Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen and All! Tonight is the night where we recognise and celebrate the Best Already-Established Artists and Layout Designers across the Blogosphere. That’s right! It’s the Appx. N Jam Awards Show! Our fantastic panel of Youtubers and Publishers have deigned to sift through the Dogshit submitted to our Jam to find For You, Our Dear Audience, the Products that Look The Prettiest! It’s going to be a star-studded night full of Procedures, Bullet-Points, and… maybe… if we’re lucky… a piece of work that wasn’t made in Professional-Grade Vis-Design Software. Oh, who am I kidding! *audience erupts into hysterical shrieking laughter*

Before we begin, though, we just need to make clear that we love amateurs. As an extremely clever and charismatic individual once mused: “I would, I would read a million bad human dungeons before I willingly read one, one AI dungeon that was, fine eh like heh like so I mean like it takes a type of risk to do any of these to make things public and a lot of jams aren’t judged and a lot of jams aren’t evaluated even by peers and so knowing that other people are going to be looking at this stuff critically and still doing it on top of that and having that wuh [sic], is such a huge win for everyone in the community and show a lot of strength of what comes out with it”.

With that said, it’s time for the main event. *audience cheers, wails, hurls prawn cocktails at the stage*

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I love writing-jams. They’re a great source of motivation and a good way to get new people into the hobby. I started publishing my RPG writing online because of the delightful Emiel Boven’s DURF Jam back in 2023 (this year's edition starts in just over a week!). Some of the most fun I’ve ever had writing or reading RPG material was during the Eastlake Survey and the Less Than 500 Jam. At the same time, some of the only bad experiences I've ever had in this hobby occured during the Knave 2e Adventure Game Jam from 2024, and the Appx. N Jam that concluded earlier this week.

This post began as a long and rather bitter critique of the general attitude of disdain and entitlement that I’ve seen from some of the Influencers who run these events. I’ve chosen better. I don’t need to argue at length about why no jam should be ranked, or have cash prizes, or include compilation products featuring only a few of the submissions. These things are obvious. Instead, I want to do the work that these Influencers only pay lip-service to, and highlight the work of the amateurs and ‘first-timers’ who actually enable these events to happen.

Without further ado, here is a brief tour of the submissions that weren’t covered or celebrated by the panel of the Appx. N Jam. Maybe amongst them we even have some of the works described on the stream (by the highly eloquent “Professional Streamer” quoted prior) as “the ones that we kind of established oh like this is like this is, not great”. I would be delighted if so.

The following works are, as they always should have been, not listed in any particular order.

The Initiation Well by Haunted Spice Trade Association
A well-thought-out exploration of Indian folklore that feels like it could have been adapted from an Amitav Ghosh novel. I love the scenario and the use of Rohan as an NPC. The Baak is obviously great. The image of the traditional step-well is also very evocative.

The Spawning Deeps! by Dim and Perilish Adventures
The cover is honestly hilarious (and correct): boy, it certainly sure would suck to fall through the floor into this fresh fucking hell full of pre-historic crabs. Actually captures the sort of sheer farcical desperation one would experience in this situation.

The Tengu’s Trinkets by SwordDistributor
The format of this owns! A meta-joke on layout. Two letters (including a doodle) that can be used as handouts! Some fun writing when we actually get to the items. And then, the punchline at the bottom of the fourth page.

The Dream Journey of Zimri by TCWTCW
A fun scenario you could totally fit into a bazaar. I love the structure of this (and the diagram explaining it). Includes possibly the single best NPCs I've ever seen: the Dream Police. Those dudes would be a HOOT at the table.

Ascendancy of the Jade Titan by Dipwillow
A banging powder keg. Amazingly well fleshed out. A lovely map with keys to boot. The absolute epitome of 'Situations not Storylines'. Bonus points for Hyperborea 3e, which I've never heard of until now and is super on-theme for the jam.

Vineta by Lantern Light by FoliOdd
An exercise in minimalism. Nowhere in the middle spread does it explicitly talk about a heist: it just presents a sequence of events that will occur and in doing so gets the brain juices pumping even harder than if it did. Boils down Kidnap The Archpriest into a hundredth of the volume while losing no potency.

The Dybbuk’s Mount by Funbunggo
A brilliant execution of a classic concept. Wonderfully situated in a time and place. The format is excellent: a Delian Tomb where each room's archetypal threat is chosen by a d4 table. It speaks to the quality of the writing that virtually any combination of rooms would be satisfiying and cohesive to play. Also, a great cover!

Guild Guides to Gridr by WizardintheTower
Takes the prompt and goes in a completely wild and original direction! Does in two pages what another 'procedure' would take dozens to do (and do worse, at that). Super evocative too! Instantly sparks the brain! I honestly love the layout here.

Stronghold on the Edge of Forever by Beau Yarbrough
A timeloop that doesn't loop: a lovely concept with lovely execution and lovely layout. By leaning into the gimmick of Shadowdark, I think this module would absolutely haunt players at the table ("oh, it's gone, it fell through time, and it's never coming back"). Amazing fodder to stock a hexcrawl with: everyone should be using this! Bonus points for using a Dyson Logos map (and writing so it's compatible with just the Quickstart).

Well that's all we've got time for today. I hope this has exposed some great but neglected material to fresh eyes. One of the most pleasant things in the whole field of writing is the act of mutually providing and receiving feedback. I love when spaces are created to facilitate this experience. This is why I find it utterly disheartening when what should be a show of Qualitative Appreciation is turned into an exercise of Quantitative Assessment.

If you enjoyed this, then please go to the itch page for a big writing-jam and sort by Least Rated. Thanks for reading.

Best,
Hags