A dungeon by Dougal Cochrane, level 4
Written for Shadowdark
   Have I done this one before? Somehow I don’t think I’ve done this one before. And yet, given it’s a twelve-room Shadowdark dead-dwarf dungeon spread over sixteen zine-scale pages with generous margins and heavy-line stock art…I have done this one so very many times. Some of you take that cynical statement as negative, but let me make it very clear, this slavishly-repeated formula consistently produces an above-average Standard RPG Product. Arcane Library is to be commended for making a house style that works, albeit something with a font that always makes me slightly irate.
   Story ain’t nothin’ new, but it works. We’re presented with a dwarf shrine to Ord, a god who enjoys silence. It’s been long-abandoned and now is occupied by legally-distinct-!not-Umber-Hulks along with the usual mass of ooze and vermin. Hooks and rumors are very nicely focused, although I’m in the “enough, we get it” about how most rumors are people complaining about Ordanists being hushed all the time. If you figure out how to break into the Gemwarden’s tomb and loot his Warhammer, you have a silence spell, that’s a good reward that integrates with the story.
   You know what, sure, what I liked first was all the loot, there are nice piles of gems and gold, the +1 warhammer is nifty, plenty of good risk/reward mix for snagging it. Picking up a stolen holy symbol grants a luck token, nice integration of the game mechanic. It’s all simple, but good. The Not Umber Hulks WotC Please Don’t Pinkerton Me are good solid monsters with real menace, a nice gnarly threat in pairs for level 4 characters. The trap/curses/rituals all playing with Ord’s major hangup about being noisy are all fun, my previous comments were that it’s a bit too on-the-nose but players are children, they feel proud when they figure this stuff out.
   Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of navigation challenge for them to figure out. What can be improved, as so often the case, is “make a better map”. Technically it’s a loop, but that’s a single secret door and only one loopy-doop, at that. Outside of the Sandy Hulks the rest of the monsters are a little dull, more interactive NPCs are always good when possible. At level 4, there should probably be more magic than just a cursed wand and a nice warhammer, but I know Shadowdark’s assumptions are a little parsimonious at times.
   Let’s not overthink it, best use case here is to make this a cute little tomb/lair sprinkled on the campaign map. It’s a 2-hour tour, not a 4-hour session, but those are fine too. Taking the god Ord and his muzzle-lovin’ pilgrims out and into your game might be kind of amusing, and there’s some interactive trap stuff that might be worthwhile out of context. Useful.
   Final Rating? ***/***** without really anything mad about it. While it stirs no passion within me, it’s a useful, perfectly competent little lair. Like I said, the formula is above-average.

A “zungeon” by Katt Kirsch, level not listed (highish).
Kind of maybe sort of written for OSE. Ish. Let’s not over-think it.
   Oy. I’ve seen this name recently. This is another zungeon, which is like a dungeon except you play it while eating a Zaxby’s Zensation Zalad. And also there aren’t real maps but instead you suffer through interpreting ball-and-stick graphs. Beyond that, pretty standard stuff, despite the zany font/coloration choices…start with a prologue, then hooks and rumors, then “map” (vomit), then bestiary, then finally very abbreviated keys for our “locations”. I don’t have much to say about format really, the nineteen rooms over eight pages ratio is reasonable, it’s just oddly arranged.
   I…don’t understand how tigers and lemons mix together as themes, but that’s our story’s themes. There these ruins, okay? And they’re lost. And they’re inhabited by tiger-men. And those tiger men grow massive lemons. And those lemons are traded with nearby villages. And some(?) of the lemons need blood to grow. And there are hunting tiger-constructs and were-tigers and a 4-armed priestess of tigers and a massive “you killed the boss” tiger golem that does rampaging when she’s inevitably killed. BECAUSE SHE HAS A STAFF OF HEALING AND A +3 SWORD. All told in punchy little two-three line keys or random encounters. So far, so weird.
   Yeah I’m going to punt on the weirdness levels because that’s a taste thing, so what I liked first will be that excellent loot amount. There’s some actual-factual GOOD LOOT in this adventure, which feels vanishingly rare in the sullied halls of Itch. OSE needs it, though. The final golem most has a coin value, sweet. If we had an actual map, the addition of a canal cutting through the lower half of it would be very welcome, as would the secret passages/rooms. Perfectly cromulent encounter design crops up here and there, with the were-tigers being professional and under the thrall of an expansionistic pagan priestess, but otherwise quite chill. In one homoerotic moment, a trio of them even invite your players into a hot tub, have fun roleplaying that one…but it’s a good idea generally to have NPCs willing to chat. I like the captured bandits willing to accompany the party; one of them erupts into a beetle swarm after a while.
   Wrongheaded territories abound after that, with what can be improved BEYOND HAVING A REAL MAP mostly consisting of “think about interconnections more” and “go deeper into your motivations”. Finding some ruins, getting yourself some fur, a second pair of arms, and the ability to turn cultists into were-tigers is all well and good, but you’re going to have to go a lot farther to show me how this plus a healthy citrus market actually nets us a world (or even region)-devouring threat. Binrix the local village militia leader ought to have some kind of plan too beyond “I hear there are rumors thataway, go quest young man”. Eight pages is quite a lot of room, there really is some missed potential here.
   In the end, the best use case is probably to just run this in OSE, have a somewhat disjointed abstracted dungeon crawl, and then retire with all your fabulous cash and prizes. I’m trying to think about what I’d extract from here to be useful in a different context and I get…absolutely nothing. That’s a little grim. Nugget yield: Zero.
   Final Rating? **/***** because I’m feeling incredibly generous. This is the best you’re going to get, because despite the fun bits in actual play, the lack of any quality individual pieces and the lack of a real map permanently cripple this one from ever being better than two stars.

A dungeon by Aaron King, level [404 object not found]
Written for some vague mysterious OSR idea
   By this point, artpunk is more or less a passing fad. Its influences are still felt in places here and there, with more projects cropping up on itch.io than, say, DriveThruRPG. But sometimes, we have anti-artpunk…and that’s what’s here. A twelve-page document describing six keyed areas seems like pure over-production, doesn’t it? Well…no. This thing is ‘zine-scaled, massive 16-point font, simple single-column, has multiple blank pages, you get the deal. It’s just a Word document somebody exported as a .pdf and I’m fine with that formatting decision. I might have preferred using italics, underlining, and/or bolding instead of ALL CAPS as means of emphasis, but it’s fine, it’s all fine. A bit worse is the choice to drop key story/setting information as asides mid-paragraph, but hey.
   What the heck is a stone mole, and why would one want a sauna? Well, apparently stone moles are human-sized moles made of stone. Huh. Figures. Why a sauna? Because they too find them relaxing. Although there’s also a Holy Mole (heh) that has now claimed the hot springs as a holy site and manifested powers and is causing tremors and I guess that’s why we’re invading the site? Certainly, the hooks are thin on the ground. There’s also a little bitty baby sun?
   Outside of the Redwall-induced fondness for charming moles, what I liked on this one is the map-given-its-scale. Two entries, meaningful secret door, mildly interesting choices in exploration…that’ll do pig. The infant sun thing is creative and interesting…it’s a great item, using it as a cleric makes his spells harder to resist, but he loses 1 HP each morning and -1 year of life per week used. That’s good. Nice that there are hints about this in ancient dwarven runes that dwarf-speakers can sus out, very solid. I like the primary treasure is CRYSTALIZED MOLE SWEAT, that’s great.
   Though what can be improved first is probably adding more cash value in treasure, it’s low even for silver standard games. Out fights are also a little dull, too, just bonkers or zappers or a lever that summons 6d6 damage of steam. Better hooks and rumors would be helpful to add some more pizzazz on this one. Honestly, there are scale issues here that tell me this is a modern D&D player…it’s a little lair laid out like a full-scale dungeon.
   That said, I’d still say best use case is to run this as a lair. Stone moles are charming but a lot of different creatures can populate this spot, it’s perfect for thirty minutes of fun upon discovery. Great treasure to steal, too.
   Final Rating? ***/***** as a lair, just perfect for a “book of lairs” style publication and now I’m considering where I’m putting this. Very well made.

A dungeon(?) by Jake Mix,“we don’t really “do” levels here.
Written for Vaults of Vaarn.
   I see the words “Vaults of Vaarn” and my stomach churns. My right eye twitches. My head begins to pound. I have been…somewhat less than impressed with Vaults of Vaarn during my long sojourn among the itchies. I don’t like gonzo, I don’t like post-apocalyptic…coupled with the garish blue-and-yellow cover, I didn’t walk into this one with high hopes.
   Although the intro page does reference The Sword of the Lictor, so that’s something…Gene Wolfe is not in the usual itch.io list of inspirations. Okay, that’s something. There’s also a lot more ambition that usual in this one’s scope, you’ve got a “hexcrawl” with twelve hex, an “adventure site” with nine keys, and a final vault with nine more keys, all contained in sixteen pages with a generous art budget and wide margins. It’s one of the most readable Vaults of Vaarn products I’ve seen. Despite the weirdness, I understood what was happening.
   …but don’t get me wrong, this thing is DANG WEIRD. It’s a MountRushmorecrawl, basically. Huge carved overseer statue, formerly lost in an eternal sandstorm, now exposed for looting. Overseer was a cleric of Azathoth Jr., who he was feeding genetic codes before getting sick. In an effort to live longer he tries to turn himself into a mushroom, like you do, but oops, grew a second head and got taken over. That’ll happen. He dehydrated himself so there you go. Over the eons, a crystal jungle grew up the statue legs, a Pattern Out of Space took up residence, the usual Vaarn stuff. Feeling whimsical yet?

A dungeon by Sandbox Plots, low level
Written for Shadowdark
   Have I written much about my selection process for Crapshoot Monday? It’s about as slapdash as it can be. Itch.io has an abysmal search function, but you can poke and prod it into submission with effort, eventually getting it to show you (mostly) free products, mostly physical. About half of all such products are creations even more miserable than the average adventure, one-to-six page “complete TTRPG systems”. I’m kind of curious to try month of crapshoots on those games, but I suspect I’d regret it. Anyway, after hitting the first random free or PWYW adventure and downloading it, I look for “more like this” at the bottom of the webpage and so I snaffle up the other freebies in there. Believe it or not, I weed out the lowest 20% after that, the outright disasters and headaches. Anyway, that’s how I usually pick these up.
   Or, in this case, the free adventure’s creator can just tag me on Twitter and say “hit me”.
   Opening up our download, we already have good signs. While written for Shadowdark, it eschews Arcane Library’s distinctive house style for a very simple three-page, double-column document with Times New Roman-esque normal fonts, simple .docx formatting, a tiny Dyson Map (thirteen keys). Nothing special, nothing weird, just…”here’s a site for adventuring in”. Cool. Spelling is a little wonky in places, which I think is an EASL thing.
   The story…is something we have to explore kind of like the players have to explore the site, buried and hidden in the keys. Sussing things out by slow examination, this appears to be the burial mound of the eponymous Ilya the Cunning, a great hunter and lover of books, along with his wise Nastya the Wise, who really loved mushrooms. Unlike the usual corporeal undead, in this case both dead people are meandering around down there as ghosts, stirred up by the invasion of a wolfpack and some centipedes. Both ghosts are able to fight if you steal their stuff, but they also give away loot for clearing out infestations. Also there was a great bow won by Ilya and being held by a bronze statue? No stats given to the bow, but there’s a story about winning it from a god of the hunt.
   Frankly, what I liked here is “most of it”. Map ain’t bad. Couple entryways, one with obvious wolf den danger, other with ambush-jellies, main hub has a statue puzzle to go right or left but there’s a side-step, you have pool of blessing, shrine to mess with, the only traps are sprung by players being greedy, monsters are simplistic but reasonable for low-level, and the bronze statue being a relentless eternal hunter of the bow’s thief is neat.
   What can be improved most here is less about what’s present, but more about what ain’t. The Cunning Bow is a fine idea but it isn’t hinted at or focused on, so we’re a little lost at how to run it. A lot of the best ideas are interesting hints, but require more effort to really flesh out. As is frequently an issue with tombs, there’s a static aspect to the whole place, a sense that this tomb is waiting for player interaction. As always, a third dimension would help both site dynamism and give more exploratory potential.
   None of that is lethal. Best use case for this one is to plop it down on your hexmap and let your players bump into it for a fun hour or two of delving. That’s what I did. Nothing here really screams to be pulled out of context and reused elsewhere. The unfortunate need to do extra work to properly seed the place into the map and to make rumors for the artifact-bow and the god of the hunt and everything else.
   Final Rating? ***/***** with a whole star added if you don’t mind adding in those preparatory bits yourself. Sorry author, I know you told me to savage this thing but I rather liked it. 

​A dungeon by Lars Huijbregts, leveless
Written for “BLOCK DODGE PARRY” or Cairn
   So, this is apparently the second “Bite-Sized Dungeon Module” ever made. Let it never be said that small is bad, for dungeon-making. Adventure Site Contests live and breathe on the 2-page format. I’ve played some truly amazing games run out of lil’ guys like this. This one in particular is using a DENSE format, three-column with information organized in bullets and boxes. A couple pieces of old public-domain art wedge in there too, an admirable inclusion. Less admirable, of course, is the wickedly sinful space-saving move to eschew a proper map in favor of the vile block diagram. -60 points to Hufflepuff. 

   Once the rage-induced crimson blood-haze subsides and is subsequently avoided again by resolutely ignoring the map-travesty, we can continue on and read the actual story of the dungeon. It’s fine. Ancient elven prison now used by beastmen raiders inhabited by formerly-chained demon whose whispers drive the beastmen to sacrifice BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD, eventually freeing said demon. There are a few nice little elements to play with here stemming from the premise, including every single beastman’s blood getting auto-suctioned down into the stone and their tribal shaman  being possessed at variable levels depending how many deaths occur during the Standard Murderhobo Party Crashing. Silver bracelets block the demon’s whispers and if the full-possessed shaman is killed after having a bracelet snapped on somewhere, that takes care of Ye Olde Demon for good. The effect isn’t particularly well-lampshaded, and the awkwardly-phrased clues aren’t exactly clear, but it should probably be noted the situation is at least interesting enough that I spent a little time thinking about fixes. Good sign. I’m somewhat less fond of the “beastmen aren’t evil, they’re just poor tribals being misled” trope, but that’s easily ignored.
   I do so natter on. What I liked beyond the premise was a good solid loot haul at the very end of the rainbow and the basic level-the-endboss-up thing with killing more adds making a gnarlier boss. The attempt to have multiple means of egress, as always, is appreciated.
   Obviously said entries are part of what can be improved first, which is GIVING US A REAL MAP. Seriously. There are also some promising bits that also easily suggest themselves after a moment’s thought. If we’re going by videogame logic, why not have the “kill mobs beforehand” mechanic change the type of final fight to be more interesting? The idea of killing the shaman with a bracelet on to kill/trap the demon is cool, but a better indicator plus explainer would be to have an old prisoner-skeleton with a silver bracelet broken off. Also, hey, that shows that the final fix is maybe not so final. Prisoner and NPC dialogue is a little scripted, some more goals/motivation would help make interactions better. Of course, even better improvement would be to write the adventure for a real system.
   Snide asides aside, best use case here is probably just to have a magical tea party here with a bunch of Cairnies. The concepts are decent but hard to extra, and sadly with neither map nor concrete magic item work, there ain’t much gold to be extracted as nuggets of gameplay.
   Final Rating? */***** although there’s a nice three-star hiding inside the ramshackle vague mass of ideas. Give us a real map and some refinement and you might have a bite-sized dungeon worth nibbling.

An adventure by Robin Fjarem, leveless
Written for Mothership RPG
   Ah, Ye Olde Mothershipe Trifold. Classic. Ubiquitous. I don’t understand the format’s appeal, personally, but sure, it’s a perfectly cromulent method of conveying adventure information. Since this one is for Mothership, our graphics are unsightly and out formatting is wonky, but everything about the scenario is at least understandable. I’m slightly baffled for why these ugly monochrome adventures are the standard, must have been some kind of terribly-conceived jam.
   Speaking of terribly-conceived plans, our story here is that you and your merry band of victims have arrived on Bore IX, an icy moon with a breathable but toxic atmosphere, to pick up a nice fat shipment of iridium ore. As is inevitable in the Mothership universe, the toxic atmosphere turns people into Ice Zombies and there’s also a serial killer who has summoned pirates to buy the ore instead. Also there’s constant hailstorms, the comms array is down, and worst of all, your maps are all abstracted. Horrifying.
   Dunno what I liked here outside of some basic nice descriptions and the way the moon gets described. It’s Stars Without Number-compatible in that sense, at least. The traitor-killer-guy has a nice diary where he wrote down all his incriminating evidence and hid it beneath the bed of another crewmate, that’s a good move. All d10 mining post NPCs are given enough description to run smoothly, that’s appreciated.
   What can be improved here, really? I guess the first would be to drop the “roll for which NPC is the murderer/victim” but at least they have suggested NPCs “if you don’t want to roll”, so that’s a good head-nod to the fact that nobody wants to roll that crap. Real missed opportunity on the “frost madness” disease thingy, for what’s supposed to be the main threat of the adventure there’s not a lot of detail given. Naturally the biggest room for improvement is to STOP ABSTRACTING YOUR MAPS. I loathe the block-and-line diagram style, particularly in a situation where both exploration and tactical combat at possibilities. Inexcusable.
   That being said, best use case is probably to just use this as a sci-fi horror scenario. Traveller or SWN could support this just as easily as Mothership; unfortunately, that’s not very easy, you have a homework assignment to finish this puppy off. Due to the high level of abstraction and the ugly art/visual design, there are officially zero bits or bobs that you’re going to want to swipe for a different game.
   Final Rating? */***** with a sigh. I saw this and I knew, somehow, exactly what I was in for. Zero surprises here, it’s just an unpleasant experience to read.

An adventure by Seba - Rackhir - SlmlOfDoom, leveless
Written for as high-concept notional whim of a system’s idea
   You saw this adventure’s art, didn’t you? Do you really need me to tell you that this thing is high concept? Well, yeah, of course, this is a high-concept little adventure. I’m mostly surprised by how little this adventure is. It’s just a little bifold, call it two pages, with ten locations keyed on the map, a quick random encounter table, a “here’s the story setup” paragraph or two, and the by now de-regur “here’s how to freeze in winter” rules. I don’t know if this is supposed to be “OSR” or freaking Dungeon World, but at least it doesn’t hurt my eyes. Those are my standards here on Crapshoot Monday, folks.
   So, what’s our high concept? Looks like the god of seasonal change (the Smith of Seasons) has been killed, which, oops, has locked the world into eternal winter. Standard D&D Problem, happens maybe 2-3 times a decade, I get it. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to summon spring, just have to strike the eponymous Anvil of Winter with the dead god’s hammer. Sadly, said hammer is half a ton, so must be moved by sled or a giant, and only someone huge can use it. Also there’s a minor nature goddess who’s imprisoned a wild elemental, local villages, and an extradimensional necromancer ship full of sleeping invaders who killed the ol’ guy in the first place because they want to plunge the world into eternal winter. That’s a regional campaign waiting to happen. “Warmth points” are designed to encourage more and more movement as the players bumble onward.
   I’ll begin what I liked with an approving nod to the map’s look. It is vivid, clear, and invites a regional exploration. The weird spiky Necromonger interdimensional spaceship in particular is pretty cool-looking. The concept in general is neat, and I can see a fun game based on it, especially with the (admittedly arbitrary) need for gigantism in the hammer-striking. Said hammerer magically becoming the new Smith of Seasons is rad.
   …but when I consider how much effort it would require to make this idea into a playable game, it’s obvious that what can be improved first, second, and third is GIVE MORE THOUGHT TO YOUR EXECUTION. There’s a ton of handwavium at play here, from accessing the Necromonger Ship to climbing mountains to dealing with the factions to handling the hammer-blow itself. One could certainly manage to make a fun campaign with this high concept, but it certainly appears that the designer intends something like a one-shot here. That’s…a little rough.
   I’m scratching my head a little on the best use case here.  I like the concept, but it’s a tremendous amount of work to give it a proper treatment, while running it as a one-shot feels a little…cheap? It’s also not something that easily fits into most ongoing games/worlds unless you’re cool with really changing your setting’s baseline theological design. I guess I’ll land on “one shot” side here, but it really is awkwardly positioned. Given this is a set of wild ideas mixed with sneaky homework assignments, mining the adventure for neat ideas is very rewarding.
   Final Rating? **/***** and that one added star is only grudging because while it is a cool idea, it’s NOT a COMPLETE adventure. Come back and do the work to turn this into a 20-pager, oh authorial trio.
Nifty yak illustrations, tho.

A “zungeon” by Katt Kirsch, level not listed.
Kind of maybe sort of written for OSE?
   I don’t know what you call Artpunk, but this thing’s heart is what I’d call Artpunk. Sure, there’s an attempt to make our bare little eight pages (six after cover/rear) describe an ambitiously large two dozen key dungeon plus a hexcrawl, but the fundamental focus here is on presentation. It’s cool-looking, the aesthetic is very much to my taste, and format is admirably clean. Unfortunately, as that ratio usually portends…our content is a little thin.
   Story is a little bit of a digging project. Our region’s troubles began, as these things do, with a falling star that sickened and mutated the local village (turning them into the Drek-men, pretty solid name). Baron figures he’ll use this clearly dangerous thing for power, specifically by hiring a bunch of alchemists and using it to prolong his life (?) and kill a red dragon (I dig this illustration). Hooks are a little tenuous but we need to play D&D tonight so I guess we’re hexcrawling (?) to the keep (?) where the Barron is dead, the fallen star is apparently an egg that hatched, and the taxidermized dragon is up and walking again. Go ye therefore and loot.
   So what I liked, before the art above and the pretty decent formatting…I like the magic available, with a +2 Sabre joined by a Staff of Striking and a carnelian periapt. Even better look is an NPC with combat stats who’s happy to see the players. Those are already good. I like one room being filled with a dozen live chickens, who alert the guards next door, charming. Dragon present, automatic +1. 

  You know what’s about to come here…WHAT CAN BE IMPROVED IS GIVE ME A REAL MAP. This is a ball-and-stick style map with a 3D isometric layout. I like adding a z-axis, but the abstraction is still pretty miserable, really undercuts what is actually some halfway decent flow. The “hexcrawl” “map” is also not “good”, just a little gauntlet going from Big Town to Bad Keep. Decent magic loot aside, the gold values in this one are awful and should be massively increased, you’re fighting a dragon for heaven’s sake. All bad, but honestly the worst sin here are the abstracted keys…each room has a very tiny one or two line description, and most of the interactability is in the random encounter charts. One of the most important bits of information, that the baron is dead, isn’t revealed until the keys by the way. Uh. No. A little more personality distinction would help the Drek Men too.
   The best use case here is as a quest for your OSEnians, I reckon. The biggest issue is that I’m not sure what level we’re looking at on this one, the Dreks are basically goblins but the dragon is and legit unnerfed dragon (except for being stupid). It could be fairly fun. Lot of homework for that fun though, and not a lot value to extract sans context.
   Final Rating? **/***** pretty much only because of the dragon. If there’d been a less abstracted map and more details given in the keys it could have been a lot better, but as it is we’re mostly just here to admire style.