Customer Reviews

Rogues Gallery: A Compendium of Non-Player Characters (Advanced Dungeons and Dragons)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After a short time playing D&D with this book, you will wonder how you ever did without it. Here, at a moment's notice, a whole host of generated characters of every class and race stand at the ready. This is most useful for NPC's, but there is also no reason that a player character's basic stats cannot be selected from this book as well (since the book has only bare-bones information, doing this will require the player to flesh out his PC's remaining traits). For some reason, I did not find the descriptions of the characters of D&D's creators and playtesters all that interesting.

This is a good little book. The bulk of it is a collection of charts for randomly creating non-player characters (NPCs) when one is needed quickly. The real gem of the book, though, is a description of number of the author's player characters. Among those included are Bibgy, Mordenkainen, Serten, Tenser, and a host of others. These pages make the whole book worth while.

Most people who take a cursory glance at the original Rogues Gallery wonder why it's worth the bother - there's just endless reams of NPC stats! But, if you look closer, there's much more of value, especially for a Greyhawk campaign. First of all, there's full spreads of some of the finest "old school" artwork TSR ever produced - some of the illustrations, such as the Paladin slaying the Black Dragon, have never been surpassed. Even better, there are exhaustive spell and power lists for some of the most difficult monsters to create - the Couatl, Ki-Rin, and Lich. And most importantly, you get exclusive stats, illustrations and personality histories for some of the most famous characters from Gygax's Greyhawk campaign, as they were during play in 1980! Included are Gary Gygax's Bigby, Riggby and Mordenkainen, Harold Johnson's Grimslade, Rob Kuntz' Sir Robilar, Ernie Gygax's Serten and Tenser, Erol Otus' Valerius, and many more! A wonderful trove of lost lore for any retro classics campaign.