The book that finally allows The Strange to come into its own.

The Strange was supposed to be a campaign of infinite recursions for players to explore and instead all of the earlier books (with the exception of the bestiary) seemed to focus almost exclusively on Ardeyn (and to a lesser degree Ruk).

The Core book covered Ardeyn, Ruk and The Strange in exhausting detail, but only provided minimal coverage of other recursions. 6 recursions had 2-3 pages worth of coverage and another 11 had minimal 1/6 page overviews. In contrast Worlds Numberless and Strange gives 5-8 page write ups to 17 new recursions and1/4-1/2 page overviews of another 48 recursions. With this book the campaign setting begins to finally fulfill some of its original promise.

The new recursions are generally pretty good. The best are those that take familiar elements and add a twist. One such example is my favorite recursion an Arthurian world that has been invaded by a nanovirus from another recursion. Arthur's dead, Merlin's disappeared, Lancelot is a drunk, Percival, Galahad and most of the rest of the round table are nanovirus monsters and Mordred is now the hero. Another example is the Eleventh Reich a recursion where the Nazi's triumphed and now spend there time trying studying and trying to control holy artifacts like in the Indiana Jones films with about as much success.

I can not recommend this book highly enough, definitely the best book in The Strange product line so far

This book of NPCs is a great resource for anybody running a Planescape campaign.

Most books of NPCs make the mistake of making the NPCs unique and interesting, but hard to use. Every NPC requiring the DM to run an adventure around the NPC to be able to use them.

Uncaged avoids this by having most of the NPCs in the book act as couriers, money lenders, advertising cryers and a wide variety of shop keepers and other service providers. This allows the DM to use these NPCs without having to center adventures around them. Don't get me wrong there are a large variety of adventure hooks and ideas in this book, but the DM has other options rather then letting the supplement dictate his campaign. The book also does a good job of making the NPCs interesting to read, some are standard NPC descriptions, some are interviews, diary entries, wanted notices, etc. The back of the book also includes a section showing how the NPCs tie together and diagrams going over the major adventure hooks in the book.

This book is pretty much perfect, but I am docking a point, because this book is only useful to people running planecape campaigns. Its a rare campaign setting that has demons, angels and monsters running shops, but when you add in the various factions and Sigil's immunity to gods which most of the NPCs touch on, these NPCs can't really be converted to non-planescape settings.

A great campaign setting ruined by a terrible rule system.

The good: There is not many conspiracy games to choose from, but even if there were Conspiracy X stands out. In particular it is a lot more focused and has a more cohesive world then most conspiracy fiction. One thing that I did like about the rules were the pulling string qualities that allowed the players to call on the power of the big bad federal government. In most roleplaying games the players have no outside resources and the DM is encouraged to prevent all attempts for players to try and use such resources even if it makes no sense for the players to be lonewolfing it. Nice to see a game that allows and provides rules for the players to actually act like government operatives.

The bad: good god is Unisystem awful. I think the central premise of the rule system is: "Why resolve an action in one roll when you can resolve it in 5 rolls. Why have hit points when you can have Life points, Endurance points and Essence points." You will spend more time rolling dice and keeping track of your 3 different kinds of hit points then you will roleplaying. Also the skill system is badly handled (like the fact that driving a truck is a different skill then driving a car).

I am going to keep this short, but this is probably the best city supplement ever released. There is no other city like it. I ran a Planescape campaign setting for ten years and with the whole multiverse at my fingertips we still rarely left Sigil. Why bother to explore the multiverse when you can stay where you are and have the multiverse come to you?

As another reviewer mentioned in addition to the city description there is are a lot of sample handbills, menus, advertisements and official proclamations that provide a great amount of flavor and make great player handouts.

More of an adventure outline than an actual adventure. And a fairly terrible one at that.

The Bad: The adventure combines some of the worst aspects of 1st and 2nd edition adventures. There are events that usually consist of the players sitting on the sidelines and/or being led by the nose. There are dungeon crawls filled with rooms that are nothing more than listings of the number of derro in each room. Anytime the adventurers slighly deviate from the script the module calls for unending streams of enemies to attack until the players get the message.

The worst part is that the adventure does not go in enough details at times. There is not enough information to run most encounters unless the DM puts in many hours of work to make it playable (not good just playable). You also definitely need to own copies of all the previous adventures.

The Good: The metaplot of the adventure is interesting. If one kept the metaplot and dropped everything else and then rewrote the adventure from scratch you might have a pretty good adventure. No spectral minions

A product for Ravenloft completionists only. Of the 9 islands detailed in this product 5 of them are detailed again in Domains of Dread which is the same price and a superior product.

Domains: Nidala: The land of the self-righteous (ex)paladin Elena Faithhold. This is probably the best domain of the bunch. This domain is fairly unique in detailing a darklord and domain focusing on the Awful Good intolerant archtype. This Domain is covered again in cursory detail in the 3rd edition white wolf product line. (good luck on tracking down copies of the product line)

The Wildlands: Another good domain. Almost an Aesop's fable/fairy tale/rudyard kipling version of a domain with talking animals. Think the Disney version of the Jungle Book as a Ravenloft domain. The domain has great flavor, but it is also the kind of place that one would use once and then never again. This domain is also covered in cursory detail in the white wolf product line.

Scaena: An average domain consisting of a theater and the demented play writer darklord. More of an adventure hook than anything else. Covered again in Domains of Dread.

I'Cath: A terrible domain. Might be the worst official Ravenloft domain. The only good thing about it is it is one of only two official domains with Asian flavor. Stacking against it is the fact that the domain is nothing more than an ultra high level outdoor dungeon complex with a boring darklord, no horror and almost no other intelligent inhabitants. Covered again in domains of dread.

Saragoss: A good very atmospheric domain consisting of a ship graveyard and the crews of the wrecked ships who struggle against each other in an attempt to escape. Think of the domain as the place where all the ships from the Bermuda Triangle end up. The darklord is pretty generic, but this is still probably my personal favorite domain of the bunch. Covered in Cursory detail in the white wolf product line.

Timor: A poor domain featuring a new boring monster type run by a boring darklord. An attempt to do a sewer monster domain. The city above the sewers is infested with dopplegangers and fairly duplicative of the existing domain of Zherisia/Paridon. Covered again in slightly improved form in Domains of Dread.

Pharazia: A poor attempt at an religiously intolerant arabic domain. Quality wise it is lacking and it is also covered in far less detail then the other eight domains making me wonder if they ran out of room and had to cut most of the information on the domain. Covered again in Domains of Dread

Staunton Bluffs: An inferior clone of the existing Domain of Mordent. Adds nothing to the setting. Besides brief mentions in other books this domain is rightly never covered again.

Nosos: Pollution is bad M'kay. On a more serious note this is an okay domain about the evils of pollution that mainly suffers from the fact that the horrors of pollution do not really fit a medieval fantasy setting. Whats next a domain on the evils of sub prime lending. Covered again in domains of dread.

So close and then falls apart at the end.

The good: I have always found Yagno one of the worst darklords. He always struck me as an idiot darklord who probably spent his days eating his own feces. This adventure changed that making him an interesting, complex and almost sympathetic villain. The adventure managed to keep Yagno from either of the two most common evil cleric tropes: insane madman or political opportunist.
G'henna may not be the scariest domain, but it is possibly the most unsettling domain, since it represents a collective madness. The encounters in the city include a lot of interesting roleplaying challenges like how the players will handle people willingly starving themselves to death. The adventure manages to double as a sourcebook for G'henna without sacrificing any pages of the adventure.
Rather than using heavy handed tactics to force the players through encounters like a lot of second edition adventures, the module simply gives the players the rope to hang themselves with. The Bad: The ending of the adventure exemplifies all that was terrible about second edition adventures. The players stand on the sidelines and watch the two antagonists slug it out without any input from them. The rebel group is called "The Circle of Darkness". Any halfway intelligent group of players is going to decide (correctly) that the rebel group is not on the up and up solely based on the name.

There is so much to love about this adventure that it is hard to handle how badly it flubs the ending. With a better ending it is a 4 or 5 star adventure.

An adventure that both misuses a good darklord and shows some of the worst tendencies of ravenloft adventures.

the good: the use of inclement weather is extremely well done (even if the rules have to be heavily modified in order to use it In non-2nd edition). In fact the inclement weather is so well done that if they had made it the focus rather than the werewolves this adventure might have been an all time great. Some of the encounters while the players are in the head village are moderately interesting.

the bad: They take a villain and domain and fast forward it 18+ years for the sole purpose of stripping the interesting parts off the villain and turning him into a generic mustache twirling nemesis. Like a lot of Ravenloft adventures (the created, adams wrath, hour of the knife among others) this adventure uses heavy handed tactics to force the players into certain encounters. Modern day players are far more likely to get angry at the tactics rather than enjoy the adventure. Summary: An adventure that makes inclement weather both dangerous and interesting, but ruins it with heavy handed tactics.

An adventure with an interesting concept that is not utilized to its full potential.

The good: The central concept of the players being trapped in a demiplane between two warring factions is a good concept. There is some variety to the encounters.

the bad: The adventure tries its best to ignore the concept and turn it into a generic dungeon crawl. Too many monsters come from secondary sources like MM3 and Liber Mortis.

Summary: A fairly average dungeon crawl with an interesting concept.

A good supplement even for those who aren't interested in Ravenloft.

The good: Details several darklords who were never detailed again in later products. The background for a couple of darklords (Zolnik, House of Lament) is better and more detailed here then they would be in later products. Even people who don't run Ravenloft will find a nice collection of horror themed antagonists.

The bad: For people who run Ravenloft, Tristessa is hilariously out of date. A couple of darklords (Tristessa, Von Kharkov, and to a lesser degree Ankhentop) would be detailed many more times in later products.

Summary: People who run Ravenloft will gain access to several darklords not available elsewhere. People who don't run Ravenloft will gain access to one of the best NPC booklets out there.

Prepare to enter Castle Ravenloft and face..........Strahd The Barbarian?

The Bad: This is a horror adventure notably lacking in horror. At times it feels like the adventure goes out of its way to undercut any chance for horror. The adventure also gets a little ridiculous with the monsters. Usually I like it when published adventures draw monsters from a wide variety of sources rather than just the base monster book, but this adventure goes too far with it especially since some of the monsters do not really fit the adventure. I kept waiting for a vampire Flumph to show up.

My biggest problem with the adventure is how stupid Strahd is in the adventure. In previous versions of this adventure Strahd was notorious for being a deadly smart opponent who used his spells and powers to the best of his ability. In this version this 10th level necromancer vampire charges blindly and limits himself in most encounters to claw/claw/bite and maybe a grapple/bloodsuck. The limits to his tactical thinking is the occasional use of dominate. It is a problem when the ghouls in this adventure show more tactical thought then Strahd does. Strahd is a CR 15 monster usually with allies facing (at best) 9th level characters, so I have a feeling they made him act tactically weak to balance the fights. Rather then making Strahd act like a mindless barbarian they should have made him weaker or raised the starting level of the players. This problem is not limited to Strahd. In general the weaker monsters make tactically sound decisions, while the stronger monsters make decisions that would embarrass a goblin.

The good: As I mentioned a lot of the weaker monsters are tactically interesting. Some of the traps are quite clever (in particular the wight replacement trap is pretty great). The knowledge/bardic lore checks for the crypts was a nice new addition. The layout for Castle Ravenloft is still one of the better dungeon complex layouts one will ever see.

A bland inoffensive adventure. Their is nothing bad about this adventure, but there is nothing good about it either. Any halfway decent DM should be able to create an adventure of equal caliber without that much effort. I usually try to find more to say, but in this case the adventure is so bland I can't really think of anything else.

A terrible adventure even by 1st addition standards. This adventure is similar to the previous adventure in the series (DL1) in that the first half is events and the second half is a dungeon crawl.

The bad: Calling the first half of this module an "adventure" is stretching the definition of the word. It is closer to a 2nd person short story. The author of this module obviously intended for the players to sit on their hands, keep their mouths shut and let the DM narrate the story to them. If the players even slightly buck and try to think for themselves the adventure calls for a never ending supply of draconians to be thrown at them until they submit. Once the dungeon crawl section starts the adventure opens up slightly, but only in minor ways. The dungeon crawl portion still ends with the adventures as spectators for the finale. Also wide swathes of the dungeon are undetailed under the theory that the players do not need to go in those directions. What encounters the players do face are extremely perfunctory.

The good: There are no spectral minions in this adventure.

There is a lot of good setting and background information here, but the adventure series ignores this to go with the cliché "mad cultists running amok". The back story of the serpent people is incredibly interesting, but they are used as generic antagonists. The npc who goes missing and starts the whole thing off has an interesting (Lovecraft stolen) back story that is entirely ignored. The pirate setting is mostly ignored. This is not to say the adventure is written badly it is just an exceedingly generic adventure set in an interesting city.

The adventure also does not make the best use of its page count. At times it seems like the writer is blatantly including extraneous information to pad out the length and fit a certain page count. There is a very minor npc that only has a couple of lines and is killed off screen, but a half page sidebar is used to detail his entire life story. At another point an entire new class (cultist) is created and assigned to some low level unnamed npcs. Tellingly the class is never used again even though most of the villains in the adventure are cultists. At another point 13 pages are used to give way more information about the various NPCs at a party then would ever be needed even if one were LARPing the party. All of this means that this 120+ page adventure has less real actual content then a lot of 64 page adventures.

Again this is not a bad adventure, instead it is a mediocre adventure with an undeserved reputation and a padded page count.

A great adventure that offers the players lots of choices.

The good: A globe trotting adventure that takes the players to 6 different countries across the world. An adventure that leaves the players complete freedom on where they wish to go and what they wish to do. Quite a few red herrings that receive just as much detail as the rest of the adventure giving the adventure a far more open feel then any comparable adventure. The investigation is well thought out with lots of clues and options meaning that no clue is so essential that missing it derails the adventure.

The bad: Call of the Cthulu is in general more deadly then most other game systems and Masks is even worse about it. It is quite possible that the players could suffer a total party kill/insanity even after doing everything right.