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I liked playing up the "Hear Noise" ability for listening to various background conversations in a tavern or marketplace- just to listen for a certain name, or term, or 'key words' like 'gold', 'jewels', 'unguarded', etc. I had a great DM as a maturing player who helped me roleplay a thief into a fun character to play. Want to practice lockpicking? Befriend a locksmith or a lock merchant in town, maybe buy some in bulk. Keeping an eye out for decent tools/picks can lead to training your appraisal ability, not to mention maybe help find a moderately trustworthy Fence to help you sell some of your most recent ill-gotten gains. I already had a moderately leveled Thief (maybe 6th or 7th level- my most successful Rogue character at that time!) when the 'Splatbooks' started getting released & "The Complete Book of Thieves" took a LONG time for me to put down.

if thieves are included I believe Dwarves, Elves and Halflings can be thieves as well with no level max, but that I think was included later. My little books don't have that but the PDF on the site they give away does mention that

Enjoyed the information. Look forward to next video.

"Do clerics use magic?" "Yes." "Why aren't they also known as magic users then?" This is always what vexed me. Wizard is a better name. Let's be honest.

Great review. Running this now as a PbP game, and am *greatly* enjoying the social end of things. There are only four PCs, but they are experts at avoiding combat... we'll see how the tomb goes!

Thanks for this review. I have the 2011 version of the Tome, and it seems I don’t need to buy the revised version.

This morning I was thinking about this video which I watched about a year ago, and I wished I could remember the video title or channel name so I could search for it. This afternoon the video appeared in my RUclips feed without my searching for it. Google (which owns RUclips) is reading my mind.

I just read about magic research, and want to learn more. It talked about making your own spells, and then said it's up to dm to approve and set a spell level for them. How does one set a spell level?

Love the idea of a biologic lock, like an octopus or crab houses in a hollow in the door and grasps the frame - specific food could encourage it to release - some animals have to actively let go of what they’ve grabbed, so killing them wouldn’t immediately solve the issue

🥳🫂👍🏿 Very interesting - lots of nerd rage in the comments, but I think ousting clerics is worth a try for one key reason: players who heal want to be good at combat too, so games like 3.5 and 5e end up buffing clerics so much that they can be as good or better at martial combat than the fighter class - it’s a niche that starts fights waiting to do its main thing - that’s hard to make interesting, so designers add on combat utility, and you end up with the “spirit guardians + spiritual weapon + dodge/cure wounds” optimal play that plagued 5e - at least in 5.5 they’re both concentration, so I guess that’s something 🤷🏿‍♀️

Excellent review. Thank you!

Funny, I hate the illustrated covers. They always feel to me like books that should be in a middle school boy's library. I spend a fortune getting limited edition covers just to avoid them... covers like this feel more like appropriate artifacts, especially at the table: I like it best when they look like a book that could actually appear in a fantasy world, like this one.

I'm sorry but the Tome of Adventure Design pales in comparison to the Castle Oldskull series of design guides. ToAD is a good start though.

I'm definitely happy to finally have this in physical form and looking forward to actually using it despite the unwieldiness. Slug House sounds awesome and the art really drives home the tone!

I have the first release. I have yet to feel compelled to print out. But it is at least cleaner and easier to use. The revised looks like a mess of wasted black page areas and less than useful art. It is unlikely I'd want the revised for free.

My decision-making process when buying OSR titles: "How much of this book is random tables? 50%? I'll pick it up when it's half-off."

bought the book and printed it

*CHA'ALT*

I have the original and appreciated the critique of the new layout.

What are the absolute basic items I require to play this game I am highly interested in giving it a go

Mos Shambler.... Oh now I picture a bad monster movie from the early 60s 🙂.

Excellent video my good man! I also vouch for the sheer usefulness of this tome. It has helped me come up with ideas for not just adventures, but for entire areas on my hex maps as well. It is highly recommended from me!

I have it in my wishlist. I hope to get it next year.

If the options are sufficiently numerous it becomes easier to imagine its usefulness, I guess my issue tends to be that I often have a mood and setting already in mind, it's more that I need tools to break me out of patterns and surprise me to help expand my scope. I'd worry that a lot of the book would go unused, unless perhaps I was making a generative hex crawl and needed large volumes of locations in a short amount of time. Would be interested in learning in more detail what the city and wilderness sections are capable of, despite their relative lack of material. I understand that Finch does tend to concentrate on dungeons like a lot of his contemporaries, so it's unsurprising, but I'd like to know what sorts of thoughts he had on these arenas. Thanks for the profile of this book!

As a forever cleric, I have mixed feelings. Objectively, as written, the Cleric is potentially one of the most powerful in the game, and I've always enjoyed playing them. But we never really bothered with pantheons or religions to any degree, because honestly the only reason they exist in most games is to heal. ymmv. And I'm never moralistic or preachy because that's *not* what a representative of a supposedly GOOD GOD should be. But as a class they would be a lot better if they weren't the default healer. That imo should be its own damn class unrelated to religion and combat anyway, like a Wizard, but beneficent. Squishy but kind. And clerics should be free to be of any alignment or worship anything, like it says in the book, not just overbearing Deities with ulterior motives. Or excluded entirely if no one wants to play one. But that's something the individual DM has to deal with however it suits them. Good video.

Elmo, Burne and Rufus, and the rest are probably complacent because of the decade of relative peace since the fall of the temple. The village elder only holds meetings ever new moon, so it sounds like things move kinda slow in Hommlet. It would take evidence like the PCs confirming that the bandits are indeed in league with the TOEE for any of the PCs to take the rumors of increased bandit activity seriously. After all, the bandits and monsters have been careful to only attack caravans far from the village, and have supposedly left no witnesses.

Agree completely. I don't want to force Christianity into my gameworlds just to justify the Cleric concept. I also agree with the unbalanced return of game time value in taking the prep time to work new pantheons into each and every setting , especially when Cleric is not the most common Class chosen by players to play. Conversely , I have no problem allowing a PC to be or become a priest of some sect that play at the table has unearthed. In this way - with the players input , unique and useful priest types can be with each setting with a minimum of fuss and lost development time from the DM.

I find the old system was better than modern rogues

this was incredibly useful. Thank you!

Could be matched up with the Dwarven Glory module!

These reviews are excellent. I think I'll borrow many ideas from this adventure, despite the overall mediocrity.

Great video as always. A couple of points I'd like to comment on; First, I've never understood why so many people take issue with the name "Magic-User". I don't think it's "clumsily named" at all. It's meant to be generic, so that it can mean shamans, witches, warlocks, wizards... I've always felt the choice of name was rather elegant, and is inline with the naming conventions of the game (Clerics for all characters that call upon their god for power, Fighters for all characters that are good at fighting, etc.). The name "Wizard" conjures up specific images in the mind (Merlin, Dumbledor, Gandalf, Raistlin), but the term "magic-user" can mean ANYTHING. It's perfect. Secondly, you say "the player will have no control over which spells this will be" regarding the new spell(s) a player gains upon leveling up. While the Basic rulebook does not specifically address this issue, the Expert rulebook quite clearly states "Either the player or the DM may choose any new spells." regarding the new spells the player gains when leveling (X11). Which version of the rules are you referring to? I readily admit I am not as versed with OD&D and BECMI. I interpret the B/X spellbook and casting rules as meaning that scrolls are very valuable and important and are often a magic-user’s MAIN source of spells, even at high level, and I believe that this is what the original creators of the game intended. In my games, MU's are running around with a few spells in their heads, and scrolls falling out of their bags and pockets, because of their spellcasting comes from them! Regarding the house rules you suggested, I added the "Arcane" language to my games many years ago. It is by default the language that all MU use to write their spells and scrolls (thus negating the need for the read magic spell and getting rid of the whole "to choose or not to choose read magic at level 1" conundrum). Additionally, it's the default language for any magically-created creatures (golems, homunculi, etc.).

Great stuff. I’ve always felt adventures should be a bit of a mystery, & making them make sense is important to that. The players have to believe they can apply logic to the dungeon if they’re going to have any hope of figuring out the mystery of what happened to Sir Daggoth or whatever.

I have this, and I love it! The Yog-Sothoth campaign seems like it was hastily thrown together, I'm sad to say, but the rest of it is pure gold.

I buy rpg things i probably wont ever get to use but i like to pretend i have players for every adventure i buy

I don't play CoC much, and never have. But I've always "liked" it, in that i recognize its "coolness". Regardless, I'm a sucker for a good boxed set. I'll have to pick this up. Thanks for the review!

I need to distract myself from my Hyperborea and DCC spree and actually play some Call of Cthulhu Its been years.

A Call of Cthulhu once over, quite lovely! Always adore the modern day version of this system. It was one of my first live plays that I watched, and I always enjoyed the works it was based off of Very nice video. I believe the opinions expressed were indeed quite fair for the knowledge on the subject

Not even done watching this and it's the most useful DCC adventure video i have seen yet. I'd watch a lot more of these. Good produi, great overview and insight.

Very good explanation of how thief skills work. Thank you. Love your videos on OSR D&D.

I recently got Delving Deeper and really appreciate your videos. Love your videos on OSR games.

Thanks for the summary.

Wow! This is a terrific primer in locks and pick attempts to add more detail and color to any game. Can be used in a dungeon, tomb, or urban setting. Great info and game ideas for GMs and thieves. Thank you!

I got here because I wanted to understand 'Hide in shadows' and instead learned so much about how to play this game in general!

What I run is Dying Earth. No gods,no clerics. It makes a huge difference in feeling

That was excellent, thank you!

You're the man. Simple and to the point, that's all people are looking for when they seek clarity lol.

Yes! This is my #1 go-to overall and my personal go-to in the realm of OD&D, otherwise it’s B/X full force….or RISUS or (maybe odd as I’m a Yank) any iteration or clone of FF (like Troika or Spellzard). Heh

I really love your D&D style videos. Your presentation and insight are very good

Would love to see you do a review of Basic Fantasy RPG