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A super ambitious entry! The ideas are really cool. I like this idea that morning noon and night are days of not months apart. It’ll create a really cool vibe if played right.
I would recommend taking some time to reorganize and clarify some of the information in the background info. In the end I think I understood it but I needed to reread and take notes to get it.
Things that weren’t readily clear to me:
- The prince and princess are the ones jousting
- the joust will determine succession
- that the prince and princess are twins (at one point you just start referring to them as “the twins” and I had to go back and reread everything to see if I missed who the twins were)
- that morning afternoon and night were different days.
Things I still don’t fully understand
- It says the second day in the loop was Yders rock bottom, but I’m not sure what happens to them on that day.
- It says on the third day Yder betrays the wizard? Am I understanding that correctly? If so it’s not clear what he does.
I think with some more space a more fleshed out version of this could be really cool!
thank you for checking it out! it could definitely use a longer version for more clarity. the hardest part was trying to fit such a big concept in such a small package.
to clarify the things you couldn't parse out: on the second day, Yder is drinking in the village and wallowing about how badly the wizard treats him—that's his rock bottom. and then on the third day, he is at the lakeshore telling Walkelin, the prince's childhood friend, about the plan to sabotage the princess because he knows full well that a knight like Walkelin will not sit idly by regardless of his closeness to the prince—hence the betrayal.
high stakes and clever delivery. That's an adventure from a cultivated desgner for cultivated readers. I have some doubt it will work out smoothly at the table, but I'm ready to see it by myself when I'm gonna play it
This is really cool! I think how you've managed the time-loop here works well and it provides a strong amount of tension and mystery for players to unpack throughout the course of the adventure!
Aside from preferring slightly less vagueness with the rewards and solutions (which others have commented on), my only real criticisms are related to presentation, specifically in relation to how easy this would be to run.
As is, I feel the information is a bit dense and some of the character dynamics can be a bit unclear at a glance. (For example the prince and princess are twins, but this is only mentioned after their introductions).
Some diagrams for the core timeline, or perhaps columns integrated into the background to frame whether an event in a location occurs morning, afternoon and night. It would be easy to overdo the diagrams, but I think one or two would be great.
Just a little bit more work on layout or presentation would make this even better, as the context you've given for each day is really good. This will be really fun to play through and I look forward to dropping it into my game. Excellent stuff!
This is a great setup and I think three solidly chosen points in time. I’m just afraid it is to ambitious for the page limitation and think it would’ve needed some other mode of visualization.
A highly ambitious narrative-heavy exploration of a dark fairytale circumstance. Mind-bending to consider running this, but the sense of mystery about the time loop is palpable.
Super cool. Complex in a good way and full of great details paired with the time of day. I really like the web of conflict here - the various people with different interests that can lead different tables of players to very different conclusions and allegiances. Except for Galfrid. All my homies hate Galfrid.
This module rips. I usually hate time travel, time loops, anything time in a module; but this module taught me that my hatred is dumb. I genuinely did not believe "playing with time," modules could be done well. And this one is done so, so well. Well done; excited to run it; thank you for making it.
Simple, clean and straightforward in its design.
This is a really smart design for handling the complexities of a time-loop! Giving us a timeline for each location for day 1 of the 3-day loop lets the GM play with the order of events in clever ways.
I really like how you used time of day to vary the encounter locations.
great take on the title! the time loop is such a great way to inject some emotion into the space. i'm impressed you were able to fit three tonally different descriptions into each area while keeping the flow of things comprehensible. it tickles my brain in a good way that the rowboat the players come in on only exists at night in that location.
high: the fog!! wow. the image of walking through this sea of mist only for the time and atmosphere to be radically changed when you emerge is killer.
low: the lack of clear solution is very cool, but it makes the (understandable) lack of clear reward a little limp and uninspiring. something bespoke from a few possible parties would add some extra flavor to their character and elevate this, imo. i'm iffy on some of the blank spaces in the loop itself, like the details of the sabotage - i don't mind figuring that out on my own, but i think specificity would be more fun!
in-between: i straight up thought the astrarium image was a kitschy sci-fi pull until i googled it and saw it was just like. a real thing. wild.
thank you for checking it out!
i'm glad to hear some things resonated with you! i agree with your assessment of the lows. i have a much more fleshed-out version of it in my head. maybe i'll make an expanded version of it sometime