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The Lost Maze Of The Mad Mage's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Fun: Is the adventure fun to play in an OSR playstyle? | #2 | 4.400 | 4.400 |
| Usability: Is the adventure easy to use on the fly? | #8 | 4.150 | 4.150 |
| Overall | #11 | 4.167 | 4.167 |
| Writing: Is the adventure original and fun to read? | #39 | 3.950 | 3.950 |
Ranked from 20 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Just ran this. It was fantastic! I really enjoyed it. Worked very well as a one shot adventure. Liked the time pressure, the factions. Very clean, easy to run and a lot of fun. Used it with Maze Rats characters for a simple evening game.
That's awesome to hear! Thank you so much for running it and sharing your experience.
An ever changing Maze gives me the feeling of Pan's Labyrinth. The mechanics lend the module to be replayed very easily. Great Job!
Really wonderful means of abstracting an ever shifting maze, a simply genius mechanic! fantastic to the point room descriptions that I should take note of for my own work as a gold standard, and very well laid out to be easy to read.
Thank you for your kind words :)
Good job. I applaud your formatting of the monster stat blocks. Much easier to read.
Very cool way to make a maze. I did a similar thing in my first adventure where the players go through a corn maze. As an extension, I think it would be cool to have some charts to roll some rooms.
Well structured, the intro “timeline” and the NPC wants+plan does a good job of setting the stage while leaving enough blanks to fill in.
I like the depth mechanic, was that inspired by the overloaded encounter die?
The depth mechanic was originally developed by Emmy Allen and can be found in her works: The Stygian Library and The Gardens of Ynn. My version of the depth mechanic limits the threats and rewards the player sees until later in the adventure, allowing them to decide how much danger and treasure they want to encounter. But now that I think of it, it does work kind of like an overloaded encounter die
These are some really clever mechanics for a maze dungeon. Easy to read and looks super fun too!
Wow! Super easy to dive right in and run on the fly. I always love to see that with an OSR style adventure (and as a lazy game master, myself). I found the setup and hooks easy to grasp and engaging, while still leaving plenty of room for the game master to fine tune specifics to their tastes/campaign. And as others have said, your "depth" mechanic is a super simple, yet elegant way to deal with the random generation of a complex structure, such as The Lost Maze. Well done!
"I'm glad you like the depth mechanic. If you want to see more of it, you should check out Emmy Allen's work: The Stygian Library and The Gardens of Ynn. She is the author who, to the best of my knowledge, developed the idea. However, her version is a bit more complex and less forgiving if you get lost, in my opinion.
Classic, no frills dungeon crawling.
You did a great job with the layout and organization. I enjoy the depth crawl mechanics and the mix of anchor rooms. It's always fun when even the GM doesn't know what's around the next corner.
This one is a fast favorite for me. I love the dungeon generation and the fact that it can almost all be played theater of the mind is really cool. A few typos (page 10, 05 - The Portcullis "Levers on both sides close the it") and one design question concerning the red forge: Why make the table 1d8 instead of 1d4?
Thanks for catching the typo! I'll make sure to fix it once the jam is over. :)
As for your question, I formatted the table as 1d8 instead of 1d4 primarily for aesthetic reasons. I prefer the look of bolded ranges like (1-2) or (3-4) over just a single bolded number.
Procedurally generated dungeons are pretty neat. I haven't seen another one of those in this adventure yet. Plenty of content and very usable. Well done.