RPG Overview 178 Dragonslayer Role-Playing Game
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- Опубликовано: 13 июл 2024
- Overview of Dragonslayer.
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0:00 "Shorter" Overview
18:35 The Price
28:29 More in Depth
51:22 Final Thoughts 
Игры
PDF & PRINT: rb.gy/14rafx
"Anyone that says Krull sucks is wrong." Objective facts.
Great minds think alike.
My group loves all his products. My gf and her friends have a tradition of coloring in the pages with colored pencils (pdf prints) while we play. Such inspirational art. We have run through Barrowmaze, Archaia, and Highfell. Working on Dwarrowdeep now. I am looking forward to the future hex crawl product the most, which puts the locations on the classic Wilderness Survival map. We will likely switch over to Dragonslayer soon since it's obviously the best fit for Gillespie megadungeons. He's just one guy with a huge art budget. I'd gladly pay the price for this over the corporatized junk WotC puts out. The passion and the talent of the art and design really show.
That’s excellent! Barrowmaze is one of my favorites and the first mega dungeon I ever played. Thanks for watching and commenting.
Thanks for the kind words on the art!
You know it bud! You’ve made quite a few fans with this book and count me as one of them!
I am absolutely willing to save up the money to buy this book! It's three books in one, it's full size, the artwork is amazing, I prefer the black and white over a lot of the color that comes out. After watching Gillespie's sample game that he played live I feel the flow of the game is not choppy and has a lot of lore that makes immersion into the world that much better.
Lastly and I think it's the part that nobody's really talking about is that this book is a testament and a statement. Anyone who is looked on and seen this hobby being dragged through the dirt, and warped for certain agendas and messaging, this book represents standing in opposition to all of that.
Well said! Thanks for watching and commenting!
I really would be interested in this. The tools, random tables, and classes/monsters all look very interesting. Great review by the way! I just can’t justify $80 for a cheap POD. And I can’t justify Greg’s reasoning for the prices.
The exchange rate between US and Canadian dollars would net him more profit if he sales in US market at US prices. He runs kickstarters for all his books, that money raised from the Kickstarter should cover the art prices. (Because after backing the Kickstarter a fan/backer still has to purchase the book from drivethru “at cost”.) Greg pays nothing per book printed. Not after the Kickstarter, not now. I understand shipping is expensive but again, with POD the customer pays shipping -if he mailed the books (done with a legitimate print run) the customer would still pay shipping. I know lightning source/drivethru charge about $50 for their big hardback books for “at cost”, so most likely Greg is banking about $30 profit on each sale ($41 Canadian Dollars). On top of what he made in the Kickstarter (that should have covered his costs for art, editing, and trade mark).
Cant wait! seems like everyone is enjoying it from what I have seen, Its on my list for the future :-) I like he has the cyclops race as well. Will print it off myself locally though 90 Euro with delivery for the Hardback is to much, Id rather get the book a dungeon book and something else print them off locally wirebound on heavy paper for less.
Great I hope you enjoy the video and the game!
Amazing indeed. Tempted to grab it just for the art even. Posted your review to a couple of my X feeds. Great review , sir.
Thank you so much and I really appreciate you sharing it!
The art is hella dope
I share that opinion! That’s for watching!
2/3 is good to outstanding, 1/3 ist OK to meh.... (my opinion...)
Little known fact. Gillespie won a used pair of Gygax's underwear in an obscure auction. He wore them every day during the creation of Dragon Slayer. Legend has it he still wears them to this day.......
My goodness I hope he washed them!
My goodness I hope he washed them from time to time! But they might have lost their magic if he did that.
Thanks for the in-depth look at this retroclone. It's definitely channeling an AD&D vibe, but there is added value as well.
Cheers!
Thanks Fred and thanks for watching,I really appreciate it!
It is pricey, sure. But is it worth it ? After watching reviews and interviews I think it is worth the price. I wish it was an offset print but I understand why.
A players book would be cool as a cheaper entry for players. I have debated the price and its the same as OSE advanced 2 books. (and myself and most OSE players have several copies)
I also like the big print and clean backgrounds and not just for "old eyes", it easier to scan and seek.
I haven't picked it up yet but if / when I do I'd need to get 2 copies, Mine and a table copy.
I often times want a shelf and table copy so I completely get it with this great looking book.
Enjoyed the in depth look, I'm waiting for my POD copy to arrive at the moment. You're absolutely right though, issues with Drivethru packing books is on them not the author, and if we want a product with premium art then we have to be willing to pay for it 👍
Thanks for watching and I hope your book arrives in condition!
@@RPGOverviews : Yep, here's hoping, I've been pretty lucky with past books. Looking forward to reading it, as a big fan of Greg's megadungeons 👍
Thank you for the overview!
My pleasure and thank you for watching!
I would love to get a paper cover copy of this book of
Dragonslayer.
Since it's a 3 in 1 book in todays market $80 dollars is
quite a fair price.
The art looks awesome!
I should have mentioned it’s really 3 in one.
It's solid; but at the end of the day, it's really another set of house rules. I like having everything in one book, which is great, and I think he does an excellent job with the random dungeon generation stuff, magic items and a few other things. He inexplicably does not clearly explain combat. It's descending AC, which I prefer, but he doesn't use THACO, yet there's no attack matrix and monsters attack as fighters, which can get confusing at the table compared to systems where the hit dice are the attack bonus. It can be figured out, but I'd rather just grab one of my DM's screens for another game and use that. So I don't think we'll use this RAW.
I hear ya, it’s a good foundation for more house rules for sure. Thanks for watching!
Great book, top natch product. The art alone is worth the price. With that said as great as it is, still really nothing new just some tweaks, but interesting. I am like most others I play my own osr version of the game taking stuff from all over, but this would be fun to run rules as written with any of his mega-dungeons.
I agree. I think it doesn’t look intimidating as other osr books might be. No attack matrix or things like that. It’s got a lot going for it but nothing super ground breaking but fun and tweaked for people that might not do their own house rules and could jive with this game raw.
What is the combat time in this RPG is it the ad&d 1 minute or the shorter BX combat round? Thanks for the great review.
Thanks and I believe it’s 1 minute.
Some of the classes are novel, some of the house rules are novel. The art is really nice looking, no complaints on the art, layout, composition, etc. That being said, I have some rather serious issues with the game. I won't talk about the price, I promise.
Before I get to that, I want to thank you for this spectacular video which gave me proper insight into the system to be able to make the informed opinions I am about to share.
There is a big problem in chargen. I’m specifically talking about Dexterity, which is already a rather loaded stat in D&D proper, also adds to missile weapon damage in this game. So one stat benefits to hit, damage, and defense? Sign me up! This would be less of a problem if the game embraced the “3d6 down the line” mentality but this game doesn’t. It expressly wants you to optimize your stats (roll 3d6 7 times, discard lowest result, arrange the rest to taste). Dexterity is always going to be the best or second best stat on every player’s sheet if this mentality is followed even marginally. The classic benefit of ranged attacks are… follow me here… that you attack an enemy at range. Added damage is the benefit of melee attacks, with the express concern that there is added risk of being wounded in melee. That’s always been the trade off. It’s frankly weird to go against BX and AD&D on such a primal logical element of both of the systems.
Many of the fast packs aren't really usable. What I mean when I say that is for example with the Paladin you have to roll on the upper end of your GP allotment to be able to afford any of the packs. It's even worse for Assassins. I feel like this issue would/should have been caught in playtesting, and is only slightly mitigated by generic fast packs which are practically reproduced from B4: The Lost City. The proper solution would have been, when writing the three packs per character class, have one cost approximately ~25% potential rolled GP allotment, another for ~50%, and a third for ~75%. Most of these packs would be defining what armor you start with. That's just the nature of old D&D. Having generic "adventurer gear" packs separate would also be a good idea, as long as you stayed away from that gear for your class specific packs. The generic fast packs always start with a backpack, so don't bother putting one of those in any of the class specific fast packs.
The armor section is just bad. If AD&D armor was going to be strictly adhered to, why keep Studded Leather AND Ring Mail (both 7 AC) and not put in Scale or Lamellar (6 AC) for one of them? Ring Mail. Replace Ring Mail. This is a bad selection I also think would have been caught in playtesting. Either that or willful selection to make the chart quirky. That sort of thing doesn't impress me. Banded or Splint would have also been a better choice than "half-plate", as the former exist in AD&D and the latter doesn't, and also sounds odd, like the character isn't wearing a full suit of armor. Shields proclaim "1" on the AC section of the chart, a novice player may think that simply holding a shield grants a character an AC of 1. The modifier of "-1" should have been on the chart instead. Or, since there is a footnote, merely an asterisk with the explanation that a shield provides -1 AC.
The monster section looks pretty sparse to me on new ideas as well. It also kinda bothers me there aren’t monster listings for the races in the book - elves, dwarves, human types like bandits and mercenaries, etc. I’d only really be ok with leaving out the cyclopsmen considering their rarity, others simply don’t make sense to leave out. It seems like an oversight.
The Funeral Pyre rule is simply XP for gold spent with extra steps, and is somewhat nonsensical because... where does the “offered” treasure go? In the pyre? So worst case scenario you have a pile of slag-gold you can sell after the fact? It seems like it wasn’t thought through very well, or maybe just not explained well. The picture doesn’t help at all, considering the treasure is just sitting next to the pyre, there for whomever to take after the fact. Gildo, party thief: “Yeah I’m gonna go pay my respects to dear old nodwick one last time. I’ll catch up with you guys later. Oh the extra pack mule? It was Nodwick’s favorite!”
On the FAQ: “It’s the Maze Controller’s job to kill you…” This is terrible, awful, nonsense. A referee’s job is actually to remain impartial and arbitrate situations of the PCs vs the world fairly. It’s in no way overtly antagonistic like this. This is bad advice and breeds bad DMs. Just like modern D&D with it’s player-coddling mentality, but reversed. I recognize perhaps the author was being tongue-in-cheek but there is a stereotype of old school DMs being antagonistic that we really shouldn’t feed. Most of the rest of this section I can take or leave, matter of taste.
In conclusion, yes Dragonslayer is obviously not my preferred OSR or “stopping point” as it were (I’m complicated, see below). Somebody looking into Dragonslayer I’d point to Advanced Labyrinth Lord. Though that’s not my favorite OSR either, it is roughly 85% of this game (plus Banded Mail) for 50% of the price. Or if you were dead set to part with $80 you could instead grab Blood & Treasure 2e Core Book, Monsters, and Monsters II. That’s ~700 pages hardbound across the three books - more classes, variant classes, way more monsters (and way more exotic monsters), etc. Available from Lulu for about the same price as this one book from DTRPG. Hey I’m not complaining about the price, I’m merely explaining other options that would get you nearly the same, or frankly a better result, than this game for the same or less money.
After seeing this run-through, I’m still fairly content with my own preferences - Fantastic Heroes & Witchery, Hackmaster 5E, Swords & Wizardry Complete (2nd printing), White Box FMAG, and Worlds Without Number. I like being aware of new OSRs as sometimes a dark horse appears (hello WWN) but most are not worth picking up as they’re just D&D again, but different in incredibly miniscule ways. I feel this is the case with Dragonslayer. Thank you again if you actually read this far.
PS: LOL I didn't even catch the lack of combat explanation another poster commented on.
Thanks for your kind words and insight into the game. All valid issues. I wish I had picked up on some of the stuff you mentioned so to have it here in the comments is a good addition for people to see if it’s the right fit for them. I also enjoy having the classes or “bandits” stats in the monster section.
Advanced Labyrinth Lord is actually *free* if you don't need the art. You can download the pdfs of the Labyrinth Lord core rulebook and the Advanced Edition Companion for no cost.
Unfortunately there's no sewn-binding version available
Yeah that would be great.
@@RPGOverviews and this one would be worth the 80EUR, this cheapo BW POD is definitely not...
$80 is a lot. A smaller, cheaper , Players book would be a good idea.
Cut out all the GM advice, monsters, etc.
That way people could try it at a lower price point and then buy the full rules if they liked it.
Also players could each have the smaller, cheaper book. Instead of one book in a group to share.
I get that for sure.
I'm thinking PDF and Lulu printing 3 coil bound booklets - Player, DM and Monsters
I wonder how much that would be.
Coil binding is cheap
So it appears I am not alone at saying 80 bucks is too much. Rules Cyclopedia is 30 Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game is 30. Basic is smaller and better written. Both are hardcover. So why is Dragonslayer 80? Shadowdark is also great, but it too is 80. But then Shadowdark is a great wealth of content past the OSR standard materials. OSE is the same as Castles and Crusades. Both too expensive. If I'm buying what is basically a game from 1980, you need to offer me a lot more than some art. Sorry Greg, this is not sufficient.
Thanks for watching.
Assuming we’re talking USD here, since Dragonslayer is $80 USD-Shadowdark is $60, and OSE (Classic edition, at least) is $40. Both extremely well made books, and Shadowdark in particular has so many tables in the back half that it’s more than a fair price IMO.
honestly? the price is not ok whatsoever for what you get. For a premium color print, right. Much better paper, and the print is done digitally. This is just their basic B&W process, based on Inkjet technology. OSE is offest print and stitched binding. Drivethrues PODs are inferior to that. You can compare it to Advanced Lablord or ACKS (which has standard color process!) for ca 35. BW POD is ok when it comes to perfect bound low cost modules or cheap rulebooks. It is not a good deal for an 80$ hardcover. This does not have to do with manpower or art. GEG was paid by the university while doing this book, everything was kickstarted. It is just overprized whatsoever. An 80$ premium color POD would have been perfect with options like 25/35 BW SC/HC, 40/50 Standard Color SC/HC. Look at the prices for ACKS, OSRIC, Advanced LabLord or Swords&Wizardry. Frog Gods S&W Bestiary, Campaign and Map tomes are other examples.
Valid points that I completely understand. I didn’t mention it but I wonder if seeing all the sales from the megadungeons kinda solidified how much those fans would be willing to pay for Dragonslayer considering Dragonslayer is a a tad cheaper than those books.
@@RPGOverviews when I look at dtrpg, they are more expensive each.
Greg always asks too much for his books
they are slightly more expensive if you take the PDF, that is... Dragonslayer is ca. 74eur, the Megadungeons are incl. PDF cost almost the same or ca. 5EUR more...
@@midnightgreen8319 the price for his Megadungeon Monster Manual is not exagerated though, 35EUR are ok for a POD hardcover including PDF. The book lacks tables sorted by HD/Level and random encounter levels though. For me it is a 3.8 to 4.2 stars, Dragonslayer (because of the price) is only 2.8 - 3.5 because of its price. It could have been a decent 3.8-4.2 too, if it was a premium color print for the 75EUR or 50EUR for BW ... for the BW process and paper, 75 EUR is way to expensive.
What sets it apart from all of the other B/X retro-clones?
It uses the bx engine but isn’t a clone, but is more like halfway between moldvay basic and ad&d. It also has some influences with 3.5 with miniature use
those three shitty dnd books cost around 90 dollars
Yep
It's a beautiful book, the art direction is spot-on....but ultimately it's just another retro-clone, perhaps with a bit more of an AD&D slant rather than B/X, but still a retroclone. I think Shadowdark and Knave 2e are more interesting - they both have nice art too - in that they're not just a rehash of old TSR products.
It won’t be the game for everyone and others are doing their thing well too. Makes me wonder if new osr rules books have run their course…for now 😊. Thanks for watching and commenting!
They are all derivative of TSR D&D. But to me that's a good thing.
80$ 😂
Same as OSE
@@RPGOverviews OSE also didn't took my money. Too much is too much.
@@RPGOverviews you can't compare that. OSE gives you offset prind and a real hardcover, not a perfect bound least quality book glued into a cardcover. Look at the Hyperborea HCs, they are build for eternity and regular use. I am not sure how long the POD will survive regular use at the table. For 1e PHBs etc, I don't care, they cost just 17EUR... from a book for 80EUR I expect it to last - and this one will not definitely... it is a cheaply produced overprized product. 40 or 50 maybe, but not 80. Competitors are OSRIC, Lablord and ACKS. OSRIC: PB 12EUR, Layflat 16, HC 20, SC 10; Advanced Labyrinth Lord 32 HC, ACKS 32EUR.
Another retro clone ugh! When are we going to see some new campaign settings
It uses the bx engine with some AD&D mixed in, so not exactly a clone. There apparently will be a setting to tie all the mega dungeons together. Not sure it’s going to be a full fledged setting but will know more down the road I guess.
From Greg on Facebook, “Yes. I’ll run a KS for the 34x34 poster map and gazetteer in 2025. The poster map is complete and was done a year ago.
The map represents my homegame based on Outdoor Survival and all the megadungeons are plotted on it. You see each “region” represented on the hex maps in the books so everything will align and be amazing :)
The digital version will include three maps (blank, hex only, and hex with labels).”
Looks pretty interesting. Thanks for the though presentation. Greg creates good books. If only he could keep his rather extreme politics to himself.
Thanks for watching. I didn’t mention it but Greg keeps his politics out of his products. That can’t be said for some others.
@@RPGOverviews To an extent fortunately. I don't have Dragonslayer so I don't have a deeper perspective into that but one of the first things that's noticeable with the art is that all the class portraits are male. So it's subtle compared to his rants in interviews at least.
@@paavohirn3728And thankfully non-binary is not an option. The virtue signaling across the industry has gotten so out of control. But some of the characters in the races depiction are female.
Yet WOTC, PF, Daniel Fox, etc. are always shoving their extreme politics down everyone's throat. Shouldn't everyone just keep that to themselves?
"Extreme politics" lmao! 🤡
$80 for great art and rehashed heart breaker house rules. No thanks.
I full understand it won’t be worth it to some people.
Initially, I found the PDF price pretty steep.
Advanced Labyrinth Lord PDF is 14.99 USD, compared with 30 USD for Dragonslayer.
But, compared with OSE PDFs, Dragonslayer is actually cheaper, assuming you buy the basic tome and the advanced books.
What does heart breaker house rules even mean. I personally think the rules are awesome. Somewhat modernized combat. You can attack then move or move then attack etc. The game compares to OSE Advanced but with better class abilities. Clerics can turn undead only 3 times per day, thank god for that. In OSE, Clerics can auto turn skeletons at 2nd level. In Dragonslayer they can't do that until 4th level, making skeletons useful a while longer. Cool stuff. I absolutely love the Monk as a quarterstaff master. The art is great to downright awesome, from some of the best in the industry. It's overall more streamlined and is priced exactly the same as OSE Advanced. I get that no game is for everyone, but I'm loving what was done with Dragonslayer.
Amazing Effort to Refine BX Price too High... I literally don't understand how passionate RPG gamers don't have the money for their Hobby. If people are hording Rpg Books and bitch that they are getting tapped out.... of cash.... well... and want the prices low so that they can horde more....
Good point, thanks for watching!