Two Words, One Answer.
10Sep2009
 10 Things I Want My Son to Know: Getting Him Ready for Life $10.99 Unlike Chapman's other books on Christian living which generally take on an "outdoors" theme, this is primarily centered on passing on knowledge to his son.How many men wish their fathers had done the same? One essay. One Page. One Paragraph. Anything? Chapman records his personal thoughts and ideas while always keeping them Christ-centered. Its hard to go wrong living a Christ-centered life. I read this as prep work for reading Dr. Dobson's "Bringing up Boys". I wanted an insider's view of raising a Godly son, before I went with technical data. My 5 year old is already quickly becoming a young man and its helpful to understand the importance even now of passing on a legacy. But is this a good book? I found some nuggets worth keeping. Maybe the biggest thing I've learned however, is its time to set down some things I want my own child to learn.  Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil (Dungeons & Dragons d20 3.0 Fantasy Roleplaying Adventure, 4th to 14th Levels) $29.95 Although I agree with most of the feedback that this is a great module (the dungeon levels are excellent and well-documented). I would point out that the overland maps, while beautiful, are NOT TO SCALE and DO NOT MESH with the Living Grayhawk material. Also the maps and sketch of Hommlet DO NOT MATCH the old AD&D module (esp regarding terrain). Unfortunately this is typical of the Dungeons and Dragons product line. For example, the text says it's 30 miles to Verbobonc, but the overland map shows 90. There are no details about the river that flows past Hommlet, nor the one that flows past the moathouse. Nor are there any roads shown for the route to Rastor. While this is fine for hack and slash GMs who don't care about realistic whole-world detail, the more discerning GM will spend hours remapping and/or rescaling all the overland areas. Because there are no published detail maps for the world of Grayhawk, the GM must make his own maps, and face the prospect of reworking them later to fit future modules into the campaign. All-in-all, this is really just a case of poor editing. I would suggest dropping this module into your own campaign world and forgetting the World of Grayhawk altogether, since it so inconsistent and patchy. You may have to redo one or both of the two overland maps, but at least you can make it mesh.  Games People Play $9.00 I look for games to play at family get togethers and simple dinner parties. After reviewing all of the games in the book, I found only one that I could use. The others require too much preparation. For instance, "Mad Advertising" has you record 20 commercial from the TV and find an obscure question to ask about the commercial. When the game begins, you show the commercial and ask the question, and see who gets the most correct answers. That's too much time and trouble, and not that fun. |
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