Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

Beyond Corny Groń is a 339 page (read: absolutely massive) system agnostic setting module by Kuba Skurzyński. It gets its striking names and inspiration from Polish folklore and history. It’s heavily illustrated, with English-language editing and sensitivity from Brian Yaksha, whose writing I’m a big fan of. It’s a sequel, or an expansion, to Corny Groń, a solo mapmaking game.

Because it’s such an intimidating text, I’m start with art and layout: It’s sparse and clear, with clear well-spaced headings and minimal font variation for signaling. The art complements this well, giving the sense of a barren and desolate wilderness filled with desperate and dangerous folk. This is supported by how the topographical mapping maximises white size, as do wide margins and very generously spaced tables. These map-graphics also do double duty as representations of other aspects of gameplay, although less elegantly than Is like. I’d prefer maps that were more immediately useable, though. For me, I’d rather, in this prose-heavy approach to module writing, have more font variation to help me wayfind, but as is the vibes, at least are impeccable, even if the legibility is not.

The scene is set early: This writing is beautiful but challenging: “Now, the nominal ruler of the Karpakian Valley is Her Solar Grace, the Empress of Styria and the Queen of Pannonia, Eleanor Angela I Dunburg, whose domain extends to the far coast of the Scythian Sea, into which streams f low from the southern slopes of Karpaki.” We don’t stray far from this Polish dialect of high Gygaxian, which is both a blessing and a curse: Flavour? Yes! Ease of use and retention? No!

The first section, after this dense and rambling introduction, is a system agnostic character creation procedure which is honestly, so, so charming to me. It brings detail, hooks galore, and a sense of locality (is that a word?) to the PCs. My main problem is actually the intertextuality of it: It would be hard for all players to sit at the table with this and do this together, because of the detail and relations to elsewhere in the book. Would it be worth it though? Undoubtedly, in my opinion. I could see a briefer version of this appearing in more setting books in the future, using elegant dice conceits as a streamline. On the other hand, stumbling upon that “You woke up with a headache” table is comedy gold.

There is a significant section on arms and equipment. There is very little world building in this, unless I squint: Marbles rather than ball-bearings are suggestive of a volcanic north, for example. I don’t think it’s worth the space. A lot of time is spent inconsequentially on black powder and coinage, which leads to naught in my opinion.

Next up comes our map generation processes…ah, this accounts for the minimalist maps. Procedural generation is both jarring (after an extended monologue about how this is thinly veiled Poland) and disappointing (twenty pages of how to generate the wilderness map rather than just providing one). The procedures themselves are pretty good and (again, if streamlined) they’d make for an excellent “travelling in the mountains” supplement to an existing map. But that’s the thing: They’re way I’d use to supplement keyed locations, they don’t replace them. They’re not an adequate replacement for what they’re in the place of, here. But they’re great in their own.

I’m going to pause here and talk for a moment about the actual experience of the sparse and increased whitespaced tables: They’re easy to read, but horrible to use. Instead of these pages after pages of tables to flick through repeatedly, I want some Mothership-assed maximalist design so all of this fits in just one spread. sure, it’s take a genius layout designer to make that mesh with the rest of the design work, but these tables are drag to use — I know, I tried — especially the way the rules are but consistently applied and so you must flick through them chronologically.

What we are getting here, between the mountains and the caves section that follow, are clearly related to the solo mapmaking game that this emerged from. And I’d use these! There effectively hexfill and generation procedures, and good ones. The cavern generators here would make a very cool dungeon if you combined them with, say, a bite-sized dungeon or one of the bigger Yora dungeons. But I want to know about Corny Groń!

We do find out about it, in the form of factions, in the next section. These 9 factions are at once elegant and lacking: their half page of prose rendering their half page of usable information moot. More structure and more (any?) specific characters would render this a stellar basis for faction play; as is, I need to figure these nine factions out, with a highlighter and come up with some members on my own, even when the faction is named for them.

Then we have a metric horse-ton of tables, followed by even more treasure tables. Then we have NPC generators. These are, again, largely good tables, rendered difficult to use largely through visually elegant design. Unlike, for example, the tables in Knave 2e, rate well organized so you could easily refer to them and find what you need. But neither are they entirely worth it: As I discussed back on Lorn Song of the Bachelor, an NPC generator is not my preference at all, let alone when it provides no relationship to the world around them at all.

I’m half way through, and the remainder is all bestiary. This is a good bestiary, reminding me at its best of the Monster Overhaul without the structure, and with more interesting monster inspired by specific folklore instead of simply being twists on existing fantasy fare (although the last section, Monstrosities, is specifically that). These are fire, to be honest. Unbeholden to structure, they range from laden with bespoke tables to customize your unique dragon, to a very specific and concise Skarbek. The extended prose here, while a little too much for me, usually doesn’t detract: I don’t have much of a basis for a lot of the monsters, and it feels good to weigh into it.

This goes for a lot of the examples that pepper the book. I want a book that’s just the examples, because they’re good. The example people, the example caverns, the example mountains. It’s absolute gold. But they total maybe 5 percent of the total page-count of the book. I want the 75 percent example version of Corny Groń. I want that Corny Groń, not the one I got in this book.

The appendixes vex me. The first are rules. To a game! Based on Knave, the game they say it’s best to play it in! Just make it a capsule game, and put this in the front! This is not a book that hurries to get started: There is copious preamble and explanation of intent and process in the introduction. Ten additional pages of rules there, would make a lot of the mechanical choices further in make more sense, and would (and perhaps this is why it’s in the appendix) have required the book to be more rooted in the ruleset, which would, to be honest, have been to its advantage. The second appendix is plants. And this is good stuff! It honestly just belongs in the book. Again, this is not a book that really cares about word length or rambling prose, so working these plants and their folkloric history into the mountain-generation or travel properly would be a right flavourful and interesting, unique thing to do. As it is, it’s just tagged on, ripe to be ignored. It’s always advantageous to lean into the unique aspects of your system. The final appendix is a pronunciation guide. 6 pages of it. And, sure, it’s nice to know how to pronounce, for example, Groń. But I’ve finished the book! Put the pronunciation in the book! Use parentheses!

The core problem, for me, with Corny Groń, then, it is this: In making a setting that is almost all tables, almost all quantum, almost all create-as-you go, you intentionally also remove any chance that you have to build relationships between whatever is created, unless you build your system of generation around relationship-building. There is no relationship-building here. Corny Groń does not have a networking algorithm built into it. The hooks the character find don’t lead anywhere, because nowhere exists until you create it. I can imagine a quantum setting like this one, that, with the right approach and forethought, could anticipate this anti-social side-effect and come up with a system that undermines it and creates a world that feels worth adventuring in, but I certainly don’t want to adventure in a world that feels isolated even from itself. I’m in your world for connection.

I’m going to come around to a counterexample here: I’ve spoken many times before about how Wanderhome is in my opinion inspired by the wilderness travel present in DIY elfgames and similar adventure games. Corny Groń has Wanderhome travel. But Wanderhome is not a game of Knave. Much of the pleasure in Wanderhome is the sense of discovery you get in collaborating with your friends in creating the world you travel through, and then choosing how to respond to it. That is not the pleasure I seek in my adventure games. I’m seeking the pleasure of stumbling upon world that presents at least partially the illusion of being bespoke and detailed, of existing outside of the moment I am imagining it. I want that world to feel real and solid, even though I know in my heart it is all smoke and mirrors. Exploration, for me, is about going somewhere I’ve never been, not creating a place together with my friends. Corny Groń, for me, mistakes these two pleasures for one and the same.

So, then, the recommendation is mixed: Corny Groń is not for me, although I may well dip into its location generation procedures and its bestiary at some point because they’re really interesting pieces of design, for me, as a referee, designing for my table or as a writer looking for inspiration for my next module. But that doesn’t mean Corny Groń isn’t for you: If the idea of playing Wanderhome as a party of faux-Polish adventurers in a Knave-fork in a savage mountain home filled with unusual monsters from northern European folklore appeals to you, then this game is absolutely for you. To be entirely honest, I think there’s a whole group of people for whom Corny Groń could be an interesting way to venture into the realm of lightweight fantasy adventure games for the first time, if their favoured experiences are games like Wanderhome.

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