Post by rinaka in The Smell of Death jam comments

Sci-Fi One-Shot Jam 2026 » Entries » The Smell of Death

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First of all, congratulations on the style and presentation. The layout and typography are quite similar to classic traveller books and look good.

I did not have any trouble reading or understanding the adventure. Regarding what to cut, there are little bits of information, like the retail outlets of Parfum Dumont, but they are never paragraphs-long and I personally like these small bits and tangents that end up adding to the atmosphere of the setting.

There is one bit of information that was cut short: on the second bullet point of "Investigating the Claims" on page 5, the phrase "Obtaining a location or contact details for Jeanne Marsh is not too complicated: they are" is not concluded. Also, I was not sure if Turleigh was part of the R&D department and, if so, did anyone else there know or were affected by the same problem? Lastly, I expected to have some information on the security of Atelier Parfum Dumont and its surroundings, as players might decide to infiltrate it in their investigation.

I liked the presentation of the relevant NPCs and places, rather than a collection of scenes that might end up railroading the players. This might lead players to go off on tangents away from this one-shot, though. Maybe there could be another incentive to get the players involved.

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mtb-za5 days ago

Yep! The page layout is explicitly modelled on The Traveller Book, without being a direct copy. Glad that it resonated.

I also like having little nods to the wider world, especially since this is the fifth adventure: I am trying to build up a fun setting through them all, and having mentions to other places and events is a solid way of managing that without needing to have actual timelines and such.

Huh. I wonder how that got missed. Might have been a slightly earlier version. Will update with the missing stuff though, thanks. Will make it clearer that Turleigh is part of the R&D team, but the only one working on that specific thing (although the issue would still crop up in production which would be more people). Will add something of the security. I think that it got a little glossed over because in the preliminary playtest the PCs got invited in directly! (Also, breaking and entering from the nobility? For shame!)

And yeah, tangents are quite plausible, but with the style of the adventure it is tricky to avoid. I ran it as a duet game in about an hour and a half, so there is enough time to handle a diversion or two, I think. One potential entry to get the PCs more directly involved would be to have one or both of the people involved approach directly, but the difficulty there is in assuming what motivates them in the initial text. Some of the other adventures have had the same sort of issue in development in terms of how and why the PCs are getting involved.

Glad that you seemed to like it though!

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