The Inside Scoop on Gaming

"A Guide to Transylvania" is the last book for Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death. Weakly supported, the line's first two products were hardly strong enough to keep the fickle attentions of gamers. It's with that Alanis irony that this last book was so good as to leave even the jaded gamers wanting more.

Starting on the weak points so as to finish strongly, the noticeable quantity of typos and grammatical errors are cause to get out a red marker while reading the Guide. Maps are usually a good thing, but in this case, the regional maps only add confusion. Scale is left out and none of the borders match up on other maps, leaving the reader to puzzle locations on his or her own. Lakes are named on the maps, but no marker places them, possibly suggesting that those bodies of water are migratory.

On the plus side, no Dover clip art was exploited in the making of "A Guide to Transylvania." All the art is original, sparingly used, and generally quite decent. Roughly half the towns are mapped. The town maps are quite usable.

Nicky Rea condensed the long history of the region into the first 20 pages of the book. Most of the space is taken up with the life of Vlad Dracula. The section is a nicely written account that feels complete yet concise, and digestible without coming across as dumbed down. Names, customs, pronunciation, art, culture, and religion get ample treatment. For such a diverse land, that's a notable feat.

To fit so much information into a 96 page book, some things had to be left out. For that, references are made to at least half a dozen other TSR books, one of which is years out of print. Though, little of the referred material is remotely essential.

"A Guide to Transylvania" has a wealth of information. There are more than a dozen NPCs, a handful of qabals, and some remarkably complete background information. With maps containing useful features such as roads or scale, the book would have been complete. Even in their absence, it's still a fine sourcebook.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

A Guide to Transylvania
Author: Nicky Rea Category: game Company/Publisher: TSR Cost: $12.95 Page count: 96 ISBN: 0-7869-0424-0 Capsule Review by C.H. Gallant on 03/24/98. Genre tags: none	"A Guide to Transylvania" is the last book for Ravenloft: Masque of the Red Death. Weakly supported, the line's first two products were hardly strong enough to keep the fickle attentions of gamers. It's with that Alanis irony that this last book was so good as to leave even the jaded gamers wanting more. Starting on the weak points so as to finish strongly, the noticeable quantity of typos and grammatical errors are cause to get out a red marker while reading the Guide. Maps are usually a good thing, but in this case, the regional maps only add confusion. Scale is left out and none of the borders match up on other maps, leaving the reader to puzzle locations on his or her own. Lakes are named on the maps, but no marker places them, possibly suggesting that those bodies of water are migratory. On the plus side, no Dover clip art was exploited in the making of "A Guide to Transylvania." All the art is original, sparingly used, and generally quite decent. Roughly half the towns are mapped. The town maps are quite usable. Nicky Rea condensed the long history of the region into the first 20 pages of the book. Most of the space is taken up with the life of Vlad Dracula. The section is a nicely written account that feels complete yet concise, and digestible without coming across as dumbed down. Names, customs, pronunciation, art, culture, and religion get ample treatment. For such a diverse land, that's a notable feat. To fit so much information into a 96 page book, some things had to be left out. For that, references are made to at least half a dozen other TSR books, one of which is years out of print. Though, little of the referred material is remotely essential. "A Guide to Transylvania" has a wealth of information. There are more than a dozen NPCs, a handful of qabals, and some remarkably complete background information. With maps containing useful features such as roads or scale, the book would have been complete. Even in their absence, it's still a fine sourcebook. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)