Crapshoot Monday: This Free Thing I Found on Itch.io… What Little Remains

​  I’m going to be trying to provide a little more review-style content here, because I know I’ve benefitted from reviews personally a lot. I don’t have a blogging budget though, so here’s what I’ll be doing on Monday for the next little while…I’m going to look around for free adventures (or TTRPG supplements) on itch.io, pull a random one out of the hat, and take a swing at a brief review. I expect that, things being as they are, a good 99.9% of what’s out there is crap, but rather than hold up these things to be pilloried, I’m going to hold these to a generous standard. I have no sympathy for people churning out junk for $1 a pop, but if it’s free I’m going to assume its at least coming from a place of earnest self-expression. So, I’ll be listing:

• What I liked. I’m going to try to find something of value in each adventure.
• What could be improved, I’m going to try and assume most of these people actually want to improve their craft.
• Best use case for this thing. Hey, it’s free, right? I’m going to try to figure out how this free thing could enhance my game(s).
• Final ratings. This one will be harsh, because time has its own value and I don’t want you spending yours wastefully.

  That said, I’ll kick things off here with:
What Little Remains…
​An Xword Dungeon by molomoot, levels…???
System Neutral.
  Oh boy, I’m sure there are about half a dozen red flags going off already. A one-pager (actually two pages) from some kind of competition/challenge where you take a crossword puzzle, solve it, and then turn it into a 14x14 little map. Clever idea although I’m not sure if it sparks joy. Basic plot is fine, you have a happy little death cult’s lair, the cultists have all recently buggered off, and so now their temple is ripe for the looting. Part of the “cover page” (I think this is designed so it can be a trifold?) has a little six-question bit of homework filling in the details of who the cult were, why they left, and who other factions are that want the loot (!)…in other words, the bits that make this dungeon unique.
  I don’t actually have the hate for one-pagers that most reviewers have. As somebody who runs a lot of open-table sandboxes, little lairs like this are great for placing in hexes for a session-sized chunk of D&D just discoverable on the map. Ideally, a good one-pager presents a scenario that meshes well with the rest of the world but has its own little story going on, giving whoever showed up at the table a nice little bite-sized chunk of classic gaming for the night. Despite all that, there are real challenges to the format…they have to be generic enough to be able to fit into the standard fantasy map, but you also want specificity in to spark imagination and ideally lead to inspiring more adventures. This one…struggles with that latter bit.
  First, though, what I liked: The map, within the very tight confines of this crossword format, has about as much interest as is possible. There’s some verticality, some looping, a water feature, and a secret room(s)…that’s all great, and genuinely impressive in just eight rooms. Pretty too. I’m going to complain about the lack of stats in a minute, but the two dungeon monsters described, a fighting statue and an ashy swarm of ghosts, are both neat and are described as having interesting fights (again, hurt by the lack of mechanics). There are statues to mess with to uncover passages, with riddles/hints, there’s a neat idea with the treasure vault opening, and a nasty trap in the secret room that as described would be a TPK but I can definitely see ways in which it’d be interesting. Molomoot knows at least some how to play this hobby. Public domain art is tasteful and enhances the product.
  Because of all this, what could be improved is actually…most of it. The biggest problem with this product is a lack of specificity, and it’s so very easy to fix that. Those six questions about the cult? Just fill them in, if I want to change the details I feel more than free to but it’d be great to know the who/why. Those two nifty monsters? Stat ‘em for your system. Let’s be honest it’s probably 5E, that’s fine, anyone in this hobby can translate the Linga Franca that is 5E into their own system of choice, but some mechanics would be very nice. This also grants a level range (again, I feel empowered to ignore it as the DM). Names are good too…the statues, why not make them faded Saints of Death? Again, I can change if I need it. Finally, although I like the ideas of a trap that fills a chamber with water, and a vault that only opens while reciting a prayer, more levers are always good. What happens when the players wedge open the vault? What happens if the players undo the water trap? You have a trap that diverts a river…maybe something in the pool becomes accessible while the trap is diverting the river? Just a little bit of expansion, even in the one-page format.
  There’s a best use case for this thing in the classic one-page-dungeon scenario of “you come upon a lair, and it’s…(shuffling in a folder, grab this trifold)…a death cult’s abandoned temple”. Sadly, I had to then go and do my homework for a little bit while the players build their dice towers. Now that I have done my homework via this review, I probably will put this in my random lair table. The other classic use case, stealing bits from this, has a few nice parts in the statue screwing around in particular. There’s definitely promise here, I’d look at Molomoot again.
  Final rating? **/**** even on the One-Page curve, but with some details added it could have easily been higher.

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