​A dungeon by Porter Lyons, levels irrelevant
Written for CyBorg
  I wear my biases on my sleeve here, dear Crapshoot Monday reader. My dislike for Murk Burg, due to its garish colors and sizzle-over-steak priorities, is well known. Still, I won’t hold the sins of the father against the sons…Pirate Borg, despite the lineage, seems to be its own thing, even producing a few not-terrible adventures. CyBorg has a clever name going for it, at least, so I’m willing to judge it for itself.
  Whew lad. Not starting out strong here though, BugGrub Burger Files, you’re aggressively garish and ugly and hard to read. The art is random and distracting, the format is borked, and the room-to-page ratio (a dozen rooms, eleven pages) is exactly in the danger zone that usually means we’re somehow both over-written and shallow. Not promising. 

  Our story is probably what you think when you see the cover page. Insect-protein-based burger chain has a drug-smuggling cook among its employees, players are expected to find the drug smuggler, kill said smuggler, find the drug and the drug’s recipe, and survive an attacking cult of bug-worshippers who bust in at a plot-appropriate time. Details like who’s the target, where’s the drug, and what triggers set off the set pieces? Just roll it up before hand, lol. We’re ironically also informed that this is a “low prep” adventure.
  Before we get down to brass tacks, what I liked is the map’s design if not its presentation, it’s a pretty solid little cyberpunk restaurant/food production plant/shipping dock. Takes a while to grok, but once you do it all makes sense and the layout produces a decent mix of sneaking and firefight potential.
  This means everything else is in the ”what can be improved“ category. Besides the obvious problem of “adventure isn’t finished” that comes when such critical details are left to random chance, there’s also a horrible informational organization here that makes what few details the writer actually did bother to figure out hard to sus out. A bit more imagination would serve too, when a PC jacks into a training computer there’s a d4 number of outcomes that are basically “Pac Man or Second Life”. We get it, eating the bugs is gross and makes you sick if you eat too much. Most charitably, the author’s vision did not fully translate to the page.
  Best use case is probably to play this as a bit of content in CyBorg. Judging by this one adventure, players of the system exhibit neither taste nor sense, so of course a disgusting eye-hurting mass of indecipherable gobbledygook about eating bugs and dealing drugs will be right up their alley. If you ain’t that audience, you ain’t interested in using this project.
  Final Rating? */***** with a strong suspicion that this is also probably a stellar exemplar of CyBorg’s finest. Once begins to suspect that Pirate Borg is the exception.

   We're one week, one month away from kickoff. You'll have two months from there (deadline Jan 1) to submit, but now's finally the time to write up that adventure site you've been thinking about. Not, please note, because you should be taking three months to write up a little one-session site just two pages-and-a-map sized...but because the best thing you can do with your adventure site is to play it. In playtesting, a module becomes real; you'll find the difference in quality between unplaytested and playtested adventures is like night and day. If you can't manage to get friends around a table, then at least solo-playing can get you something, but as always, the purpose of these things is first and foremost to encourage more play. 
   I'll be chatting with a few other guys about dungeon design here tonight. Feel free to take tips, or to even jump on chat and heckle, but just don't cancel game night for it.

And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters;
And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.
-Revelation 8:10-11
   Secure. Contain. Protect. These are the bywords of the SCP Foundation, probably the best internet fiction project ever written. The premise of the project is that each little bit of flash fiction revolves around some kind of weird magical or technological item that has the potential for disaster, up to destruction of the world or even reality itself. Since there are hundreds of different authors, quality wildly varies from SCP to SCP, but the very best of the fiction pieces are top-flight bits of horror or sci-fi writing, some of them, like the Antimemetic Cycle, genuinely ground-breaking. In the novel Relics of the Fallen, Nick Nethery gives an EOD (bomb) technician’s perspective on the whole premise. These things aren’t opportunities, these things are dangerous old landmines to be disposed of safely and securely. That’s the mission of the novel’s organization, nicknamed “Wormwood”.
   Woe to the Earth, for at the sounding of each trumpet the judgement of the Lord falls upon mankind, scourging the wicked. In the first book of the Wormwood Archive, fallen relics spread bitterness, gall, and occasionally, gravitational singularity explosions. As names go, we are set up for a good story by the titles of both the series and the initial novel. Genre is tricky on this one, it’s under the sci-fi label broadly but the setting is present-day on the planet Earth, so you’ll also see “thriller” labels for this style of story. I saw the old Soviet-era sci-fi novel Roadside Picnic here more than anything else, which, hey, that thing is an underrated classic.
   There’s a second genre here that readers of contemporary sci-fi may recognize. After the somewhat aimless imperial experience of the Global War On Terror left thousands of veterans suffering from severe PTSD, counselors in the armed forces started suggesting “well why don’t you write fantasy or sci-fi stories about this?” This led to tens of thousands of stories started, and hundreds actually finished. I hope the exercise helps each sufferer psychologically, but the needs of therapy and the needs of narrative fiction are not the same. For every Hammer’s Slammers there are a dozen misses. This novel isn’t one of those misses, it is clearly written by a guy who suffered some shit in the Sandbox but fortunately he’s not letting that take priority over telling a story for everyone.
   Our basic plot here is explained in the blurb and what you’d expect given premise. Man on deployment finds alien(?) bit of weird tech. Alien weird tech turns into black hole and eats man’s squad. Man gets slapped with an NDA. Man retires and gets hired by a semi-private black bag organization to disarm other bits of alien weird tech. Rival black organization harries man’s organization. Final confrontation. Really, a tale as old as time, but it’s done well. If you’re the type who has yet to realize that spoilers don’t negatively impact reading enjoyment, punch out here and read the book. It’s free on Kindle Unlimited even, zero reason not to check it out. It’ll leave you wanting more but, and this is crucial, it does resolve satisfyingly so you’re not getting strung along waiting for the next book in the series. 

A dungeon by Sergio Cotelo, level unspecified
Written for System Agnostic
  You would think the trifold would have a standard fold pattern, but I see multiple takes on the trifold design over the course of this labor. Considering the vast majority of itch.io adventures have to be actually used either on a tablet or a phone, any sort of folding design represents an obscuration of the adventure’s information. Some people love ‘em, though, they keep cropping up. This one uses its “two pages” to detail a nine-room dungeon with just enough greyscale pixel art to induce primal feelings of nostalgic positivity in your humble reviewer. A few minor ESL issues crop up here or there but it’s overall well-written in a conversational, albeit excitable, tone. All-caps text with flourishes like “THE WATER CARESSES THE FINE SAND OF THIS BEACH” might annoy some users but I find it charming.
  Yes, yes, but what about THE PLAY Mary Todd? Well you see there were these pirates, right? They tricked the titular Ospinode (Neptune, basically) into giving up his left eye, which they then hid in a cave before dying to wrath-of-the-gods reasons. Now there’s a treasure map, a rumor of a mighty artifact, and the DM is looking at you all expectantly so you better bite on this quest hook. This is a fine setup.
  Setup goes first into my what I liked bucket. There’s attention paid to having dynamic and flavorful encounters with fishmen and giant turtles, including some communication nods. I like there being two entrances to the sea caves, one by water and one by land, that’s a good instinct. The secret door, wonder of wonders, genuinely matters. Finally, as a usability nod, all monsters are given stats in the text, which means I do NOT give this my usual system-agnostic ire. It’s just B/X, which is fine.
  What can be improved first is the map. This is NOT, for once, me talking about the map’s design structure, which is a little linear but that’s completely fine for nine rooms. Instead, this is a visual design critique…the pixel-art tile set for different terrains is a good idea, but water and sand are way too similar in the greyscale. As an object d’art I enjoy this, but if I was using this at the table I’d be a little annoyed. Encounters, there’s also a bit more hack-and-slash density than is idea, with also the sin of “1d6 fish people” cropping up multiple times in room keys. Bad, no, you don’t give me homework. Treasure found in a half-buried chest is nice (that should provoke an encounter to dig up) but sadly the titular eye itself is a little…sad. It’s the LEFT EYE of the GOD OF THE SEA and its power is…Create Water once a day. Give us something more, friend, particularly when it’s an artifact that carries with it the danger on annoying the aforesaid sea god. I like the seed, but some growing is needed.
  You know, best use case here is the have this as a sea cave dungeon found on a treasure map, just like it says on the tin. I’d be embarrassed about how minor the artifact’s magic effects are, but hey, it’s a functional plan at least.
  Final Rating? **/***** which is just about the floor for something I could see myself using. Pity there’s a lot of homework associated with it but at least it’s something you could see getting actual play.

Now for something a little different...
   I don't talk a lot about cons in this space, not because I don't like, or even because I don't attend them, but because as a father of elementary-age kids I don't travel to any cons, and I have the blog traffic data...I appreciate all of you, but none of you close enough for one of the local/regional cons I attend. I still want to make out out to North Texas one of these years, but it'll have to be once I'm out of my soccer coaching years. 
   Someone recently pointed me to Legend Haven though, and this is something rather interesting, an online convention. It looks like they initially began as a writer's group turning into a literary con, but they're making an effort to expand their gaming, art, and film tracks too. They're leaning on the "friendliest fiction convention in the galaxy", which I cannot attest to because my knowledge of the Tau Ceti scene is abysmal, but they're certainly good for Earth-based conventions based on my interactions. It's worth checking out, especially with the travel costs being what they are ($0). From their own website:
What’s LegendHaven?
If you love books, storytelling, and hanging out with the creators behind your favorite characters, you've got to join me there. LegendHaven is packed with meetups, AMAs, live chats, contests, and found fellowship.
There will be panels, readings, AMAs, exclusive content, fan rewards, raffles, story previews, and author hangouts.
It's all online, but, no, you don’t need a webcam. You can GIF-reply or chat all day.
But what are you doing?
   I'll be hosting a "How Do I Publish My Adventure?" event, guaranteed to be filled with strong opinions from my decade of publishing modules and my years of reviewing the very essence of average among the desperate module-scriveners at itch.io. Plus actually good adventures in the annual contest, of course (reminder, that's incoming in November). Event time is TBD, but the con is October 18-19. Watch this space as we get closer to time.
How do I attend?
1. Follow me here, I'll drop the time when that resolves.
2. Get a weekend pass at the Legend Haven website (or, hey, ask to make your own event).
3. Put the Coldlight Press event on your calendar. Prioritize over sleep, meals, children's birthdays...
4. Look at all the other sessions, contests, events, etc and leave comments. I know you all, I know you're all extremely opinionated on genre fiction as well as the gaming stuff. There's literally a discussion on the canonization of Tolkien. Chip in about adding Wolfe to the mix.

​A space hulk by Joseph Mohr, level irrelevant
Written for Cepheus Engine
  Heck yeah we got us a sci-fi adventure, I can’t wait. Cepheus Engine is the OG Traveler-like, so classic science fiction instantly recognizable to any Analog reader in 1979. And then, we look at the front cover and our ardor cools somewhat. It’s a space hulk adventure, okay, I’ve written one of those myself, but this is probably the single most common type of scifi adventure. It’s a dungeon, but in space. Sadly, so many designers stop right there and act like the “it’s in space” part relieves them from having to put in the good ol’-fashioned design work to make it a good dungeon on its gameplay merits alone. Twenty-two pages for twenty-two keyed areas with generous margins, front and back sections, and arty covers? Okay, we can work with this, it’s not automatic tripe.
  Our plot, stop me if you’ve heard this one before, is that there’s a company transport (the titular Goliath) that picked up mysterious biological samples and then went dark. The first team to investigate also disappeared. Enter the PCs. Also a rival company’s merc team. And yes, of course the bio-sample was a frozen alien creature who woke up and slaughtered everything. Mountains of Madness, you have much to answer for.
  What I liked beyond “it’s a sci-fi adventure” is the that the writer understands the psychology of Traveler-style players. A cargo hold full of valuable weapons packed in oil, a set of valuable logs and information in the space hulk’s computers, the hulk’s salvage value itself…none if this is the ostensible quest here, but you absolutely do need an answer when your lovely little loot-goblins start trying to steal everything not nailed down. A thumbnail sketch of the possible negative consequences of them annoying a space corporation with this behavior is nice too.
  You note I’ve avoided talking about the map thus far. The first of what can be improved is “gimmie a better map”. Just because you’re putting your dungeon in space you don’t get any excuse to avoid all the basic rules of good map construction. This is linear, choke-point-heavy, and boring to explore, without much thought given to how the party moves through it. This is made even worse with the very random/swingy random encounter setup with Thawed Alien Guy and Rival Merc Party…basically, scrap the map, treat it like an exploration exercise, and you’ll do it a lot better.  
  So…best use case is sadly “have a very boring space hulk session”. If it’s the very first time a bunch of fantasy players ever get to play sci-fi there’s a chance they’ll enjoy the novelty, but that’s going to wear extremely thin after a while. The loot is generic and the rival party is so-so, so those aren’t anything to swipe from the product. The alien might be worth looking at if you need to save about thirty seconds of game design time on the premise “plant alien that eats life force”.
  Final Rating? */***** with a single disapproving cluck. Don’t assume just because you’re dangling the word “space” in front of us that you get to avoid doing the work on nuts-and-bolts RPG design.

​A dungeon by Vance Atkins, levels 1-3
Written for “OSR” (looks like B/X)
  Matt Jackson map time again, this time with text by Vance Atkins. This here is a very traditional adventure, with a decent-sized twenty-four-key map spread over ten big pages, organized in the bog-standard setup->keys->bestiary->wrap-up manner. This is fine, this is good, usually a writer determined to reinvent the wheel creates a lot of bumps. Convention exists for a reason, don’t knock it down unless you have a good reason. My only usability critique is mostly related to the keys being a little overwritten, but if the map is popped out separately it’s easy enough to track.
  Our story isn’t unusual but it’s nice. The titular long hall is the main site of worship for a god-of-tricks-and-opposing-vermin (cat), infiltrated and subverted by a god-baby of insects. Everything proceeds then as you’d expect from that setup. I’ve discussed Jackson maps before, along with my critiques (linear, kind of small), and this one is more or less along those lines. I like the big stonking hallway as the central feature with three secret doors leading to everything else, but the branches are branches, not tangles. An infested priest invites the PCs to the real shrine, which is the tip-off that there’s more to this, but the rest is fairly simple. Good luck fighting a half-baby, half-ant.
  Honestly what I liked starts with the baby-ant and the kind of weird corrupted cleric enemies, they have some neat mechanics and make for a nice challenge level at 1-3. Our formula calls for prisoners-to-use and indeed we have them, with nice little personalities. Traps are rote but the first long hallway has gilded honored mummies, which can be scraped for a nasty curse. The earliest secret door being a thief-trap, but also a shrine devoted to a tricky goddess dedicated to teaching the greedy their lessons…that’s good stuff right there. Magic items are good, with my favorite being a custom anti-vermin brooch delivered by the original god in the form of a housecat, that’s fun.
  I know it’s drastic, but what can be improved for starters is replace that map. Assuming you don’t want to just chuck it and make you own, modding the map for more interconnection and up-down stuff would be nice. The traps could use more pizzazz. There’s a little too much “they fight” default interaction with the cultists, that’s a bummer. Treasure amounts are a little too poor and there’s a lot in the very remote midden. Easy enough to improve, but it’s still something you want to touch up.
  Best use case doesn’t break the mold, it’s going to be a nice little temple site used in the middle of a hexcrawl campaign. It’s a leeetle bit big for a one-shot in the normal amount of time, but with dedication you could do that too. It’s a nice little dungeon, go put it on your map.
  Final Rating? ***/***** and that’s closer to a four than a two. I like this thing and I think you’ll have a fun session or two if you play it, it’s neither innovative nor novel, but better to do something fun and worthwhile than so many of the weird itch.io abominations we see. 

A dungeon by Vanessa Nairn (with cute art by Pippa Hobbs), low-level
Written for B/X
  Snail Song Studios is a cute name. This is a one-page dungeon with nine keys for eleven rooms (?) neatly arranged on a clean map with ugly but very functional markers for every NPC. Every type of creature has stats and an illustration presented on-page. I’d say more about the presentation stuff but that’s all there is, we’re keeping this simple as can be.
  Our story, such as it is, is likewise very simple. The titular reptile regent is a Snake Person who’s set up in some jungle ruins, as you do, and attracted lizardmen retainers to raid nearby trade convoys with the evident plan of “Raid Traders -> ??? -> Restore Ancient Empire of Reptiles”. That’s leaning pretty hard on the middle part but this Underpants Gnome has given us plenty of reason to knock over his ancient temple ruins and take all his stuff while murdering all his guards. Dude, it’s a little jungle adventure site, nobody needs a novel.
  Yeah, what I liked was that simple directness. So. Many. Adventures. Muck. This. Up. Beyond that, I like that there’s some thought that’s been given to having personalities to interact with beyond the “they attack” lizardmen, most of what is encountered here will be hacking but merchant captives get freed along with a Standard Issue Prick Elf, plus there’s a giant snake that’s just sort of chilling and wants to eat anything other than a giant toad. There’s not a lot of valuable intelligence that any of these parties have to offer, but hey, players like talking to NPCs. Some decent thought was given to interactions with the environment beyond the stabbing, like a statue with gem eyes that can have the eyes safely retrieved from the mouth, but triggers a gas trap if taken from the front. Then those gem eyes can be put in another statue to open a secret door. Good. A magic fountain that increases natural healing overnight but compels the drinker to sunbathe? Classic. Heavy treasure like a 1-ton statue being worth more intact than shattered is another good thing.
  Ah, but what can be improved? First, um, finish keying your map, there’s a whole leg that is marked but unkeyed, which would be forgivable if it was just a monster zoo but there are secret passages here, and what looks like as a secondary ingress, plus a studying lizardman with a Web scroll…okay, I know all this which means the annotated map is working, but just a line or two of detail would help in running the area. It’s also overall a bit too densely-populated for its size, playing the lizardmen smartly will see the whole area chain-aggro into a single massive (probably lethal) fight. The map is also more linear than it first looks, with the whole thing really ideally run in a single order. All minor nits, however. More substantially, the treasure is a little stingy for number of hit dice here.
  It’s fine, best use case is to stick this thing into a jungle hex as a perfectly usable little adventure site. I’d double cash amounts personally and a random returning patrol might help a bit, but it’s solid as it is.
  Final Rating? ***/***** and that’s really about the highest you can get given scope and creativity. Well-executed little website, and a nod to Hobbs for those neat little sketch illustrations, too.