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Bronze Lure's itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Usability: Is the adventure easy to use on the fly? | #111 | 2.405 | 2.571 |
| Writing: Is the adventure original and fun to read? | #113 | 2.606 | 2.786 |
| Overall | #114 | 2.517 | 2.690 |
| Fun: Is the adventure fun to play in an OSR playstyle? | #117 | 2.539 | 2.714 |
Ranked from 14 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
The emoji art is surprisingly charming. I liked that characters were presented as archetype, but it would be nice to have names for the Counselor, Dockmaster, Ranger and Priest if they are provided for the Lord (Rycharde) and Lady (Xane).
I liked the poem at the end and would recommend placing it right up front on page 2.
The hexcrawl location names were all evocative and it would be interesting seeing them expanded on with more details.
I liked the variety of the overland and mine random events presented on page 10.
good catch. they were left unnamed and ungendered on purpose. i felt like if, for example, the ranger was a lady she'd quickly be "motherly" or something else easily labeled. i wanted the game master to have a chance to rorschach their own favorite tropes there. i'm not entirely sure why dick and jane got names, and i think you're right to pick at that inconsistency.
that poem was almost the first thing i came up with. it squatted in my notes for so long. staring. so i hid it on the back page so i wouldn't try to reword it over and over and over. that trick almost worked, too.
i can't agree more. i was trying to be minimalist and cover hexes in the rumors, but they really deserve to breathe on their own.
thanks for that. i felt a little thin there but it emphasized what i wanted it to: a way to steer an adventure through emphasizing certain encounters. maybe you never meet the priest but the ranger comes up a lot. maybe sinkholes are common so the road construction is going poorly and tensions between factions rise. heck, i'd be entirely please if some people kept running into only frogs until they started collecting them, claiming them as pets, and using them to snatch cockatrices out of the air.
I like the narrative style in the instructions. Also I that cockatrice are actually just chickens.
Good job.
I like the narrative style in the instructions. Also I that cockatrice are actually just chickens.
Good job.
if i'm being fair to my Monstrous Manual back home, i think a cockatrice is more accurately a lizard, rooster, bat hybrid or 2-legged dragon with a chicken head. i have no idea the origins of the (potentially iconic?) snake-head-chicken-head thing i am presenting here. i mean, that's what showed up when i google image searched cockatrice but WHY? d&d mandala effect?
I hate to say it but the radiant art seems out of place , the language and word flow makes it feel like the reader is being instructed through a manuscript voiced by the phantom of a medieval monk but the illustrations kinda snapped me out of it. The setting is so well done and I would love to see the text reworked without the colored illustrations. The motifs are good but the colors break with the matte layout.
I really like how every spot has so much character and the worldbuilding is on-point ! The whole adventure feels like it's built upon actual folklore abd I love that! As mentioned below, I also love a good low-level Peasant mudcrawl!
haha all criticism welcome! yeah, it starts out with manuscript art and then... splat. i don't know if anyone noticed, but i took a sliiight shortcut using emojis. i hoped it would come across as charming rather than random if i was consistent enough with them. now that you mention it, i'd have loved to continue the manuscript theme throughout.
thanks for the kind words! i tried like hell not to call the lurking threat of cockatrice by it's name. feels a little more folksy that way? maybe?
I'd draw monsters for your next adventure free of charge if you want some after the jam! I think the radiating illustrations but transferred to a woodcut effect would also look good!
very kind! if i'm crazy enough to take up another jam, i'll be sure to pester you!
Bronze Lure takes a conversational tone that puts you in the boots on the muddy ground quickly. The isometric Tower illustration is killer.
i was so self conscious about the early versions i nearly let the text stand dry and alone. but that wasn't right. so, so glad i stuck with it! high praise! thanks! i'm definitely inspired to search out a decent vector graphics program and stack some more circles.
"I wonder if that city Priest knows the Ranger is fixing up all those old shrines. Where you find piled high stones you find fey boars, dad says, so I kicks ‘em over!" I like rumours that are written in a voice like this—helps to just drop them into rp rather than providing them as units of information.
Gotta ask: what's the story with the Counselor's tentacles?
thanks so much! i figure everyone's got the option to not read it in that voice if the information is clear enough, so why not? i'm personally unsure if that's a random settler talking or if the rumors are exclusively things the bored dockmaster will say just to keep you hanging around a little longer.
as for the counselor, my brain accidentally made a connection to the old, old, old saying "spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch." i'm so sorry. a little sorry. obviously not sorry enough to change it, though. i figure "tentacles" either gives a micromanager feel or else a taboo secret feel, and the game master (or the players) can make the decision on their own. i nearly added the counselor to the "chaos" recommendations list, but held just so it wouldn't seem like an answered question. i kinda like it up in the air, up for interpretation.
Accidental characterization can be the best kind. All the better to squeeze the taxes. "You notice a slow wriggling beneath the Counselor's frock coat as they adjust their spectacles."
"my name, you ask? It's Hugh." the counselor's very real mustache adjusts itself like a spinning joke bow-tie. "Hugh Man, the trusted advisor. now, bring me a bucket of delicious fish heads! woop woop woop!"
This is an adventure with original aspects, such as approaching descriptions in prose instead of the typical bulletpoint lists, and a map of caves in an atypical side view, evoking sidescroller video games, nice touch!
i'll be honest, the mine almost didn't get a sketch. it's almost only there because coming out of the mine introduces so many factions immediately. even if they walk away they'll be walking past guards pushing around woodsmen, settlers harassed by a giant boar, some fancy ship that wasn't there before, etc. anything in the sandbox is plot after that launch.
thanks for the feedback!
Loved the quotes and in character sections like the rumors, gave it great flavor!
thank you! that list and the ones at the back helped me erase so, so many paragraphs of nonsense!! although, i maybe got a little too carried away with cutting and left off descriptions of the hexes. whoops.
I really like the maps—especially the tower map. We don’t see enough tower maps!
thanks! i have an isometric draft in dungeonscrawl that was too tall but probably a touch easier to read (staircases!), but after spending so much time beating google docs' little draw app into shape i just couldn't abandon it. next time: pen and paper. or macaroni and glue even. anything but ai haha.
I think it looks great!
rumor 13: east beyond the fens they say a rowdy village of raiders live. but, their legends warn of ghosts in the fens that will possess trespassers and cause them to raid their own tribe!
rumor 14: lizard men used to swim across the river for their favorite frogs and more. then they picked a fight with pirates on the river and neither really bounced back after.
rumor 15: between hills and forest up north a short-grass plain stretches. skeletal horses roam at night, but luckily there's some sort of waystation up a big tree that the Ranger keeps stocked. i wonder where they sleep, if not there?
(( ...i think i really shot myself in the foot by posting comments here. everyone else in the "unrated entries" have recieved constructive criticism by now except me. oops. the lessons we learn. ))