By Sestermeron
Self Published
OSRLevel 3
On a rainy morning, the players take shelter in the tavern. Instead of finding a place to rest, they are greeted with an unpretentious invitation…
This nine page adventure uses three pages to describe ten rooms in an ultra-minimalistic caves of ONLY stabbing. Did you think Vampire Queen was too wordy? Have I got the adventure for you!
What the fuck is it lately? The bad stuff is just REALLY bad lately. Like REALLY bad. This garbage is listed as Classic D&D and 5e compatible. Great, that means, in my head, it’s …classic D&D and has some 5e conversions. Of course not. It’s a 5e adventure. There’s not a hint of classic D&D in this, from stats to tone to whatever.
Are there EASL issues? Maybe. “The people from the village celebrates the freedom …” That sounds more like a Bryceism of not giving a shit. “If you accept, I will go your group …” Come on now. That’s not EASL, right? That’s just not giving a shit?
So, you’re in a bar. The bartender tells you that a nearby village is being terrorized by a monster. Do you want to join the bartender, Emi, in hunting it down? Oh good. Ready for the village? “A village with houses by the river, appearing abandoned, tied boats, and some people fishing nearby. Only women and the elderly remain; no men are present.” That’s the village. Don’t worry, nothing happens in the village. There IS no attack on Fishermans VIllage. Instead, your helpful bartender uses her tracking abilities and leads the way through the woods. There’s a cavern entrance. Somewhere. I don’t think it’s marked on the map. The level one caverns map, that is.
The first level has nine rooms. There is no description. None. Zero. It’s just a fucking map. You know how I’m sometimes like “it would be nice to have monsters on the map so I know who can react to noise nearby”? Well, someone listened. But, perhaps, also, I need to say “Rooms should have descriptions.” There’s nothing here. I’m not making this up. Some rooms have a centipede icon on them that, I guess, means there’s a centipede in the room. I think there’s a chest in one room? I can’t exactly make it out on the map. But, also, there’s a second level to the dungeon (with one room) and there’s no entrance to the second level?
I have no fucking idea how you can be this lazy. No actual rooms descriptions. No real adventure. Nothing, really. I mean, and to then pad it out to nine pages? I get it, the one page dungeons are a kind of performance art thing, but, also, pushes you to do more with less and hopefully) focus in on what’s important. But this? Nine pages?!
I mean, this has got to be a scam. The final evolution? Can I build a generator to pump one of these out a week for, I don’t know, 5e, Shadowdark, Pathfinder? How much can I make in a month with morons buying it for the popular systems? This is a scam; it has to be, right? I mean, no one, ever, would think this is an actual adventure? No one would, on purpose, write something like this and publish it?
This is $1 at DriveThru. The preview is three pages. Enjoy that preview.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/530839/the-attack-on-fishermen-s-village?1892600
I don’t know about the text (haven’t/won’t read it), but I am 100% certain that is an AI-generated map, so I am not optimistic.
Woof. That cover font. Looks like ‘attacf’ instead of ‘attack’. HTML tags included on the attribution page.
It *might* be EASL – the PCs are greeted “with big smile in the face” and they warm themselves “in the fireplace”. These sound like EASL issues to me, but I’m no expert.
But the maps and lack of description are unforgivable.
> Artist(s) AI art
> Creation Method Creation Method Not Chosen By Publisher
Yeah, when I see “Method Not Chosen” on a recent publication I’ve come to expect the worst. Screen those out, Bryce, unless you really need an excuse to rant?
There are 3 “adventures” by this person. If they were ai there wouldn’t be spelling errors. One of them consistently calls gp “peaces of gold.” Almost seems like an advanced 6yo giving a good effort. At $1 this is not a money grab. All I can come up with is these are made by a child.
Yeah, AI is likely to have perfect grammar and spelling. Probably why Bryce can’t spot it, those being alien concepts (Jokes! Just jokes, I jest!).
All your base are belong to us!
and your module!
This run of recent reviews is the result of AI slop. You lamented in the cold steel review that there’s no reason for people to do this bc there’s no fame or money in it, but there’s almost zero barrier to entry. Instead of asking why would people do this, ask why someone wouldn’t do this for cheap money. If someone can take an hour to make AI slop and post it and trick 10-20 people to buy it for $5-10 each, that’s a better hourly wage than most people. Especially when you could crank out dozens of adventures in a day.
Just saw a youtube channel which has uploaded 1,200 vids in less than a month with the highest view count of 24 views. So why bother? Bc AI has made shoveling slop that easy. And if it’s that easy, why not flood the market and see if some of the slop pulls in some revenue either by sheer volume or by accidentally going viral.
Unfortunately the more slop shoveled, the harder to find the good stuff on DTRPG, the more legit creators will say why bother, and the less relevant this blog becomes. So it would seem to be a good pathway to ignore this kind of AI content rather than keep reviewing it and being shocked at how poorly done it is.
All you say is true, but what’s really sad is that the spelling and syntax mistakes in this particular module mean the text, at least, was human-generated. Or it’s some next level slop that uses mistakes into tricking you that it’s not slop …
Wow, another overly literal title! And more AI slop!