An OSR Zine, but filled with more usuable content than some books.

We get a new Elvish-Demon Lord, some elf-sub races and a castle to adventure in. I immediately decided that all of these are connected and the Demon Lord, Erebus has these elves in his castle.

There are some patron saints of Good. Some magical tools and some new lycanthropes.

The WW2 OSR

Roll your classic 6 attributes, select your nationality, profession (before the war), and class (during the war) and you're ready to go!

Includes a wealth of detail on the war itself (including a detailed timeline) and many ways to play. From frontline soliders to commandoes to spies to tank commanders. As well as Nazi Superscience, the Nazi Occult, and Space Wars campaign modes to inject some scifi and fantasy into the game if you desire (totally optional but well detailed)

I can't recommend this product highly enough to anyone wishing to play a WW2 campaign, or play out a military conflict in a similar era.

Excellent art throughout

J'attendais la traduction de ce jeu depuis longtemps et je n'ai pas été déçu. L'ouvrage est de qualité et complet. Les règles bien connues remplissent leur office et les classes de personnages sont bien adaptées à la période. Le module "Ponteville" permet de jouer une première mission très libre de sabotage en France. A noter aussi qu'il existe un mini scénario pour permettre aux joueurs d'appréhender les règles. Enfin, les informations sur la seconde guerre mondiale et les missions commandos sont complètes sans être encyclopédiques et donnent de bonnes idées de campagnes.

A fun, semi-detailed city. A small City State of the Invincible Overlord without some of the goofy Judge's Guild 1970ness (and I was a player and loyal customer!). This is one that I printed and will use.

I must admit the idea of "WW2 D&D" struck me as an incredibly poor fit, but I purchased the book anyways and was pleasantly surprised.

The writer has done a fantastic job making the game flow well, striking a good balance between rules simplicity and enough chrome to feel satisfying. A lot of gamers will go into a game like this with particular expectations and I think this game will meet them pretty well.

There are things I'd have liked to see added or expanded upon (as always) but you get a really playable package with a ton of ideas to get on a table and play.

This is well recommended and I actually regret not picking up the print version instead. This would look fantastic on a bookshelf along my wargames books.

Operation WhiteBox is excellent in many ways. First, the quality of writing and the attention to detail that went into the design of this game is excellent! Second, the support by the designer is amazing. There are a number of existing support products that give GMs lots of missions from which to choose from. The game gives a taste of war at the tactical level with familiar underlying mechanics. If you are a history afficiando or an OSR gam looking for something different, this is a game for you.

This is a great addition to the already great Operation Whitebox line of products. A detailed supplement detailing anything one needs to know for running Combat involving small scale squads to larger. Includes movement in difficult terrain, crawling and sneaking along etc. Any rule you can think of for a war-based game is here. The supplement has good graphics detailing the use of "minis" if you play that style and also enough details to strictly play "Theater of the Mind". A list of weapons and vehicles and their usage. Overall a A+.

I was very impressed by this book. Having owned/played/GM'ed many, many modern games over the years, I found this to be a refreshing take on an old system and a relatively under-used genre. I have been very impressed by many of the games coming from Small Niche Games and I plan to continue following them to see what other role playing gems they put out in the future. The support for this game has already been tremendous, with a prolific number of adventures already available in a short amount of time.

The system is still OD&D, but the class structure isn't overwhelming. One of the things I love about OWB is that it uses the grandfather of all fantasy rpg's without being one. You won't find a hint of elves, magic users or dragons in this book. It's a very good take on a modern (by that I mean guns and tanks, not swords and horses) historical rpg. It was nice that they tipped their hat toward weird science and Nazis in space, but the game isn't inherently set up around anything surreal.

At first I was a little dismayed reading through the stats, weapons and combat. I kept thinking, "What about Hit Dice? Why is the weapon damage so flat-rate? Why just d6's?" Of course I was expecting more of a D20 Modern layout to all these things. Then, after I read through the introductory scenario, it all hit me. This isn't an 80's movie action take on WW2. It's extremely realistic. You have 1d6 hit points. Most weapons do at least 1d6 damage. If you run out in the open yelling, "Shoot me Shoot me Shoot me!" Someone will likely quite lethally oblige you. It's a refreshing change of pace. In fairness, you can still play in heroic mode and bump up the Hit Dice, etc.

I also really like the fact that there is no advancement beyond Level 5. It totally makes sense given the war itself didn't last that long. It also helps keep the combat realistic and somewhat gritty. Your character is part of the war effort, not winning the war single-handedly in both theaters of operation, and not coming out at the end with millions of gold coins, his own castle, and hundreds of followers.

My only real recommendations for improving the game are an expanded list of equipment and vehicles, by primary country and dates of deployment. (US, USSR, Germany, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan) There don't need to be volumous notes on everything, just enough to give each country's gear a somewhat realistic feel beyond "Rifle, Large." or "Tank, Medium." Also, it might have been a good idea to focus a little more on languages. The language barrier for Americans in Europe and Japan should probably come up on a regular basis in game. A little more detail overall on the timeline at the beginning of the book or in the GM section would have been helpful for a younger crowd or one with less familiarity with history. This is one of the only games I've ever seen where some outside research is fun and helpful in running and even playing the game. My players are getting brief history lessons with their rpg time Bwah ha-ha! and that's awesome.

I was also balked slightly when the hardcover was made available the day after my softcover arrived in the mail. If only I had waited... Oh well. I just have to take really good care of this softcover until I can find a friend to give it to and order the hardcover for me.

The wait for this was well worth it. Having a Swords and Wizardry White Box game with all the bells and whistles of WWII is an exciting prospect. The book itself is well organized and provides excellent advice on running a military campaign. Of special note was the advice on historical accuracy and limiting the scope of adventures so the Referee is not overwhelmed by the amount of detail that could bog them down. I think this is great advice for campaigns in any historical setting.

Overall, a wonderful game. I may throw in some schmeisser carrying orcs in my next Swords and Wizardry campaign.

A very flexible ruleset for historical WWII adventure gaming. Also includes guidance for running super science, occult, and even space games. Heck, you could run OD&D Modern with it, if you wanted to. Thumbs up!

If you're thinking about taking WWII: Operation Whitebox for a drive, you should definitely get this module. It consists of three short commando raids set in Norway, each one good for a play session. Would make an excellent start for an Operation Whitebox campaign. Recommended.

This is a very detailed guidebook that makes me interested in purchasing more products based in the same world. Definitely worth getting for ideas even if you're not interested in running games in this world. Includes a nice set of maps as well.

I don't know anything about Labyrinth Lord as a game, but I'm very impressed with the story ideas and setting created. I plan on swiping this for the 5th Edition game I'm doing for my wife. Thank you very much, well worth paying for.

Like the Guidebook to the City of Dolmvay and the Chronicles of Amherth, Spahn delivers a solid and well developed old school setting as he continues to expand SNG's flagship world. Like Chronicles of Amherth, this book paints in broad strokes to make it easily adapted to an existing campaign. The book is chock full of plot hooks, adventure seeds, and just plain old fashioned fun. Highly recommended.

It's implicity designed for Labyrinth Lord, but is easily adapted to any OSR or fantasy RPG due to the minimally invasive nature of Labyrinth Lord's B/X gaming roots.

Highly, highly, highly recommended.

Overall this is a decently structured story and sufficiently succinct for a competent group of players to execute in one to two sessions. Keeping the story contained to a single location/structure is a wonderful concept that more writers should do. This allows DM's to incorporate a story such as this into their campaigns with little to no effort.

Overall the story flows well enough, though I believe the ending is in dire need of a rewrite, and would not recommend executing this story without changing the ending. In short, one of possible outcomes results in the players having an all-out battle to the death between one another until a final victor is found, only to have the party all magically aliveat the end with the "it was just a dream" ending.

In fact, one of the NPCs says this almost verbatim. Literally, the most hated cliché in all of literature is, "...and it was all just a dream". And here it is, in all its horrid glory.

Overall, I feel the book would have been better served if it had been structured more akin to a traditional play, starting with the dramatis personae, then moving to the setting description, then dividing the story into 3 separate acts. As I read through it, I found myself flipping back and forth trying to find out who the characters were initially, then trying to keep moving with the story, then trying to follow the progression.

The random encounter tables are good, and throwing a few fights into the mix is enough of a challenge to keep the players on their toes. A musical transition between the "phases" of the inn is a nice note, ala Silent Hill.

The chambers feel a bit punitive in nature, as each are effectively designed to cater to a specific class (cleric, fighter, wizard, thief), leaving, for the most part, the rest of the party to sit around and twiddle their thumbs. And, of course, if that the party does not have such a member, then the DM needs to partially or completely redesign the entire encounter, which is another headache. Additionally, if the party member dies in that encounter, there will be no one else to complete the task, effectively resulting in a TPK, unless the DM fudges the encounter on the next go-around.

In conclusion, I'd say this is a decent buy for the money, but not something most people could/would/should play as-is. Any DM that picks this up should plan on rewriting the ending, adjusting the challenge chambers to match the party compositions, and probably tailor the NPC cast (it's probably bigger than what is necessary).