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CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Bestiary $4.99
Average Rating:4.4 / 5
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CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Bestiary
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CASTLE OLDSKULL - Oldskull Dungeon Bestiary
Publisher: Kent David Kelly
by Mason M. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/23/2018 10:10:25

This product wasn't quite what I'd anticipated. It doesn't include statistics of any monsters other than hit dice. It is; however, an extensive toolbox for generating encounters and populating dungeons. It provides notes on adapting most monsters to different settings, suggestions for powers of aforementioned monsters, showcases their origins, and offers a wealth of other, legitimately useful, information.

There's a huge trove of monsters here though, but much of the work seems to assume that the abilities of the monsters should come to a GM implicitly. The task of populating a monster's special abilities; while given the aforementioned suggestions, may still be difficult to the GM who doesn't come prepared with sets of abilities to give to their monsters.

There are also methodical design techniques presented, along with system-neutral categories which aid you in finding exactly where the monster may exist in your world, and what its role is compared to its peers. It presents two methods of stocking dungeons and setting up encounters (one quick and one more granular), each of which is quite useful for capturing the mentality of the "old-school" methods of gameplay.

Much of the wording is personal; the author speaks to you throughout in an informal manner. The paragraphs become conversational, and at times they seem somewhat too wordy and dotted with the occassional boast. These boasts; however, really do seem to be quite justified as this book must have been an absolutely herculean labour.

To let the author speak of the pros of the contents himself: "Make no mistake, this resource is huge. It is intended to overwhelm you. The book you are holding now represents the most detailed, thorough and exhaustive review of classic dungeon monsters for your reasonable type of dungeon encounter highlighted in [Fantasy Role-Playing Games] published from 1974 to 1977 [...] The result is a coherent, system-neutral mythological bestiary which features over 450 monsters, 1,000 subspecies and 5,000 random encounters spread over 79 calibrated random tables."

Certainly, this worth the (full) price, but at first blush it seems like a very justified buy at the discount.

There are some major formatting issues, however: all text is single-column for formatting, the headers and footers of each page are quite unpleasant aesthetically (for me), the entire text is single-column with single spacing, a space between each paragraph (paragraphs are justified), a double space after each full-stop and some other quirks that may get on the nerves of those of us who care about those kinds of things. The encounter tables also...aren't tables at all. It's just a paragraph of information with a roll-number preceding.

Seeing this republished with an editor's touch (and correction of the aforementioned issues) would be very nice, and secure a second purchase from me most likely. I'm giving this book a rating of 4 stars, which I believe it fully deserves. To me, this rating represents that; despite possessing problems which I find to be quite major, the result overcomes these by presenting itself in a place of sheer usefulness.

Finally, I would close on a more informal note: a brief read through this has completely convinced me that Kent David Kelly is a scholar of his chosen field and a master in his craft. I've since bought his Game World Generator, but have yet to crack it open, for reviewing this.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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