Thursday 20 May 2021

[Review] The Gardens of Ynn

I continue my voyage across the OSRchipelago (geddit?) with The Gardens of Ynn, by Emmy Allen. It cost me US$5 in PDF, and has 79 pages.

The Good

  • The mood. There is, to my eye, a slightly (but only slightly) bleak and melancholic twinge to the Gardens of Ynn, but is very much in sweet spot for me, to the right of 'whimsical' but to the left of 'high fantasy'. It reads like it may have been written by, say, John Bellairs, Arthur Machen, Robert Holdstock or even Miyazaki Hayao; I want to say that it actually reminds me most of Little, Big, but I should more accurately put it that it reminds me of what I thought Little, Big would be like before I had the misfortune of reading it.
  • The setting is briefly but beautifully described in three paragraphs, and then without further ado, we begin. From that point on, it's usefulness all the way down. This brevity is surely to be encouraged. What we have in our hands is, in fact, that rarest of treasures - a largely implied setting. 
  • And here there is much to admire, and imitate. Glass butlers and golem gardeners and walking topiaries and sidhe. Flocks of peahawks and candle-golems and bonsai turtles and unicorns. Hothouses, shooting ranges, ice rinks and mushroom beds. Wineries, fire pits, steam-pipes and towers. Kennels and hedge mazes and gazebos and mask galleries. These are a few of my favourite things.... Just list the words: I'm sold.
  • It may be the only genuinely workable example of procedural adventure creation in the OSR canon?  More importantly, it is a procedural adventure creation system that could undoubtedly be used generically - by simply swapping out the entries in the various tables for others - to create, for example, Mythago Woods, Viriconiums, Angband-style dungeons, dream worlds, Yellow City Old Towns, or any other environment which is subject to continual change and where fixed mapping is not desired. It is no small feat to think up such a system, especially one that is so easy and intuitive to use. 
  • The random tables of search results, treasures, sidhe alterations and the like are a delight - just about eccentric enough to, again, hit my sweet spot on the nose.
  • The art is perfectly judged in tone, and perfectly deployed. 


The Bad

  • Diagrams are not always necessary, but I think they would have been useful in elucidating the procedural generation process, which I found initially to be slightly opaque and awkwardly worded. Similarly, a imaginary, played-out 'example session' would have been helpful in - I am compelled to use the word - 'grokking' how the system of procedural generation works. 
  • A smallish quibble, but the one table which I think falls flat is the one of 'Rumours in Ynn', which often yields results I would imagine most sensible PCs ignoring. 'Rose-Maidens have been using blood to fertilize their plants. They're getting more vicious in their quest for more donors.' OK, I suppose we'll avoid Rose-Maidens, then. I want more 'hooky' rumours than this. 


The Ugly

  • A small thing (no pun intended), but the typeface used throughout is rather tiny and scrunched, and makes things hard to read in places - particularly for an old fart like me who likes to print out the physical book and read it properly.

Overall

I must say, I am extremely impressed by The Gardens of Ynn. It is without doubt in the highest echelon of woks that the OSR has produced. Indeed, I find myself feeling jealous. More than that, I find myself wanting to run it - which is a rare, rare feeling indeed.

5 out of 5 becs des corbins

22 comments:

  1. "I want to say that it actually reminds me most of Little, Big, but I should more accurately put it that it reminds me of what I thought Little, Big would be like before I had the misfortune of reading it."

    Ouch! (To be fair, Little, Big is a strangely baggy novel that seems to delight in being quietly unpredictable, and I find it slow going at times.)

    ReplyDelete
  2. "I want to say that it actually reminds me most of Little, Big, but I should more accurately put it that it reminds me of what I thought Little, Big would be like before I had the misfortune of reading it."

    Ouch! (To be fair, Little, Big is a strangely baggy novel that seems to delight in being quietly unpredictable, and I find it slow going at times.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's a long time ago since I read it, but I really hated the experience. It might be one of those things that I'll come back to, but there are so many other books to read in the mean time!

      Delete
  3. Now you have to read the sequel, Stygian Library. It is the same layout with different contents. The ultimate source of knowledge, the problem is finding the right book before one's supplies run out.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "it is a procedural adventure creation system that could undoubtedly be used generically"

    Ms Allen has also used this same system in The Stygian Library, another weird, parallel extra-dimension, this time in the form of a library spanning the realms of life and death.

    I have half a mind to use this system to model an (eventually) escapable afterlife, in case I ever pull off an unintended TPK.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I have often wanted to run that kind of game, based on the "Halls of Mandos" mode in the old ToME roguelike, where you start as a lost soul in the Halls of Mandos and have to make your way to Middle Earth against impossible odds.

      Delete
  5. I discovered this adventure long ago and reached much the same conclusion. Very worthwhile. Cheap too!

    ReplyDelete
  6. "...that rarest of treasures - a largely implied setting."

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. An amazing book. I stumbled on it randomly around 2018 looking for “garden” and “jungle” themed adventures on rpgnow for my 5e group’s upcoming visit to the Elemental Plane of Plants. It didn’t disappoint!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, you could totally use the core mechanism to run games in any other elemental plane too, now that I think of it...

      Delete
  8. The Mythago Wood cycle is probably the most underrated "series" in the fantasy discussion circles I frequent.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very underrated. I think the emotional heft would be entirely missed in a game. But the core idea of post-WWII explorers of an infinite wood is very gameable.

      Delete
  9. The main literary inspiration I got from Ynn was more Wonderland than anything else - there is at least a modicum of whimsy in the list of puddings, for instance.

    (A touch more on Ynn here: https://worldbuildingandwoolgathering.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-gardens-of-ynn-some-thoughts.html)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It clearly draws inspiration from "Laputa: Castle in the Sky" by Miyazaki.

      Delete
    2. I dunno. I know she cites that as an influence, but I didn't get much of that vibe from it.

      Delete
    3. Unfortunately, the only Laputa I know is Swift's. Though reading back my review, I do mention Ghibli.

      Less the size-changing Wonderland of madness, I suppose, and more the network of relatively mundane gardens filled with strange beings. The idea of the dream of Wonderland being that of a sunny afternoon into which the strange may drift rather than a lurid nighttime fever.

      Delete
  10. Yeah, I was blown away when I first read it. I used the same core design (with less entries because I'm lazy) to run a massive Ring World in Mothership. It's a really elegant and flexible thing.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I just bought this on the strength of this review, thanks.

    On thing I expected, but didn't find on the first quick read through, was mechanisms to reincorporate stuff already discovered, either through player action or the tables. There's a bit of it, in paths that can be discovered leading back to previously explored areas, but I was expecting at least one entry on the encounter table to be something like "someone you already met in the Gardens".

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, that's a good point - something that one can rectify, though.

      Delete
  12. I am pushing myself through Little, Big right now. I feel like I've been reading it forever; somehow I haven't cracked 30% yet.

    The language is quite flowery, and some of the imagery evocative, but nothing seems to happen! I assumed it was me.

    Also: I wonder if the crunchy text will be improved in the updated edition coming out (a la Stygian Library).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, I hated it - just lots of pretty verbiage signifying nothing.

      Delete