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I’ve never heard of the ruleset, but the writing is fire! I feel like it captures the pulp fantasy elements of the Appendix N perfectly and reads like a good novel.

A solid dungeon with good hooks, multiple exits (which a smart party might turn into entrances) and good writing. One of the most solid entries of this jam. The cover is gorgeous, but the rest of the design suffers a little bit the presence of the typical 4e boxes.

It took me some time to understand what I was reading. I’m still not sure how I’d describe this, because it’s not exactly an adventure, nor a location. It’s basically a setting-specific mechanic to drop into your setting. I like how it works and I like how it can be reused multiple times at different locations. What I don’t understand is how the scalp works from the PC’s point of view.

I’d love to see this expanded. The concept is cool, the setting is cool, the factions are cool, they just need some more space to grow in. The clock is interesting, but the lack of explanation (as others already noted) about what will actually happen once the Saurian King gets his ritual going strips it of its fangs. The clock itself would also highly benefit of some kind partial effects (like adding new types of monsters when it’s halfway or something like that). It also itches me a little bit that you mention “a safari spot for the wealthy and famous” and don’t use that at all, because it would have been a very cool addition to the general caos of your factions.

Plus, given how cool the factions and setting is, I’d love to see a bestiary for this adventure with appropriately jurassic monsters and researchers.

Very solid visual design and gameability, this can be dropped in basically any setting with very little effort. The theme is nicely played and I like the idea of this being both an investigation and a rescue mission.

It gets a bit weak on the actual citadel, though. The PCs are expected to be discreet but there’s no reason for them to: the citadel is full of still-loyal citizens (some of them armed guards) and the cultists cannot interrupt their ritual, not even to kick the PCs, without losing. It would have been better if the citadel was controlled (or reportedly controlled) by cultists, giving the PCs a good reason to fear discovery.

The layout certainly has personality. The blue borders are probably too bright compared to the rest, but it all compounds to look like the first computer encyclopedia I read Greek myths on so I love it. Extremely late 90s-coded.

The two myths are very good and dig into Greek mythology in a good, fun and interesting way.

Loved the theme and the execution, although it starts a little bit railroad-y. The mystery looks fun and there’s a lot of room for exploration in such a small village. The misleads are a great addition so often forgotten.

I really like the premise and the dilemma offered to the players. It feels like something which can be easily dropped into an existing campaign, in an hex or something like that. Your writing is nice, but it has some typos and would benefit from a proofreading. Esthetically, I like your layout, but I think it’s a bit hard to understand (the table, in particular, isn’t very clear, both in terms of readability and of understanding what the two coloumns contain).

The premise and theme are very cool and used pretty well. I like the feeling of an old Mummy movie and how you covered the different possible ending. It’s also extremely redable, although I feel like the design is a bit too much Western European for the theme itself.

Some Conanesque swordfight, mighty barbarians defending their wounded pride with steel against magic, or something similar.

Nothing like what I expected from the title, a nice mess for the PCs to land in. Love the idea of a Wild West planar shift, with a strong Moorcockian theme. It doesn’t feel easy to include in an ongoing game, but I feel like it will be worth it.

I hate to be harsh, but there’s a lot of room for improvement. It feels like a pile of unrelated challenges strewn together and, honestly, I would have appreciated them a lot more were they presented as a collection to pick from for your own adventures. The theme doesn’t really come into play either, I really liked the idea of the “final exam dungeon”, but I think it would have benefitted a lot by having a stronger bond between the rooms.

A nice sci-fantasy blend I didn’t expect to find in a Cairn module! You managed to cram exploration, faction play and lasguns in a single module, leaving room for a nice cover illustration.

A nice take on the theme, my only complaint is that the system it was written for can only be inferred from the copyright notice or the second page of the text. I like how you developed the idea of the knot and how you worked a very strong mythical feeling (it feels a lot inspired by the Fisher King), while the module remained fully original.

I’m having the same issue.

Thank you, but most of the work on the cover comes from a public domain illustration (View of a Medieval City by Rodolphe Bresdin). I just did a bit of zooming and cropping.

A nice treasure hunt while being hunted down by an horrible monster of a sorcerer. I like the concept and the execution, although the premise feels a little too weak (why, if the Resistance was able to shatter the Charm at the peak of its power it’s up to a bunch of randos to destroy the rest of the beads? Why should they accept?) but it’s something easily fixable (maybe they’re all part of the Resistance and this was their role from the start?). The real critique is on the system agnosticism: some parts are too generic (“your system’s most powerful magic”) while others are too specifc (the attack dice for the servants), making conversion complex.

I have far too much fun with dice drops to remove this one from the module. No, it will remain as the center of the module (in fact, I had to cut some options to stay within the page limit, so I’ll add them back in the expanded edition), the extra space will go in detailing the lizards and the city factions better.

I really like the DIY esthetic and how straight to the point it goes. There are some world building gems in there (I need to know more about Dave, but also the SphynxLock™️ is a tease for a world of interesting objects), but it also feels a bit like a videogame with the crystal barrier and the requirement to just clear the area of enemies.

This feels like a very good campaign starter. The open world building questions for the whole table look like a great way to establish the setting. The cover art is very evocative and the general design is pretty good, but the lines dividing the sections and the small caps font are a bit “too clean” compared to the rest.

I’m sad to say I really didn’t like this one, because it has the absolute best prose I’ve read so far. What I don’t like is that, basically, the whole table will just sit there and roll a d20 to see what’s in the next room and then, maybe, fight Tan, which doesn’t sound much fun. You have an incredible prose, the formatting is pleasant (I wouldn’t call it evocative, but it’s really readable) but ever-changing dungeons are very hard to get right and here the PCs don’t really have a way to strategize or make choices in the order of the rooms. I would have loved this setting, prose and set-up paired with something more playable (if you’re planning an extended edition, the room-changing or map-generation mechanics is a good place to invest a couple more paragraphs in).

A melancholic little module. I like the idea and the execution, but the font of the document is really difficult to read (it took me three attempts to decipher “icy” in the first room).

A nice, high-stakes one-shot. Not easy to use, but of your players are desperate enough, this pamphlet is for you.

Others have already described this module’s strengths and I agree with them: it has a strong concept it embraces fully, it has some nice decision points and is definitely very usable out of the box. What I don’t like is the map: it’s far too linear for my taste and, while it absolutely conveys the claustrophobia of a dense jungle, it doesn’t give much changes to get lost or prepare an ambush, two other things I’d expect from both the setting and the idea.

I enjoyed writing this so much I’m already planning an extended edition. I don’t know when it will come out, but I’ll definitely add more flesh to the clones.

Nice dungeon, fitting the theme. While the dungeon is nicely-sized, the map tends to be a bit on the small side, it might need a lot of zoom to be comfortable at the table.

The idea scratches the right weird spot and the execution is spot on. Good job on handling the context switch in so little space.

I like the idea and the general feeling, along with the references to the song! Feels interesting and probably fleshed out enough to last more than a one shot.

That was me last year, I know the feeling (I outright retired from the Jam once I realized I couldn’t do it). No worries, next time it will be better.

Thank you! Let me know how it works out, it’s the adventure format I enjoy the most as a DM but it might be just personal preference.

I think there are some bigger reasons why they are not giving full information about what is happening. I think that if they tell the truth about how things really are, it will cause enormous and painful damage to the platform. That is why they are trying to avoid it or delay it as long as possible.

This is clearly not working, as more and more people are getting restless. I’m already considering moving my stuff away from this platform (where to is still an open question, but as a web dev I can, at worst, self-host something), I’ve seen people do the same and I’ve already come across three different groups of people talking about starting a competitor. Itch is burning through its community’s goodwill reserve at an alarming speed and this isn’t a resource you can easily replenish.

It doesn’t matter how bad the situation is, most people are pretty good at assuming worse if given the possibility, and this doesn’t consider the people who lost money and saw their games delisted because of obscure rule updates who are justifiably angry and probably talking with lawyers right now.

(Other author chiming in) This is a good discussion and I’m happy it’s happening right upfront in the game page because you’re raising something which appears completely different in the rules and in play. Seriously, thank you.

Yes, it’s actually odd to have NPCs which only have enemies or allies with very little in between, but the oddness is wanted because it interacts with two other key elements of the game:

1. The map shows what’s publicly known. An NPC might appear as a well-loved member of community, but actually be secretly resented by the NPCs further from them in the map (or vice versa). Hidden enemies and allies lurk in the shadows like wandering monsters or traps in a dungeon and the PCs might get caught on those (or maybe they can discover this information and use it for their gains)
2. At the start of the game, the PCs are very low on the social ladder, basically on the ground. They’ll have to use the information they gather (from the map and during play) to better their situation. This system is skewed to produce two topologies (more often than not combined in the same map - but we had a couple of outliers and they were fun to play as well) which are more usable to this end: a tightly-knit group of friends and an infighting mess.

In the end, the aim of the whole setup is to create an unstable situation the PCs can exploit in some way, not a stable situation someone can comfortably (un)live in. During the game the map will change (NPCs get killed, outed as traitors to their friends, enter new alliances and such), possibly leading to a more stable state (although not always, I’ve seen groups which aimed at creating further mess in order to profit out of it).

It has the same feeling as putting up some heavy metal CD in the stereo as loud as I could and then loading up Doom or Painkiller on the familty PC as a teenager. Lots of fun.

You can find it here (there’s also an Italian version, but since I didn’t translate the module it’s just the notes I used to run the game).

Is it possible to write a conversion for another system (Maze Rats)? I’ve converted it last week for a convention and I’d like to publish the stats.

Perfetto da giocare con capo e colleghi!

There’s really a lot stuff for only two pamphlets. The starting situation (and the possible evolutions) is detailed with care and skill and the illustrations are really good.

Can’t wait to play it!

Mi faccio avanti io per farti proofreading.

È il momento che Abandoned Malls & Cultists si rifaccia un po’ la veste, perché sono il primo a trovarlo francamente illeggibile:

https://thekernelinyellow.itch.io/abandoned-malls-cultists

https://thekernelinyellow.itch.io/marshmallows-and-monsters