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My old group in New Jersey and my current one in Orlando know I am a Mystaraphile. I have so many pdfs, mainly Threshold and the old Gazetteers. Yet, I have had no physical Mystara item.... until now!
Before I crawl in, I want to make you aware that, yes, I am aware of what a lot of the Mystara community thinks of the AD&D Box Sets, excluding the Red Steel ones. While not reviled, many state they do not hold up a candle to the old Gazetteers. I will leave my thoughts on the matter by saying that I personally disagree, but I can see where they are coming from. I have read the old Gazetteer for Karameikos, and love it deeply. It made the Grand Duchy/Kingdom my favorite setting with its realism and detail.
I got the box set because I came across a pdf of it and wanted to find a hard copy. That, and I have AD&D books but no Classical BECMI in hard copy. Let me state that the art is beautiful, and I can't wait to play a game in this setting.
Now let us get into the unboxing!
I'm going to start with the box already opened. I am posting with my phone and the box closed would have given away my address, which is a dumb thing to do on the internet. The first glimpse into the box and seeing that typeface made my heart race, and I was already dead tired from working an overnight and then going to Aquatica and SeaWorld with barely any rest.
And then the box itself. I like evocative art. Its what attracted me to the newest edition. Well, that and the fact that it was no longer 4e. Here we have a knight fighting a red dragon. Evocative, but kind of trite, even for the old days of gaming.
When I first opened the box, I was kind of scared of the possibility that some of the material would not be there. From my last check, I believe the only missing material is one or two of the handouts. That's okay with me. Disappointed? Yeah, but it could have been worse.
And here is the meat of the set, the campaign book and the adventure book. I love these books. I'll start with the adventure book by saying that the adventures are basic but solid, and ends with more adventure hooks that you could use. I would work with these as well as using the Mystara fan edit of Lost Mines of Phandelver, placing the action near Verge and Threshold. This would make for a good intro campaign for 5e until they get around to an official 5e Mystara.
The campaign book is basically an updated version of the Gazetteer to bring it up to speed both with the rules and with the Wrath of the Immortals plotline. Again, I know what people think about WotI, and again, I didn't mind it much. To me, it made Mystara become less like the generic medieval fantasy. Amazing medieval fantasy, perhaps one of the best ones, but still Tolkeinesque and generic. Immortals are important to the setting, and WotI brought them out in force. But I digress. The campaign book has in depth info on the landscape and its history. We also get a solid cast of characters to put in any Karameikan campaign.
Also, sexy leg time!
Here we have two poster-sized maps. I guess one of my only criticisms of the set is how ugly the maps look. I have better maps on my phone that I will use for any campaigns, but these would make for amazing wall art when framed and put on the wall of a future game room. But the region map does have nearby nations mapped a little, for out of country adventures.
Lastly, if I send this in I feel like the ghost of TSR might come and haunt my apartment. If it does, I don't think I would want to exorcise it at all. Hell, I would be holding nightly seances for all my friends so we could get campaign ideas and adventures.
I guess a downfall of this is that it gets hard to find people who want to play the old stuff. Most gamers I know get nerdboners over Pathfinder. The NJ group didn't want to play 5e when I came out, not crunchy enough. However, a beautiful thing about Mystara material is how easy it is to adapt to any D&D ruleset or clone of said ruleset.
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