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Message: <blockquote data-quote="CleverNickName" data-source="post: 8490858" data-attributes="member: 50987">I was curious about the reception that this book received at the time of its release, so I did a little bit of digging around to see what I could find.  And the answer is "not much," sadly.  In 1988, the Internet was quite new, and there wasn't a such thing as a "comment section" or a "blog."  So reader reviews from the time are scarce, and typically only available from TSR or TSR-affiliated sources.The first review I found was in Dragon Magazine (Issue #148, August 1989), written by Jim Bambra.  It reads more like ad copy than a book review; problematic elements are either ignored entirely, or spun to be hidden positives.  In his review, he writes that the book brings the D&D game back "to its roots by allowing players to take on the roles of monsters: dirty, smelly, depraved humanoids, the kind of scum that players love to hate."  His conclusion is that The Orcs of Thar is "high quality," and that it is "wonderfully conceived and executed.  Even if the idea of having humanoid characters doesn't appeal to you, the background material (in the Orcs of Thar) still makes it a valuable contribution to your campaign."And that's it.  I haven't found any other reviews or write-ups for this book from the 1980s or 1990s that weren't ad copy.Branching out into the 21st Century:The Amazon page has a handful of reader reviews.[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.amazon.com/Orcs-Thar-Dungeons-Dragons-Gazetteer/product-reviews/0880386231?reviewerType=all_reviews[/URL]There are only three reviews: a four-star review from 2000, a five-star review from 2009, and a three-star review from 2013.  All three of the reviews are brief, and indicate that it is a great item for collectors.  The 2013 review includes a strange "funny world unlike ours (humanoids)" statement, without any context.Here's a review, written by Age of Ravens in 2012:[URL unfurl="true"]http://ageofravens.blogspot.com/2012/03/orcs-of-thar-rpg-items-i-like.html[/URL]The author's conclusion is that the reader "might feel let down and assume the book will just be silly," but suggests "if you press on and ignore that, focusing on the actual background and material given for the Broken Lands and its people, you'll find surprisingly rich work."  The author admits that "it takes some effort to tease that out--and there's less of it than one might like."The review on DriveThruRPG can be found here:[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/132809/GAZ10-The-Orcs-of-Thar-Basic[/URL]And this is the review that I have the biggest problem with, because of this statement here:That's right:  you either love it because it's "groundbreaking," or you hate it because it's "funny."However, it's the only write-up that includes the Wizards of the Coast disclaimer "We (Wizards) recognize that some of the legacy content available on this website does not reflect the values of the Dungeons & Dragons franchise today", etc.  And this is appropriate, since to my knowledge, this is the only place where this book can still be purchased (PDF only, $9.99USD).  Still, that dismissive "you don't like this because you don't like funny" really sticks in my craw.</blockquote>

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