Caves of Shadow

Okay, this is a bit of a different accessory/adventure. In fact, it's a Fast-Play Game, which means it's a self-contained thing that allows people to just up and play it without any other books. Not even the Player's Handbook. At first, I thought this might be related to the D&D Adventure Boxed Set that came out alongside the Player's Handbook back in August, but no, it's a standalone. Everything you need to play is included except people to play with, pencils, and dice (six-siders only; no polyhedral dice needed).

So, this is a 'find out how this game works through play' booklet that was offered for free back in December 2000. It's a very stripped-down version of the game, suitable for absolute beginners and kids. Experienced players probably wouldn't have wanted anything to do with this unless they were completist collectors. Guilty as charged. But I don't have this physically yet; this 'free' game now costs upwards of $60 US for a physical copy. I'll pass. For now.

Anyway, this is a very short adventure; it's only 16 pages in length, and the first couple of pages are taken up with advice for how to run the game. The map is small; there are seven encounter areas. There is plenty of boxed text to read to hold the DM's hand every step of the way, as well as side boxes to handle combat instructions that are more detailed than the US tax code. Seriously, the only people who need this much information on how to play the game aren't old enough to read yet.

The PCs (oh, they are the iconic four: Jozan the cleric, Mialee the wizard, Redgar the fighter (no Tordek?), and Lidda the rogue) are asked to investigate the mysterious Caves of Shadow (hence the name of the game) and defeat the orcs who have been raiding the local villages. The encounters (again, there are only seven encounter areas) are quite detailed, giving plenty of advice on as many options as the writers could think of. There's a lengthy section on talking to a single NPC who might have information for the PCs. That sort of thing. It makes the old Thunder Rift modules look like Temple of Elemental Evil. The boss fight at the end is with...an ogre. With an orc sidekick, so the party can't just concentrate all their attacks on the ogre and take him down faster. This would be a pretty nasty fight for a party of first-level characters.

Of course, the characters don't actually have levels here. They don't even have ability scores; they just have the bonuses and penalties based on what their stats would be if they had any. Which they don't. Did I mention the complete lack of ability scores? Because they aren't there. Hit points are marked by a line of small circles that are crossed out when damage is taken. Spells are preselected; Mialee has magic missile (twice) and detect magic (twice). And that's it. No sleep, nothing. Just those two. And Jozan has two cure light wounds and two bless spells to play with.

The biggest issue with this outside of the extreme simplicity is that there's really no replayability. Unlike the boxed set, there's no other adventures or suggestions to continue using the product; all you get at the end is 'get the rulebooks and learn the real game'. So, this is nothing but a teaser to see if people are interested in the full game. I have no idea if it was successful or not; most people who would have picked this up in the first place would be gamers looking for more D&D material, not complete beginners with no clue what the game even is.

Anyway, that's it for this one. This is not a product I will scour the internet to find; if I ever see a copy at a decent price, I might pick it up. But it's at the bottom of my pick-up list.