D&D General Rank the Goodman Games Reincarnated series

[Snarf Zagyg]

I have all of them, and read through them all. I've only played the last one (ToEE - an ongoing campaign we started a year ago). Here's how I'd rank them.

1. OAR 6 (ToEE)
2. OAR 2 (Dread)
3. OAR 4 (Lost City)
4. OAR 5 (Amber)
5. OAR 1 (KotB)
6. OAR 3 (Barrier Peaks)

All are great. Rankings are influenced by 1e experiences, but also layout and ability to run easily (which generally gets better as they did more of them). In every case, GG adds to the 1e version, many times fleshing out areas only hinted at in the 1e versions.

And yes, I kickstarted Caverns of Thracia...

At some point, I'm thinking of investing in the full GG OAR series, so I'd like some more detail. I'm not at all interested in the 5e conversion part- I have run all of these "on the fly" from the 1e versions. I am more interested in the extra historical material, and why you ranked them this way.

Background- I have OAR1 and I liked it. I have all of these versions in the 1e format.

Personal ranking of the 1e adventures would probably be:
1. Amber
2. Lost City
3. Barrier Peaks
4. Dread
5. KoTB
6. ToEE

 

[Stormonu]

Granted, I've mostly just perused them, but the only one I own is the Lost City. For me, they're too bulky for what I really want - a reproduction of the original (just one version, not multiple, and not with all the historical background) and a 5E conversion. I got Lost City because that is a complete campaign where the original only roughed out half of the upper pyramid where as the 5E version has it all mapped out. I'd have gotten the Isle of Dread for the same reason, but I don't have enough shelf space for all these colossal books.

Overall they're great coffee table books, but they're not great for actually using them at the table - and these days I need them more for practicality than show. I've yet to actually run them, but I am happy for the 5E stats - just wish they didn't take up so much real estate. If you are going to run them, I'd take the advice above and use a PDF version instead of a physical copy.

 

[Lidgar]

At some point, I'm thinking of investing in the full GG OAR series, so I'd like some more detail. I'm not at all interested in the 5e conversion part- I have run all of these "on the fly" from the 1e versions. I am more interested in the extra historical material, and why you ranked them this way.

Background- I have OAR1 and I liked it. I have all of these versions in the 1e format.

Personal ranking of the 1e adventures would probably be:
1. Amber
2. Lost City
3. Barrier Peaks
4. Dread
5. KoTB
6. ToEE

My rankings were definitely influenced by personnel bias based on the adventures my group likes to run. However, they also reflect the quality of layout, maps, and organization/ease of use.

So if I remove adventure nostalgia/bias, I'd probably rank Lost City and Amber at the top - both have great maps and very good layout. Flow is nice and makes sense most of the time.

I'd put Barrier Peaks and KotB near the bottom as the layout/organization for both is not great. Both put additional content out of order from how you would run the adventure, requiring lots of page flipping. KotB in particular is cumbersome in how the overland map and keep from B2 is disjointed from B1 (they can be tied together as a campaign) - it took me some time to figure out where B1 was on the overland map for example. Barrier Peaks is the same - the additional overland areas come after the main adventure, instead of before. BP maps are also somewhat difficult to read/follow at times.

I'd put Dread and ToEE squarely in the middle of the pack. ToEE is huge (two volume set), and I hate where they split the volumes. The upper works of the temple are in Vol 1 and the dungeons are in Vol 2, which means I not only need to flip pages, but refer to different books when the party reached the temple. Only complaint on Dread is the additional content comes after the original, so more page flipping.

Hope this helps.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Hope this helps.

I think that will be awesome for the majority of people reading the thread who are going to use OAR to, you know, run the adventures. I always run them from the original 1e materials, though. I was more curious about the additional essays and historical material they put in. OAR1 was good, but there was nothing in there that was particularly amazing for me.

 

[Lidgar]

I think that will be awesome for the majority of people reading the thread who are going to use OAR to, you know, run the adventures. I always run them from the original 1e materials, though. I was more curious about the additional essays and historical material they put in. OAR1 was good, but there was nothing in there that was particularly amazing for me.

Ah, gotcha. I'd need to scan them again, as they are definitely a mixed bagged. Can do that over the weekend.

 

[Lidgar]

@Snarf Zagyg: Ok, so had some free time to review the historical elements and essays from OARs 1-6. Below is how I would rank them in terms of the historical content (versus the adventures).

The historical content generally falls into four categories: 1) Essays by ex-TSR employees, Goodman Games employees, and other affiliates recounting their glory days and personal experiences with the module (“Grognard”), 2) Essays on some of the backstory/history of the module (“History”), 3) interviews with ex-TSR employees (“Interview”), and 4) scans of some of the original printings (“Scan”). For me, I find the interviews tend to be the best parts, but the historical essays can be quite good (the one in OAR 6 really stands out).

1. OAR 6 (Temple of Elemental Evil): Essays by Brendon LaSalle (Grognard), James Maliszewski (Grognard), Jon Peterson (History), Harley Stroh (Grognard/History), and Steve Chenault (Grognard). Interview with Jeff Easley. Scan of third printing of T1 (monochrome), scan of the cover of the seventh printing of T1 (full color), and scan of the third printing of T1-T4.

Comment: The historic pieces of this OAR tick all the boxes for me. The Jon Peterson piece in particular stands out as it includes original sketches from Gary Gygax. The interview with Jeff Easley is pretty good too.

2. OAR 1 (In Search of the Unknown AND Keep on the Borderlands): Essays by Luke Gygax (OG Grogranrd/History), Mike Mearls (Grognard/Game Design Context), Harley Stroh (Grognard), Brendon LaSalle (Grognard), and Alex Kammer (Grognard). Interview with Mike Carr. Scans of the second and sixth printings of B1. Scans of the second and fourth printings of B2.

Comments: Set the standard format for future OAR’s. Interview with Mike Carr and essay by Luke Gygax stand out.

3. OAR 2 (Isle of Dread): Essays by Zeb Cooke (Original Co-Author/History), Paul Reich III (Grognard), Lawrence Schick (Grognard/Known World History), Michael Curtis (Grognard), and Harley Stroh (Grognard). Interview with Zeb Cook. Scans of the first and fourth printings of X1.

Comments: Interview with Zeb Cook and essay by Lawrence Schick stand out.

4. OAR 3 (Expedition to the Barrier Peaks): Essays by Michael Curtis (Grognard), Tony DiTerlizzi (Author/Illistrator/Grognard), Earl Otis (OG Artist/Art Process), and James Maliszweski (Grognard). Interview with Diesel LaForce. Scans of the first and second printings of S1. Also includes an essay by Jon Peterson on the tie ins to Metamorphosis Alpha in one of the appendices.

Comments: The Earl Otis piece stands out where he demonstrates the process of painting the Froghemoth. The Jon Peterson essay at the end is also interesting. Side note: the printing I have of OAR 3 was printed on glossy paper instead of the thicker stander stock used in the other OARs (not sure if that changed with subsequent printings). While this is great for the artwork, its less than ideal for reading the text and flipping pages.

5. OAR 5 (Castle Amber): Three essays by Michael Curtis (two Grognard, and another focusing on the author Clark Ashton Smith, whose stories influenced the adventure), two by James Maliszewski (one Grognard, the other on Historical sources for the original adventure), Tim Wadzinski (Grognard), and Doug Kovacs (regarding the art he produced for the interior cover). Scan of the first printing of X2.

Comments: The essays on Clark Ashton Smith and the fictional sources for Castle Amber are good.

6. OAR 4 (The Lost City): Essays by Chris Doyle (Grognard), Mike Mearls (Grognard/Adventure Design), and James Maliszewski (Grognard). Interview with Harold Johnson (Original Co-editor). Scan of the first printing of B4 and a scan of the cover to the “red banner edition.”

Comments: Probably the weakest OAR in terms of historical content/analysis.

Feel free to ask any follow-up questions. Was fun browsing through all of them like this - though it made quite the pile on the couch!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

So, of the current six available I’ve only ever owned Lost City. I’m considering jumping in and collecting these even if I only ever just read all the extra content for some and not play them.

With that in mind, how would you rate the 6 adventures and additionally how would you rate the 6 as historical artifacts (the interviews, added backgrounds, etc).

Also more general, do you feel the conversions allow for a good, old school game with 5e rules?

Thanks!

I have all the existing ones and will be picking up Dark Tower when it comes out next year and probably Caverns of Thracia after that, although I never played that one back in the day and have no particular warm feelings for it.

The books are OK. The content is great -- or as great as the original was or wasn't -- but the form factor makes them very hard to use at the table. I've run both the Keep on the Borderlands and Isle of Dread from the OAR books and even with the bound-in bookmarks (I wish all game books had these), they're cumbersome. It would be great if WotC would allow Goodman to sell officially licensed PDFs of these so that DMs could print out what they need, rather than carrying around hardcover phone books to try and use in play.

I started playing in 1979 and have very strong feelings -- all warm -- about the titles Goodman has reprinted so far, so that colors my feelings for the books. (And makes me their intended audience, obviously.)

I'm reviewing them as a DM, not as historical artifacts, because I, too, am a historical relic and owned the original versions of all of these, except for T1-4, of which I owned two different versions of T1 (duo-tone and full color covers).

That said, my ranking:

#1: Into the Borderlands. Not only do you get two classic dungeons in one, they both hold up! You also get a bunch of conversions of BD&D monsters -- nothing says "you're not in Renton any more" like throwing a thoul at your player characters. This still has the quirks of the originals: You'll need to stock B1 for yourself (although they provide suggested load-outs) and no one in the freaking keep except for the villains are named. I went to the internet and copied all the names of the characters from the Keep on the Borderlands novel and Return to the Keep on the Borderlands and named them that way, keeping all the names in a separate document. Keep on the Borderlands, in particular, has a lot of potential for a long campaign, as even without the Caves of Chaos, there's a ton to do in the Borderlands. Do warn your players that these adventures have monsters in numbers that made sense in 1979. Players need to either hire a ton of hirelings as cannon fodder or plan to use a lot of AOE damage. The first encounter outside the kobold cave is more than a dozen kobold archers hiding in a tree, and they're more than capable of killing a party in a single round unless they're spotted by good scouting and then taken out with AOE spells immediately.

#2: Castle Amber. This has a ton of crazy monsters, a wild funhouse dungeon, an alternate world and so much more. This can be played for laughs or treated like nested Ravenloft domains. It works either way. If you wish that Edgar Allen Poe had written fantasy novels, this is one to pick up.

#3: The Lost City. I was glad to see this one made into an OAR, since I think it's too often overlooked. It's a dungeon crawl and a miniature campaign setting big enough and with enough going on to keep a group occupied for years, if they wanted. I would recommend reading the Conan story "Red Nails" beforehand to get a feel for what they're going for here, and this strongly benefits from reading and rereading the original module (included) and maybe charting out the different power groups in the complex, since if players live past their first session, they're going to realize they can't just hack their way through a whole city.

#4: Isle of Dread. This is iconic, but the actual hex crawl is presented poorly -- there weren't a lot of great designs to steal from back then, so no shame on them for this -- and the story of the island is mostly "here's a bunch of stuff we like, although it doesn't really coalesce to tell much of a story." You will have to do some work to make this a fun modern adventure, but it has a lot of good bones. It's probably better as a setting book for you to run your own adventures in and it has a lot of potential there.

#5: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks. It has a great central idea and was a hoot when it was a shock to player back in the day. That said, it's overly long -- Dyson Logos did a set of maps shrinking the whole complex down that I recommend -- and some of the monsters feel very much like also-rans from Gamma World. Still, if your players don't know what's coming and won't be upset about mixing science fiction with fantasy, this is still a lot of fun, especially since the late 1970s version of futuristic means that some of the stuff aboard the crashed vessel is alien to today's eyes, since it's not how computers and the like actually turned out.

And a HUGE drop to #6: Temple of Elemental Evil. T1 is great and holds up even today, with a well-detailed town and a short fun introductory dungeon that I've played through and run a dozen times or more. T 2-4 (the titular temple) is a turkey, though. It's a crappy dungeon, doesn't make sense with T1 and the new monsters, like the elemental grues, are terrible. Get this if you're a completionist or if you want to play through Village of Homlett, which is still a great adventure.

 

[Jack Hooligan]

Thanks again, all, for these great responses! Especially @Lidgar and @Whizbang Dustyboots for the lengthy, in-depth replies!

Personally, I think I’m leaning towards: Into the Borderlands, Lost City, and Isle of Dread, mainly because I actually owned all three of these the first time around in the early 80s (I’m 47), but never actually played them!

I’m teetering on the fence with ToEE, mainly because the current online cost is discounted so much and I’ve heard a lot of great things about Hommlet, but several sources have mentioned the later dungeon crawling being a drag. Plus, I’m already leery about the size of these books, two of these books for one adventure seems a bit excessive. Again, FOMO on that price though.

 

[Retreater]

So far I have Borderlands, Lost City, and Isle of Dread. I have run part of Borderlands in 5e (the segment of Into the Unknown) - which did not translate well to a modern audience, IMO. I am currently running Isle of Dread, and that group is very much enjoying it.
I have Temple of Elemental Evil and Dark Tower on order. The others don't really appeal to me.
I like the expanded 5e content in each of the ones I own. The books seem well made and have held up (so far) for use at the table.

 

[Jack Hooligan]

@Retreater - what is this Dark Tower I’ve seen mentioned? I’m not Familiar with it. Is it a 5e adventure of the old board game?

EDIT: nvm I see it’s an older adventure… but in three books!?!!

Also, what didn’t translate to modern audiences? Did you have a TPK?