For people out there of a certain age (like myself) they will have fond memories of playing D&D in the 80’s and 90’s where their first adventures were the ones that came in the Basic and the Expert sets.

It’s possible to buy PDF’s of those adventures from DriveThruRPG. However to play with the current 5e rules, there would need to be a little bit of work done to allow you to play them.

That’s where Goodman Games comes in. They did some backroom deals, secret handshakes, a nod and a wink with WotC that has allowed them to not only reprint the original adventures from those two starter sets but update them as well.

Both books have a handful of pages that contain interviews and short essays with those involved in creating the original adventures.

These two editions are not small books, and are quite thick volumes, and heavy to boot also. My 92 year old Nan you takes all my deliveries struggled carrying them. I’m borderline happy with the paper stock used for the books. I think considering that these are not just reprints with updates to 5e, but also act as a loving tribute. I think a better quality paper could have been used.

I like the interviews at the start of each book. They are interesting, however not as incite full as I’d like.

Having both the original adventure (A couple of different versions/printings) and the updated to 5e version is nice. And a really nice touch is that for the 5e version there is additional content provided.

For me there is one draw back with these if you are actually planning to run the 5e version of these adventures. And I suppose also the classic version. There are player handouts included in the books. So to use these you need to photocopy them from the book, and do damage to the spine. I would have liked to see any player handouts, even the maps made available as a pdf on the publishers site. They have some pre-generated character sheets you can use. But not the thing that DM’s would find the most useful, and least damaging.

So what does this say to me about how the publisher sees these books being used. Are they expecting people to play these adventures or just look at them and leave them on the shelf as eye candy? The lack of the pdf almost makes me think the later.

But as walks down memory lane go for the long time adventurers then this is a great product (especially if in the mists of time your copy of the adventures got lost). With Goodman Games having done the heavy lifting for you it’s also a good excuse to relive those classic adventures both for old and new players using the 5e rules (unless you want to old school that is). For the new player it’s an opportunity to experience old school classic adventures and why you would need a 10 foot pole.