Shadowed Temple of the Forgotten Goddess

Ancient Sage
Self Published
OSR
Levels 3-4

Embark on a thrilling journey into a shadowy temple in an attempt to retrieve an ancient relic of a faith long forgotten! Explore the ruins, brave the shadows, overcome the challenges within, and discover more about the world, leading to your next adventure.

This nineteen page adventure has a small temple with four rooms in it. Four. Simplistic interactivity, Second person read-aloud. That over reveals. I can’t imagine this taking more than 20 minutes to play.

I was looking forward to a small little adventure. I got an even smaller adventure than I was expecting that looks like some conversion dreck.

Blah blah blah. Hired to go tomb raid an old temple for artifacts. Blah blah blah. Dm advice “We give plenty of opportunities for characters to shine and show off skills and abilities, but ultimately, the roll of the dice decide and help to tell the story” blah blah blah. I think everyone can see where this is going. 

“You scramble up the hill and come to what does indeed seem to be a decrepit temple.” Yeah YOU read that right. And then the read aloud generally goes on to over reveal details of the room. YOU know why, right? Because the exploratory nature of an adventure doesn’t matter. What matters is ham handed appeals to interactivity. Stabbing. A riddle “A tooth!” puzzle where you say the answer out loud. Don’t step on the discolored floor tile traps. Exploring a room, the back and forth between players and DM, engaging in the act of discovery, that doesn’t really matter. What matters is getting to the monster, or the trap, or the puzzle. So you dump all of the information at the party to “get to the good parts.” 

There’s four fucking rooms here. In nineteen pages there are four fucking rooms. Linear, of course. I can’t, for the life of me, imagine the appeal of something like this. Consumption of media for the sake of consumption? (Or, as a hypocrite, reviewing?) 

Did you write something that could win an Ennie? I don’t give a fuck what you think of them, but, did you write something that could win an award? Well, why the fuck not? Because you HAD to put something out that quarter/month/week? You don’t need to do that. Write something that you are so proud of that you think you have a realistic shot at winning an award for it. It’s 2024. Everything ever written in the history of the world is now available to every person. Why the fuck am I selecting THIS adventure over something else? Because of something written 20 years ago, for Cthulhu, that I’ve converted? Because it SHOULD be better than that. Pour yourself in to it. Don’t just go about things, rote. Think about it. Agonize over it. Put the effort in at the right places, not just in wearing your fingers to nubs typing. 

I’ve nothing to add here. Fight a couple of shadow monsters. Avoid the discolored tiles. Joy.

This is $5 at DriveThru.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/475049/osr-one-shot-shadowed-temple-of-the-forgotten-goddess?1892600