By Elln the Witch
Self Published
OSR
Levels 1-3
The Abyssea Cave is known to be an isolated cavern near the sea, seemingly devoid of activity. Its remote location, far from major cities, means it rarely sees visitors. However, significant events transpired here before the adventure begins: a boat en route to these lands was invaded by a group of half-man, half-fish monsters known as the “Werish.” During the invasion, they plundered the ship’s treasures and kidnapped two individuals as part of a deal made with a cultist leader. Following these events, the Werish found a secure location to establish their base—the Abyssea Cave. In the aftermath, rumors began to circulate in the nearest village about the missing boat that typically brought new arrivals to the land. Locals whispered that what was once a cave where herbalists gathered plants was now overrun with monsters.
This thirteen page adventure uses two pages to describe eight rooms. It uses a conversational tone to describe things on the map. Straightforward rooms with little description in which you stab things.
First, yes, I can be bad, my keyboard dropping letters and me not catching it. But, yes, the designers name is Elln the Witch. So I didn’t fuck that up.
This is nothing good about this adventure. Well, no, that’s not true. There’s this amulet that give you like a +4 to your fire saves. But, also, you are always drenched in water, like you just came out of a pool. That’s sweet. That’s the kind of fun D&D that I like to see in adventures now and then. But, otherwise, there is nothing good here. It’s not BAD bad. It’s clear that the designer is literate and had an idea, they just don’t know how to write an adventure. At all. This is not a backhanded compliment, there are plenty of adventures in which the designer is not literate or does things like use color coding like it’s the skittles rainbow or something. This adventure is not those adventures.
The adventure starts with you being hired to go to a remote cave by a herbalist to collect a couple of herbs with “good healing properties.” I’m not a fan of these sorts of “you get hired” hooks. A pretext is a pretext, after all, but, also, I tend to find it an omen. It means a certain way of looking at an adventure. And, for better or worse, OSR means not only a retro toolset but a mindset and vibe as well. The Hero to Superhero worldsaver arc is not just 180 degrees, it’s a different reality. A Boot Hill adventure sets in the 94th century should probably disclose that. This is a VERY simple adventure with a small plot hook where you are hired and a distinctly lack of treasure … and we know that no treasure means no XP. Which means the designer has left out a very serious thing … which would make me think that the designer isn’t in to the OSR thing at all.
We should talk, also, about the conversational style of the text used. “The first thing they notice …” or “If the players walk in to this room …” This sort of writing style is the only one used in the adventure. And while I can forgive the occasional Player/Character thing, I think it does show a certain sloppiness in the writing. A sloppiness ground home, again and again by this conversation padding in the adventure. IF the players walk in to the room THEN they see … that is all padding. I don’t know, maybe, 30%, realistically, is padding in this adventure? And the rets if not exactly rocket science. You walk down a 10×20 corridor and need to search it to find the weird thing sticking out in int. Or you try to sneak by monsters … who are alert and you only have 5’ on either side of them to make your way around. Elln, I’m not sure that’s a sneaking situation. This begins at the beginning with “Just upon entering, they can see that this cave might be empty because the entrance was blocked by stones and covered with webs. They notice three passages at the entrance of the cave” Well, even if we remove the padding (and map description), we place the covered by stone and webs things first. And, if the entrance is blocked off, how did the hostages (there are hostages in this) get in to the caves? It’s a jumble of text, with little thought as to how the text will actually be used at the table or what it implies.
There are no real evocative descriptions, or many descriptions at all for that matter. The interactivity here is stabbing monsters, with a bit of Free The Hostages. Otherwise this is just a half page adventure padded out to thirteen pages.
This is $2 at DriveThru. The preview is two pages. It shows you nothing of the adventure encounters … the purpose of the preview is to help the buyer make a determination if they want to buy the adventure … and thus you need to show them something of what to expect, not the intro pages.
Yeesh, yet another in a string of poor adventures. November is a bleak month.
New here? Every month is bleak and will be until Bryce stops grabbing stuff at random and focuses on adventures from established writers which are much more likely to be good
If Bryce cherry-picks his adventures, the reviews will be more positive. True.
But we value the pulse of the module publication landscape here, and Bryce’s “random sampling” approach demonstrates that the industry is just not in a good place overall.
Bryce can absolutely hand-pick good modules to buy and review, yes, but your average customer cannot – in that sense, it is more valuable to review the things that buyers are more likely to pick up, rather than just panning for all the nuggets of gold buried in the litterbox.
These no-name first timers are not part of any industry to take the pulse of…
I mean of course most people doing anything suck at it. That doesn’t say anything about an industry. That’s like watching a bunch of shit student films and saying Hollywood is in a bad state.
Your last paragraph made no sense. Bryce grabbing stuff at random does NOT resemble consumer behavior. For some of these I wouldn’t be surprised if Bryce is literally the only person to buy them who doesn’t know the author.
You’d actually be surprised. My 5e adventures from my patreon attempt 3 years ago sell some 2-5 copies/month on drivethru. I do 0 marketing. I can assure you, the people buying these have no clue who I am. Perhaps they like a cover, the preview, or the blurb.
I will agree though, that we cannot judge the entire movement based on Bryce’s random picks. NAP and other consistent designers (Malrex, official OSE, etc) show that there is good stuff around. I guess Bryce is just on the hunt for hidden gems.
These no name first timers might be two adventures away from making a masterpiece. We’d never know if Bryce didn’t look at them and give them the feedback they need to improve. So many creators bounce off their first attempt because they release the product and they never get a response from anyone.
Those “no-name first timers” ARE the industry, bud. People rally against those adventures because they are so common, so easily purchased when a buyer expects better. It’s one of those “you aren’t stuck IN traffic, you ARE the traffic” deals.
Bleak?!?!
Every new day is full of promise!
“Every meal’s a banquet! Every paycheck a fortune! Every formation a parade!”
“I love the corp!”
Aliens 1986
Yet again, I believe the time has come for the consideration of Prince’s No Art Punk III:
https://princeofnothing.itch.io/no-artpunk-iii
If Bryce only reviews the same circle of already known high quality producers then it just becomes a bit of a circle jerk. Anyone who reads here or anyone new who just peruses “the best” will already get turned onto them and know to seek them out or keep tabs on their releases.
I like the mix. There’s some poor ones. And some authors who will also take the feedback and improve. And always the chance of new talents to be found this way. No point closing in.
I agree. I want to think that most designers want to know if their product sucks or not so that they can improve. There is very little feedback out there to be gained by the designer other than a review, and in my opinion, there are very few 1e/2e reviewers.
You disregard the opportunity cost.
Where is the review of Huso’s Castle of the Silver Prince? Where is Gods of the Forbidden North? What of the several new large & ambitious LotFP modules?
If Bryce insists on random grabs he’s gotta do what the CRPG Addict guy does with his BRIEFs and roll a bunch of em into one post. “These all suck for all the usual reasons” and move on
Alas, both Silver Prince and Forbidden North are sitting in purgatory, waiting for me to have time to get to a 500 page adventure. I’d play D&D 24/7 if I could, taking breaks only for drinking for fucking, but the truck calls.
Somewhere, someone is bitching at me. My mom wants me to come visit. Work wants me to do shit. The kids would like me to see them more or go out to dinner. My girlfriend wants me to talk to her more. The D&D group wants another day. The friends would like to see me once in awhile. And yet my days are full from beginning to end. It is not enough to be the perfect man, you have to be perfect in their eyes and fulfill all of their needs, wants, hopes and dreams … and yet still there is a hole left for you to fill. We can never be enough for others, only ourselves.
In the words of the immortal Count Rugen:
“Get some rest. If you haven’t got your health, then you haven’t got anything.”
😉
Heavy is the head….know I bitch because you are the king
I too appreciate the variety and type of content Bryce selects. It absolutely tracks that the distribution of adventure quality skews poor. We are all waiting for the comeback adventure, as has been seen before with select designers. One thing that I think many authors underestimate is the TIME required to produce something of value. How much time and talent is wasted because the author’s/publisher’s priority is quantity over quantity? Indeed, there are many adventures reviewed on this web site that should have been either scrapped, or totally revised one, two, or three more times- or edited, at least. Juvenile creatives just want to “get things out there”, or worse, a “consistent release schedule” is part of a money-making scheme for wannabe full-time TTRPG authors. Guys- don’t quit your day job! Let’s focus on the art, huh? How some folks can continuously release garbage with no improvement demonstrates the overly-congratulatory attitudes of their peers and the DIY OSR scene in general. I’m all for sharing the creative process if that’s something you value, but to PUBLISH trash, with a price tag no less? I hope every one of the authors Bryce reviews reads his feedback, because it is invaluable. Perhaps it would be worth it for Bryce to set up a system for authors that never improve: 3 strikes and you’re out!