Blog Roundup: Covert Critic
Cheer has been spread and it's waiting to be read.
I am nothing if not a right jolly old elf (beard on chin, broad face, and little round belly that shakes when I laugh like a bowl full of jelly? Yes, all around). In the spirit of the season, over on my little discord server, I hastily put together a “Secret Santa” type event (inspired by the non-monetary gift guide from Explorer’s Design) called “Covert Critic” where bloggers and designers signed up to meaningfully engage with the work of one of their colleagues determined by random chance. Because this spurred a lot of bloggery, I thought this week I would just run through all the wonderful stuff that was produced by this last-minute holiday effort.
Meanwhile, at the Prismatic Wasteland:
Starting, of course, with my own. Here is just a snippet from my full review of Lighthouse at Shipbreaker Shoals by Anne Hunter:
Here are a few choice ideas that you might pluck from this adventure even if you don’t end up running Lighthouse as an adventure wholecloth:
The town’s druggist gives the party a half-finished potion that will have a different effect based on what rare reagent is added. The adventure suggests three possible additions found in the adventure (hagfish slime, crushed barnacle shell, and horseradish or garlic) and what effects result, but this is an opportunity to allow players to experiment and also makes even mundane seeming “treasure” like slime worth picking up.
If you need a lighthouse-based adventure that provides enough for about one session, the map could easily be repurposed for your lighthouse.
Pets as treasure. Coin and gems as treasure? Boring! In the garden maintained by the lighthouse keeper, there are baby-sized guinea pigs that have grown gills and thus become water-breathing. The adventure calls out that each is worth 10 gold coins as exotic pets in the nearby city. Capturing rare and usual creatures could be a campaign premise of its own, but including small rewards like these are more fun than ordinary treasure because it gives the players a choice: sell the creatures as a profit or keep them for themselves as pets (or feed them to the dragon). (There is also the aforementioned turnspit dog that is pet worthy, but it doesn’t have any value as treasure.)
Body parts as treasure. I already touched on how the lighthouse keeper’s wooden leg is a potential adventure hook, but it is also an example of an interesting type of treasure. If your players get their hands on interesting prosthetics, even if non-magical, they’ll tend to hold onto them just in case. I had one player who found a prosthetic eye made of iron early in the campaign and was later much more excited than he should have been when he later lost his eye in a fight.
Monsters that want to destroy buildings. Plenty of people have pointed out that it is boring for all combat to involve both sides wanting to kill the other. It is a classic dynamic for a reason but gets old when every fight is a fight to the death. It is better when one or both sides have a unique goal they are pursuing and the combat is just a means to achieve that goal. Destroying a building is an interesting goal and is made all the more interesting when the player characters are inside that building and don’t have a means to quickly exit it.
If you are a real Prismatic Wasteland sicko and want to read my 2024 retrospective where I lay out a bunch of stats and analytics from my releases and blog posts from 2024, I wrote about that over on my Patreon, which you can join for as low as one dollarydoo.
And my many generous colleagues own entries:
DIY & Dragons wrote a rumination on the What are Phantom Cogs blogpost from Explorers Design
Explorers Design wrote extra factions for the beta version of Sunk Cost by Magnolia Keep
Magnolia Keep wrote a review of Unsung by Orange Subterfugacious Raccoon
Orange Subterfugacious Raccoon wrote a bunch of short reviews of all the free or PWYW games by Dice Goblin
Dice Goblin wrote a “Hey, check out how cool this is!” deep dive on the Depthcrawl Design series of blogposts by Elsewhere, Elsewhere
Elsewhere, Elsewhere wrote a review of and expansion to Pastel Paradise by Robin Fjärem
Robin Fjärem put together annotated feedback for the playtest version of Everything You Are Must Be Found by Brendan Albano
Brendan Albano wrote a review of Reel Robot Fishing by Fail Forward
Fail Forward wrote a review of Death, Injury, and Other Inconveniences by Personable Thoughts
Personable Thoughts wrote a review of Swineheart Motel by Mindstorm Press
Mindstorm Press wrote a review of Gatorbarge by Root Devil
Root Devil wrote a review of Barkeep on the Borderlands but also some cowboy character creations for my Boot Hill combat blogpost both by yours truly
This was a fun exercise, and I will do my level-best to try to whip up something similar next year, maybe with slightly longer runway but honestly don’t we all work better under a little pressure? Isn’t putting undue amounts of stress upon oneself the real meaning of the holidays? Just me?
On the subject of reviews, I would be remiss to not also recommend this review by Wayspell. Yes, it is a review of my own adventure, Barkeep, but it is written in a really excellent style reminiscent of gonzo journalism. You should go read it and then pester Wayspell to do a whole series in this vein.
To all my fellow bloggers, blog-enjoyers, and the few of you who hate blogs but have ended up at the bottom of this post by mistake, I wish upon thee a fortuitous 2025. The century is 1/4 of the way over and so far I rate it 1 star out of a possible 5.