• I Read Alien: The Roleplaying Game

    I Read Games reviews are me reading games when I have nothing better to do, like read a module or write or play a game. I don’t seriously believe that I can judge a game without playing it, usually a lot, so I don’t take these very seriously. But I can talk about its choices and whether or not it gets me excited about bringing it to the table.

    I wanted to write some room descriptions for the Mothership module I’m working on, but my kids are being clingy, so instead I’m reading the Alien RPG while they watch Trolls World Tour. This has been on my shelf for three years, and I remember bouncing sharply off it when I first got it despite being excited to play it. I’m going to read it again, and this time take notes.

    Alien is the exact large form factor high production value kind of book you’d expect from a big Hollywood IP. The art inside is technically exceptional (I couldn’t criticise any given piece of concept-style art in the book), but on the glossy all-black paper stock it all blurs together. The art misses out on the breadth of flavour of the movie (and it’s sequels) as well, with no scenes of camaraderie or joy, it often feels more inspired by Bladerunner and Dead Space than Alien itself. A friend described it as “Exhaustingly Prometheus and not enough Nostromo” and that hits the nail on the head with regards to the issues with art direction in the book for me.

    Font and layout choices are surprisingly large-point and extended, with lots of empty (although black) space and leaving lots of space for the art to represent itself. It’s mainly in two column layout, with huge double page chapter headings. All of these things together give the impression of a smaller format book that has been zoomed out into a larger format. I suspect that in the environment it was released into, Mothership had just came out with cannons blazing and I wonder if some of the large-text, spacious layout choices were made specifically to stand apart from the major rival in the space. I find it surprising that the typographical choices appear to be trying to modernise Alien (or perhaps take their cues more from Prometheus). Even the title card isn’t quite the classic Helvetica Black of the original movie, if I don’t miss my mark. It’s an interesting choice to choose typography that isn’t reflective of the movie itself — there’s no Pump Demi to be seen — but rather the 40 years of science fiction the were inspired by it in turn.

    For me, the combination of simplistic, unimaginative typography, gloomy art and layout, and black gloss pages, make reading the book a bit of a drag. It’s a layout that would shine in a zine, but loses its sheen in 390-odd page hardcover.

    I’m not surprised it’s heavily overwritten, but it just seems like a huge miss that so much time and space is spent explaining things that are self-evident to the kind of people who would buy this book, like the careers likely on the frontier section. As someone who isn’t a huge Alien nerd, there are other decisions that scream trying too hard to appeal to casual fans, like the rendering of MU/TH/UR as Mother. The weird contrast, though, especially in the first 25 or so pages, is that it’s also overspaced — I’m certain the entire introductory chapter could take half the space, and Mothership 1e doesn’t even bother with an equivalent section because nobody is buying this book who doesn’t have a grasp on the Alien universe.

    This overspacing, extended font choices and overwriting results in a usability problem throughout the book. Things that should and could be summarised in a spread are done in five. The relatively simple character creation could be a pleasure, but is instead a chore. I have to read 20 pages of class descriptions for 9 classes. For the typographically literate out there, we’re talking eight words wide columns at times; just terrible use of space. My hands are sore from turning pages so quickly because there’s so few words on each one.

    The system itself is a simple dice pool system, with the addition of stress to simulate panicking (they’ll explain that in 45 pages time); you can bet stress to reroll, which is a neat risk-reward mechanism that fits well into the Alien worldview. It’s a mixed traditional and story game approach (it even has Story Points) which…well, maybe it’s just my predilections, but it’s like it doesn’t know what to be. I think a pure story approach would work pretty well for this kind of horror — I could especially get excited about a Forged in the Dark game based on Aliens — but this game seems afraid to stray from a more traditional conflict resolution framework.

    I won’t go into detail about the way talents interact with skills, but suffice to say it’s neat, and maximises the tactical complexity of the system, while being a little too fiddly. I suspect you’ll forget when you’re supposed to use them. It should be said that most equipment and vehicles are fully illustrated, which is both impressive and contributes frustratingly to the poor usability of the text, for the same reasons as I’ve now stated at least twice.

    I’m at half way through, and I’m exhausted. The layout and green on black text is just tiring for me to read. Everything here that’s said with paragraphs could be said with mechanics or more succinct worldbuilding methods like tables. I can’t bring myself to drag my tortured eyes over another page. I’ll skim through so I don’t miss anything major though.

    Ok, there’s one other thing that stands out in the second half of the book: The final sections on campaign play and the starter adventure are both just solid good stuff. Campaign play is filled with simple Traveller-inspired generators, NPCs and locations. The adventure is full of interesting characters and appropriately keyed locations. The best stuff here effectively in an appendix.

    Alien: The RPG isn’t the RPG as soft fiction reading, it’s the RPG as an art book. But the layout isn’t striking enough (fair, too, at 390 pages) and the art isn’t good enough to justify the direction, especially not with things like Ultraviolet Grasslands out there being great attempts at art-heavy RPG while still making things striking and useable. This game, if I spent some time making a decent cheat sheet, would be perfectly playable. It might, maybe, be better than Mothership. But the book itself is barely usable for me, for a huge variety of reasons, and why would I choose a difficult to use book, when it’s main competition is, while not in my opinion for beginners, at least as good, easy to use, has a massive amount of content and a hugely active community.

    I can’t think of a reason, to be honest.

    20th August, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Bathtub Review: Into the Cess and Citadel

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

    Into the Cess and Citadel (ICC) is a 282 page system agnostic city module by Alex Coggon and Charlie Ferguson-Avery. It aims to provide everything needed to run a city campaign. To me, that sounds like you should be able to run to your sessions straight from the book, or perhaps to provide a preparation toolbox. It’s a complex book, which I’m reading digitally, which for such a long book it not ideal in my experience.

    Structurally the book is effectively broken up into four sections, with an interlude. There are introductory rules, generators, detailed districts and appendices, with one appendix weirdly placed between the rules and the generators (or perhaps it belongs in with the generators, as they have their own bestiaries in the same vein). Honestly it’s a bit of a mess structurally, and potentially would be more usable with better referencing and chapter ordering (although I’ll grant it an excellent appendix).

    The bold text, and thin gutters encroached by simple decorations immediately state that ICC is going to be a complex and dense text, while still recalling a late medieval theme. Bold, simple colour choices and inverted textboxing make for clear and readable text despite this density. Some pages, should come across as less usable than they do. I count eight fonts on the page below, which normally I’d consider unreadable, but the fact that it most certainly isn’t points to excellent choices in terms of typography and layout.

    An example of a challengingly complex layout rendered quite legible despite a lot of action.

    The art by Alex Coggon, Charlie Ferguson-Avery, and Brian Yaksha is frankly all over the place, and while it provides a much needed break from the density of text, I think that it’s an indictment of the need for spot art in products like this. I’d rather the same artists provide their best work in fewer places, as the quality varies so much that I assumed they’d commissioned additional artists until I referred to the credits.

    ICC holds itself to a system agnostic standard that is a strange melange of various systems, rather than stick to a single popular system. I’m not convinced about this approach; it may be the worst of both worlds. I’ve said before that I think the best system agnostic approach is something like the one adopted in Reach of the Roach God, which bypasses the need for conversion at all, and instead simply rewards understanding your system of choice.

    The book opens with about 25 pages of city-traversal rules, which are (as an avowed disliker of additional rules) actually for the most part quite good, and I do think that running a city campaign requires specific modifications to facilitate the feeling of moving through a metropolis. This includes traversal rules (these are simple and neat), homelessness (pretty good), shopping (superfluous), reputation (feels too simple for a complex city), and hazards and diseases (I could give or take these). A lot of this is excellent flavour though: Dumpster diving might find twice-moulded bread or untapped marrow; you might develop Harlequin’s Fear. But also, a lot (most of the reputation for example) is quite generic: “Barred from most establishments”. In addition, the preambles of most of these actions are wordier than I’d like. I don’t need anyone to explain to me what reputation is.

    Next up is a bestiary if single-page spread metropolitan monsters. This is a weirdly positioned section, the monsters are unique and fun and flavourful (brick tick, garbage shambler) but there’s nothing here I couldn’t create myself by giving the classic monster manual a metropolitan coat of paint. The art is still inconsistent, but they’ve focused some of the best art in this section, which is good use of art in my opinion.

    The rest of the book feels confused regarding its intent. The next three chapters are three massive generators, one for the city itself, one for the dungeon below it, and one for the spires of the rich. These mirror each other in structure, and repeat (although not thematically) some of the content in the rules section, such as the equipment lists. The basic principles here are giving specific locations but randomly generating their connections and their layout. The writing in all three of these sections is very flavourful (“Agrimandcurioussilenceisobservedforallbutonehoura day.”; “Beautifulandstrangeanimals lazilyplodaboutthecages occasionallynibblingonfood.”) but also often generic again. I am left with the feeling that, rather than three separate generation systems and a bunch of random encounters, I’d be better off with an actual concrete city.

    My misgivings are to a degree confirmed in the next three sections, which are specific districts within the city, and feature more character and specificity than all three previous chapters combined. The impression is that the lists here are meant to substitute for the tables given earlier, which would work just fine, but I’d rather just live in these three districts than on any of the randomly generated locations. The authors know these three are out of place, because they each get a unique colour scheme, departing from the magenta of the rest of the book. These are both the most puzzling inclusion in the book, and also the most engaging aspects of it.

    The book finishes with a series of more lists: Magical items, spells, and additional locations. The additional locations are actually pretty great, and would be better incorporated into the rest of the book in some way. Finally, it includes a one page summary on how to run a city (better than the actual chapter on this), and a series of worksheets to assist you with doing so (would probably work, but seems a lot of overhead).

    ICC is absolutely packed with content, but I don’t feel like a lot of this content would help me run a city, and in fact gets in the way of my using the book by making it harder to navigate at the table. There is a significant reliance on unnecessary random generation and a lack of interconnectivity necessitated by this approach. If you want spells and stat blocks and a million locations you could think of yourself but don’t have the time to, this is a book for you. That’s not what I’m looking for, however. If I wanted to design my own city, alone at my table, in order to run it in a campaign, it would be an excellent place to start, and perhaps that is it’s intended use case, but I’d rather a book that I can use to run the city at the table, something that is expressly possible as evidenced by many other products that achieve this end.

    Overall, Into the Cess and Citadel places itself in impressive company, but fails to distinguish itself. The earlier chapters position it as a tasteful and unpolluted Vornheim in aesthetic, but it lacks the imagination of that book. It lacks the specificity and evocativeness that makes Fever Dreaming Marlinko the best city supplement in my esteem. The latter chapters aspire in some ways to replicate Magical Industrial Revolution but do not share the unique spark and cohesion. There is a lot shared between this and Oz, but Oz has a far more unique setting when it hits its mark than anything in ICC.

    If you want an edgy, but not too edgy city of fairly generic theme, to assist you in preparation for a city campaign, or to supplement your game with spells, monsters and locations that reflect that theme, then Into the Cess and Citadel is a great product. For me, the need for the book to be a all things to all people conflicts with its ability be exceptional in any one part of the toolbox it tries to provide. There are a number of stronger city products with more limited scope out there if you have have different needs for your game, and for myself, I’d choose to go in one of those directions; but for a one-stop shop, you probably can’t do better.

    18th August, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

  • Bathtub Review: Another Bug Hunt

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

    The highly anticipated Mothership 1e was just released digitally, and while there’s not a lot to talk about in the actual book, I thought I’d take a look at the introductory module Another Bug Hunt, the most recent iteration of the highly successful Mothership offical module series. Another Bug Hunt is a 43 page module for Mothership by DG Chapman, Luke Gearing, Alan Gerding and Tyler Kimball, although it must be noted that the editor, Jarrett Crader gets billing on the cover as well.

    Not the actual cover

    Another Big Hunt is a typically high production value Mothership zine, with exceptional art, striking colour choices, and bold design. A notable design decision is picking a three colour palette for the entire zine, and then choosing to switch which elements use the those colours in each of the four sections. This works to communicate the different sections, but I find particularly the second section with its burnt orange background for body text quite wearying on the eyes. Further, it acts contrary to the clear language set up using colour, highlighting and font choice to differentiate different types of information.

    This is an introductory module, and the method the team has chosen to facilitate running this module for those new to Mothership is a character named WES who pops up in sections marked with a specific symbol. I think choosing a colour (as previously stated) would have been a better choice, but overall WES is a great tool for assisting new wardens. The advice ranges from managing specific situations to general advice. One thing I don’t like, is that later it addresses ways to progress, which I feel like might encourage wardens to force players into specific action; I suspect this has been playtested to all get out, on the other hand, and accordingly those pieces of advice may particular sticking points in playtesting.

    Prior to the scenarios being presented, Another Bug Hunt opens with another innovation: Two parallel timelines, summarising what the players think has happened and what has actually happened. This is a very convenient way of summarising this information. I like a lot. The information that follows is a bit dense and long, though, for a new warden to process, and to be honest too long for me to prefer. Half of the page on the Shriek for example, repeats in wordier fashion what has already been said before. It might help me talk science to the players if a character of that persuasion is met along the way.

    We then have four scenarios: The first is an extraction mission, the second assisting a settlement under siege, the third a rescue mission into an alien spaceship, and the final an alien assault on the human base. They are in order of narrative impact, but to be honest the second and last seem to be the most complex, with the first and third being straightforward dungeons. Writing across all four scenarios is, to be be honest inconsistent. “The worst manager you’ve ever written…the more annoying you make him the better” is an excellent description of a archetypical bug hunt character, from scenario 1; “One of the few personalities who can stand up to Sgt Valdez. Was in love with Olsson, and barely masks their grief.” from scenario 2, not so much. And it’s more of a sin in scenario 2, where you’re explicitly told to get into the NPCs shoes in order to make it work. There is writing in scenario 3 that verges on straight up bad: “he turns and speaks in a creepy voice “LEAVE…ME…HERE”. It’s disappointing to me that in a project with so much talent behind it, things like this can get lost.

    I really like the first three scenarios in principle, and the fourth feels like it could either be a slog or a walk in the park, depending on luck and what has happened in the previous missions, as it hinges on retaking the Tower which may have been already handled in scenario 2. This one, I could give or take, but it’s only 3 pages anyway.

    The first scenario is a classic crawl in the vein of Alien. Here, a single foe that you will encounter en mass later in the zine is the final boss, and is likely to TPK the party. It’s shorter than it appears, because the warden guidance is significant and exceptional. I’m not sure where it’s too much; certainly it expects the warden to study the material beforehand, because there is no chance it could be read and implemented during a session. This is telegraphed in the first WES passage, but subtly and I missed it; I suspect some new wardens might too. This first scenario is worth the price of admission, probably even for wardens with experience running other games.

    The second scenario is a complex one, with three missions to complete, and the likelihood of surviving the third being low given the enemy advance and dangerous weather. There are ten NPCs at play across these three missions, but their descriptions aren’t strong enough that I could use them easily; they needed to be stronger archetypes taken straight out of Aliens, which appears to be the inspiration to this particular adventure. I’d struggle with this scenario if it were my second session as a warden, I think, particularly as it involves running a team of NPCs in addition to the mission. The missions themselves, however are each fun and interesting tactical crawls, through a decent map. I could redesign the characters to make this one an absolute ball to play in, but I wouldn’t expect that of the target audience.

    Scenario 3 is an attack on the alien mothership. The map here is much less clear, and I actually had trouble understanding where the areas described are in relation to each other, until I realised in the context of all the maps what they were showing me. There are three routes in, and a final area. Two are harder to find, and one of those is clearly the deadliest; in the other two routes are traditional puzzles that can be used to resolve the scenario with player ingenuity. There doesn’t appear to be a benefit to searching deeper, and it’s not especially jaquayed in a way that will effect the final encounter. It feels a little fruitless, and might be better as a single complex rather than a series of routes, as most players won’t immediately realise how to use the traps to their advantage, or might miss one. The final encounter is weird, as if the android was waiting for the PCs to arrive for his surgery, but also has no need for them to be there, and also will turn on them after the surgery. The WES advice is the PCs will die but they put it there anyway because it’s in the world; I’m sorry, no: This is weak writing. A whole mission has no purpose but to reach this room. The players have been risking their characters for hours. You need to give them something to engage with at this point. There’s nothing here. Rewriting this final encounter, and adding rewards for finding the difficult routes in and hints regarding their existence, would make this a good scenario, but right now it’s not.

    Because the weaker scenarios come at the end, I’m left feeling quite negative, but I need to check myself: The WES is great, especially in the earlier scenarios. I actually think it would be better to leave the advice in the latter scenarios too, because it’s still just a zine, and a new warden can only benefit from more gradually parceled advice; in fact they are more likely to take on new skills in later scenarios when they grow in confidence.

    Because my favoured style of play in my own time is sandbox play, I look at the sheer complexity of these four scenarios and I wonder how anyone could run them from the zine itself. Sandbox play relies on emergent complexity. The players encounter things and the ripples cause things to become interesting. These scenarios, by attempting to limit the ripples (something that’s explicitly talked about in scenario 4, where ripples are impossible to avoid), require a lot more groundwork and reading to actually run. To me, this makes them appear to be too challenging for the beginner, but I wonder if my experience prevents me from seeing the truth of the matter. I know that these would be challenging for me to run, because of the combination of information design and pre-loaded complexity. This tension, between making this mothershippy and making it new warden friendly, really dictates the feel of the whole module. Did the authors, editor and designers succeed in navigating this tension? I find it hard to tell. It’s a challenging one; Mothership house style is anything but friendly to new eyes, even though it’s a certain type of beautifully pragmatic.

    Irregardless, the earlier two scenarios are strong, the first moreso. The inconsistency here saddens me, as I said earlier, and I attribute it to loadsharing and a tight deadline. The WES provides excellent guidance on those modules, and less guidance although still helpful in the last two. It’s a beautiful, explosively laid out product even if not always easy to parse due to colour contrasts. But Another Bug Hunt is not the best Mothership module out there, and because of the failures in the latter two thirds, probably not the one I’d recommend to be your first as a Warden. That pleasure goes to Dead Planet or a Pound of Flesh if we’re official, or perhaps even to free module In Carmine whose review will be posted in a couple of weeks.

    Addition: Changes have been made in the version going to print, to character descriptions and to some maps, as well as clarifying rewards and outcomes in the final section, addressing some of my concerns cited in this review.

    11th August, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

  • Bathtub Review: Howl

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

    Howl is a 44 page module for Cairn by Colin le Sueur, re-released this year. It’s a horror adventure with folkloric themes, that has yet to be released in print format. I’m reviewing the PDF. It’s stated influences are Ravenloft and english folklore, but I’m seeing a module in the style of Against the Cult of the Reptile God, which is an old favourite of mine.

    The “Running the Adventure” section is three sentences. The modules text proper starts on page four. Howl is an exercise structurally in getting to the point, and I am here for it. The summary of the adventure is neatly presented and limited in scope in such a way that I have trouble making room for alternative ways to progress; this can be a good thing for a small scale module with a specific story to tell.

    This is a major challenge I think for small modules set in their own unique settings. The setting brings character and uniqueness, which is valuable, but if you give me a unique setting I’m less likely as a player to abide by the meta of the exercise: There is one interesting thing here, please investigate it. If I’m instead given relatively little in setting, it’s easier to incorporate the story of interest into my own, and the players are more likely to want to abide the meta. Here, I’m not sure the investigation will be at the front of the players or the characters minds, because they have multiple competing interests that aren’t directly addressed by the module.

    Howl is the first example of an adventure I’ve read that uses the Classic Explorer Template by Clayton Noteskine, and excellent tool that I fear will result in a plague of similar looking adventures. As the first, though, Howl looks excellent, particularly the body text with bold simple colour choices and minimal in text font switching. The trade off is an overused sidebar, containing some headings and tags for the body text, in addition to mini maps and exits. These mini maps are a great addition, an a huge improvement on using abstract maps in isolation, a trend I’m seeing more and more in zine modules of late. Art and maps range from excellent to poor, the latter a result of the scourge that is the desire for spot art in adventure modules. I’d rather no art, than art that doesn’t add to the module, although there are a broad range of ways to do so.

    The module begins with an elegantly handled shipwreck, where success provides the party with additional hirelings — survivors of the crew. If you want a scene with a necessarily foregone conclusion, this is how you do it. I’d probably prefer if it was more overt: You won’t save the ship! Do what you can to save the crew! This would also help to set the tone so the party is more likely to address the horrors that are to come.

    The writing here is workmanlike and applied with Gygaxian thoroughness, making for very toyetic scenes, but not always the most evocative. An example is the first encounter with the beast that is the center of the adventure:

    The shadow of a hulking black beast with menacing red eyes glares down at you, as if peering into your soul; after what seems like an eternity, it turns and disappears into the darkness.

    I want my writing, especially read aloud text, to be full of descriptions I’d never have thought of. This one, a key moment in the adventure, needs more bang in it. I can see the author is capable of this more evocative writing:

    The pond opens into a sprawling underwater cavern, impossibly deep. At the limits of vision, strange shapes undulate and writhe in the shadows. Studying the shapes adds the name “C’tegra” into the character’s inventory…

    So it’s disappointing to see it not applied evenly; my gut feeling is that the clarity of the structure here works against the authors inclination for prosody. This makes for an exceptionally usable text, particularly a very fun and toyetic dungeon in part 2, but detracts from the horror elements significantly.

    But, you’ve heard me say this more than once already, the content here will make for some very enjoyable sessions, if you accept that you might have to bring your own horror. There are mysterious vials, magical lions with manes of moss and mushroom, glow-poisons, unique spells. Two solid factions to interact with. An excellent small dungeon. My only criticism of the dungeon is that the factions aren’t as well signposted as everything else in the adventure. It would have been an easy fix, I think.

    The town follows a fairly typical structure, but one that I’m not especially enamoured with, which is that certain characters have certain information, turning the social situation into a potential fail state. I think it would be more effective if all the rumours and secrets were separated from the characters, ensuring information is always available.

    The big twist ending doesn’t quite land for me. It is intended to expand the world into a Ravenloft-style dark kingdom, with an evil queen (and if you’re reading my work outside of reviews you know I have Opinions about this), but the manipulation doesn’t quite make sense, the revelation also doesn’t quite make sense, and this is a long standing problem with vampire lords in elfgames in my opinion: Nobody’s quite sure why they’re there. I have figured my personal answer, and I suspect the answer for Howl lies in the sequel which is yet to be released, but at the moment this is a little unsatisfying.

    Howl overall then is an excellent village and dungeon after the tradition of Against the Cult of the Reptile God. Drop it into your campaign for a few sessions of good eerie dungeon crawl fun, which you can run right from the book. I’d probably drop the shipwreck and the final twist as right now, it would be more fun to take what you find and learn here, and continue adventuring in your own world.

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Silver Linings: Making Weather Fun

    There was a weather themed blog carnival with unusually little uptake last month, and I think it’s because weather kind of sucks. Like, if it’s only ever a drag to have weather, why bother?

    The obvious solution to me is to make weather fun. Inspired by Spiritfarer, whenever you would collect a resource from the area you’re in, you can instead collect a single bottle of a special weather related resource.

    • Cloudy. A silver lining.
    • Sunny. A ray of sunshine.
    • Windy. A gust of wind.
    • Snowy. A moment of silence.
    • Stormy. A bolt of lightning.
    • Blizzardy. A bite of frost.
    • Foggy. A puff of fog.
    • Monsoony. A close moment.

    These can all be used as one would expect, but also collecting them en mass can be used to create magical items. Ten silver linings and a master smith’s time gives you a sword that is strong against undead, for example.

    They could be combined in unique ways, too, both with traditional autogathered resources and with each other. A gust of wind and flaming puffshroom spores to create drifting cinders. A bottle of lightning and a puff of fog to create a static mist.

    There should be some kind of tiering as well, but basically 1 bottle for a minor effect, 10 for a moderate effect, and 100 for a major effect. Probably best to equate this to level 1, 2 or 3 spells, or +0, +1, +2 weapons or something that fits your system. Or, like, not. Whatever floats your boat really.

    I’d probably still have negative weather side effects, because yes, being lost in fog or blizzards and being slowed by storms or blustery winds totally makes things feel palpable. I prefer simple rules for this, like single hex delays for difficult weather and always wrong hex but always finding a secret when lost due to weather, then just playing the weather into encounters. I suggest being able to hide in fog, random lightning strikes in storms, visible ice in cold weather that can be used as a trap. Stuff like that.

    Anyway, that’s my thoughts on the weather. If you’ve got extra ideas for weather resources, extra ideas for how to use them, extra ways to make weather impactful in encounters, or any other thoughts, comment and I’ll add it in if you’d like!

    7th August, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • I Read Brindlewood Bay

    I Read Games reviews are me reading games when I have nothing better to do, like read a module or write or play a game. I don’t seriously believe that I can judge a game without playing it, usually a lot, so I don’t take these very seriously. But I can talk about its choices and whether or not it gets me excited about bringing it to the table.

    I was supposed to play a game today, but most of the table were sick, so instead I’m going to read Brindlewood Bay, because someone was talking about it on Twitter the other day (or X, I guess? I still have the birdy on mine) and that reminded me I was excited about this innovative murder mystery game back when it kickstarted (although to my knowledge the print copy hasn’t been released yet, as I haven’t received my copy). The pitch for Brindlewood Bay is Murder She Wrote meets Lovecraftian horror, with the mechanical twist that the mystery has no canon solution: The characters come up with one as the clues reveal themselves.

    It doesn’t brand itself as a Powered by the Apocalypse game, but shows significant inspiration from that lineage. Most of the basic moves themselves are awkwardly named, giving no indication of their use (“Day”, “Cosy”, “Meddling”). One is pointlessly vague: “imagine what your actions would look like as a move”? I’m not a fan of game design that asks the players to game design on the fly. There’s one unabashedly excellent basic move, a Murder She Wrote reference that’s well named and well written. I’ll come back to the Theorize move later, as it’s a big one. Regardless of the quality of the moves, I appreciate the designer commentary that accompanies them, although I feel they’d be unintelligible without them, which implies the author knows they aren’t their best selves. Overall, I don’t think it demonstrates a solid understanding of the powered by the apocalypse approach, sad on a field already filled with half-assed skins with little to no understanding of how the original functioned. Mechanical twists are clumsy and uninteresting, like three-dice advantage and disadvantage, and Crowns, which are so difficult to parse that I wrote this explanation wrongly the first time.

    The layout here is fine. I really like the art all the way through the book. There’s not much else to say; it’s a serviceable book, but to a degree it fits the elderly lady theme. The structure, however, is the real design problem.

    The structure of the book is a mess. We have a description of the character sheet (repeating a few rules and foreshadowing others), then goes into the rules for sessions that aren’t the first session (which has its own rules), then custom moves (I’ll come back to these), then two chapters of GM advice, then four additional chapters of GM lore and how to use it, and then a bunch of mysteries, and then how to run your first session. Hire a developmental editor, for your reader’s sake, please. I honestly couldn’t imagine a worse organised book, although I recognise some of the reasoning behind the choices here.

    The custom moves are absolute fire, each based on a classic crime solver, granting a maven (PC) a special move. My favourites are Michael Knight, “You have a trusty mode of transportation—an oversized sedan, a motorbike, or an old truck—that has gotten you out of more than one sticky situation.” and Tintin, “Pick this move because talking dog.” These are flavoursome and perfectly on theme. The love for the source material is very clear in this chapter.

    From here we’re start 130 pages of explicitly GM only advice. This is a game I’d like to run. I’m curious enough to run it at the absolute least, as I’m very interested in playing investigative games. But oh boy 130 pages of GM guidance is offputting. The back end of the book makes me want to put it straight in the box in the garage where dull games go to die. The contents of these chapters isn’t bad at all, it’s just a huge amount to process. I can’t imagine at whose table this will be the main game of, but I don’t need an advanced gamemastery chapter that spends two pages each on how to respond to specific basic moves.

    The next three chapters are instructions on how to run the underlying evil dark god storyline. Two chapters of this are basically a menu, some actually random tables and some not, that you can use to plan your storyline. There is similarity between these sections and the tabular randomised content in Trophy and Trophy Loom, but that similarity is jarring and inconsistent three chapters. Consistency of approach would be better, but regardless these are the worst possible versions of this content. If I want to create my own story, I can write my own story. Restructure this huge amount of writing as three or four different whole versions of the story that I can choose to take whole cloth or modify as I wish, instead of this mess. I’m not here for a setting toolbox. The chapter of pre-made mysteries is exactly what these chapters should be! The chapter of mysteries is great! Interesting well described characters! Clue lists! Scenes! Locations! Structure is always better than vibes, because we can just change your specific writing, but it’s harder to create something fresh and less worth my time to do so.

    I just got to the end of the book, and realised that despite specifically looking for it, I never figured out what ‘Putting on a Crown’ was. I had to piece it together by searching the pdf for “crown” until I figured out that the mavens can do these specific things in game to bump their success level up a notch. Either one about your personal life or a more structured one about the evil cult. This is quite poorly explained, and that’s disappointing, as this is a pretty good tension mechanic.

    Now, the elephant in the room: No mystery in this game has a set solution. This is precisely the kind of idea that may be clever and may be complete foolishness. The entire solving of the mystery is supposed to be reminiscent of the scene in classic detective stories where the detective presents a long explanation, solving the mystery. It’s tied directly to a move:

    In the context of this move, it is further obscured whether this is foolishness or cleverness. I’m leaning towards clever, for the pure reason that the detectives can be wrong and that their likelihood of being right improves the more clues are accounted for. To me, this makes it feel less like “the detectives make up the answer” and more like “the answer reveals itself to the whole table”.

    Gauntlet games tend to fall solidly into the “we’re telling a story together” end of the spectrum, and this way of concluding a mystery really leans into that feeling. I can enjoy that kind of gameplay — Fiasco has been a favourite of mine for many years — but there’s something jarring about the structural contrasts in Brindlewood Bay, where it feels like you’re solving a mystery that is pre-existing by solving pre-existing clues, until you make the theorise move and suddenly you’re negotiating a motive and means for murder together.

    Anyway, that’s Brindlewood Bay. It’s probably a good game, but it’s buried in bad structure and an obscenely constructed GM section that tries its hardest to drive people away from it. The smoothness and simplicity of art and layout clashes with the jarring content and structure. Honestly, if I hadn’t paid for a print copy, I don’t think I’d bother. But I’ve paid the money, and I like the premise, so I’ll probably run it, resentful all the whole that I’m going to have to wade through 130 pages of guided novel-writing to run a powered by the apocalypse game about elderly detectives.

    August 5th, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Bathtub Review: Reivdene Upon The Moss

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

    Reivdene-Upon-The-Moss (hereafter Reivdene) is a 91-page module by Chris Bisette. It came about as an episodically released Christmas module, and has minimal art and layout. The text identifies that it’s a first draft, but to my knowledge it hasn’t been updated at this time. It is statted for B/X, Mork Borg, Troika! and Fifth Edition, although what version of Troika! this would make sense in is beyond me, to be honest. It’s a horror investigation module in a creepy town.

    A hex from Reivdene, used as cover art for the storefront.

    Briefly, a summary: We have sections on history, hooks, weird omens, weather, and details about the ritual which places the module on a timer. Six locations within the parish, a three hex hexcrawl, Four places in the village, a few NPCs, and details about the final dungeon and the Looming Evil.

    This module, due to its lack of art and layout, relies heavily on punchy and evocative writing, and it brings it in spades. The opening monologue gives the voice of this town’s occupants as well as a summary of the creepy goings on, and I’d read it aloud (“A weird place, Reivdene. Insular. You can spot a moss-eater in a second when they come to town.”). The rest of the writing in the module reflects the opening in a number of ways: It’s evocative, it reflects the small British town on the moors (at least as I imagine it from television), and it’s just a little too wordy. The opening monologue is a half page. The “brief” history is two pages. The content here is good, but it needs a good edit.

    There are some sections which I feel just aren’t necessary, as well. Being trapped in Reivdene is essential for the plot and the pressure, but it’s just not important enough to justify a page of rules about the weather, which essentially indicates it’s cold and snowy and you’ll get snowed in. The three hex hexcrawl isn’t big enough to justify the use of hexes; technically there are seven hexes but only three locations, and they’re connected by paths, but there’s no detail about the other four so why are they there? And, as I alluded earlier, I can see it’s statted for the most popular forms of D&D, but nobody’s playing this in Troika, it suggests you ignore a bunch of B/X rules in the text, and honestly sending a bunch of optimised 5e PCs would make short work of this cult, so it kind of betrays the spirit of the piece to do so, although I recognise the smart marketing decision.

    I would love for this to have been a briefer, better edited module, because it’s absolutely stellar. Writing is uniformly excellent, it just needs a decent chop. It’s a fairly contained and small story, with a lot of neat lines drawn and interesting relationships built in, lots of levers for the PCs to pull, and I imagine it would be a really memorable series of sessions. It’s hard to communicate in a review how much fun these are: There’s a secret sibling-god being held prisoner by a random NPC, who also may make an ally against the big bad, but is likely just as bad. Old shrines hidden beneath giant rocks. Secret dungeons. Spaceships. All interconnected and drawing the PCs together for something bound to be explosive.

    But it’s written to be a similar size to a much bigger scale module, and the contrast here makes me reluctant to run it. This is 91 A4 pages, to be clear. Witchburner covered a similar location in two thirds the pages with more rules necessary for its investigation elements. Fever Dreaming Marlinko is 71 pages with art and layout and it’s an entire city and provides a basis for years of play.

    Honestly, this is a strong enough module that if it were released in book format, edited down to 60 pages, actual layout and more effective art to make it more useable and streamlined unnecessary sections (with consideration given for their intended purposes), this would be a no brainer purchase for me, as a big fan of horror-leaning elfgames. I certainly think choosing a system or remaining entirely agnostic would be a smart choice as well.

    Idle Cartulary

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  • Bathtub Review: No Room for a Wallflower Act 1

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

    No Room for a Wallflower is a narrative module for Lancer RPG by Miguel Lopez and Tom Parkinson-Morgan. It’s a solid effort, and appears to be an attempt to produce something akin to what Horde of the Dragon Queen was for D&D 5e when it was released. That means, we have more artists, more production value and more words, and an attempt to solidify a house style for Lancer outside of the core book. I feel like I have to defend given what style of games that I focus on here that I’ve actually run a fair bit of Lancer, and while this module was a gift, I think it’s interesting to look at a module that’s trying to be a fifth edition module, but that (looking at the credits) actually has some solid indie cred behind it. It’s a big book, so this will be a long one.

    The introductory chapter is exactly the kind of introduction that grinds my goat, not suffering from any specific deficit but rather from but not knowing what its target audience is, and hence what to leave out. The result is a bloated rules introduction that feels aimed at a beginner who is likely grappling with complex Lancer lore and rules already. From the start, I’d be remiss not to mention the art, which indeed is universally excellent, and fits Lancer style, but I won’t make mention of it again, as none of it is functional and it doesn’t really factor into how useful or good the module is.

    The introduction is a gazetteer covering the backstory (for the GM only), gazeteering the planet, the factions, and then a one-page on what the player characters might know. This chapter could have been presented in half the words, probably less, and more effectively, but this is very much Lancer house style, and if you’re conditioned with that expectation I wonder if you’d be disappointed with a lower word count? Irregardless I remember the hours it took me to digest core Lancer lore and can’t imagine this additional lore would make the book welcoming to me coming straight out of that. A lot of this secret lore is never going to be told, and in fact is explicitly hard to find out by player characters, and you’ll find that further in, most of the characters players might interact with have the lore they know listed with them. Secret lore secrets doesn’t drive interesting play in my opinion, but rather should be generously doled out, and if this section is to be useful, it’s best as a list of “things people know” that is referred back to in order to be communicated to the player characters, or just relegated to the existing sections of information that specific characters know. Everything here would, if brevity was not on the cards, have benefited from more structure to render its size and density less opaque. Present it as a dossier rather than a gazetteer (I’ll come back to this suggestion). Lots of subheadings, headshots of major players, tables and things to tie back into later. Make it more practical. Make it both GM guidance and player handout.

    I should briefly detour into an explanation of how this book modifies typical Lancer structure to make it a “narrative” module. Normally, Lancer missions consist a number of combats, after which the player characters increase their license level. Wallflower introduces “beats”, formal forking narrative intermissions between the combats, illustrating the progress of the state of the planet Hercynia over a year of war. The bulk of the book is the actual content of these missions and the beats that are interjected into them. There are five missions and a couple dozen beats, and the strengths and weaknesses are repeated throughout. My first impression of Wallflower is that it’s well laid-out, taking after Lancer’s core book with bold colours, clear tables, and simple iconic sans serif fonts. Every page looks good on impression. But on closer and further reading, fonts multiply rapidly, highlights like boxes are used inconsistently (used for briefings, combat descriptions, stat blocks and specific parts of stat blocks), and the writing exacerbates the problem, at times with almost entire pages italicised or bolded, becoming incredibly difficult on the eye. There is a clash of layout, typography and writing choices in this book that results in something very challenging to read once you get past first impressions.

    The first page of Mission 1 appears to be three quarters read-aloud text, which in my opinion is egregious. I’ve never had a table willing to sit through reading an A4 page of text themselves let alone my reading it out loud to them. The writing is decent, evocative for the kind of James Cameron military sci-fi vibe they’re appealing to here, but there’s just more of it than is practical. The same brevity complaint comes for characters. They’re well-realized characters, however the conversational half-to-full-page style doesn’t lend itself to my easily slip into those characterisations. Give them a strong structure if you want this much information to be provided per character, else make them stereotypes and give them one or two quirks and let the GM bring their own flair to the roleplay. A half decent map would describe the colony better than the text does, and because the map is neither co-located with the locations nor half decent, locations fall into the trap of describing geography (“well downriver, on the east side of the river”) and then describing the banal (“the day to day functions of Evergreen’s Stable Reactor Plant are largely automated”), while burying the useful and interesting (“Currently, the bridge…[can’t] support mechs”). The “Scenes of Daily Life” table is excellent, but a missed opportunity, lying on the same page as GM advice is right next to it “You may wish to include a scene or two in which combat can be heard in the distance” which should have been right there in the scenes of the daily life table! I could go on. It feels unedited, but it’s definitely not rationalised.

    This is impenetrable prose, that would be best rationalised and removed to more appropriate locations. Incorporate your advice straight into the table. Incorporate your gazetteer straight into the handouts or character sheets. A dossier on arrival in the colony of Evergreen; let it be passed around the players to read when they’re tuning out of the next thing the text wants you to read aloud to them. Record a newscaster over stock static and tell the GM to play it in the background (maybe if you have to read your writing yourself you’ll realise you’re using too many words). Use dot points (forgive me for suggesting them). A wiki. Give me something to work with so I don’t have to transcribe your gazetteer into something more useful. Lancer as a game always points to combat as the core activity of the game, so expending too much of the GM’s time on this stuff doesn’t behoove it’s incorporation in play, or their interest in your module.

    The mission and combat structure itself is pretty cool. You’re provided stakes, get to choose how to approach it from limited options, do that combat, and the beats you progress to change algorithmically as you progress through the story. Your choices and successes fill clocks that contribute to events occurring further into the story at different stages. This semi-rails experience isn’t for everyone, however with planned and structured combat missions like those required for Lancer, it’s an excellent way to scaffold supported storytelling into the mission structure.

    Overall structure here is also a little challenging. I’m not always an advocate of a summary of the ‘story’, because these are supposed to be roleplaying games, and the ‘story’ should be dictated by the actions of the players. But in this case, some kind of summary of the potential outcomes of the algorithm would help the GM a lot, because this is a big document, with lots of text, poor signaling, and I don’t think it’s fair to expect someone to read six to twelve months ahead in order to understand what’s going on and provide the player characters with true and relevant information. An alternative would be better signaling regarding the themes, goals, or potential outcomes of each beat.

    The story itself ends on a significant downbeat, and a direction which is impossible to divert from. This is the structure Wallflower commits to, but it is a little disappointing how little impact player choice has on the overall story. A lot of the time, it feels more like a videogame where you can choose evil or good, but choosing evil will always deprive you of opportunities for fun. I think for this algorithmic structure to work, it would help to provide the GM with the algorithm, and for both sides of all forks to provide meaningfully different information or outcomes. If you don’t want to do that, you probably should be making a purely linear narrative, which is perfectly ok for a Lancer campaign in my opinion.

    Overall, would I run this for my table? I probably wouldn’t. It doesn’t provide me with battle maps for the many combats which is an absurd thing to leave out as what for me is one of the most time-consuming parts of preparation, neither does it provide me with any tactical advice for running the combats. In aggregate, using this module would probably cause me to run a less interesting game with more preparation time and less flexibility than if I ran it based on the (admittedly absent) story summary. The elephant in the room, I should add, is that this is an Act 1 that released the same year as Lancer released, but Act 2 is yet to be released, if it ever will be (a casual google indicates the authors now work full time in game development for one of Massif Press’s opponents); purchasing this also comes with no promise of the story being finished, and if you feel you need this book to tell this story, you’re probably going to feel ill-prepared to finish it on your own fumes.

    Let me meander for a moment. For me, a good Lancer module should come with battle maps, tactical advice, and much briefer and more rationalised story linking them together. If I was to provide no battle maps or tactical advice, we’re in the space where a freeform Lancer sandbox is a perfectly reasonable expectation from a 200 page product. And if you do, it’s not, and this algorithmic approach is the best possible, but it’s pointless if choices don’t have meaning. Both are useless approaches compared to preparing your own campaign unless the content takes less time to digest and provide to your players than simply regurgitating ad hoc the hundreds of pages of lore you’ve already memorised from reading the core book, and winging it, allows for the flexibility and surprise we love about roleplaying in the first place. This module doesn’t tick any of these boxes, sadly. This a module that’s modelling itself after Horde of the Dragon Queen, when it should be modelling itself after Pathfinder 2e adventure paths or old D&D 4e adventures, or, even better, paving its own way.

    25th July, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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  • I Read BREAK!!

    I was supposed to go to a miserable family party today, but my wife is sick, so instead I’m going to read BREAK!!, one of the most long-anticipated games in recent memory. I’m not going to call it a review, because I don’t have time to play BREAK!! right now (maybe I could run a playtest in BREAK!!?) It’s more of me answering the question of whether BREAK!! is something that will ever come off my shelf and hit the table.

    For those who don’t know, BREAK!! is a diy-elfgame inspired by manga, anime and roleplaying video games in the vein of Zelda and Final Fantasy. It was a huge kickstarter hit, and the beta was just released to backers. I’m going to call it Break from here on in because the punctuation is jarring.

    From the first pages, Break is beautiful, in a maximalist layout kind of way. Most pages have full colour art, sections are colour coded, random dice rolls are on every page for the GM, complex headers communicate where you are in the book and which way to move. Font choices are simple but effective. Break is aiming for the same league as Pathfinder 2 and 5e, and it shows.

    The choice of structure and the introductory sections reflect this aim, as well: The introduction (aside from a sidebar for the RPG initiated) is aimed at newcomers to the hobby; it opens with 200 pages of character options, competing on Princess Play and OC grounds with the well-funded leagues of Paizo and Wizards of the Coast.

    As a forever GM I burn out on character options, but boy these are unique in terms of availability in roleplaying games, mechanically well supported, adequately complex, and manage to compete on the same terms as the big two while maintaining continuity with a completely different tradition.

    I don’t think I’ve discussed my problems with all the poorly realised criticism aimed at 5e by indie designers, but the tl;dr is that the criticisms all come from GMs because 5e is really bad at supporting GMs i’m their role. But it’s really really good for players who love the scaffolding that the nigh infinite player options provide in creating the character of their dreams, supported not just by their imagination but by the rules of the game, and in the growth of that character. BREAK!! Does a decent job of replicating the early stages of that scaffolding (although it would take significant work to catch up with their release schedule).

    I won’t go into detail, but we have callings (not classes) from our world with mobile phones, two contrasting princesses, and people who just aren’t special at all, all who appear balanced and mechanically unique. They get species, traits, histories and quirks. I enjoyed making a character (apart from gear, buying gear in games of this scale always sucks), and it didn’t take very long at all. Oh, and the gear here is cool, most having unique powers attached to them instead of just a damage dice. And they’re flavourful. The negative: The gear section is ridiculously long.

    Honestly I think Break nails the player-facing side of the game, at least in terms of standing proud against the competition. Does it nail the GM facing side? Here, 5e is a low bar to clear, but Pathfinder 2, while requiring a 101 college course to master, once you have it it’s easy to run.

    The dice are d20 roll under; I prefer the simplicity but I think it’ll be alienating for the players it’s poaching. It’s got numerical bonuses and advantage and disadvantages (a rose by any other name, “Edges” and “Snags”). It’s overexplained, in the grand tradition of its competitors, but as much as it grinds my goat it knows its audience.

    Look, I don’t love the journeying rules in Break, but they are so much better than the core travel rules in anything in the same field, I could kiss the authors. Anyone who reads this blog knows I spend a lot of time struggling with travel, but Break chooses well-trodden paths that suit the style of of the audiences they’re aiming for, while actually proceduralising them nicely for easy of use. Good GM support. Oh, just love there are special rules for giant monsters. Creature maps and strike points. It looks like it’s be a great time. Monster Hunter campaign coming right up.

    Journeying is one of a bunch of what they call “Focused Rules”, which are basically procedures for specific types of interactions. Or, a more apt analogy for the inspirational material: They’re minigames. Negotiations, combat of course, perils (traps and collapsing roofs), downtime and crafting are included here. Some of them are great, some of them I think are a bit too much. I don’t know how likely it is that everyone at the table has a copy of this tome, but without it say goodbye to crafting or downtime being a part of your game. Regardless, these procedures are great ways to support your GM and players in a broad range of play reminiscent particularly of roleplaying videogames.

    Ok I hate lore, even well written lore, but I have to say Break nails it, where you can flip to the continent for a list of ways to describe and embody it, then to the region for more detail. It’s not quite “use it at the table” good, but it approaches it.

    Eugh, the Being A Game Master section. There are a bunch of these “how to RPG sections” I’ve skipped over, and gosh I find them repetitive and mind-numbing. They’re definitely written with the 12+ age category in mind. And keeping that in mind, they’re also trying to subtly retrain you out of bad habits you might have learnt from other games that don’t provide so much support. That said, if I were to run Break, as someone only intimately familiar with two or three of its referents, the spark tables are pretty excellent. It’s another example I think of knowing your audience, and it’s just not me.

    There’s a bestiary. It’s pretty, with cool creatures in it. They each get a spread. It seems a bit much. There aren’t dedicated rules that I could see for mooks vs bosses and final bosses (actual game terms), it feels excessive to have a two page spread each for a dozen mooks. I’m certain there must be rules about this somewhere but I couldn’t find them, even by perusing the index and by searching the pdf. [Addition: GreyWizard, one of the authors, piped up in the comments, locating where mooks and bosses were delineated. and there’s no concrete advice in terms of encounter design and enemy difficulty. This feels like the diy elfgame coming out in the creators, but i don’t like it as a design choice here.] Here, the GM scaffolding falls short, which is a concern for a combat heavy game (there are a bunch of summaries and chest sheets in the appendix, which would help a little, but not enough).

    This is one of my peeves with this type of game: It takes a lot of familiarity with the rules for me to properly understand them. I strongly doubt there are major flaws in a game with a ten year development cycle, but it doesn’t mean that flaws aren’t going to creep into my game because of the depth of complexity. I’m only getting the pdf, and I think that was a waste of money, because I could never run this without the book in hand and I’d spend months getting up to scratch with the rules.

    But that’s what it’s trying to be, so I can’t fault it. BREAK!! Is what you get when you try to write a competitor to 5th edition, with a completely different Appendix N, and a solid knowledge of the elfgame blogosphere at your back. It is packed to the gills with love, attention to detail and character. There are a few missteps I think, but for the audience that it will appeal to you this outpaces 5th Edition at its own race. Like, if I could sell my old 5e group on it, and I played it for a while, I reckon I’d grok it and enjoy it a lot. I think I’d have more trouble selling it to them than Pathfinder 2, though, which would take a similar amount of effort for me to learn and run. And when push comes to shove, the pitch is key for me wanting to fork out $160 including postage for a full colour tome.

    23rd July, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

  • To review or not to review

    Rowan wrote a very clear reasoning why negative reviews are out of bounds for the new series Dungeon Deep Cuts, and it made me think I should articulate why I’ve decided to do the opposite with Bathtub Reviews. This is a challenging little thing to write, actually, because it’s personal.

    The constant refrain echoing about the elfgame community over the past few years is “where is the criticism?”. I know where it went. Regularly, a new game or module gets a negative or mixed review, and there is outrage that the critic is accused of toxic negativity, accused of not caring about the indies, accused of not supporting new creators. It’s not the game, they say. It’s the critic. I don’t want to be the mean girl of module reviews. I don’t love conflict. I want people to like me. It would be easy to decide not to write anything negative and so preserve the appearance of kindness and positivity, and avoid creating any conflict in our insular elfgame community.

    I know game design is hard, and vulnerable. I write myself. I tend to write experimental things that people don’t like. I’m sinking money I can’t spare into my upcoming book, Bridewell, which is likely to bounce right off the major critics in the hobby. It’s painful to receive criticism, because as artists we’re putting our hearts on display for people to spit on.

    My stated audience is my table, my design journey. It is not my place to provide unsolicited feedback to game designers. Aiming to identifying what makes a module worth playing for me, and hence what makes a module worth emulating when I write, is limits my responsibility some. I don’t know what you like or would enjoy. But I can comment on what I’d like and enjoy. It’s important to say “y’know what, this is incredibly useable but the vibes are off for me” or “the module is poorly put together but the vibes are immaculate”, because I’m more likely to play the latter than the former, but the latter will receive more criticism no doubt.

    I wrestle with the criticism in my reviews. It takes self-awareness to understand why you don’t like a text, or why you have trouble engaging with it. They are art, not mechanics. I don’t believe it’s contributing what I want to contribute at all to publish something that declares This Is Bad And I Don’t Know Why. It’s valid for me to dislike something without grounds, but that is a cruel and negative approach to reviewing that I don’t allow myself the luxury of performing. It’s important I wrestle with my feelings about my why I feel critically.

    I try to mitigate potential damage. I’m flexible around publishing dates if the a review is close to launch or to awards. I’m concerned about negatively effecting sales because I’m conscious about presenting honest, nuanced reviews. In a world that doesn’t make it easy to get by, and certainly one that makes it near impossible to make a living in elfgames, a negative review might be a meal not on someone’s table. “But game design is hard, the authors and artists have put their blood, sweat and tears into the game”, and yes, that is true. But a review of my game is not for me, as much as I wish it was. It’s for players, who deserve to know whether the game is worth their time and attention. It’s for other designers, to know what they should be learning from. If you want glowing praise, seek an endorsement. Endorsements are brief. If I were reviewing on Tik Tok, my reviews would be more glowing. But my reviews are typically long; over a thousand words. My spending that amount of time interrogating a text means I think it’s strong; but also, it’s difficult for a long review not to become a discussion of strengths and weaknesses. It’s very difficult to write a long review that is all praise. Pointing out a game isn’t perfect is not saying it shouldn’t have been made.

    I believe there’s a place for criticism that isn’t a beige unboxing video, uninformed criticism based on vibes, or unabashed cheerleading. I’m writing criticism to try to be an antidote to that. I’m not writing advertising copy, although I’m very happy to bring more money into the hobby. My reviews, in attempting to be honest and nuanced, feel more critical than pretty much anything out there. I feel it invalidates my opinion if I were to publish only positive reviews, or if I favoured friends or colleagues, or if I were to not review something that I had read with the intent of reviewing it, because my experience were negative. If I only were to publish negative reviews, it would also invalidate my opinion. I need to review in an honest, nuanced way for the work to have meaning.

    This hasn’t exactly been a structured essay, so I’m not sure how to finish. Its a complex issue in a small hobby, and I’ve put considerable thought into publishing nuanced, balanced reviews for modules that I don’t feel positive towards overall. I certainly feel a responsibility to the creators as well as to whoever reads these reviews, and that responsibility is foremost in my mind whenever I’m writing criticism, whether the module is one of the best I’ve ever read, or not one of those. And hopefully, that is enough.

    22nd July, 2023

    Idle Cartulary

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Threshold of Evil – Dungeon Regular

Dungeon Regular is a show about modules, adventures and dungeons. I’m Nova, also known as Idle Cartulary and I’m reading through Dungeon magazine, one module at a time, picking a few favourite things in that adventure module, and talking about them. On this episode I talk about Threshold of Evil, in Issue #10, March 1988! You can find my famous Bathtub Reviews at my blog, https://playfulvoid.game.blog/, you can buy my supplements for elfgames and Mothership at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/, check out my game Advanced Fantasy Dungeons at https://idlecartulary.itch.io/advanced-fantasy-dungeons and you can support Dungeon Regular on Ko-fi at https://ko-fi.com/idlecartulary.
  1. Threshold of Evil
  2. Secrets of the Towers
  3. Monsterquest
  4. They Also Serve
  5. The Artisan’s Tomb

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