there are a lot of rumors about the guy - I don't know if they are true. Rumors about incentivizing students to give his books high ratings and such as well.
My own experience is that I have read Barrowmaze (decent for its era with some really nice bits and pieces) and Dwarrowdeep. Dwarrowdeep is bad - it is everything not to like in the sort of pure nostalgia style of RPG design - basically its a long series of raids on underground fortifications in the sort of blandest manner possible. It's unfortunate, because it also could have been really cool - there's a lot of nice art in it, but MERP's Moria from the 80's does a better job for example.
I wrote this long review of it if:
Dwarrowdeep has Good Art I don’t know Greg Gillespie, I don’t have any intense feeling for his work or his design history, as while I have l...
bonesofcontention.blogspot.com
My point is that his work hasn't impressed me much since Barrowmaze, and that's enough for me to ignore his B/X clone. It's not as if there aren't plenty of other B/X clones with free editions and really B/X itself is a cheap PDF. Just stop making B/X clones people.
Make setting book instead. One that's not about 800 AD Europe or Vikings etc. At least someone would find a bucket of B/X rules for Napoleonic seafaring useful. 1920's space adventure? Muppets battling giant vegetables? I don't care - but no one needs another "Gygaxian" B/X clone in 2025.
I don’t know the guy…and rumors from disgruntled students don’t really factor into anything for me.
I am glad that to see someone actually looked at one of his products and are talking about that whether they liked or not and why.
I just got barrowmaze for 5e for christmas. It was a surprise (had never heard of it) and I like it quite well. That is what made me look at dragonslayer.
Until now all of the retroclone talk made me zone out. I bought pdfs of all the becmi stuff a few years back and could not grasp why not just use that. We played a bit and I missed some AD&D bits and we just went back to 5e.
Anyway I read the whole of dragonslayer. It really grabbed me. I think it could be the art which is exceptionally cool. So cool that it made me want to play it instead of my upcoming 5e game…it is literally my favorite recent game art in memory.
The criticism I don’t get is “we don’t need this.” How does a choice cause a problem? If you like OSE or BECMI and like it…stick with it! I however and glad to see this offering. It’s a choice that might get me to play old school where say OSE would not.
I found the clear grounding in traditional fantasy refreshing. A return to lawful good paladins did not hurt my feelings and neither did I miss the characters with blue skin shooting lasers from their tails. I mean I love 5e (especially warlocks) and am playing it tonight! But the art really got me pumped as did a few of the tweaks and honestly? Limitations.
Sadly, it hard to have a conversation about his products, I am finding. Instead of criticism about something being bland or derivative or novel and cool a lot of folks are dismissive and shut conversation down because they don’t like something he said on a podcast once or a rumor he is a mean teacher that made a student buy his book.
I am not defending the guy. Don’t know him. Don’t know what terrible thing he said. But I think this product has a lot to offer someone wanting to play a different BX with the best art. There are some tweaks to race selection and class offerings.
Sucks that it is hard to find real pro and con discussion of the products as people instead think their restatement of their world views are somehow more interesting.
I am trying to see if there have been any clarifications to the things I noted when I read the book. And if not, what that means about me making a purchase. The book snd pdf are not cheap…
If it becomes my every other game session choice (not dropping 5e), I need to think those bits through. My guess is since it’s old school I am supposed to figure those portions out and make a ruling. It’s ok but if I pay for a game I want as much of the basics explicit as possible.
Is survival an ability check of some kind? Do we not worry about that?
So while this might be the palate cleanser I have been looking for I am prepping to DM for a Kenku, Goblin, plant person and dwarf party tonight

and it will also be fun.
I will decide in the next few weeks if I am making a purchase. I am leaning toward “yes” at this time.