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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009223" data-attributes="member: 18387">I have not written reviews for the past little while as lots of other work, not least of which was my own campaign, piled up. In a sense this was good as I have gotten a good chance to "playtest" the books I will be reviewing over the next couple of weeks. The book whose mark benefited the most from the playtest is Gary Gygax's brilliant Canting Crew. When I first got this book I must say I felt a fairly ripped of. Book is fairly thin for a hardback of its price, is written in large font and contains at least 5-6 pages of entirely useless material (crunchies the Gary's own system of Lejendary Adventures). On top of that, the good half of the book is nothign but the dictionary of the Cant - the thief's argot based on that of early modern England.For a d20 campaign book contains virtualy no valuable rules material. Prestige classes and spells are behind tose given in such books as Sons and Silence, Qintesential Rogue and Traps and Treachery. If I was reviewing this book immediately after I bought it I would have given it a 2 at most. However, I have worked quite a lot on my campaing in a mean time - specificaly on the criminal elements of the large city which is a centerpiece of that campaing and on a number of adventures that have to do with those elements. In the course of that work I have found that the book I am using the most by far out of my four sourcebooks on rogues is the rules-light Canting Crew. More than any other rogues sourcebook, possibly more then any other roleplaying supplement ever, it succeeds in conveying the atmosphere of the real place filled with real people and yet one that is worthy arena for the fantastic adventures. Reading about the Horse Thiefs, Swindlers, all possible kinds of Beggars did more for my game then all the prestige classes put together. If for nothing else then the very fact that this book takes rare (for d20) grim fantasy approach makes it a worthy read. On the subject of cant itself - it is immensly catching way of talk, much more then the Planescape one. It has already been used at our gaming table and as it is evokative it helps building up the atmosphere significantly. That said, there remains one major problem with this book and the reason I can not give it 5/5. It is repetative. Information contained is superb and inspirative to the highest degree but that is not an excuse for repeating it 2-3 times in the book. (As with the names and ocupations of the various members of the canting crew). In effect this book shoulf not have been a hardcover. As a 96 page softcover (adequately priced) it would have been magnificent as it stands I can not recomend it on price/value aspect.In conclusion - Canting crew is a inspirational read rather then a rules-book. It would be entirely useless for those running a high-fantasy or even highly cinematic campaing.  It is of immense use to the DM who cares about the more down to earth aspects of his campaign cities and has heroes functioning against the background of the everyday life.</blockquote>

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