Eye of the Storm

By Joseph Mohr
Old School Role Playing
OSRIC
Levels 3-5

The sleepy little coastal village of Sea Mist has a problem. A ship bringing important goods to the village is overdue. A major storm hit the coast earlier in the week and the village elders wonder weather the ship wrecked on the dangerous rocks nearby. But something far more sinister has occurred.

This eighteen page adventure uses five single-column pages to describe twenty rooms in a wrecked ship. It is lacking anything interesting. It has no joy. It is misery.

An isolated village of a hundred people are waiting on a ship to arrive. It is overdue. Could you go a couple of miles up the coast to find it, pretty please? Why are you in an isolated village? Who knows. Why do you do this? Because that’s D&D tonight. Why haven’t the COASTAL villagers gone two miles up the coast to see? Who knows. Well, no, actually, I do know. Because the designer is lazy.

It’s like there’s no effort at all anymore. A Dyson map. Some public domain art, Single column text done in Word or Google Docs. Monsters? Some mermen, a water spider and a sea lion. Challenges? None, other than combat. Role playing? None. Interactivity? None. The wonder and joy of D&D? None. 

A ship. The top level/deck is empty, but for some subtle signs of combat and a spider. The second level has more signs of combat, a sea lion, and some prisoners who tell you it was … MERMEN! The lower level has twelve mermen, who almost certainly all show up in a pitched battle, leaving the rest of the lower level nothing but a “what loot do we find?” interrogation of the DM. B O R I N G. 

Also, no storm in this. No eye of the storm. Nothing.

“Cargo Doors – When cargo was brought aboard it was dropped through these grated doors
to be brought below. These doors appear to have been forced open by someone as one of
the doors hangs downward.”

That’s a room description. Here’s another:

“A single water spider has decided to make a nest in this cabin. This is the rarer sea water
variety. Although the spider enjoys proximity to water it still needs air to live. It uses this
space as it’s home now but hunts down below on the second level.”

Expanded minimalism. They both say almost nothing at all. The spider entry, for sure, says nothing, while the cargo doors has the signs of being forced. Which, of course, os abstracted text. Don’t say signs of being forced. Describe what the fucking things look like.

But, that would take effort. And effort, clearly, was not involved in this. I dub thee “Rip off” with the honour of receiving the coveted Bryce “You get a 1 out of 10” award,.

This is Pay What You Want at DriveThru with a suggested price of $3. 

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/375267/Eye-of-the-Storm?1892600