The Inside Scoop on Gaming

It seems anything that has to do with dreams would have to have that same kind of ephemeral texture as our dreams. Trying to get that "dreamy" quality is almost impossible when you're dealing with the tyranny of ink and paper. Dreams fade much quicker than the blackness of ink. It seems that in the cataloging the Dreamlands that metaphors can quickly become concretized and brittle. Of course with that being said can any product on the Dreamlands succeed? My gut feeling is "no," yet this product does make a valiant effort.

This book starts with mechanics, but being Cthulhu these are minimal and merely serve to advance the story and its flavor. Then in a flash of insight there is a account of "The Dream-Quest of Randall Carter." This is an essay that describes various events from Lovecraft's story "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." It would have been brilliant if they had reprinted the original story (as I understand they're doing in reprinting "Call of Cthulhu" within the new edition of the game). This essay serves to place the events of the story, and the materials on places, people, and things which follow into a context. It succeeds in part, but I would have liked to have had access to some of the original stories which inspired this collection "Dreamlands."

One of the strengths of "Cthulhu" has always been its scenarios. The two scenarios at the end of the book are fine, but I kept thinking of other ways in which I would like to use the Dreamlands while I was reading them. The book concludes with information about creating Dreamlands adventurers, and concludes with a nice bibliography.

I have to admit that I feel that Mythos:Dreamlands does a better job of evoking the Dreamlands than does this book. Yet, if you are considering a journey to the Dreamlands in your campaign this book is almost essential. There is an enormous amount of material to play around with in here.

This is good, solid, work, but it just doesn't inspire. Its a "B." I would have liked to have seen the old cover to this book. It had a man sitting on a Zebra, and when you saw it you immediately knew that you were somewhere special. This book has a ship caught in a storm, and I feel that that could happen almost anywhere.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)

The Complete Dreamlands
Author: Chris Williams and Sandy Petersen, with Shannon Appel, Kerie Campbell, Jaqueline Clegg, Scott Clegg, Phil Frances, Keith Herber, Susan Hutchinson, Lynn Willis Category: game Company/Publisher: Chaosium Cost: 21.95 Page count: 192 pages plus foldout map ISBN: 1-56882-086-0 Capsule Review by Scott Shafer on 06/21/98. Genre tags: none	It seems anything that has to do with dreams would have to have that same kind of ephemeral texture as our dreams. Trying to get that "dreamy" quality is almost impossible when you're dealing with the tyranny of ink and paper. Dreams fade much quicker than the blackness of ink. It seems that in the cataloging the Dreamlands that metaphors can quickly become concretized and brittle. Of course with that being said can any product on the Dreamlands succeed? My gut feeling is "no," yet this product does make a valiant effort. This book starts with mechanics, but being Cthulhu these are minimal and merely serve to advance the story and its flavor. Then in a flash of insight there is a account of "The Dream-Quest of Randall Carter." This is an essay that describes various events from Lovecraft's story "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath." It would have been brilliant if they had reprinted the original story (as I understand they're doing in reprinting "Call of Cthulhu" within the new edition of the game). This essay serves to place the events of the story, and the materials on places, people, and things which follow into a context. It succeeds in part, but I would have liked to have had access to some of the original stories which inspired this collection "Dreamlands." One of the strengths of "Cthulhu" has always been its scenarios. The two scenarios at the end of the book are fine, but I kept thinking of other ways in which I would like to use the Dreamlands while I was reading them. The book concludes with information about creating Dreamlands adventurers, and concludes with a nice bibliography. I have to admit that I feel that Mythos:Dreamlands does a better job of evoking the Dreamlands than does this book. Yet, if you are considering a journey to the Dreamlands in your campaign this book is almost essential. There is an enormous amount of material to play around with in here. This is good, solid, work, but it just doesn't inspire. Its a "B." I would have liked to have seen the old cover to this book. It had a man sitting on a Zebra, and when you saw it you immediately knew that you were somewhere special. This book has a ship caught in a storm, and I feel that that could happen almost anywhere. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 3 (Average)

The Complete Dreamlands