Goodman Games To Resurrect The Isle of Dread

At Gen Con, Goodman Games announced the second in its Original Adventures Reincarnated series. Following on from Into the Borderlands (which they say was their biggest ever release) will be X1: The Isle of Dread, including the two original publications and a D&D 5E conversion.

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"The first volume, Into the Borderlands, was the biggest release in the history of Goodman Games. The reception to it continues to amaze us, and we are thrilled beyond belief. And we are very proud to announce that the second volume in the series is…drum roll please…X1: The Isle of Dread! OAR 2: The Isle of Dread will contain scans of the two original TSR publications of Isle of Dread (orange cover and blue cover editions), plus a 5E conversion, as well as interviews with original creators and other special features! We’ve also updated the mapping style of the 5E edition, so it will now feature illustrated hand-drawn maps that bring back memories of the original TSR style. Lead writer Chris Doyle and editor Tim Wadzinski return to the project after doing such a great job on OAR 1: Into the Borderlands. Into the Borderlands is back in print and available, by the way, so check your FLGS or our online store for your copy today! And Original Adventures Reincarnated 2: Isle of Dread is currently scheduled to release in November of this year! We’ll be sure to keep you updated with news about it as it gets closer."

The Isle of Dread came out in 1981, and was written by David Cook and Tom Moldvay. It's one of the first examples of a wilderness adventure (as opposed to the dungeon crawls common previously) and had the PCs explore a tropical island replete with dinosaurs, pirates, a hidden temple, and more.

 

[CleverNickName]

The Isle of Dread is my favorite D&D adventure of all time. I remember when I first read it, I was blown away by how detailed and how complete the whole thing was. Not only was it a new location in the game world, but it was fully fleshed out with a rich backstory, new monsters, and new ways of just simply running the game. (To this day, I still make "General Cave Lair" maps for all of my adventures, because you never know when a random encounter might need one. Thanks for the tip, Cook and Moldvay!)

It's a very high bar, but if anyone can pull it off, it's Goodman. I really hope that the conversion includes all of the new monsters that were featured in the original: the rakasta, the phanaton, the kopru, a half-dozen new dinosaurs...I really miss these guys. Bonus points if they make a couple of them playable PC races.

 

[ddaley]

This makes me very happy. I wonder how it'll differ from the 5E play test version of Isle of Dread...

 

[Lazybones]

Can't go wrong seeking to appeal to old-school gamer nostalgia. Played this one back in the day (middle school... man, can't believe that was almost 40 years ago!), and wrote a story hour thread in 2002 that was set there. Definitely had that exotic feel to it no matter what setting you placed the Isle in.

 

[Mistwell]

Isle of Dread has also aged reasonably well. Also liked Paizo take on it in the Savage Tide.

B2 is not that good IMHO more average.

Anyone know the differences between the originals? We played the blue cover back in the day but the copy I have now is orange cover.

Unfortunately I found the opposite. The original Isle didn't age that great, and the Paizo version with Savage Tide (which I converted to 5e) was superior, but only because the beginning part in Sassarine was great. As soon as you get to the Isle, it again became mediocre.

I'm glad others are happy for it though and maybe I can learn how others run it and it will inspire me to seeing the Isle portion itself better than I have in the past.

 

[Reynard]

. I'm glad others are happy for it though and maybe I can learn how others run it and it will inspire me to seeing the Isle portion itself better than I have in the past.

Do you like hexcrawl style play? If not I can see how the Isle is not especially compelling.

 

[Mistwell]

Do you like hexcrawl style play? If not I can see how the Isle is not especially compelling.

I am fine with hexcrawl play I just found this hexcrawl to be fairly boring and repetitive in tone.

 

[smbakeresq]

Do you like hexcrawl style play? If not I can see how the Isle is not especially compelling.

Hexcrawl is fine BUT the DM needs to fully prepare it and be ready for the PCs to over-level for the rest of the game. No one minds hexcrawl as long as something is going on, so it should be filled with monsters, treasures, exotics like fauna that increases ability scores or makes potions, organized tribes of some sort, etc. with some overall goal.

 

[Reynard]

Hexcrawl is fine BUT the DM needs to fully prepare it and be ready for the PCs to over-level for the rest of the game. No one minds hexcrawl as long as something is going on, so it should be filled with monsters, treasures, exotics like fauna that increases ability scores or makes potions, organized tribes of some sort, etc. with some overall goal.

The DM needs to be fully prepared, but that doesn't mean the area itself needs prepared. Lots can be done with well designed encounter, event and location tables. Some of the best games I have ever run relied 90% on random charts.

Also, I am not sure what you mean by "the PCs to over-level for the rest of the game."

 

[Zarithar]

I'll likely incorporate this into my ToA campaign (mashing things up with 5e Chult). Looking forward to it. Are pre-orders available yet?

 

[Zardnaar]

Unfortunately I found the opposite. The original Isle didn't age that great, and the Paizo version with Savage Tide (which I converted to 5e) was superior, but only because the beginning part in Sassarine was great. As soon as you get to the Isle, it again became mediocre.

I'm glad others are happy for it though and maybe I can learn how others run it and it will inspire me to seeing the Isle portion itself better than I have in the past.

Its a thing I have noticed with Paizos APs, alot of hem start of great and then fall off in the middle. Sasserine was greeat, part 1 and 2 of Kingmaker were great, early Aghe of Worms was great.

I think the problem is trying to maintain that over 20 levels along with high level D&D never being that good regardless of edition. WotC APs tend to top out level 10-15 but they are a mixed bad quality wise. Which is the same thing as Paizo. They both have themes but Paizo is a lot more experimental but formulaic.