“I’m doing open source”, I said to myself, in a sensible internal-monologue voice. “I should pull from more open source creators”, I concluded with naive hopes, and then I downloaded all of the onepage dungeon entries[i].

As it turns out, most were not compatible with the GPL, because they did not have an up-to-date open source licence. “Nevertheless”, I sighed, many days later, after finding all the GPL-compatible dungeons[ii], “at least I have these few projects”.

“At least one must be useable.”

What Sucks

The Enchantment of Art

Scrolling through onepage dungeons at lightning speed leaves you with nothing but instincts and gut-reactions. This is bad, because art is enchanting, and I am a sucker for isometric art of all kinds, especially fancy RPG maps[iii]. This is bad, because a lot of pretty maps lack substance; either it’s unclear how to use the dungeon, or it’s clearly dull.

One dungeon proclaims:

This is about wits and problem solving, not HP and XP.

“Excellent!”

…but after the beautiful image and opening line, we just have statblocks for random forest animals, and 1D4 Damage from standing under a small waterfall, because of ‘currents’.

Has this author seen a waterfall before? Did they learn to draw water and trees from the internet?

Typography

I’m an unashamed fan of over the top cutesy typography, and onepage dungeons almost demand some creative word-fuckery. However, at the point where people can’t read the writing, the piece becomes worthless. It’s no longer a onepage dungeon, it’s a onepage headache.

‘$ecret Doors’ $uck

Far too many have something saying ‘secret door’ or ‘trap: D6 Damage’. What the hell am I meant to do with that? It not only encourages GMs to describe the scene with all the pzaz of a high school Maths teacher, but leaves the GM open to getting stumped by players asking honest, obvious questions about what the hell was blocking that hall a moment ago.

1D4 Cultists

It’s hard to speak respectably about a scenario when the author hasn’t given it a minute’s thought. As I mentally meander through these spaces, the same issue pops up too often - you cannot interrogate the scenario, so the players won’t be able to either.

~~~~~~~~

Who are you, and what in the bleeding fuck are you doing here?

We worship the mighty lich! Praise be! (and it’s ‘Dave’)

Well, Dave, I think the worship’s done now, since we killed all your brethren.

We shall rise again!

No you won’t, because now you’ve said that we’re going to cut the heads off all the corpses. Matilda..would you?

Anyway, Dave, how did you get past the ochre jelly?

Umm…what?

The room before this had an ochre jelly. You’re here. So how did you get in?

I shall say nothing!

Right, but we’re thirty feet in the air, so there’s no hidden door, and you weren’t born here, so you definitely know how to enter this place without attacking things.

I shan’t help you! Praise be the name of the Dark Lord!

Okay, well we’re going to send you upstairs and see what happens. So if you know a password or something, you can either use it, or get eaten.

Um….no, I really don’t know a password. (praise be)

Listen, Dave - this whole ‘dark lord’ thing doesn’t seem to be working out for you. How did you get into this anyway? Matilda’s not found a single coin on the corpses, so you’re clearly not getting paid.

There was a pamphlet.

You read a pamphlet and just decided to come here and…get stabbed? I mean, what did you think would happen? And what do you do here all day? Run me through it.

Cult stuff?

No, give me the schedule. Tell me what you do in the morning, or you’re going upstairs while we all watch and laugh at you. Tell me the daily routine and we let you go.

Well, we eat breakfast I suppose…

Good, okay. So where does that happen? Upstairs, or downstairs?

Here?

Right here? How many days have you been in this room? Where do you shit?

Look, can I just go upstairs?

No, Dave, I want to take a shit, and I want you to explain to me how I do that, in this room.

Praise be!

Okay, Dave - up you go. Upstairs, go on!

~~~~~~~~

Top Picks

Trapped in the Amethyst Death Mine

When an evil necromancer wants to build an undead army, he just hires adventurers to kill the undead. Once inside the mines, a massive undead army meanders after the PCs slowly. This keeps the PCs moving, which is great.

Unfortunately, the rooms have no numbers. The notion of the undead constantly resurrecting seems incomplete; what happens if someone dismantles the body?

☐ Pretty

☐ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☑ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☑ Tasty concept

☑ Twist

It Rises

Someone stashed their treasure chest in a nasty hole in the ground, behind a kobold lair. This makes sense to me, because the medieval world did not have excellent banks, and kobold lairs are not excellent banks.

There’s not much to this module, and therefore not much that can be wrong about it.

That said, I would have preferred to see more description of the beast in the pit than just ‘Pit Beast’.

☐ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☑ Coherent

☐ Exploration

☐ Tasty concept

☐ Twist

Melting Pot

The volcano has a bunch of mechanisms, and the control room lies near the end with five unlabelled levers. Currently, the mechanisms have all gone wrong, and the temperature inside is rising.

The rising temperature affects a few rooms throughout, so despite being a small ‘dungeon’, it’s all very interactive.

I have no idea why the villagers would believe the volcano hides a god, or how the person who constructed all that machinery buys groceries.

☑ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☐ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☐ Tasty concept

☑ Twist

A “Quick and Easy” 5-Step Multi-Level Monument to Self Help

This dungeon is just every unfortunate news story about working at an Amazon warehouse, tied in a piss-soaked bag. It’s easy to remember and understand because you already know what you’re going to see.

You ascend to level 2 by ‘climbing the ladder’, which is full of traps. At level 2, you can’t find any way up except a lift…which goes down to the bottom again. The only way to enter level 3 is to fly, because only demons work there.

So upward mobility is a lie, despite the company literally being called ‘UP’. The real meaning of ‘UP’ is in the letters ‘U’ ‘P’, meaning employees work so much they have to pee in bottles.

☑ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☑ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☑ Tasty concept

☐ Twist

Death Skull Mayhem!

This super-heroes comic-book page has no super-heroes; just the bad-guy and his plans. One scan of the page, and you understand the layout of the evil warehouse, and the evil plan.

☑ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☑ Coherent

☐ Exploration

☐ Tasty concept

☐ Twist

They Dug Too Deep

Dead cultists and dwarves all over the mine show plainly that a creature stalks the darkness. It returns, summoned by a book.

I really like the emptiness here. The rooms all have short descriptions, mostly there to ensure you understand the picture. Players can imagine wandering the place, but the wandering won’t be interrupted by a bunch of combat every 5 minutes - most of the time will involve descriptions.

Unfortunately, the writer has pulled over a few tropes without really thinking about what they might mean.

☑ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☐ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☑ Tasty concept

☐ Twist

The Crypt of Crimson Ice

A lot of modules want to talk about cultists and a sleeping god. This one nails it.

The various rooms link to each other, with items from one doing something in another.

It’s not entirely clear how to get from the ‘freezing water’ to the tunnel beneath (or is that possible?), but it’s a small oddity on an impressively large map.

☑ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☑ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☑ Tasty concept

☑ Twist

Locally Sourced

Everything is beautiful, but an aura of vagueness hangs over the entire thing. Who’s giving out the mission to clear the magic compost? Do the PCs enter through the tree’s mouth? How do the plants grow underground, without Sunlight?

☑ Pretty

☐ Clear layout

☐ Clear hook

☐ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☐ Tasty concept

☐ Twist

The Worms Must Die

The pink ‘worms’ which drag people underground weren’t a problem until they grabbed a rich-boy. The PCs descend three levels, find the dead alchemist who summoned the worms, then discover that all the worms are a single creature with many arms.

☑ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☑ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☑ Tasty concept

☑ Twist

Sundial Siphon

This module irritates me deeply. Why would someone plan to make a rotating disk-house underground? Are the walls made of stone? How does that work? How did they make it spin? Sure, ‘magic’, but what exactly does that involve?

But it’s pretty!

☑ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☐ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☐ Tasty concept

☐ Twist

The Fairy Princess

A time-loop envelops the fairy wedding, and the PCs must witness the princess die of poison over, and over, until they find the culprit.

Two agents poison the party, but one uses sleeping magic, while the real poisoner uses a servant to do the deed.

There’s a chance of encountering 3D4 kobolds ‘from outside the time loop’, which means you have a real reason to roll the dice.

☑ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☑ Clear hook

☑ Coherent (except the time travel)

☑ Exploration

☑ Tasty concept

☑ Twist

I can’t imagine using this module, because time-travel is an inherently nonsensical concept, which will inevitably become an infinite money-loop, or set a game up for a direct contradiction.

Thieves Guild Training Dungeon

How the hell do thieves practice picking all those locks? Are they all locksmiths, or do they just shuffle bits of metal around until they hear a click? The answer lies deep underground, in the secret training dungeon - a twisting, nonsensical labyrinth of hallways leading to more hallways, through locked doors which have no key.

The secret doors have no description (boo!), but it comes with a long list of traps. Many of the traps don’t seem to be lethal.

The player responded ‘I rolled a 4!’, and the GM informed them of a spider web, breaking delicately across their face. The player asked ‘but wasn’t that a roll to spot traps?’.

At that moment, the thief became enlightened.

Pure genius.

Now a lich has come (where better to build a base?), and wanders the dungeon freely (having memorized very lock, trap, and secret panel).

☐ Pretty

☑ Clear layout

☐ Clear hook

☑ Coherent

☑ Exploration

☑ Tasty concept

☐ Twist

This one takes the prize as my all-time favourite.

Honourable Mentions

[i]

[ii]

[iii]

[iv]

[v]

[vi]

[vii]

[viii]

[ix]

[x]

[xi]

[xii]

[xiii]

[xiv]

[xv]

[xvi]

[xvii]

[xviii]

[xix]

[xx]

[xxi]