A preview of what you're buying, even a few excerpts, would IMO be a good idea, but these products seem to be well reviewed.

This download was a welcome addition to my collection. Even after thirty years of collecting and DMing, it helps to get some new ideas injected into the game, and Bits of Darkness: Dungeons does exactly that. This book contains six Dungeon Shards (encounters with a fair amount of detail and explanation), 100 Dungeon Bits (snippets of description or leading text), and also eight Catacombs encounters that are more detailed than Dungeon Bits but slightly less involved than the Dungeon Shards.

The pdf is cleanly organized to bring the best impact to your game session, fully bookmarked and easy to read. The fonts and and artwork do a nice job creating atmosphere without distracting from the content. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the book has not only a table of contents but also an index.

While the Dungeon Shards and Catacombs encounters are thoughtful and appropriate for nearly any dungeon scenario, the real gem of Bits of Darkness: Dungeons is also the longest section of the book: Dungeon Bits. These short pieces of atmosphere and description provide sensory-based clues and red herrings to be used by the DungeonMaster. While working with all five senses is a hallmark of good writing and good DMing, it can sometimes be difficult to recall in the heat of the game session to relate more than what the PCs can see. These premade bits are divided into categories for "Sights," "Sounds," "Scents," and "Stuff" to make sure you always have something on hand to keep the game fresh.

Bits of Darkness: Dungeons could be used on the fly to get a dungeon going, but it really shines when used as additional prep material for a polished, flesh-out adventure. Sometimes you're just not sure what to put down that other corridor, but you know that you want an alternate branch for heroes to explore. They can't just walk down a straight tunnel to the villain of the session, after all. Bits of Darkness: Dungeons gives the DM some clever ways to guide the party along, but it also leaves enough latitude to tailor an encounter to whatever scenario is appropriate.

The price of this supplement (currently $5.25) hearkens to the era of the mid-80s, when these sorts of books were being produced officially by TSR. It is of roughly the same length as those classic supplements, as well, and provides the same sort of punch when you really need it.

A nifty booklet giving tidbits that can be used rolled randomly or selected for use in any dungeon. Lots of the bits can be used as Adventure Seeds as well, which makes them doubly useful.

I'll be pulling this out for my next dungeon crawl.

Bits of Darkness: Dungeons is a very good idea and well executed. The concept is to provide a dungeon designer with little interesting characteristics of each room of the dungeon. Some of these details are more thorough with plot hooks, treasure, & traps; some are just a couple of lines of description. It's all terribly useful stuff, especially for groups which make heavy use of random elements. There are also several small pieces of good black & white artwork.

Liked: Variety of well written characteristics, all of them excellently organized

Disliked: The authors relied rather heavily upon the concept of finding the body of a previous adventurer. If I were to use all of these in a large dungeon, my players would be angry with me about all of these bodies laying around for no reason. It's also a completely incompatible concept with many themed dungeons. Really, why do so many people keep going into this dungeon if no one ever comes back out?

An absolutely essential piece of equipment for the tired GM for keeping the mood during the late hour playing sessions. I love this book and my players too even if they don't know it's not me and my imagination. Well laid out, well written and the cards are great for keeping around and not taking up space with another book. It's relatively printer friendly as well.

Wow. I'm gonna buy all of these in the future. IT was very well layed out and the descriptions where all top notch. my players didnt even know i was pulling material from a book. and it really created just the right mood that i was looking for.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: everything<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: no problems what so ever <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

A great buy. Very usefull to those of us with little time and demanding players always wanting more, More, MORE.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Well written and general enough to placed in just about any setting.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

So, what is Bits of Darkness Dungeons? It is not a module or campaign setting. It is not a player resource; it has no feats, spells, items, or classes inside it. It is a book on details. Not how to create ones own details but over a hundred specific details that can easily be added to any dungeon. These details are just descriptions but a lot of time descriptions can be a hard thing for DMs to create especially when one does not have adequate time to prepare them. Now, there are some interest ideas in the descriptions. They won?t change an adventure but can add an air of mystery and suspense when used right. There are descriptions of sights, smells, and sounds. They have some for rooms, hallways, and stairs. There are descriptions to enhance moods, inspire dread, and show signs of abandonment or previous explorations, or even the possibility of intelligence inhabitants.

<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This product accomplishes precisely what it claims - it provides short descriptions to liven up your dungeon. You can use it while designing your dungeon or you can introduce bits on the fly if things get dull. Many GMs I have played under desperately require a resource like this.

It's in black and white, with 16 pages of descriptions, including 100 Dungeon Bits (divided into sights, sounds and smells), 6 Dungeon Shards (more complicated situations, often the remains of previous adventurers), 8 Catacombs (you know, tombs and stuff) and 6 Bits of Trouble (traps and encounters) and 5 pieces of original art. Following that there's an index, which classify the descriptions as hallways, rooms, stairs, indications of abandonment, evidence of previous travelers (a staple in my campaigns), signs of intelligence, inspiring dread and mood setters, and then all of the descriptions are repeated in index card form.

Buy it - if you run dungeons, your campaign will improve.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The index and organization. I wasn't expecting that.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The assumed setting is too Gygaxian for my campaign. Easily fixed, of course.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

I like collecting "adventure bits," such as short encounters, maps, NPCs, odd items, etc., because I discovered that no matter how well prepared I am to run a game, my players will always surprise me. This is very much a gamemasters book and by itself is probably not that interesting, but will be very useful in a pinch. The descriptions are evocative and gave me ideas for longer adventures/plots right away. Be aware that some descriptions may be too detailed to throw casually into an existing adventure as simple dungeon dressing, though they do make excellent red herrings. :)

<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Good ideas and overall a good gamemaster aid.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

"Bits of Darkness: Dungeons" claims to be ready to "buy now, use tonight", and certainly lives up to this claim. The PDF contains a lovely selection of well-written little "filler descriptions" that can easily be dropped into any dungeon. At the very least, they make things more interesting, especially if you tend to run out of prose after a while; at best, i've found them to often provide ideas for additional plot hooks or side developments.

The material is best suited for DMs that design their own campaigns, in particular where these campaigns are free-flowing and open to further development. If you run a module-driven or very well-planned and sculpted game, you might find the additional material less useful in-game, but it might help you a lot in your preparation. If your DM'ing style is anything like mine, you have the broad plot sorted out well, and most of the plot-related locations need little further assistance. But what do you do with all the other locations in your setting? "Bits of Darkness: Dungeons" makes it easy to fill in these blanks without any additional preparation, by pulling a card from a stack during play, or by randomly choosing one of the more than 100 descriptions from the booklet.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: I like the well-written, categorised descriptions, especially the ideas for further plot hooks.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing :)<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

If you are straining your brain trying to come up with a description of a room in a dungeon, then this product is just what you need. It covers, sights, sounds, scents, hallways, and rooms. With additional descriptions for other items.

This is much better than coming up with the boring description like "You enter the room and see a large wooden table with six chairs, bones scattered on the floor and a skeleton in the corner." Bits of Darkness: Dungeons gives atmosphere to the place the pcs are exploring.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The descriptions are the best.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing to dislike.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This is a spectacular product!!! Any GM short on time needs to buy these books. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Addition of index cards with the different descriptions on them. <br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Aimed at d20. I play Iron Gauntlets, but it is still generic enough to be incredibly useful for any fantasy game.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>