Review - Throne of Evil

Throne of Evil, a 32 page adventure by Role Aids was published in 1984 and claimed to be "fraught with political intrigue, suspense, and magic in the violent world of 12th century." Fortunately, the 12th century aspect is superficial at best or else this would have been unusable for most ongoing campaigns.

Instead of being set in anything resembling 12th century England, this takes place in a generic setting with a few real world historical events awkwardly serving as the catalyst to this dungeon delving adventure.  Any pretense of this being 12th century England disappears as soon as you get to the six pre-generated characters on page seven. Only one the characters is human and he is a cleric of Balder!

Old School Credentials: Because it is an AD&D (1e) compatible product published in 1984, it's automatically "old school" to me. It has a very typical old school feel.

The Good: First and foremost, it's a solid dungeon craw with a few good illustrations that evoke the first edition zeitgeist. There are some standard monsters (Lizard Men, Piercers, Giant Spiders, etc.) as well as some odd new creatures (Hawk Men and Giant Kobolds) to spice things up. The plot and political intrigue, despite being based on real world events, is easily adaptable to almost any setting.  It's well organized and and an interesting read.

The Bad:There's not much really bad here. The dungeon might be a bit too generic and have too illogical of monster placement for some, but these aren't really that bad. That the module really isn't what it claims to be could by considered "bad" but it's hard to be upset when it turns out to more useful than it would have been.

The Odd: This product has some rather strange quirks that are more interesting than good or bad. Although it states "for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (R)" on the cover, it uses different terms/abbreviations for many stats [IN (intuition) for wisdom, SM (stamina?) for constitution, HTK (hits to kill) for hit points, etc.]. It has an early use of THAC0, but features a simple formula to roll it using percentile dice. And as mentioned above, it is set in 12th century England, but is filled magic, monsters, and non-human heroes that apparently have had had absolutely no influence on the political and cultural history of the area.

Likely Use: Despite the setting, its a very standard adventure that could easily be played as part of a campaign in most fantasy settings. It was likely intended as a one-shot, non-campaign module and could easily be used that way as well.

Value: Another long out of print product, the price varies radically from $6 to $65 at current Amazon prices for good to very good condition with the very good being cheaper. Personally I would say it's a good value at $10 or less, including shipping, but at over $20 total, it's not worth it.

Overall: A good example of a typical third party effort in the 1980s. It's a decent adventure and worth a look.

At a Glance - C&C Players Handbook, Morgansfort, and Monsters, Magic & Sorcery II

A few thoughts about some new arrivals that I have had time to skim, but not thoroughly read. All are quite different, but each is interesting and worthwhile in its own right.

Castles & Crusades: Players Handbook (Troll Lord Games.- 2014)
This OSR book is an extremely professional looking book, with great artwork, a clear layout, good binding, really it looks flawless. If you thought of it as a glossy re-envisioning of the original Players Handbook, you wouldn't far off.  It would make an easy substitute for the 1e Players Handbook, but as such, there isn't much really new. Still, it is pretty awesome so, at a glance, I have to give it a thumbs up

Morgansfort: The Western Lands Campaign (Basic Fantasy - 2006-2014)
 I love Basic Fantasy as a great first game for newbies, regardless of rather they move on to other games or not. For roughly $10, you could get the core rulebook, a monster book, and this campaign adventure. This module looks well organized with some descent old school style art. At $3.50 for 68 pages, you cant go wrong. It even 2 1/2 pages of a basic world setting making

Monsters, Magic & Sorcery II (Unicorn Game Publications - 1992)
For Quest of the Ancients, a somewhat AD&D like game, this 80 page booklet contains new monsters and magic items for that game. At a glance, the monster section is mildly interesting, though many appeared earlier in 1e behir (MM2), black annis (annis MM2), cat, faerie (elfin cat MM2), centipede, giant (MM), etc. Many of the new creatures are interesting enough, some would be worth converting to whatever system you are using. There is only limited art in this and though the art is mostly well drawn, much of it transferred poorly and looks like an old photocopy.

Just by reading a few of the magic item descriptions, I've come the conclusion that this section is a goldmine for any GM. Well thought out and described , these items would work in most campaigns.  I should mention that this is the only RPG item that I've ever gotten by accident. I ordered Monsters, Magic & Sorcery I but the seller had mislabeled it. Still, it's a keeper.

Review - The Fallible Fiend

The Fallible Fiend by L. Sprague de Camp is a 1973 book, expanded from a slightly earlier version published in Fantastic.It recounts the misadventures of a quite likable and philosophical "fiend"named Zdim. Summoned for a year's servitude to the prime plane in exchange for some iron ore, which is very rare on his home plane, he soon comes to trouble because of his tendency to follow orders too literally and his difficulty reconciling seemingly conflicting instructions.. For example, Zdim is instructed to eat anyone trying to steal items from an area he is guarding, but later he and his master become vegetarians. When a thief eventually does try to steal something, he doesn't know if he should eat him or not because doing so would violate his instruction to be a vegetarian.

In his travels, he encounters some rather unlikely societies and adapts to them the best he can. He finds himself facing various amusing obstacles and foes and just before the joke gets old, the book ends.

Old School Credentials: Fairly strong. It is listed by name in the first edition Dungeon Masters Guide's Appendix N: Inspirational and Educational Reading. It is also a possible source for the concept of a prime material plane (Referred to as the "prime plane.") and may have had some influence on the clairvoyance spell and crystal balls.

The Good:The book is what it's meant to be. It's fun, mildly amusing, and a reasonably engrossing read. The main character is amusingly sane in an utterly insane world.  And being on the " Inspirational and Educational Reading" list mean it offers insight into the early influences on D&D/AD&D.

The Bad: This is very light reading and won't likely be remembered years later. It's a bit short by contemporary standards.

Value:At Amazon, it is currently available for $0.01, which equals $4 when shipping is added in, which is a fair price. If you can find it at a used bookstore, it will likely be even cheaper. (I picked up my copy a few weeks ago at a local library for 25¢.)

For the larcenous GM: All things considered, there is surprisingly little that could be adapted into a normal campaign. A few ideas, such as having to deal with both a "drunk council" and a sober council to convince a group of barbarians to help the adventures could provide a bit of comic relief. The story's main villains, the Paaluans, a society of naked cannibals that includes magic users using human bones as wands, but are otherwise quite civilized and even philosophical, could make a very surreal addition to many worlds. Because the book is rather successful at being silly fun, its uses as source material are necessarily limited unless the GM wants to run a very non-serious campaign.


Overall: I really liked this one. It was exactly what it set out to be, a fun, entertaining little romp. While short compared to most books today, it knows when to quit (another hundred pages would have caused it to drag). The Fallible Fiend book is very good but not quite great. I'd probably give it an A-.


[P.S.: Content other than just reviews will begin soon and those upcoming reviews I listed before will come soon. I just wanted to review this one while it was still fresh in my mind.]

Review - Monsters of Myth & Legend

Monsters of Myth & Legend is a 1984 monster book published by Mayfair Games, under the Role Aids label. It contains roughly 80+ pages of monsters compatible with 1e AD&D.  It contains creatures from six very different mythologies (Native American, Australian Aborigine, Chinese, Greek, Irish, and Norse).

These monsters are treated in more detail than those in many early monster books and each have their own individual feel. The book is organized much like Deities and Demigods in that s organized by mythology rather than all mixed together.



Old School Credentials: Because it is an AD&d (1e) compatible product published in 1984, it's automatically "old school" to me.

The Good: The internal art is quite good, with the mischievous fox spirit and wise-looking monkey spirit being a couple of favorites.

This is a monster book and most of the monsters are quite interesting. For example, he Chinese section's Roc Demon is too powerful too add to a campaign, unless it is on a far away continent. But a monster that is so powerful that it warps the very nature of the planes in a 500 mile radius and can permanently destroy a target's magic using ability, has potential as an ultimate opponent for a campaign, or it could be used merely as an easy, though terrifying for magic users, means of traveling to the outer planes. The other monsters in the book are less powerful, but are mostly very intersting.

The Bad: The print quality is inconsistent with some pages suffering from extremely bad bleed through. About 5-10% are seriously marred by this, the worst I've seen outside of cheap newspapers.

Some of the monsters will be very difficult to use in most campaigns. For example, the White Elves / Black Elves from the Norse section are just the classic Elves (High, Wood, etc.) and Drow in rawer, mythological, not modern fantasy, interpretations. Making them fit with the modern interpretations would be challenging, likely relegating them to alternate worlds or planes, at best.

It's not the fault of this book, but a few of the Chinese monsters have since gotten "official" versions in Oriental Adventures, which came out a year later. The "animal spirits" of MoM&L and the Hengeyokai of OA clearly share the same origins, though they are quite different interpretations. 

Likely Use: This monster book is likely to used two different ways. First, like the Fiend Folio, there will be a few monsters that the purchaser loves, but most will be largely unused. However, because each section is based on a specific mythology, it is invaluable to any campaign set there. For example, if I were starting an OA campaign, I would certainly use the monsters from the Chinese section.

Value: Like any used product, the value is likely to vary greatly. I paid less than $12 for my copy from Amazon earlier this year. Today, the cheapest I could find in good or better condition is $16 (counting shipping). At $12, it's a pretty good value, at $16 it's still a fair deal.

Overall: I love this one, but I'm less certain that someone who isn't especially fond of comparative mythology would like it. It has many interesting monsters, but some would be very difficult to integrate into a typical D&D world.  For me this book is an A, but I fear that most people would give it a B or C.

Review - Return to Quag Keep

Return to Quag Keep by Andre Norton and Jean Rabe (mostly Rabe) is a 2006 sequel to the classic D&D novel Quag Keep by Andre Norton. This book continues the story of a group of a group of real world gamers who find themselves in their characters bodies, with their memories constantly shifting between character and player. In Return to Quag Keep they are trying to find a way home and trying to find out why they were brought to the world formerly known as Greyhawk.

Old School Credentials: Return to Quag Keep is a sequel to Andre Norton's classic 1978 book, Quag Keep, the first D&D novel. As such, its connections to old school gaming are strong, even though they aren't evident in book itself.

The Good: The book is well written, the story flows well, and there are a couple of good ideas in it.

The Bad:While not the abomination that some reviews make it out to be, Return to Quag Keep has numerous flaws. Perhaps the worst flaw is the lack of a setting. Quag Keep was solidly set in The World of Greyhawk, although a less defined pre-1980 folio version. For whatever reason, this novel does not, likely could not, use the Greyhawk setting, but doesn't create a new one either. Because of this insistence on being generic, the reader will get sick the words "the city" faster than I would have imagined possible. Whenever Rabe breaks away from this genericism, the results are good, but it happens all to rarely here.

It's obvious that a few of the original characters weren't to the new author's taste as one is killed and two are sent away for virtually all the book. This, along with the generic setting, makes the book seem even less like a sequel than it should.

Another minor annoyance is the excessive overuse of "modern" music such as Danny Boy and She's Always a Woman to Me and the nearly non-stop reference to real world locations gets old very quick.

Without giving away any spoilers, I will just mention that the ending is the worst problem with the book. The book ends with the characters in a new predicament that would have likely been the focus of the third book in the series if it had ever been written/published.

There are a few other problems that other reviewers have noted that I'm willing cut Rabe some slack on. A few critics have had conniption fits over a minor spelling change in the name of a tertiary character ("Afreeta" vs "Alfreeta"). Considering that Rabe based the story, at least partly, on notes from a respected, but elderly, author who misspells Wollheim in the introduction, a little tolerance is in order. (Even the original had spelling issues as "Harvel's Axe" is "Marvel's Axe" on the back cover).  And the personalities of the characters are very different than they are in the first book. However, this can be rationalized by the fact that their game personas are somewhat dominant in the first book, while their real world personalities are in nearly complete control in the second. 

Value: It's tough to put a value on a used book, but with the book available for $4 ($.01 + $3.99 shipping) from Amazon, I call it a poor value. It's just not that good a story. However, if like me, you want it as much for a collection as for reading then its a decent value. 

For the larcenous GM: Surprisingly there is a bit here that could be used to enrich many RPG campaigns. Glothorio, the god of coin gatherers, and his tattooed priests could certainly be added to most worlds. As a minor deity, he could certainly add a bit of flavor and the tattoo/sigil magic that they use in casting their clerical spells is interesting. There are also a couple of interesting magic items that could be put to better use than they are in this book.


Overall: Even if you aren't expecting much, this book is likely to disappoint. Removing the setting just sucked the magic completely out of this book.*  I can only give this book a D. Only Rabe's competence at storytelling saves this from being an F.

*Yes, that is a reference to something in the book.

Review - Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game + Field Guide

The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is in their own words a "rules-light game system modeled on the classic RPG rules of the early 1980's. Though based loosely on the d20 SRD v3.5, Basic Fantasy RPG has been written largely from scratch to replicate the look, feel, and mechanics of the early RPG game systems."

The Basic Fantasy Field Guide, is a collection of additional monsters for The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, is similar to the Fiend Folio, QuasarDragon's own Treatise of Twisted Terrors, and numerous other monster books.  It adds additional monsters to the Basic Fantasy Game, mostly classic D&D monsters, but some are new.

I'm not going to o into too much detail here because both of these are available as free PDF downloads HERE. However, I do want to strongly recommend the print versions if you like what see in the PDFs. The production quality if far better than you would expect for such a cheap price.

Old School Credentials: The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is very much an "old school revival" game system, feeling a bit like a streamlined, compromise between the old Holmes Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set and 1e AD&D.

The Good: The game just feels right. It is a good introduction to old school gaming and it has enough depth for a decent length campaign. The art ranges from charmingly amateur to good old school style. 

The Bad: There's not really much new, there's no label on the spine of  The Basic Fantasy Field Guide, and much of the the art will not be to everyone's taste.

Likely Use: While more experienced gamers are very unlikely to make this their game of choice, it is an almost perfect for new and casual gamers. This would make a good, cheap gift to a potential gamer.

Value: Exceptional! I just purchased the the print versions of these two for a combined total of $7.68 from Amazon! That's probably even less than the Holmes D&D would have cost in 1980 and unlike that one, this doesn't stop at 3rd level. The binding and print quality are about the same as the typical softcover game book, which makes the value even more shocking.

Overall: This is an easy A. Even if you just skim it and put it on a shelf, it's a bargain. It really captures the spirit of Basic D&D, but has enough detail for a lasting campaign. 

Review - Conan Video Game

Conan is an action-adventure video game for the PS3 and Xbox 360.  This single-player game puts the user in the role of Robert E. Howard's famous barbarian. After loosing his magic armor in an otherwise cool tomb battle, Conan spends the rest of the adventure looking for them, killing things, casting spells?!!!???, and hunting down a rather inarticulate wizard.  

Old School Credentials:  It is hard to call any video game "old school" in the same way that "old school" refers to table top RPGs; they are very different animals. However, the character "conan" is as old school as it gets. Conan is listed in appendix N of the 1e Dungeon Master's Guide, had two AD&D modules (CB1 and CB2), a 1985 TSR game, as well as appearances by Conan and other Robert E. Howard characters in the old "Giants in the Earth" column in Dragon Magazine. 

The Good: Although the graphics are not always quite up to the sharpness one would expect from a PS3 game, they are really quite impressive at times. The tomb at the beginning of the game is quite well done and the wraiths there are probably the best "minion" type foe for Conan.

Fighting is fun for awhile, though it becomes very repetitive (The first time you cut of a pirate's arms with is a two-blade move is cool, the tenth time, not so much).

Lastly, despite some critic's dislike of Ron Perlman's voice acting, I thought he was quite good as Conan. His voice seemed a good match for the character as written by Howard, not as portrayed by by Schwarzenegger and Momoa. And Claudia Black, who played the Bêlit-like character A'kanna, can do no wrong.

The Bad: In many ways, Conan is a good example of the limitations of video games. It channels the character in ways that would be impossible in a pen and paper RPG, unless you had the world's worst DM/GM. For example, in one area of the game, Conan must make a series of superhuman leaps to survive (perfectly reasonable since it is Conan) but in other areas he is stymied by physical obstacles that would barely challenge Tyrion Lannister.

Occasionally there are instances of "video game logic" where neither skill nor logic will help and one must find the correct sequence of moves by trial and error. When Conan fights the dragon in the last stage, it is fairly easy to defeat it, but it keeps getting up no matter how many times you stun it. In a sensible game, you could administer a coup de gras on the helpless dragon, with Conan slitting its throat or stabbing it in an eye. Nope. Not even possible. Instead Conan must turn his back on a living dragon and perform a couple more utterly irrational acts to defeat it.

Although the game often does a decent job of conveying the flavor of the Hyborian Age, occasionally it goes horribly wrong. Conan, for example, spends much of the game desperately looking his magic armor that gets stolen early on. Elsewhere he has to sink a pirate ship using a ballista and as mentioned above, fights a dragon.


For the Larcenous GM: Some video games can provide good ideas for GM's, but unfortunately, this isn't one of them.  As the story is very thin, there are no plot hooks worth using. The Hyborian setting is already available for use in RPGs as is Conan himself. The Tomb might possibly provide some inspiration, but not much.

Value: At the original price of $60 this game was horribly overpriced. Even if you love the game, despite its flaws, $60 is far too expensive for a game that is supposed to last about six hours (I got tired of if much earlier). However, the price for a used copy is now around $4 to $8 used, which makes it a decent value.

Overall: Not good. While the game started out rather enjoyably, it soon became more tedious than fun. It does have some good points but these are marred by the game's flaws, especially the use of video game logic. I hesitate to give this one a grade because so much of my dislike of this one stems from my hatred of mandatory illogical actions. If you have a great deal of patience for that then at its current low price, this is a tolerable God of War wanna be and deserves a C+, if not then it is a D. 

Upcoming Reviews:  Game Products: Role Aids - Monsters of Myth & Legend, Throne of Evil, and Wizards. Books: Return to Quag Keep by Andre Norton and Jean Rabe and Man of Gold by M.A.R. Barker. Television: Marco Polo.

I'll be back more frequently.