Goodman Games: Original Adventures Reincarnated #6: The Temple of Elemental Evil, Fully Playable Mega-Dungeon and Mini-Campaign

The pages are nice and thick. Most of the content is in monochrome less the cover reprinted module scans and a beautiful inside cover illustration. And of course the classic blue map foldout. Actually, not fully monochrome, each page has a grey footer. More on this later. I saw a video review of this book that complained about the foldout maps having the map portion of those sheets center-bound through the map itself, but my copy of this book didn't have that problem at all. The map is entirely on the foldout and no central binding cuts through any of them. The editorial notes are an interesting read that provides a greater appreciation of what's included. The 5E conversion is pretty solid and adds a lot of stuff in the same flavor of the original. One thing to keep in mind is that, while this is for levels 3 through 6, it's for between 6 and 10 players which is IMO an awful lot for 5E. A total of 26 - 34 levels is indicated for the original adventure and, while old levels aren't strictly the same current levels 1:1, I would consider that about right. You're definitely going to want a dedicated Cleric and Wizard in the party. The introduction text on the original module suggests this would take anywhere between one and four sessions to complete. This prediction is preserved in the 5E version, but with all the new content and that 5E can get pretty slow sometimes, I would say no way to those estimates. Monsters, at least for the 5E conversion, are helpfully one per page with an illustration of each. You also get details on the Amber family which is also nice. There is another conversion out there (that still requires a purchase of the original module) that has some pretty bad reviews for swapping a lot of the unique monsters out for generic ones found in the MM. I think Goodman Games paid the adventure the reverence it deserves. One major downside is that the bottom footer on each page has the page number and the name of the book and nothing else. No indication on what chapter / appendix you're on, no indication between the original reprint and the conversion, no side indexes which I think ever the core rulebooks could benefit from. The footer then is just wasted space. And, speaking of, the font size of the conversion is IMO excessively large, especially when you compare to the pages that contained the reprinted original, inflating the page count and cost / price. That said, it sure is impressive on a shelf. About the same size as the core rulebooks but twice the thickness (for fewer pages!) Overall, I quite like it and I'm excited to be able to run this as a new DM.

I decided to grab a copy of this text after watching Professor Dungeon Master over on YouTube. He uses it as the basis for a campaign that he's running called the "Caves of Carnage", and I have to say, it's exactly what he touts it to be: a goldmine of ideas and small dungeons for beginning players. I had a copy of this back when I was a kid, but I never played it. That's a shame really! The Keep on the Borderlands is a classic module that serves as the bedrock for a new campaign and it's chalked with plenty of adventures. So why get this particular version? True, you can get a similar amount of mileage out of the original modules (which you can still find at reasonable prices on the web), but you get so much more with this book by Goodman games. First off are the interesting articles written by some of the figures of classic D&D, including Gary's son Luke. Next is you get four (sort of) different modules! You get the original copies of B1 In Search of the Unknown. two versions of the Keep on the Borderlands, and then you get 5E versions of both modules! So you get to see the original texts of these classic Basic D&D modules and you get to see up-to-date versions of this modules that keep the original text from the modules but use the modern mechanics of 5E. Players and DMs like me who prefer the classic mechanics also benefit from the larger maps, and bigger text in the classic modules (us old gamers need it now-a-days!). Honestly, the only down size in my opinion is the sheer size of the book! It weighs in at 382 pages and is the size of your old college textbooks. It would be a unwieldy companion for your gaming table, but it is an excellent reference to use while planning. It's best friend is a journal that you use to plan your adventures in. Jot down descriptions and stats from the book and use the maps to create your own maps and flow charts that you can use at the table. When it's game time use your notes from your journal and keep this tome on the book shelf where it belongs. I honestly can't recommend this book enough.

Goodman Games knocks it out if the park with a loving reissue if a classic D&D adventure setting. The Caves of Chaos await your band of daring heroes. Updated for D&D 5e but has all of the original D&D information available for OSR groups.

I haven’t had a chance to look through it yet but all indications are that it is amazing.

I simply love what Goodman Games has done with this classic mega-dungeon module. Get em while they're cheap!

The first TSR module that I ever played or ran was T1, The Village of Hommlet, published in the old orange monochrome cover with iconic cover art by Dave Trampier back in 1979. I was twelve years old and the idea of a (mostly) above-ground adventure largely taking place in a medieval peasant village was a mind-blower. This was probably the first sandbox scenario I'd ever come across-- the first place where the GM had to imagine an entire world beyond the dungeon-- the first place where the GM had to improvise and adapt because the plot as written wasn't entirely linear. And I didn't just run Hommlet for others-- I ran it five or six times in a matter of weeks. I was obsessed with D&D, and Hommlet was a real place where I could turn that obsession loose. Yeah. It's fair to say that this module holds a special place in my heart. I returned to Hommlet just once in the years since, in 1984, when the long-awaited follow-up adventure was finally published. The Temple of Elemental Evil was a grand, sweeping tunnel-crawl. I had to play T1-4 from beginning to end, so I recruited a friend to run the game, and it was satisfying enough-- but it was really that village where the story began which had so captured my imagination as a child. This massive two-volume set reproduces the original TSR modules in their entirety and also provides an updated version for 5th edition D&D, so you basically get two copies of more or less the same material with revised game rules and current game statistics. Paying for two versions of the same adventure might not be as appealing for people without the nostalgia for the originals, but I enjoyed revisiting Hommlet and rereading the text that I knew so well in 1984. Goodman Games has done a great job with this update to The Temple of Elemental Evil. They didn't strictly limit themselves to converting the material to 5e, either, and also added several new minor encounters to smooth the story out a bit. Creatures from 1st edition AD&D who aren't currently canon in 5e D&D are suitably statted, giving the game a very 1984 feel. The game's layout was, I think, intended to preserve the appearance of an old-school adventure module, and this is perhaps the one criticism I have of the product. Bringing the adventure's format into the 21st century with text boxes, sidebars, and indexing would have made the material a bit more useful and user-friendly, especially considering the massive size of these two tomes. Even as a longtime fan of this material, my heart sunk a little as I flipped through its hundreds of pages, knowing that my first task, after skimming, would be to figure out how to organize and make use of its voluminous contents. The quality of the physical product is outstanding. Both books are solidly bound in a sturdy cover, with a thick heavy-duty slipcase to protect them. This published adventure should survive just about anything short of being immersed in fire or water. My only quibble here goes back to my complaint about the outdated layout-- some new art to update the feel of the adventure would have been really cool-- but the black-and-white drawings contained within are certainly appropriate for the 1980s old-school vibe that Goodman Games was clearly going for. I think I could have done without the reprint of the original module, as much as I enjoyed revisiting my past through those pages. Still, this is a classic adventure module, easily on my short list for best-ever adventure modules, and it's worth having both versions.

I first ran into the ToEE in a secondhand bookstore back around 2000. I fell in love with the adventure, but it was for 2nd Edition. By the time I really started playing, 3rd Edition had come out, and that's what my friends and I were playing, so I never really got a chance to play it. Now, 20 years later, it's been reskinned for 5th Edition! The collection is two massive books. It includes quite a bit of commentary that honestly I have no interest in. It also includes reproduction of the original 2E adventure before it goes into the update. I only dug into the 5E portion, but when I glanced at the 2E repro, it looked just as I remembered. The update is extremely faithful to the original. Mechanics and stats were the primary things updated to make it playable in 5E. They also fleshed out the nodes to make them playable dungeon levels out of the box--in the 2E version, the node areas were just stubs, and it was up to the DM to make them work. Two cautions... party size & makeup and treasure. The encounters were originally scaled to 2E party size & makeup. Modern D&D doesn't necessarily follow the same standards, and the encounters weren't rescaled to match. That could cause encounters to be more dangerous in some situations. The developers did address the issue by giving guidance for the DMs on adjusting the encounters themselves. The other issue is treasure... in the olden days, treasure contributed to the XP the party earned, and it was of course to meant to be split (like the XP). Thus, treasure was integral to character advancement. Modern D&D doesn't directly consider treasure when calculating XP--especially if you're using milestone advancement. Some encounters have unreasonably large amounts of cache or other goods to be claimed... sometimes simply by finding it in a box under the bed. Other encounters may have epic fights with virtually no treasure reward afterwards. It seems a little inconsistent... but that's the way it was in the original adventure. Regardless, just be mindful of how much money is getting into your players' hands; you could break your economy or overpower the PCs. I can't wait to play this with my group :D :D :D

First, full disclosure: I'm an older player who ran the Isle of Dread back in the day, and I have tons of nostalgia for it. I rarely ran pre-written modules, but the Isle of Dread was one exception. I LOVE it. So needless to say, I picked this up right away. If you are reading this listing you probably already know what these Goodman Games releases are: they take old D&D modules, reprint them in their original version or versions, then do a full and expanded 5th edition conversion that has the full original adventure plus a bunch of extra stuff to make it even bigger. Add in a bestiary in the back, NPCs, and more (plus a bunch of great articles & interviews at the front), and you've got a book PACKED with material. So you get new + nostalgia in one book. As for the Isle of Dread, here's why I recommend it: It's a great sandbox with tons of adventure to be had, and it's one that any DM can EASILY adapt for their own campaign world. You can either drop the whole island into your world, or you can just as easily grab any of the dozens of locations here and drop them into your campaign as needed. Old temples, ancient ruins, pirate lairs, caves filled with monsters, jungle villages, settlements of spider people, small dungeons, and lots, lots more, all of it easily adapted with next to no work needed by the DM. Plus, you can also run it as intended: as a big exploration-focused adventure. For that alone, this offers a good value for your money. You can milk this for many, many adventures. Need some one-shot standalone adventures? This has you covered. Want a campaign sandbox? You can use it like that, too. It doesn't even have a focused story, so the story options are limitless. Whether your group wants to seek out riches, solve mysteries, fight monsters, or some story of your own devising, it will all fit on the Isle of Dread. Basically, this is a campaign between two covers, with endless possibilities on how you use it. Big thumbs up.