19th Level

As I've mentioned in the past, my first version of D&D (and first exposure to RPGs in general) was via the "Magenta Box" D&D Basic Set. Some of the early D&D books I picked up advertised the "Original Collector’s Edition" of Dungeons & Dragons but I never encountered such a version. I had hints of what it was like with my copy of Best of Dragon Volume I  which I encountered in a book store in Brooklyn's King's Plaza mall. I was also therefore unfamiliar with the Judges Guild licensed products. I recall an advertisement or two for the Mayfair Games version of City State of the Invincible Overlord  but that's about it. The reason for this prelude is for a large number of the older RPG products I've reviewed in this blog I acquired them in the period they came out. My first encounter with this product was via purchasing a digital copy at RPGNow a few years ago (unfortunately the scan at RPGNow is of petty poor copy and it appea...

Examining my history with D&D I find it interesting to notice some of the products that I missed. For whatever reason, my early gaming was entirely devoid of any Judges Guild products. Judges Guild was one of the first (maybe the first) licensed 3rd party publisher for D&D. They produced lots of supplements, from settings to adventures to reference charts. For whatever reason, I never encountered any of their products. A number of their products are available for download at RPGNow, though to be honest, the quality of their scans is pretty horrible. I've been occasionally sweeping up reasonably priced physical copies of their books that I find online. Recently I acquired their Caves and Caverns product. It is described as "Forty-Eight Caves & Caverns with Nine Pages of Charts & Guidelines using the City State Campaign Hexagon System." With that description I was expecting something resembling TSR's Dungeon Geomorphs. Their mention of the Campai...