You’re wanted for a variety of crimes, like theft, etc. If you camp for the night you’re attacked by some barbarians. If you don’t camp and instead move on you’re attacked by the same barbarians. They are collecting on a bar tab you are accused of skipping out on. When you kill them you find a flyer that leads you to location two. This is the adventure in a nutshell. Some guys attack you, no matter what you do, with a little light farce attached, and you get a clue for the next location where the same thing happens again. Eventually you find a cave with some shape-changing fey that like to mimic people and cause trouble for them. You, of course, kill them.

Lots of read-aloud. Lots of DM text. All of the stats are in that cumbersome generic weirdo format that hasn’t been used since sue-happy T$R days. There’s no real orientation, leaving you wondering all the time what’s supposed to happening, or could happen. “Once any character announces he would like to try to catch a fish from the lake, The Count leads them there …” It’s ALL like that … you have to be INTIMATELY familiar with the byzantine structure to know where to go and what to do and what’s available.

I’ve seen a lot of bad adventures, so I’m not going to say this is the worse formatting/structure ever … but it is certainly in the same ballpark.

This is $15 on DriveThru. The preview shows you a few pages of the most comprehensible part of the adventure: the confrontation with the evil fey in their cave. It’s a paragon of virtue in layout and design compared to what’s come before.https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/222335/Nothing-To-See-Here?affiliate_id=1892600