GL1 - The Nameless Dungeon (review)

[Solomoriah]

Metro... thanks for the support, but hey, chill out. My feelings aren't hurt, not even bruised a little... you can't create anything significant without getting a few bad reviews.

[bryce0lynch]

And I shall introduce myself. I'm Bryce Lynch. I run tenfootpole.org. I've done 400-ish adventure reviews with about 95% of them being 'new' old school product. And while arguments from authority have no merit, I would note that I'm by far the most prolific reviewer of OSR adventures and the only one with consistent standards, which I publish. It should also be rather obvious that I have rather high standards. I generally cross-post reviews to the publishers forum.

"It means Chris didn't write a successful product."

Actually, that is not what it means. It only means that Chris didn't write a product that you like.

Alas, no. That way lies madness.You would have us reduce all critical discourse to 'But _I_ liked it.' This lays quite close to 'But we had fun ...' and 'But with a good DM ...' These are given. Our critiques must rise above that otherwise, what's the point? Make no mistake, I do not denigrate you for having fun with GL1. I truly and honestly think that's great. After all, we're all about sitting around with friends and having fun together. But that fact is irrelevant to a review. In the review we must have standards that differentiate between "randomly generated via a thesaurus" and "something worthwhile to seek out." What's the old critics sayings? There's no accounting for taste?

Chris, I would absolutely agree with your definition and role of story. I think, perhaps, folks get confused in this regard. Saying that GL1 doesn't do a good job supporting this aspect of play doesn't mean we are advocating for 3e/4e railroads with mountains of text and Ravenloft-ish drama. There is a middle ground between sparse/minimal keying (a good DM could/will ...) and the railroads/verbosity of a certain kind of product. This middle ground is magical. They keying looks minimal/sparse, but the scene is set for great play. They are evocative and imaginative, supporting wonder and whimsey and action. As a DM you read them and then beautifully colorful picture springs to your mind, allowing you fill in all of the details implied or that your own imagination naturally fills in. It clicks, naturally and immediately. All in the same, or less, amount of text present in GL1. Without railroading. Without 'story', in the bad use of that word.

"12 riotous orcs are having a bachelor party and using a surly gnome decorated as a piñata. His mouth is stuffed with a 100gp amethyst."


While I don't wish to tie GL1 to Dwimmermount, there is, in fact, a great deal of similarity between the two. Both appear to be the result of a minimally keyed environment that was then expanded through the use of ... non-effective? descriptions. The key to each and every encounter must be: how does this enhance and support play? You don't have words in your budget ... do THESE words provide the best play experience possible or do they describe the mundane and meaningless? I know what a kitchen looks like. What makes THIS one interesting/unique/whatever to the players? Nothing? Then just label it "Kitchen" and move on.

[Hywaywolf]

For a prolific writer you aren't a very good reader. I did point out that success of a module isn't measured by making review writers happy, but by making the end user happy. And by that means many people have played it and enjoyed it. In my book, that is a better measure of success than someone who only reads a module for how well the module entertains him as a reader. I say this because in your own words you have reviewed 400 products. I doubt that you have even played 5% of them.

Also, I have read a few of your other reviews and I don't think you have but one potential user in mind when you review - the expert player/gm with a wealth of knowledge and confidence. You think to describe a kitchion is mundane, so why not just call it kitchen. One reason is because many players and DMs are new to the game or new to GMing. Those boring write-ups give them something to say instead of trying to figure out how best describe a kitchen without just saying, its a kitchen. That goes double for more exotic rooms like a laboratory or solarium.

Another potential user is the DM that doesn't have tons of free time to memorise the dungeon and create awesome encounters for every room. That little bit of mundane reading gives the players something to do while the DM familiarizes himself with the room.

[Togo Galthus]

I assure you, I did not single out GL1 for a rant. There's a lot of softball in the OSR, and in niche subcultures in general. That's not me. When I say something is good you know it's good.

That's not how it works. A person who rants about stuff, compensating his poorly writing style and seemingly thinking abilities with loads of cursing while bragging about drinking beer meanwhile, comes through as a dork. When that dork then say, "This, on the other hand, is good. Take it from me", nobody listens, because you already established yourself as dork. Sorry.

[Dimirag]

You can be very prolific, that doesn't mean you can be good at that. When you use an aggressive language any review becomes a personal point of view than a subjective one. So, to me, the product fails to you due to your expectations (this does not mean they are good or bad, they are yours) and not to other whom opinion is unknown.

[bryce0lynch]

You can be very prolific, that doesn't mean you can be at that. When you use an aggressive language any review becomes a personal point of view than a subjective one. So, to me, the product fails to you due to your expectations (this does not mean they are good or bad, they are yours) and not to other whom opinion is unknown.

Ah, and here we have it. There is no such thing as an objective review. "There's no accounting for taste." We all bring ourselves to everything we do. After awhile you learn the tastes of those you follow. If you agree, then you have a nice metric. That's all well and good, but, and here it is, what if you DON'T like my tastes? If I explain WHY I like or don't like something then you can still use the review.

I did point out that success of a module isn't measured by making review writers happy, but by making the end user happy. And by that means many people have played it and enjoyed it. In my book, that is a better measure of success than someone who only reads a module for how well the module entertains him as a reader.

And you would be wrong, for the reasons I've previously explained. Our measure for success is not popularity or "we had fun playing it." The measure of success must be: Does the product support and inspire the DM who rill be running it. THAT standard contributes to the positive experiences of everyone at the table during play. It is the purpose for the product. A product that merely entertains the reader is not a good product and I would give it a very poor review, savaging it much more than GL1. GL1 would be a poor effort at supporting the DM while a product written to entertain the reader would not even be TRYING to do that, failing utterly. WG7 does exactly this and I savage it every opportunity.


Let me encourage you, if you don't agree with my statements and conclusions, to write and post your own reviews, either independently or as a rebuttal to my own. You can find mine on tenfootpole, rpggeek, Dragonsfoot, and the therpgsite. Right now my voice resonates quite loudly because it's the only one. Join in and tell the OSR community why this is a great product. I guarantee you that it is probably the best thing you can do support the adventure and BFRPG in general.

[Dimirag]

"It means Chris didn't write a successful product."

Actually, that is not what it means. It only means that Chris didn't write a product that you like.

Alas, no. That way lies madness.You would have us reduce all critical discourse to 'But _I_ liked it.' This lays quite close to 'But we had fun ...' and 'But with a good DM ...' These are given. Our critiques must rise above that otherwise, what's the point? Make no mistake, I do not denigrate you for having fun with GL1. I truly and honestly think that's great. After all, we're all about sitting around with friends and having fun together. But that fact is irrelevant to a review. In the review we must have standards that differentiate between "randomly generated via a thesaurus" and "something worthwhile to seek out." What's the old critics sayings? There's no accounting for taste?

Ah, and here we have it. There is no such thing as an objective review. "There's no accounting for taste." We all bring ourselves to everything we do. After awhile you learn the tastes of those you follow. If you agree, then you have a nice metric. That's all well and good, but, and here it is, what if you DON'T like my tastes? If I explain WHY I like or don't like something then you can still use the review.

So, it seem you said that Chris/Solo didn't wrote a good product, not one that you don't like while saying that all reviews are based on personal tasted, so.... he did not wrote something you don't like based on your own tastes...

I know that any review are from the writer point of view, respect that and don't mind at all, its a review, not a statistical display of how many like it and how many don't. What I don't like about your reviews (at least the 2 I've read, don't know about the rest of the 398-ish) is your language, specially on a forum that does not use it, I too have high standards regarding what I read, and you didn't reach them.

[chiisu81]

And I shall introduce myself. I'm Bryce Lynch. I run tenfootpole.org. I've done 400-ish adventure reviews with about 95% of them being 'new' old school product. And while arguments from authority have no merit, I would note that I'm by far the most prolific reviewer of OSR adventures and the only one with consistent standards, which I publish. It should also be rather obvious that I have rather high standards. I generally cross-post reviews to the publishers forum.

Take your self-pleasuring back to your own site. At the end of the day, like any review, it's still just one person's opinion. Your reviews, like someone else's, mean nothing to me. They may matter a lot to others. Or not.

[-1warrior]

This isn't really an enjoyable review to read, which is one thing I require for a review to be good one.

[Solomoriah]

Wow, this is getting a little out of hand... cool off, everyone.

I will note one other thing from your review... you called out my room dimensions. At the time I wrote Nameless I was working on Footprints with DF user sieg. He was losing his vision then; as far as I know now, he is completely blind. He stated on the forum that having room dimensions would make it easier for him to run adventures, and Nameless was written that way as an experiment. When I revised it for BFRPG I left it that way, as I saw no point in removing all that work.

In other words... I did a favor for a blind man, and you hated it. Just to be clear.