2017 Year in Review

The top posts of 2017

This is the part where I write some hyperbole about how wild and crazy the year was. How all these amazing things happened. Well, 2017 was actually just kind of ok. Not particularly bad, or good. I mean the news had plenty of bad to report, but as far as the OSR gaming world there wasn't anything earth shaking to me, its all been fun and games as usual.

One thing I've noticed for this blog is how much the comments section has quieted down. Hardly a peep every once in a while. I don't know if that is because the world is moving away from blogs over to social media, or I haven't written compelling enough, or controversial enough, material to warrant much discussion. Perhaps I'll start offering giveaways and special rewards to random people who post (meaningful and productive) comments.

Looking at the top posts of 2017 there was some interesting and entertaining entries that are worth taking a second look at.


5. Three-Volume Rules Cyclopedia
News to many of us, this find on eBay of a unique 3-Volume Rules Cyclopedia that was only published in Japan stirred some interest. The art gave it such a different flavor than any edition published in the USA. How cool if it had been published in English as well? TSR was just too conservative I think, which is partly why it went under. Completely tone deaf to it's customers.
https://originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.com/2017/08/3-volume-rules-cyclopedia.html

4. Beastie of the Week: Colonel Redcap
Of all the Beasties of the Week I've posted why has this one gotten the most hits? Are there that many gnome lovers out there? I guess the idea of battle gnomes does have a certain appeal to it. Maybe the contrast between peaceful gnomes and war is interesting.
http://originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.com/2017/04/beastie-of-week-colonel-redcap-battle.html

3. Gen-Con 50
Not too much of a surprise. For those who couldn't make it to Gen Con 50 it was probably a treat to see the retrospective. Seeing the original 1e Dungeon Master's Guide cover art was something I'll never forget. And that contract Dave Arneson and Gary Gygax signed for the rights to Dungeons & Dragons was interesting in how naive it was on the part of both parties, Gary in particular.
http://originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.com/2017/08/gen-con-50.html

2. Alternate Red Box Cover
This was a lucky find! And wow, what a blast of nostalgia and what-could-have-been all in the same image.
http://originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.com/2017/04/alternate-red-box-cover.html

1. A Princess of Mars Adventure
And we get to the top post of 2017. A little mock cover I made as a lark. This one hit a nerve and I think a lot of ERB fans would like to see this one become a reality. I would make it, but my concern is how litigious the ERB company is known to be. I believe that the book being in public domain means it is fair to develop it into products like all the Alice in Wonderland, and Dracula, and Grimm's Fairy Tales, etc. we see made into games, animations, movies and toys. These early ERB books belong to the public and our culture now. Time to set them free.
http://originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-princess-of-mars-adventure.html

Runner Ups
Other popular posts were the free character sheets I made, which you can access through the Free Stuff tab at the top of this blog. I want to do more free downloads in 2018. Perhaps maps? Monsters? One-page dungeons/adventures? If you have any requests let me know.

Biggest miss of the year
One last item. The one book I was really hoping to finish in 2017 now doesn't look like will ever be done. It's just too much, too much variety, too much content. There's a reason magazines hire multiple writers each issue, that's basically what creating the Old School Art Book has been like. I even tried to rally the community but just got crickets. Which is a good thing, it lets me know there wasn't that much demand for it. I'm not bummed about it or anything, it came out of a comment someone made to me at a convention when they flipped through a sketchbook I was selling they said "if these drawings had stats on them I could use in my game I'd buy it." Which I thought was an interesting idea. I know even as an artist and fan of art I don't buy that many artist sketchbooks, but if it had more practical use I probably would.
http://originaleditionfantasy.blogspot.com/2017/08/what-about-that-old-school-art-book.html

Thank you so much for those of you who regularly read this blog. It can be lonely out here in the blogosphere and you don't know if anyone is reading. And when you check your stats you wonder if it is humans or bots? Or how much of each?

So long 2017, hello 2018!

Sigil: The City of Doors

Planescape came out at the time I was taking a hiatus from D&D because second edition had turned me off, and I'd migrated to playing GURPS and other RPGs. During this period David "Zeb" Cook took the concepts of Outer Planes from the 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide and did what the Manual of the Planes should have: turned it into one of the greatest settings of all time.

I didn't discover this until years later when I picked up the Planescape boxed set at a garage sale around the time that Planescape Torment, a computer roleplaying game, came out. So it must have been around 2000. Torment was one of the best CRPGs in its day.

I haven't played the Planescape setting at the gaming table as much as I'd like. A few short sessions, but I never really got a gaming group that wanted to play a campaign. However I have enjoyed reading those books, and will always have fond memories of playing Torment. Also, a lot of the art and design is really interesting and different.

Legend goes that the symbol for Planescape: a female face surrounded by blades called "the Lady of Pain" is a representation of Lorraine Williams. Because everyone loved working with her so much?

One of the most compelling concepts in Planescape is the city of Sigil. This city was set in the middle of the Concordant Opposition and was a meeting place for all kinds of extra-planar beings. What made this so compelling was that the city was full of doors that lead to other planes. You can see from a gaming perspective what an awesome idea that is, as well as a logical feature that fits in nicely with the entire idea of the setting. Too bad Planescape hadn't come into being much sooner, well if Manual of the Plans had been this we'd have a lot more fond memories of that book and the setting may have become as large as Forgotten Realms. But, by the time it came out there were a lot of distractions for the gaming market with everything from dozens of popular role-playing games, computer games were on the rise, as well as the release of Magic: the Gathering which changed everything.

On the Russian blog Nether-Whisper there is an interactive map of Sigil that is very well done. You can explore the city in detail. If you're playing a Planescape campaign I could see this as a valuable tool to enhance the game.

https://nether-whisper.ru/rp/planescape/map-of-sigil/?location=G8

Erik of Tenkar's Tavern has posted a great interview of Tim Kask he found. The video was posted back in October last year on the Dorks of Yore channel, but I somehow missed it until Erik pointed it out.

Tim Kask talks about the early early days of TSR with lots of anecdotes (and some pie) about those days long ago when this weird little game called Dungeons & Dragons just came out which nobody really quite understood yet. It's nearly two hours long, only meandering occasionally, and a great ride through TSR history.

Weta Workshop Sculptor's Labyrinth Model

For those of us with a love for fantasy who grew up in the 80's the movie Labyrinth was pretty special. The designs that Jim Henson's workshop made for that movie still hold up. The stunningly gorgeous Jennifer Connelly was any boy's dream. And of course the great David Bowie was simultaneously entrancing and terrifying as the Goblin King. Just brilliant.

Sculptor Johnny Fraser-Allen has recreated the Labyrinth and its characters in miniature as part of a board game that is being developed. Adam Savage (of Mythbusters fame) visited his workshop and conducted this great interview.

You could write a pretty great RPG adventure based on Labyrinth. And the world that movie evokes is a compelling setting. I could see a series of adventures much like Gygax's Dungeonland and Beyond the Magic Mirror adventure modules!

Top posts of 2016, Year in Review

Happy New Year everyone!

2016 saw tremendous growth for this blog, while the unique visits have rocketed to well over 13,000 a month, nearly 4,000 more than last year's average, it has been interesting to see so much of the conversation move over to Google + and various forums, with only the occasional comment on individual posts here and there.

My top 5 posts this year, in terms of traffic have been:

This homage to skull mountain from the Blue Holme's edition:
5. Mystery Map: Underworld Cutaway

A partial review (which I hope to finish soon) of TSR's Indian Jones RPG:
4. The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role Playing Game

Of the various previews of the new Raiders RPG I'm working on, this one was most popular:
3. Raiders Preview: Fringe Groups and Pseudo-Archeology!

And for some reason, this really old post, still ranks in my top traffic every year! I should do a follow up post to talk about what I learned from this.
2. OSR Manifesto

And the hands down winner by far was this little gem I stumbled across and immediately shared on this blog and on a cartography group I'm on:
1. Map Your Own Fantasy World to a Globe

I'm resolving to make this blog even more useful this year, creating more Beasties, more Maps, and more supplemental information ready for use in your own game.

Cheers.

The Savage Sword of Conan!

Dark Horse comics has been publishing reprints of the entire run of The Savage Sword of Conan. It is now complete with the publication of #22 (just that book is over 600 pages!). I sporadically collected the original magazines in my youth, and loved them, so it is a special treasure to be able to have the entire collection on my bookshelf!

They almost all fit!

I minor gripe, the reprints are smaller than the original, and they are printed on cheap newsprint. It would have been preferable to see it reprinted on higher quality whiter paper so the artwork could stand out better. I would gladly pay a few bucks extra for that.

I was thinking of doing a retrospective, as this type of fantasy greatly influenced D&D, and I'm sure many of you collected and were inspired by these barbaric tales.

There were so many great, truly amazing, artists whose work filled the pages of Conan. Where else could you see such impeccable draughtsmanship and fine detailed inking on a monthly basis? Not since the hey day of the golden age of illustration, before color printing became the norm, has there been such a bounty of ink drawings of this caliber being produced and printed without color. Just the raw black & white inks!

In this story Iron Shadows in the Moon master penciler John Buscema is having his drawings being graced with the stunningly skilled Alfredo Alcala, arguably the top, or at least in the top 3 inkers of that era. The result is jaw dropping.

The story itself is ok. It runs in 3 parts. In the first part Conan is the lone survivor of a massacre and he unintentionally saves a slave girl. He actually shows himself to be a bit of a gentlemen - to contrast with the barbarism of the "civilized" slavers. Part 2 delves into some ancient ruins, and there is an encounter with a wizard. The last part they run into pirates and Conan does what he does so well. I won't spoil the ending.

This could very easily be converted into a fun little three part D&D adventure.

I highly recommend this series.

The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role Playing Game

If adventure has a game, it must be Indiana Jones

This is going to be an in depth review of The Adventures of Indiana Jones Role Playing Game (IJRPG). This review is going to be covered in several parts. This portion is going to be a high level overview, then we'll get into combat & system, character creation (yes, there is character creation!), and then some of the supplements.

I'm going to dive into the most maligned RPG of all time. A game so infamous that an industry award called the "Diana Jones Award" is given out each year, in honor of just how terrible this game is. It is somewhat ironic that this award represents excellence in gaming as chosen by a select group of game industry insiders, but this is how the committee explains it:

The Diana Jones committee believes that a trophy that embodies the destruction of the last copy of one of the games industry’s most unloved and least-mourned products is a suitable symbol for the aims of the Diana Jones Award.

Unloved. Least-mourned. This is how the Indiana Jones RPG is remembered.

Based on Raiders of the Lost Ark which isn't just a good movie, it is one of the greatest films of all time. #36 on IMDB's top films list. #60 on AFI's top list. It holds a special place in the hearts and minds of fans everywhere. Perhaps the greatest sign of how beloved this movie is: attend any convention where cosplayers roam and you will inevitably see several Indiana Joneses & Diana Joneses. But, not only was Raiders of the Lost Ark a fantastic movie, it had two terrific sequels that expanded the world and were also both well received (well, a minority did complain about Temple of Doom's sillier tone, but I happen to like it a lot).

These movies have action, adventure, mystery, great characters, and magic. All the ingredients for a fantastic game.

What went so horribly wrong? What made it so bad that it deserved to be called the worst RPG of all time? Well, apparently it is because of one fatal flaw: no character creation rules.

For this grievous sin, for this unpardonable oversight, for this unspeakable crime against gaming, IJRPG was banished to the nether realms, to the graveyard of failed RPG's.

I disagree.

The Adventures of Indiana Jones is a remarkably high quality product for its day. It included a rulebook, an adventure, a battle map (a world map on reverse), a referee's screen, 3d cardboard fold-ups, dice and a crayon! That is a lot of value packed into the box.

The next installment of this review I'm going to do an overview of the system itself.

On a side note as I was writing this review, the news dropped that John Williams will be scoring the next Indiana Jones film which will star Harrison Ford.

I've often thought that Indy works best in that period between World Wars. He is at his best when his adversaries are Nazis. Harrison Ford is great and incomparable, but so was Sean Connery as James Bond. Time for a new actor to put on the fedora and start a new story at the tail end of WWI. Imagine him meeting Private Hitler in the Great War, the beginnings of an epic rivalry...

At any rate, as I wrap this up, here are some other reviews and semi-reviews:

Not a lot of reviews on the interwebs, but this one by Doc Rotwang echoes my opinion pretty well:
http://xbowvsbuddha.blogspot.com/2012/05/youd-better-watch-your-mouth.html

Grognardia simply says "How disappointed I was when I finally got hold of a copy of the thing!"
http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2011/08/ads-of-dragon-indiana-jones-roleplaying.html

Source:
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/43596/adventures-indiana-jones

Related, the West End Games version:
https://rpggeek.com/rpgitem/45691/world-indiana-jones

A Few Favorite Elmore Illustrations

In the early 80's TSR transitioned from using talented amateurs to hiring professional illustrators. One of the first was Larry Elmore, this marked a huge change in the overall look and feel of D&D products. I can't help but have a fondness for this art since it was when I was in high school and starting to take a serious interest in drawing and painting. These are some of my favorite illustrations by Larry Elmore.

This was the first piece of art by Elmore I had seen. What's not to love? Pig faced orcs! An epic encounter with a cavalier, and a dynamic composition. Ok, maybe those orcs do look a little like people in masks, but I still like this one.

Sometimes Elmore could really create an emotional scene:

For a time this was very much my mental image of what D&D was:

And I can't believe I just discovered this while looking up reference for this post. Larry Elmore illustrated the arcade cabinet of one of my favorite video games of all time. I should have recognized his style!

Judges Guild Deluxe Edition

I recently helped Goodman Games to layout a compilation of classic Judges Guild material into a giant deluxe edition. My interest in Judges Guild goes back to the very first experiences I had with Dungeons & Dragons. I went to a local bookstore in Tucson Arizona back in 1982 after I first learned about D&D to get some of the books. In a back corner they had a stack of Judges Guild material, but none of the TSR stuff. I was a bit confused as the only D&D books I'd seen at the time were the Dungeon Master's Guide and the Red Box (Moldvay) set. These books didn't look quite like what I was searching for.
Years later I came to understand that they were Judges Guild publications and (to this day) kicked myself for not picking up any of those books!
I got some good fortune recently when Goodman Games asked me to do the layout for an EPIC Judges Guild book that compiled the first publications and the classic adventures that Judges Guild did before Adventure Modules even existed! This was like delving into the very earliest days of RPG gaming at the dawn of D&D history. I got access to those earliest publications of Judges Guild in incredibly high fidelity scans. I want to say this book is an old D&D fan's dream. These are the books I missed out on in my youth, and am getting to enjoy and appreciate now.
Goodman Games started a Kickstarter to fund the publication of this reprint of classic Judges Guild material. I have the fully laid out book on my hard drive and can't wait to get the print edition. This book is massive and monumental. I hope you are as excited as I am to back the Kickstarter!

The Nightmare Realm of Baba Yaga - Endless Quest

Since the early 80's Endless Quest books have been helping DnD fans get their DnD fix when they've got no one to play with.

Last week I alluded to this book in my post about Interstellar, Baba Yaga, and Tesseracts. This is the first Endless Quest book I read that you actually have to play it like a game with dice and a character. The only reason I got this book was that I enjoyed the adventure as it was described in Dragon #83. But it turns out this book is actually based off the 2nd edition AD&D adventure The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga.

The character sheet is really pretty clever, it does double duty as a bookmark. The character, Jerrak the bland, is a plain vanilla fighter.

Your companion in the game is Mjolnir. Mjolnir the dwarf? Seriously. I never did get over being annoyed by that name each time I read it. That was one of the few negative marks I'd give the book.

Unlink previous Endless Quest books I've read, you don't just choose your path, you often have to roll to determine results. The system has very little to do with AD&D. I think I would have preferred if it stuck closer to AD&D, rather than some new system that really isn't any more clever or better suited for the genre.

Overall the writing is fine, and the adventure quite enjoyable. It rates on the higher end of the Endless Quest books. Though I'd say it errors on the easy side, I've yet to get killed or even close to 0 HP, and have beaten the adventure each time. The author Roger E. Moore was probably my favorite Dragon magazine editor (or a close tie with Kim Mohan), and I've really enjoyed some of his other stories I've read. Particularly "A stone's throw away" a short story in Dragon magazine featuring Tasslehoff Burrfoot and Demogorgon, which was my introduction to the Dragonlance universe (also reprinted in The Magic of Krynn).

Interstellar and Baba Yaga's Hut

Over the weekend I watched Interstellar at the theater with my wife. As the story unfolded there was a scene that reminded me of Baba Yaga's Hut from my favorite issue of Dragon Magazine. What in the universe could Interstellar and Baba Yaga's Hut possibly have in common?
A tesseract.
Ok, for those of you who hate spoilers that is as close to a spoiler as I'll get. And I don't think it is much of one. Considering the movie deals with worm holes, black holes, and relativity, it should be no surprise that the concept of a tesseract makes an appearance in the movie. It also happens to be one of the more clever sci-fi aspects in the story. In case you're wondering yes we liked the movie very much and would recommend it. You should see it at the theater, Imax if you can. It's that kind of experience.

So, back to Baba Yaga's Hut. In Dragon Magazine #83 is an high level adventure featuring Baba Yaga written by Roger Moore. The layout of her hut's interior is a tesseract. This was not only the first issue of Dragon I had purchased, it was also the first time I'd learned about a tesseract. And my imagination was ignited by the potentials. There are so many strange possibilities in a 4th dimensional object and all the fascinating things you could do with it. It took a while to wrap my head around the concept, but once I grokked it, my mind was opened to dimensions I hadn't considered before.
There is a scene in Interstellar that is one of the best visual representations of a tesseract I've yet seen. And once you see it, the maps in Baba Yaga's Hut will make a lot more sense.

I never have had a chance to play through this adventure. However since reading this issue of Dragon, Baba Yaga has become one of my favorite fairy tale characters and I've read a lot about her over the years. I've gotten to do a few illustrations about her for various publishers. Like this one in Legend of Badass published by HarperCollins:

TSR revised the adventure and published it in a module called, the Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga written by Lisa Smedman. I recently acquired this artifact, but haven't read all the way through it. Based on my skim through it looks like it is more inspired by Roger Moore's version than an actual rehash. It still looks pretty good. Though the few reviews I've read by those who have actually played it report that players quickly become frustrated by the layout and the various traps and puzzles in it. I can see how moving through a tesseract could be bewildering for 3-dimensional beings like ourselves.

There is another Baba Yaga product by TSR I have, one of those choose-your-adventure books. I have played through that one, and enjoyed it quite a bit. But that is worth a post of its own.

Look Back: The Book of Marvelous Magic

The Book of Marvelous Magic is a compendium of interesting magic items to use in your D&D games (as opposed to AD&D).

This book evokes deep nostalgia for me. Even though in 1984 I was in a frame of mind that considered AD&D to be the "real D&D", and anything for basic to be "for the kids".

When this came out I considered Clyde Caldwell to be TSR's "best" artist (my opinion has since changed considerably) so I thought this cover was grand. So when I saw this at the game store I snatched it up using my meager allowance money, brought it home and eagerly read through it. Looking at it now, over 25 years later I consider the cover art to be perfectly serviceable, but certainly not the greatest art on a D&D product.

It is notable that this book is the last thing Gygax wrote that could remotely be considered "original D&D" material. Not AD&D.

The variety of magic items within seemed inspired and eminently useful. I immediately put them to use in my D&D games (oh, the days when I had so much free time to play!) and I vaguely recall having considerable success in using this book. Really, it was one of EGG's better efforts.

Looking through it now I wonder how much of it EGG wrote, and how much of it is Frank Mentzer's. I see little evidence of EGG's distinctive prose, in fact it is mostly quite dry. What I suspect is that EGG wrote a bunch of ideas for magic items and Frank was left with the job of detailing them out.

Skimming through it now I still love this book. It is chock full of great (and some not so great) ideas, but many, many of the magic items are very useful regardless of what system you are using. For example I like that so many of the items are not just your typical wand, boots, or other mundane item. Such interesting things as Figureheads, Hammocks, Kites, Soap, and Spinning Wheels make their appearance here. It reminds me of how staggering Gygax's imagination really was.

I think I want to start using this accessory again, it's been a long time.

White Dwarf #4

White Dwarf #4, January 1977

Early White Dwarf is vintage old school. There was no Games Workshop products in my area growing up, and nobody I know of even heard of White Dwarf. It wasn't until I was an adult in the US Army stationed in Ft. Carson Colorado that I was exposed to White Dwarf and the Warhammer universe.
Later White Dwarf magazines became a house organ to Games Workshop and pretty much exclusively promoted only their products, so I didn't really get into it. However, my interest in 1970's DnD has compelled me to dig up early White Dwarf magazines. And they are incredibly satisfying. Scratching an itch for old school that only pre #30's Dragon and Dungeoneer magazines scratch.
White Dwarf #4 closely resembles early Dragon and Dungeoneer magazines. In fact reading this issue one wonders what DnD would have been like with different creators behind it. There is a great article on a Barbarian class (which TSR would not publish a version of until July 1982 in Dragon #63). It is fun to see the differences and similarities. Both have tracking skill, but that is about where the similarities end. The White Dwarf Barbarian strikes me as being much truer to the spirit of the original edition.

Other articles that predate later TSR offerings include Alice in Dungeon Land (astute readers will recall Gygax's great Dungeonland module), and an article on competitive DnD which was a little hard for me to decipher since it is the 4th in a series of articles which I don't have. All in all early White Dwarfs are a great read for anyone interested in the formative years of DnD (and the hobby in general), but they are much harder to come by than Dragon is. I would very much enjoy a compilation of White Dwarfs like the Dragon Magazine CD archive.

 

Look Back: Cities of Mystery

I bought very few TSR products during the dreadful "2nd edition" era, but there is one that has remained as one of my favorite D&D supplements of all time: Forgotten Realms Cities of Mystery. This boxed set has proven to be, and continues to be, one of the most useful sets published.

My own boxed set has long since disintegrated, and the cardboard buildings that came with it long gone. The main booklet though remains on my gaming table as an essential resource whenever I have to run a city adventure.

Of all the adventure types I always find running city adventures to be the most difficult. Give me a good dungeon any day! Even extra-planar adventures on radically strange dimensions are easier to run than a city. The openness of a city combined with the complexity and endless possibilities drives me to madness. I never seem to have the time to develop a proper detailed city before hand, and I find most published city settings to be tedious at best (City State of the Invincible Overlord, the original Thieves' World set, and Lankhmar excepted).

Looking over the credits I see it was written by Jean Rabe and edited by Kim Mohan. Considering that my favorite era of Dragon magazine was when Kim was the editor, and many other TSR products edited by Kim also being some of my favorites I think that may be part of the reason. While Jean Rabe seems to be a very good writer, though nothing else in her bibliography particularly stands out to me.

The first thing about Cities of Mystery that makes it my favorite city resource are the random tables. While there have been many random tables for city encounters such as the excellent one in the original DMG (brazen strumpet!) and in Judges Guild's Ready Ref Sheets, I find the ones in Cities of Mystery to be the most useful to my campaign. Particularly when I am playing sandbox style. Which is usually the case, though the occasional "adventure path" appeals to me once in a blue moon. These random tables manage to be relatively comprehensive, yet remain easy to use.

I've made a PDF file of the pages I most use, which boil down to 11, 12, 15, 38, 44, & 45.

Mixing Governments (page 11). In previous posts I've discussed how to randomly choose two cultures or government types and combine them to create a new, interesting government/culture. Cities of Mystery beaks government types down to 20 basic different types - convenient for rolling a d20 for. You can quickly roll twice and come up with dynamic combinations like: Magocracy Theocracy. Imagine how the tension of ruling bodies of mages and clerics make for a city! Who has the dominant power? How does that affect daily life in the city?

Putting Life into Leaders (page 12). With two dice rolls, one for alignment another for personality, an influential city NPC can be rolled up. A Chaotic Good Foolhardy council member, a Neutral Evil power hungry sheriff, or a Lawful Neutral soft-hearted mayor all generated on the fly as needed.

City's Defenses (page 15). Whether the town is heavily militarized and defended, or a sitting duck can be figured out instantly. This is very useful, particularly when player's are higher level and operating on city or nation-threatening level adventures.

Business tables (page 38). This is perhaps the most useful section. Player's quickly get tired of the typical tavern and store locations. These tables help the DM to come up with a wide variety of more interesting, and believable businesses. Herbalist, Perfumer, Soap Maker, Wainwright, and so on. These are just a few of the business types I probably wouldn't think of on my own in the heat of a gaming session. I like some of the additional modifiers to business types such as: a shoddy store where the merchant is sour and gruff but actually likes to provide a service to help others. These kind of combinations make for a more interesting encounter than just providing a laundry list of items a store has and not much else in terms of "flavor".

City Encounter Tables (page 44-45). While the business tables are highly useful, the city encounter tables help to keep the game from being stale. Interesting encounters are always right around the next corner. A parade, a pick pocket in progress, an unusual animal running around the streets, or any number of other interesting things can happen. I like that these tables are divided by district type (much like the Judges Guild Ready Ref Sheet city encounters are, but these are far more extensive).

Other parts. Like I said, I have long since lost the rest of the boxed set. Though I do remember constructing the 3d cardboard buildings and using them on the map posters that were included and using them a lot, particularly for encounters that required use of miniatures to help visualize the scene.

The cover of Cities of Mystery is one of Larry Elmore's more evocative covers. A classic encounter with the player characters being offered some bauble by a con man, while a wererat lurks in the shadows waiting to pounce on unsuspecting victims. Anyone who says Elmore paints nothing but the same heroes and monsters over and over hasn't paid enough attention to the wide variety of inspired work he did for TSR throughout the 80's.