Harold Johnson (1)

I'm a little late reading this. It was published in 2004 so now it's more like 38 years of adventure.

This was cool if a little confusing. I always thought that Richard Garfield owned Wizards since he was the creator of MTG. But obviously I was wrong since he was only mentioned once in the entire book. It was interesting to hear about the lawsuits that prevented Gygax from working on D&D stuff and that meant the company had to call things "Advanced" D&D or else they had to pay Arneson.

I didn't like how they had 2 different stories going across multiple pages. It was cool to kind of get to know some of the personalities who's names I've been seeing on products since I was a kid.

I really think it needed a "conclusion" type entry. The ending just kinda dropped off.… (mere)

It's a very helpful book. well set of books. there are three books in the box. the first explains the basic elements of making a great adventure and explains the adventure forms that are found in book 2. that being said book two is composed of forms to help organize your adventure session so your not scrambling around for stuff. it has two blanks of each form and permission is given to photo copy the blanks. Book 2 also has one of each form filled out as an example for you. Finally book 3 is the adventure cookbook. It contains tons of stuff for on the fly adventures and tables so you can roll a random adventure. Great for those times or thing where you just can't stop drawing blanks. Overall I highly recommend this AD&D core accessory.… (mere)

A2: Secret of the Slavers Stockade is the second of the "A" or "Slaver" series of adventures published for use with the 1st edition D&D game. It follows A1: Slave Pits of the Undercity, and precedes A3: Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords. As with the other adventure modules in this series, this adventure is presented in two forms, a "tournament" version complete with pregenerated tournament characters and a scoring system, and a more expansive "campaign" version.

Of the four adventures in this series, this is probably the most solidly designed, although it is somewhat bland. The basic adventure has the characters following clues gained in the prior adventure to travel to a ruined fort used as a base by the slaving operation. There are three broad elements to the adventure - a very sketchily detailed journey to the fort through the wilds (an element not used in the tournament version), an above ground fortress, and an underground dungeon complex.

The journey portion of the adventure consists of a collection of suggested random encounters. None of these encounters are particularly noteworthy, and this section requires significant work on the part of the GM to make it anything more than a series of mostly meaningless random encounters. While the journey from the Slave Pits to the Slavers Stockade could be made interesting and fun, the material presented in this book only gives the barest outline to build upon.

The second portion of the adventure is the above ground stockade. This is probably the best piece of the adventure, and accounts for much of this books rating. The stockade is defended by a collection of hobgoblins and other villains, and the defense plan for the complex is well-thought out. For players to break in without raising the alarm will require good planning, luck, and some hard fought battles. The only weakness of this section is that there are several encounter areas that will change significantly if the alarm is raised, and much of the detail given in the text will end up wasted. The reactions of the inhabitants of the stockade are not incredibly detailed either, so the GM will be required to improvise all but the initial activities of the defenders once the invasion is uncovered. Overall, this section is very good, with good encounters, no real odd quirks (like monsters stuck behind traps such that they would starve), and a good mix of puzzles and traps.

The final section of the adventure is the underground complex. This section is well-presented, but it is a little bland as it is mostly just a standard dungeon complex stocked with monsters, traps, and treasure. There are odd bits here and there where a single passageway that the inhabitants must use is blocked by unintelligent monsters or traps that would likely kill passers by. The level builds to a climactic finish, and includes a section where the deranged victims of a mad wizard's experiments have created a bizarre society, so it is pretty good overall, but one can't help but wonder if it could have been done better.

Overall, this is a very solid adventure. The tournament version is quite canalized, as is typical of tournament adventures, but the campaign version could be expanded on by a decent GM and used for numerous adventures. In my opinion, this is the best of the "A" series, even if it is a little bland in execution.… (mere)