Marvellous breach into science fantasy which is a staple of the OSR I simply don't dabble in enough. Beautiful illustrations, I want bueno's art everywhere! Very characterful choice of monsters with very solid intent behind their use. Will have to try and run this!
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The Offworlder's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun: Is the adventure fun to play in an OSR playstyle? | #32 | 3.889 | 3.889 |
| Overall | #41 | 3.778 | 3.778 |
| Writing: Is the adventure original and fun to read? | #46 | 3.833 | 3.833 |
| Usability: Is the adventure easy to use on the fly? | #50 | 3.611 | 3.611 |
Ranked from 18 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
Comments
I'm actually currently listening to an audio book of Rhialto the Marvelous by Jack Vance - I didn't get a ton of that atmosphere here, which isn't a bad thing, but I did see some of the other influences well used.
I like the plot hooks you provided, a nice addition would be a very simple astrologer NPC to save the GM a few steps if they'd like to run this scenario. I can't say enough good things about the artwork, just wow!
The Timeline section on the first page felt like a big shift, with a very conversational tone, it might work well presented as a quote or broken up into rumors - the most important piece of information is that a luxury space-yacht has crash landed.
You did a great job presenting the monsters and I liked that each had its own page dedicated to it (and variants), allowing them to be really fleshed out. Great choice to include images of each room next to their descriptions too.
The information on the aftermath is useful and I liked all of the items you presented, The Drill would be epic to use in combat.
Submitted
Honey! (for Knave/OSE/Shadowdark)Alien is my Achilles' heel. I was upset with myself for not reading this adventure earlier because I missed the opportunity to organize a themed weekend after rewatching the movie!
The rooms are very well described, to the point where I actually think they might have too much description. It's certainly a matter of taste and style, but at certain points, I think you could be more concise. For example: "You can find the detailed description of all special items in the appendix" could easily be replaced with "see more in appendix p. 16" or simply "(appendix, p. 16)." That said, I really enjoyed this. The use of map snippets accompanying the descriptions is excellent and will certainly be a big help during the game session (and it's something I'm excited to implement in my own adventure after the game jam ends).
Submitted
Morass of the Melting MenFor not being a native language, this really is an amazing adventure. I don't feel that, just a fun ride. There are some layout things (mostly mentioned already) but I love that you can feel the GM energy in this as spark for it's creation! Art is very nice, and creativity for the GM to design that is fun to tweak with the magic items.
Submitted
Inception JennyA fun dungeon crawl blending sci-fi into fantasy, a la Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. I particularly liked the 'magic' item design - who can say no to something called a 'Lend-a-Tail'? The art and cover is really evocative.
I really like how you re-presented the map inline with the room descriptions, but I feel like I'd still be flipping back to the complete map pretty frequently - perhaps it could be moved until after the descriptions of the inhabitants of the cave, so that it's right next to the room descriptions? I'd also consider moving the tags for room features to the beginning of the line, so they don't get lost in the text.
Submitted
Hell Comes to FrogtownThanks, these are all good suggestions. I wanted the map to be as easy to find as possible, that's why it's at the beginning. When you want to look at it, you just scroll all the way up (or flip to the very first page), but I see your point!
When you say "moving the tags for room features to the beginning of the line" do you mean using writing "Entrance - C1", rather than "C1 - Entrance", or something else?
And finally, thanks for the nice words! The "magic" items are a product of me trying to roll up "spells" using Knave, but trying to interpret them as sci-fi items. I don't remember all the prompts, but slow cooker of good morale, for example, started out as a "calming oatmeal" prompt :D
This made me chuckle and jaw-drop back and forth. Nostalgic and current, easy and thoughtful! The artwork really reminds me of the games and comics id read at weird little bookstores as a kid before even playing my first roleplaying game! I also love how it acknowledges itself as a game asset and not a storybook and the tips on how to use the material for your existing game are my favorite features!
Seeing people enjoy the contents has been really rewarding, thank you for kind words. It's my very first published work and I'm really happy seeing people enjoying my stuff. I've seen a lot of interesting-looking modules that felt very un-modular, by which I mean "difficult to drop into an ongoing campaign". This was my attempt at fixing that issue, while delivering something exciting and fun to run.
Really love your hook! The idea of your players complaining "and what if I just want to go to another planet" and you writing this up as an answer really speaks to me as a fellow-GM who has to deal with these things as well from time to time 😂 also really like the art in this one!
Submitted
The Buckriders HoardAbsolutely in love with the Wizardry/Might and Magic feel of fantasy and sci-fi. Nostalgic to the max for me.
There are a lot of cool things to interact with here and love that you can acquire a plasma pistol. It would be cool if there was something that added a mutation or a cybernetic enhancement, but that's not a failure, just something that would be cool to have.
I do think you could cut word count tremendously by removing the word "will" entirely from the doc. Most of the time you can remove it with no other modifications and it work, sometimes you simply have to add an "s" to present-tense the sentence. "the NPC notices one very dim star..."
Also, qualifying words generally make a sentence weaker.
EDIT: Also, qualifying words make a sentence weaker.
"A strange creature, resembling a mix..." The word "resembling" already indicates that it isn't exactly like an arachnid/centipede, so "somewhat" isn't necessary and eats up a lot of space for one word.
Otherwise a great adventure and one I'm certain to run for my group. Good job.
Submitted
The Machine of MadnessI definitely welcome all criticism on my writing style. I am not a native speaker, and neither am I a writer, so these are really helpful to keep in mind for the future! Also, I'm not sure if you'd count that, but the Lend-a-tail is kind of a cybernetic enhancement item thing. I was really proud of that one hahaha
I have played A LOT of Heroes of Might and Magic III (aka the best HoMM game), so that might be an inspiration I wasn't even aware of!
edit: I just tried out your suggestion with cutting wills entirely and I agree - sentences sound better. There was maybe a single sentence where I'd keep it! that's nice to learn!
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