THE PUBLISH ON DEMAND IS TRASH I ordered the hard cover premium book and the quality is lacking. The cover looks great but the pages have a cheap feel and the pictures and texture looks warped and streched as if the formating is all wrong DO NOT BUY THE HARDCOVER

The PDF is material is great lots of interesting ideas very easy to read lots of information about the setting however from what I understand there is so topics missiing which I would have liked to still have in the pdf as an option with a trigger warning

I think you'd be better off trying to find a copy of the original campaign materials.

In a misguided attempt to remove everything potentially upsetting from a vibrant political and cultural landscape, what you're left with is toothless and bland. The book has several entries where the authors blatantly admitted/apologized that they were too chickenshit to address realistic but unsavory issues like slavery, religious fundamentalism or sexism, so their solution was to just wave it all away. Granted it's a fantasy world, so I GUESS that's ok, but if there's no friction, nothing's left to fight against. The authors did to Al-Qadim what university students regularly do to stand-up comics: they edited out all the interesting parts in a pathetic attempt to protect every last human being from the unthinkable horror of not liking something.

The original setting from AD&D and the similar ones that followed in 3.5 (Sandstorm) contained a wealth of setting-specific spells, abilities, magic items and character options, but the authors made few efforts to convert any of those, which might be a good thing because the few new mechanical bits they did author are poorly constructed.

Just snag a copy of the originals and do your own editing. This was a waste of money.

Good book; solid middle eastern flavor. Great book to expand your Forgotten Realms.

A respectable attempt, however by triyng to "downplay sensitive content" (where "sensitive" is defined by modern twitter standards), the world feels far more bland as a result. I'd recommend buying the 2E books over this, as regardess of one's opinion on "sensitive topics", the fact is it's much more detailed and gives a much greater picture of the world at large. As for this book, I'd still recommend its bestiary, the kits mechanic, the subclass adaptations, and adventure that comes with. So it does still have some good - the lorebuilding is just the bad part.

I have been studying old editions of DnD for fun in my free time. In the process, I became very interested in 2e, seeing it as the peak of "old DnD" before Wizards took over, and comparing design philosophies then to design philosophies now has been very interesting. During my research, I stumbled upon a setting I had never heard about; Al-Qadim, the Land of Fate. I was intrigued and chose to read deeper, only to find that this was not just a mere "haha, it's Aladdin but in DnD!", but one of the most interesting, compelling, and unique settings I had ever read for DnD that still held true to many of the classic DnD tropes. One could argue Dark Sun is more unique, and I would relent, but DnD games set on Athas are so separate from DnD games set anywhere else (beyond maybe Spelljammer) that they feel like entirely different beasts. Al-Qadim is unique while still exemplifying what makes classic DnD undeniably fantasy to me.

Al-Qadim has clearly been left behind by Wizards in the post-TSR days, and whether or not that's a good idea makes for an argument I wouldn't like to have. I simply find the setting engaging, and I appreciate that it goes out of its way to show that so many different beings live together largely harmoniously, including ogres which was a massive surprise to me. I love settings that emphasize that all these different people can truly work together, and it really cuts away some of the things I hate to deal with with in DnD in favor of just having adventures together as comrades! Any real world cultural sensitivity I feel I am not really equipped to comment on, but I can suspect it was the early 90s and maybe "doing our best" wasn't good enough, to say the least.

I would love to run an Al-Qadim game, but I would have to overcome the massive hurdle that is teaching my players 2e or work to convert the setting into 5e. At least, I thought I did, until I found this product. Coming highly praised from a self-professed Al-Qadim fan, I decided to take the plunge and buy the PDF to give it a shot. I'm thrilled to say, all the work has been done for me, and better than I ever would have been able to! Thanks to this book, I feel perfectly confident to convert and run old Al-Qadim adventures in a system my friends actually know how to play, as well as create all new adventures in the setting. Reading it over, I saw a ton of the information I had read from all the old 2e books, but with even more added in, and some shined up and refreshed for a new, more socially conscious era, complete with a return of my favorite aspect of 2e, kits!

This book retains everything I loved about Al-Qadim and cut everything I didn't. It's a beautiful book with a ton of lore to enjoy and just enough new rules to get you going in 5e, because Al-Qadim doesn't need much to run properly. With DTRPG's prices on premium color books going up, I decided I wanted to own just one premium book before that happened, and this is the one I chose. I think it will look spiffy next to all my other hardcover RPG books on the shelf. My only regret is that I didn't have enough faith to buy the book and PDF together to save a little money, but that's entirely on me.

That said, if I can ever run a classic 2e Al-Qadim campaign, I'd still love to. ...But I still might be taking some cues from this fresh new take on the setting!

Super enjoyed this, a great resource for anyone attempting an Al-Qadim 5e game!

A labour of love that is both accurate to the 2e source material and respectful to the cultures that inspired it.

A really neat read! You can really see the author's love for the source material, as well as a genuine care regarding the problematic elements of the past renditions.