Dungeons of Dread - Review

Om nom nom nom.

I received my shiny new copy of Dungeons of Dread in the mail yesterday and had a chance to do a cursory flip through the book last night before I went to bed.  I must say I am pretty happy with what I have seen so far, its a really nice compilation of four S-Series AD&D adventures.  For those of you who do not know, Wizards of the Coast is in the process of re-releasing older versions of D&D, they have already released the AD&D Players Handbook, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual and Unearthed Arcana, all under the moniker of 1st Edition Premium.  They are also going to be releasing the second edition books this way as well.  

I'm happy that the version of D&D that I cut my teeth on is now available for purchase.  I will not be buying these core books as I still have my old dusty and moldy copies.  Hopefully it will give some of the younger generation a chance to experience the origins of D&D.  The books that I am most looking forward to are the adventure modules, I do not own many of the original adventures, so Dungeons of Dread and forthcoming Against the Slave Lords module have me pretty excited!

A-Series, flashy new cover!

Anyway back to my new DoD book.  The cover is fantastic, I love the art and it has a nice texture with a little embossing.  Inside the pages are printed on a nice smooth paper.  There is a forward by Lawrence Schick, a table of contents and then the adventures begin!  The book includes S1: Tomb of Horrors, S2: White Plume Mountain, S3: Expedition to Barrier peaks and S4: The Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth.  All maps are unfortunately included in the main book, there is no separate map-book, which will lead to lots of flipping back and forth.  There may be downloadable maps on Wizards of the Coast site but I have not had a chance to snoop around.  I also have a complaint with the first image in the book, it looks terrible, very fuzzy and out of focus, almost like someone did not know how to run a scanner.  Other than that one piece all of the art looks great, there are some really wonderful black and white images.  

Its a pretty hefty book, four adventures clocking in at 192 pages total.  The reproductions are supposed to be exact, there have been no modifications to the original adventures.  If you do not own these four adventures this is a great buy, I am very pleased with how this has been put together.  I am looking forward to more of the AD&D adventure modules in the future, hopefully we will see a reprint of The Temple of Elemental Evil, one of my all time favorites.