Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io… A Regrettable Invitation

​A dungeon adventure by Morware, level ???
For Troika
  Is this really the first time I’ve encountered a Troika adventure here? The indie darling, the fan favorite of…oh, wait, I guess that’s the Old New Hotness, not the New New Hotness. Anyway, this is a trifold adventure where a party has been invited to a social engagement with a boring wizard and need to escape while he’s off to the loo. Yeah, you heard me. It has 2d6 rooms “keyed”, randomly entered until you randomly roll the exit. It’s so whimsical I could vomit. This is the thinnest dungeon I’ve yet to bump into and I started reviewing a one-pager based on a crossword puzzle.
  What I liked is that it has a cute little tower illustration. Actually, it could be used as a workable vertical map, if this product wanted players to make actual choices in a physical environment. I liked that it was very short.
  I’m going to stuff down my first suggestion for what can be improved (set it on fire and delete the PDF) and instead say that the best path here is make a real map, allow for exploration, give thought to actual consequences for literally any player actions at all, good or bad, and maybe try to pretend that some human beings somewhere with an ounce of agency would attempt to have fun with this product. Tall order, I know, but if the writer has the dim flickering spark of creativity to make the single piece of usable loot in the adventure a jar of teeth with spells inscribed on them (no, the type of tooth doesn’t affect the type of spell), then maybe with monumental effort a wizard tower escape could be turned into a mildly entertaining scenario. The three monsters to fight(?) should also maybe be called out more directly.
  The best use case for “A Regrettable Invitation” is as an exhibit in any anti-Troika lawsuit that might be brewing. Beyond that it’s a cute tower.
  Final Rating? */***** Ultimately so worthless as to be kind of offensive. 

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