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A jam submission

The Black Cyclops and The Golden SphinxView project page

Find a gate to another world in Cairo, Egypt. Compatible with FIST
Submitted by DMEggs (@johnnycbadde) — 1 day, 11 hours before the deadline
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The Black Cyclops and The Golden Sphinx's itch.io page

Results

CriteriaRankScore*Raw Score
STYLE#143.4443.444
Overall#143.6113.611
SUBSTANCE#153.7783.778

Ranked from 9 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.

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Comments

Submitted(+1)

Took me a couple of reads through to really embrace this package. I've always been terrified to do one shots of games I don't design but this is so to the point and great for a campaign using beginner. I'm always also looking for interesting mechanics and the shadowside brings a simple yet engaging system. Great job!

Submitted(+1)

Took me a couple of reads through to really embrace this package. I've always been terrified to do one shots of games I don't design but this is so to the point and great for a campaign using beginner. I'm always also looking for interesting mechanics and the shadowside brings a simple yet engaging system. Great job!

Submitted(+1)

A fun concept, presented in an actualizable manner. The mirror universe is evocatively depicted and the big martial threat is both creative and horrifying.

My two gripes are that the writeup is presented in long, wide paragraphs which make it a bit harder to pull information from than is strictly necessary, and that I didn't see anything in the mirror universe that would tell me as a player "Alright, mission complete, go exfil." I think I'd be inclined to continue deeper in if I got as far as the Radio Wraith, and there's not quite enough here to support long term expeditionary play ala A Red And Pleasant Land or such. 

Worth getting, for sure. The FIST community is better off for this existing. I'd print it out and hit it with a few highlighters, or make cheat sheets, before bringing it to the table though.

Developer(+1)

Great feedback! I'll be sure to look into creating a few printouts to make getting the essential information easier. As for the way the adventure finishes, that might be a bit influenced by the fact my playtesters started running and didn't fight the radio wraith until outside the shadowside haha! This was always intended as a one-shot scenario though, with a total time of 3-4 hours. I've provided some starting points for referees who want to run more content using the same setting but I would rather put my own efforts towards creating entirely new settings. Others are more than welcome to expand on my one-shots though!

Submitted (1 edit) (+1)

Very solid one-shot mission with options to add more details depending on the playstyle of your gaming crew. The scenario includes noteworthy characters and a cool creature, as well as descriptive language that helps set the scene for key encounters (e.g., meeting the informant, discovering the blood trail in the Shadowside). The Radio Wraith should make for a unique and challenging boss fight. Plus, there are options presented at the end for extending this adventure into something longer (e.g., finding a cure for an otherworldly infection that’s slowly turning you into gold).

A few minor points: I think there may be a typo with one NPC referred to by two names (Goat & Crow). And I recommend tweaking the wording of the Opera House encounter to be clear that the soap smells foreign made, rather than potentially implying the locals don’t wash. Alternatively, this could be changed to highlight the smell of their equipment (e.g., gunpowder and grease that doesn’t fit with the Opera House aesthetic).

Developer(+1)

Thank you for the kind comments, and for such useful feedback. I have uploaded a new version of the PDF with some changes based on your feedback.

The reference to the "soap" smell was inspired by a book I read years ago that mentioned spies were very easy to detect in warm climates because generally people do not wear deodorant and people barely notice the smell of a busy crowd, so someone from abroad trying to masquerade as a local was very obvious. I don't really think it is worth keeping if there is a chance it could upset someone so I changed it to unusual scents including gunpowder.

Referring to Goat as Crow was a total mistake, blame that one on several hours of writing, thank you for spotting it!

I will be certain to read your entry and vote on it also :)

Submitted(+1)

I'm glad to help, and I appreciate your responsiveness!

A person's smell, just like their appearance, making you stand out from the norm in a new area definitely makes sense to me. The soap felt a bit like an edge case, and I just wanted to be sensitive to the fact that someone might  read this and think the implication was you could detect CYCLOPS because they were the "clean" people among the "dirty" locals. Since CYCLOPS is generally portrayed as the military industrial complex, I (in my own biased way) tend to code them as predominantly US and Western European, and with the setting being Egypt, it might end up touching on elements of colonialism.

In any case, the edits look good! I'm looking forward to trying this scenario out with my regular gaming group.