Disclaimer, I adapted this for the Dungeon World rule system, so anything related to the stats of the traps and monsters I cannot speak to.

The book gives you 5 arenas, I have GM'ed a one shots with one of them as well as incorporated one into a larger campaign. They were fun, but I would say that some of the traps are repetitive. I incorporated some traps from Scavenger Studios "14 Traps" to make the games more dynamic which did the trick.

The maps were great to use when I projected them digitally onto my tv from my laptop.

Solid product

Eh. I found the crunch to be marginally useful but the setting/concept behind it reminded me too much of Irendi from Mystara (plot device for getting you in a dungeon setting). Still, dropping a 15th level character down a 150' razor lined spiked pit and hearing him lie still and whimper at the bottom was very satisfying and almost worth the price of admission alone.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The traps that were lethal to even high level characters.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The setting and central concept of it.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

There is an evil society that likes to make up interesting variations of the arena. The contestants can be volunteers, or they can be captured, either way they had better find a way to survive. This is the "Running Man" of a fantasy setting.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: If you want to have a hack-n-slash dungeon delve without the absurdities of dungeon delving, here you go. It is a great thing to spice up any game that needs more excitement and bloodshed.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: It is not for long-term campaigns. Rather, it is best used as a side adventure.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

I feel pretty apathetic about this product. I've had it for quite some time but I rarely use it.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

I was hoping this book would be a good source of traps and tricks I could strip from their setting and use as I wished. Unfortunately, the book isn't great for that.

Unless you want to use the entire society they've built into this book and use the arenas exactly as they've been written, I would not recommend this partilar volume. It's just not particularly adaptable, and I never use anything "as is".

But if you're looking specifically for a secret society who loves deadly games to plug into your campaign, by all means... Buy this one.

Consider it 3.5 stars, really. Well constructed and solidly-written - though another round of editing would've been good - this is a good resource for ideas to spice up a campaign or as a centerpiece, using the shadowy Society as your PCs primary foil. Well-worth the full $7.95 price; even moreso for only $1.

I like the way this is set up -- if you want to set a whole campaign aroung the ideas in this book, you can. If you aren't ready to hit the reset button on your players' current exploits, but you want to get away for a while, you can take some pre-gen characters, drop them in, and let everyone have at it.

I really enoyed many of the ideas and gladiator-type events in here. They are well designed and a lot of fun. It can be tricky using them in your game unless there's a reason for your players to be in gladiator events, but if you run these types of games it is great.

I wasn't overly fond of the pick-up characters inside and run them in a gladiator event, seemed too hack-n-slash to me.

However, if the DM is resourceful enough to find ways of incorporating these events into their campaign, then their players will have a blast.