I will say up front -- both Vol. 2, Monsters and Treasure, and Vol. 3, The Wilderness and & Underworld Adventures, are supplemental only to Vol. 1 and progressively less integral to game play.
Post originally by Scottenkainen at 2004-05-16 21:21:02
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The wandering encounter tables for deserts and arid plains include nomads, dervishes, lords, wizards, red martians, tharks, black martians, yellow martians, white martians, apts, banths, thoats, calots, white apes, orluks, sith, and darseen.
Note that all these monsters are quasi-canonical for the World of Greyhawk setting, as heroes there can wish themselves to Barsoom and back.
Post originally by Strephon Alkhalikoi at 2004-05-17 22:23:22
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Does the reviewer have any idea of the game he is reviewing? The very first edition of Dungeons & Dragons that he is reviewing came as a boxed set, with books 1-3 in it and a reference sheet. It's not like AD&D, where you can review the Player's Handbook seperately from the Dungeon Master's Guide, and then do a further review on the Monster Manual.
Let me put this simply: It's a boxed set, and the reviewer, in attempting to review each book in the boxed set seperately, has shown that he has absolutely no idea as to how boxed sets work. This severely impacts his credibility, to the tune of totally eliminating it.
Other issues that I encountered in this review:
" New rules are bizarrely specific (dragons can be subdued, but orcs can’t?)."
It's not bizarre. Why would you want to subdue an orc? It's not as if they're going to earn you any money. A subdued dragon has inherently more value than an orc. Besides, if you really wanted to subdue an orc, there's nothing in the rules that says that you can't! This to me seems to be a 3d Edition type of mindset, where everything has to be balanced and politically correct to be acceptable.
"Unlike vol. 1, this volume cannot stand alone; you need vol. 1 to use vol. 2."
Considering that they came in the same box, this is a no brainer. A box set works like this: you get multiple books in one box, and you use them together. Simple concept, easily grasped. Except the reviewer seems to have missed the concept.
"However, playing with Men & Magic alone would be limited to a low fantasy, magic-poor campaign."
Not to mention creatureless. Perhaps that's because the books aren't meant to stand alone, but work together? The reviewer seems to forget that in the case of the D&D boxed set he is reviewing, the seperate components are all required to make a cohesive whole. Perhaps that is why they were boxed together?
For an example of how such a review of OD&D should have been conducted, I would recommend taking a look at the review I drafted for the small press game Space Infantry, a game broken up into three books just like Original Dungeons & Dragons (http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_7507.html).
I would rate the review itself as follows:
Style: 1
Substance: 1
The factual errors, the skewed misconceptions, and the author's lack of credibility would have made me give zeros for style and substance, if zeros were a valid number in RPG.net's rating scale.
Post originally by Kobold Lord at 2004-05-18 00:33:21
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"Does the reviewer have any idea of the game he is reviewing? The very first edition of Dungeons & Dragons that he is reviewing came as a boxed set, with books 1-3 in it and a reference sheet."
He just reviewed the first book a few days ago. Think of it as a two-part review that is really long.
"It's not like AD&D, where you can review the Player's Handbook seperately from the Dungeon Master's Guide, and then do a further review on the Monster Manual."
The DMG and MM fail to stand alone in exactly the same sense that the two books being reviewed fail to stand alone. Roughly half of the DMG and MM reviews I have read critically mentioned that they are not adequate if you want to use them without a PHB-equivalent book, so it hardly seems out of line to mention that here, too. It seems that some people *like* using just one book, and to these people requiring multiple books is a disadvantage that they want to know about. The reviewer is simply fulfilling their demand.
"Let me put this simply: It's a boxed set, and the reviewer, in attempting to review each book in the boxed set seperately, has shown that he has absolutely no idea as to how boxed sets work."
Boxed sets are simply packaging. It may or may not be appropriate to review the parts of a boxed set, depending on the contents of each of those parts. While a campaign module probably should not be split, I don't see a real problem here.
"This severely impacts his credibility, to the tune of totally eliminating it."
I hope that was tongue-in-cheek, and I just missed it.
"It's not bizarre. Why would you want to subdue an orc? It's not as if they're going to earn you any money. A subdued dragon has inherently more value than an orc. Besides, if you really wanted to subdue an orc, there's nothing in the rules that says that you can't! This to me seems to be a 3d Edition type of mindset, where everything has to be balanced and politically correct to be acceptable."
Why are dragons such sissies that they instantly submit to some random human who hasn't even technically hurt them just because they declared an intent to subdue? The subdual rules are nutty. Plain and simple. If you like nutty, that's fine, but you can't very well criticize the reviewer for stating the obvious.
"Considering that they came in the same box, this is a no brainer. A box set works like this: you get multiple books in one box, and you use them together. Simple concept, easily grasped. Except the reviewer seems to have missed the concept."
You can use Volume #1 alone, even though there are other books in the same box. Novel concept, huh?
"Not to mention creatureless. Perhaps that's because the books aren't meant to stand alone, but work together? The reviewer seems to forget that in the case of the D&D boxed set he is reviewing, the seperate components are all required to make a cohesive whole. Perhaps that is why they were boxed together?"
Other humans == creatures. Demihumans == creatures. Really, what more do you need? And why is it bad for the reviewer to consider the texts both apart and together? The review in question does target multiple audiences, after all.
I do hope that you were trying to be funny. You weren't, but it is unpleasant to think that you might actually be taking your own words seriously.
Post originally by Thoth Amon at 2004-05-18 05:09:59
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"I do hope that you were trying to be funny. You weren't, but it is unpleasant to think that you might actually be taking your own words seriously."
Funny. I was thinking exactly what Strephon was saying. I figured the review was tongue-in-cheek actually. Apparently, I was wrong, too, as was Strephon.
Post originally by Strephon Alkhalikoi at 2004-05-18 07:50:45
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"Boxed sets are simply packaging. It may or may not be appropriate to review the parts of a boxed set, depending on the contents of each of those parts. While a campaign module probably should not be split, I don't see a real problem here."
It's not appropriate to review only parts of a whole, so I do have a problem with it. It's like figuring out human anatomy with only a foot to go by.
"I hope that was tongue-in-cheek, and I just missed it."
Try again.
"I do hope that you were trying to be funny. You weren't, but it is unpleasant to think that you might actually be taking your own words seriously."
Post originally by Scottenkainen at 2004-05-19 11:46:20
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Although Strephon shows a lack of civility at the end, I will address his valid concerns.
>Does the reviewer have any idea of the game he is reviewing?<
Yes. My D&D/AD&D collection is vast, and I've been "playtesting" the system for 22 years.
>The very first edition of Dungeons & Dragons that he is reviewing came as a boxed set, with books 1-3 in it and a reference sheet.<
I would prefer to review boxed sets as one item, IF that is the format people are most likely to find the books in. That is not the case with OD&D and hasn't been for years. Unless you want to spend a lot more for a complete boxed set on ebay, buying the booklets individually is the way to go.
You do raise a valid point that, for space considerations, I ignored the reference sheets. They are handy "cheatsheets," replaced in later editions by the advent of the DM's screen.
>It's not like AD&D, where you can review the Player's Handbook seperately from the Dungeon Master's Guide, and then do a further review on the Monster Manual.<
Yes you can. I just did.
>It's not bizarre. Why would you want to subdue an orc? It's not as if they're going to earn you any money. A subdued dragon has inherently more value than an orc. Besides, if you really wanted to subdue an orc, there's nothing in the rules that says that you can't!<
There is ample precedent for subduing monsters, going back to the original Greyhawk campaign where Robilar (one of the 1st D&D PCs ever) routinely subdued orcs, gargoyles, and dragons to serve him or use simply as living shields. There's nothing bizarre in that; it's imminently practical. What's bizarre is that the official rules apply only to dragons. Sure, there's nothing in the rules that says you can't subdue an orc. But by that same logic, you don't need rules to subdue a dragon.
>This to me seems to be a 3d Edition type of mindset, where everything has to be balanced and politically correct to be acceptable.<
If that is your main concern, I can assure you that I will seldom, if ever, suggest that 3E D&D is better than previous editions -- though I may point out where it diverged, when, and possibly why.
>Not to mention creatureless.<
Although uncommon in D&D, it is not impossible to run a campaign that uses monsters.
>Perhaps that's because the books aren't meant to stand alone, but work together? The reviewer seems to forget that in the case of the D&D boxed set he is reviewing, the seperate components are all required to make a cohesive whole. Perhaps that is why they were boxed together?<
In my review, I made the case that vols. 2 and 3 are not required, but supplemental to vol. 1. Thus, they would not be required to make a cohesive whole. It is much more likely that they were boxed together because they were easier to sell together than separately at that time. I am only speculating as to that last point, of course, but your opinions seem to be speculative as well. Or have you studied the OD&D books long?
>For an example of how such a review of OD&D should have been conducted, I would recommend taking a look at the review I drafted for the small press game Space Infantry, a game broken up into three books just like Original Dungeons & Dragons (http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/reviews/rev_7507.html).<
I skimmed it just now. It looks like a good review, though I've never seen or played Space Infantry. I don't see how it invalidates the different tact I took with my review, though, and I'm unlikely to use yours as a model in the future.
>The factual errors, the skewed misconceptions, and the author's lack of credibility [snip]<
You never once pointed out a factual error. You used the term "credibility" twice. Credibility for writing reviews? What are your criteria for credibility? Agreeing with you?
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