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This is, without a doubt, going to be the single most unnecessary review on RPGNet. The book is eight years old, and it was basically an book of adventures for a game that is no longer supported by Palladium, Beyond the Supernatural. Beyond the Supernatural, Palladium's horror line, has been cast aside for their new horror line, NightBane. So why am I bothering?

Three nights ago, I was digging through a mess of old books and I came across Boxed Nightmares. To start with, the cover is cool. It's what originally got me to purchase the book. My eight year old nephew had nightmares because of it. It's a really great cover. I suppose, however, that that's hardly enough to merit purchasing the book. (Oh, and just in case you hadn't kenned just yet, Boxed Nightmares is one book, not a boxed set.)

The original book came packed with a four page tabloid. I have, at some distant point in the past, lost the tabloid. I doubt many people will be able to actually find the book -with- the tabloid, since they'll have to buy it used, so my inability to review it seems pretty harmless. From what I recall, the tabloid was pretty cool, and made a decent player handout. Then again, that was eight years ago, and I was thirteen.

The book starts with some general GM (or ST, or DM, or Weaver, or Keeper or blah blah blah) info on how to run a horror game. The elements of horror, from the supernatural to the known evil. I suppose that had I not, in the eight years since this book's release, graduated from Rifts and Palladium Fantasy to Vampire and Call of Cthulhu, this information may very well have helped me. As it is, it's pretty much the same stuff you've read a thousand times in any White Wolf book. (Or discussed on any Cthulhu list. When to play the Mythos card, how to build up, suspense, yar yar.)

It then gives information on creating an investigation agency. While the book's system of points and such is absolute balderdash, reading what it has to say can no doubt give players ideas. Ideas for their own games, I mean. See, since Beyond the Supernatural is dead, and fitting these adventures into games like Rifts or Heroes Unlimited is difficult at best, Boxed Nightmares really comes into its own when used with a non-Palladium group. Examples I plan on using (and already have used once already) will follow in the play by play for the adventures.

The first adventure is 'Trouble in Old Town', which is described as a detective or crime-busting style adventure. The premise is that a new gang is moving into town, and they're employing monsters to take their turf. This is easily enough translated into Call of Cthulhu (or Delta Green, if you like using the Fate), though I actually plan on using this adventure in a Feng Shui game. It is a well-written adventure in that you can make it as shallow or deep as you want, depending on how much time you want to put into it, and the players can still get into the action. The background of the story gives away too many surprises for my taste (I don't buy that the police would even bother with saying that there are no giant demons running around at press conferences) but these things are easily tweaked.

The second adventure, A Slice Out of Time, is one of those stories that seems really cool until you actually run it. The premise is that someone is reenacting Jack the Ripper's murders in modern London. The adventure is described as a 'supernatural slug-fest that will carry our investigators into an alien dimenson and to the brink of insanity'. If, with the Beyond the Supernatural title, Palladium was hoping to create their own Call of Cthulhu, it's the above sentence that describes where they went wrong. Call of Cthulhu is very rarely a 'slug-fest' of any kind. The adventure itself is somewhat skimpy and would take a good amount of (get used to this word) tweaking to make into anything resembling a decent story.

The Box is the third adventure, and it is the adventure from whence the book seemingly gets its title and its cover. A great one shot, perfect for a single night. A zoologist has been killed at the local zoo, and it's up to the investigators to find out the doings behind the doings. An excellent seed for CoC because it keeps down the combat, focusing on the hide and seek aspect of hunting a monster that relies on instinct and doesn't want to get caught.

South American Skulduggery is the fourth adventure, and is absolutely unsuitable for anything but the game it was made for. It was enjoying to read, but the adventure itself plays the 'Mythos Card' early and plays it often. Tweaking doesn't begin to describe what would have to be done to this adventure to make it workable in a CoC game. Unless it's the last CoC game you ever plan to run with this group, and you want to kill them all in the most gaudy and grusome display of constant supernatural presence possible. Oh, I should probably mention what the adventure is about. It is sort of a sequal to Trouble in Old Town where the investigators go down to South America to a plantation where they discover supernatural events happening at every turn, including a banshee, zombies, ghouls and a dybbuk.

It Must be Magic, the fifth adventure, is described as 'a mini-adventure with lots of potential for expansion'. Uh huh. It's not a mini-adventure. It's a story seed. At best. Impossible crimes are being committed, so your investigators are supposed to find out how they're being done. It sounds good, but three pages are spent on it, one of which is used to describe the new archtypes that PCs can play. There's no adventure, there's just an idea.

My personal favorite of the bunch is the Hitchhiker of Death, the fifth adventure. Nearly a dozen murders have taken place near Doverton, Main along a stretch of Interstate 490. Every time the cops think they've got the baddie, the murders start up again. The investigators arrive when the third Hitchhiker of Death has been captured, and is all confused, with no clue of what's going on. Investigation is the point of this adventure. Admittedly there are a few cliches (including a visit from an old American Indian shaman) but they are reletively well done cliches. Only a small amount of work need be done to make this adventure work with CoC.

A pseudo-sequel to the Hitchhiker of is amusingly called What? Another One?! which focuses on werewolves who party in the wake of the Hitchhiker of Death. It's a straightforward adventure with investigation leading to combat leading to death. I actually liked it, though when I ran it for my Delta Green group, I ditched the whole werewolf thing and made the werewolf family a clan of degenerate backwoods ghouls. Deliverance + Ghouls = Egads!

The book itself has held up well over eight years, and while my copy is covered with coffee stains, I can hardly assure you that yours will end up the same. Most of the interior art is done by the talented, if static, Kevin Long, with the occasional drawing by Kevin 'I Should Stick To Writing' Siembieda.

In conclusion, it was a good book for Beyond the Supernatural, and with work it can be neatly adapted to the horror RPGs of today.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 4 (Meaty)

Boxed Nightmares
Author: Kevin Siembieda, Kevin Long and Erick Wujcik. Category: game Company/Publisher: Palladium Book Cost: $11.95 Page count: 80 Capsule Review by Adam Schroeder on 07/30/98. Genre tags: none	This is, without a doubt, going to be the single most unnecessary review on RPGNet. The book is eight years old, and it was basically an book of adventures for a game that is no longer supported by Palladium, Beyond the Supernatural. Beyond the Supernatural, Palladium's horror line, has been cast aside for their new horror line, NightBane. So why am I bothering? Three nights ago, I was digging through a mess of old books and I came across Boxed Nightmares. To start with, the cover is cool. It's what originally got me to purchase the book. My eight year old nephew had nightmares because of it. It's a really great cover. I suppose, however, that that's hardly enough to merit purchasing the book. (Oh, and just in case you hadn't kenned just yet, Boxed Nightmares is one book, not a boxed set.) The original book came packed with a four page tabloid. I have, at some distant point in the past, lost the tabloid. I doubt many people will be able to actually find the book -with- the tabloid, since they'll have to buy it used, so my inability to review it seems pretty harmless. From what I recall, the tabloid was pretty cool, and made a decent player handout. Then again, that was eight years ago, and I was thirteen. The book starts with some general GM (or ST, or DM, or Weaver, or Keeper or blah blah blah) info on how to run a horror game. The elements of horror, from the supernatural to the known evil. I suppose that had I not, in the eight years since this book's release, graduated from Rifts and Palladium Fantasy to Vampire and Call of Cthulhu, this information may very well have helped me. As it is, it's pretty much the same stuff you've read a thousand times in any White Wolf book. (Or discussed on any Cthulhu list. When to play the Mythos card, how to build up, suspense, yar yar.) It then gives information on creating an investigation agency. While the book's system of points and such is absolute balderdash, reading what it has to say can no doubt give players ideas. Ideas for their own games, I mean. See, since Beyond the Supernatural is dead, and fitting these adventures into games like Rifts or Heroes Unlimited is difficult at best, Boxed Nightmares really comes into its own when used with a non-Palladium group. Examples I plan on using (and already have used once already) will follow in the play by play for the adventures. The first adventure is 'Trouble in Old Town', which is described as a detective or crime-busting style adventure. The premise is that a new gang is moving into town, and they're employing monsters to take their turf. This is easily enough translated into Call of Cthulhu (or Delta Green, if you like using the Fate), though I actually plan on using this adventure in a Feng Shui game. It is a well-written adventure in that you can make it as shallow or deep as you want, depending on how much time you want to put into it, and the players can still get into the action. The background of the story gives away too many surprises for my taste (I don't buy that the police would even bother with saying that there are no giant demons running around at press conferences) but these things are easily tweaked. The second adventure, A Slice Out of Time, is one of those stories that seems really cool until you actually run it. The premise is that someone is reenacting Jack the Ripper's murders in modern London. The adventure is described as a 'supernatural slug-fest that will carry our investigators into an alien dimenson and to the brink of insanity'. If, with the Beyond the Supernatural title, Palladium was hoping to create their own Call of Cthulhu, it's the above sentence that describes where they went wrong. Call of Cthulhu is very rarely a 'slug-fest' of any kind. The adventure itself is somewhat skimpy and would take a good amount of (get used to this word) tweaking to make into anything resembling a decent story. The Box is the third adventure, and it is the adventure from whence the book seemingly gets its title and its cover. A great one shot, perfect for a single night. A zoologist has been killed at the local zoo, and it's up to the investigators to find out the doings behind the doings. An excellent seed for CoC because it keeps down the combat, focusing on the hide and seek aspect of hunting a monster that relies on instinct and doesn't want to get caught. South American Skulduggery is the fourth adventure, and is absolutely unsuitable for anything but the game it was made for. It was enjoying to read, but the adventure itself plays the 'Mythos Card' early and plays it often. Tweaking doesn't begin to describe what would have to be done to this adventure to make it workable in a CoC game. Unless it's the last CoC game you ever plan to run with this group, and you want to kill them all in the most gaudy and grusome display of constant supernatural presence possible. Oh, I should probably mention what the adventure is about. It is sort of a sequal to Trouble in Old Town where the investigators go down to South America to a plantation where they discover supernatural events happening at every turn, including a banshee, zombies, ghouls and a dybbuk. It Must be Magic, the fifth adventure, is described as 'a mini-adventure with lots of potential for expansion'. Uh huh. It's not a mini-adventure. It's a story seed. At best. Impossible crimes are being committed, so your investigators are supposed to find out how they're being done. It sounds good, but three pages are spent on it, one of which is used to describe the new archtypes that PCs can play. There's no adventure, there's just an idea. My personal favorite of the bunch is the Hitchhiker of Death, the fifth adventure. Nearly a dozen murders have taken place near Doverton, Main along a stretch of Interstate 490. Every time the cops think they've got the baddie, the murders start up again. The investigators arrive when the third Hitchhiker of Death has been captured, and is all confused, with no clue of what's going on. Investigation is the point of this adventure. Admittedly there are a few cliches (including a visit from an old American Indian shaman) but they are reletively well done cliches. Only a small amount of work need be done to make this adventure work with CoC. A pseudo-sequel to the Hitchhiker of is amusingly called What? Another One?! which focuses on werewolves who party in the wake of the Hitchhiker of Death. It's a straightforward adventure with investigation leading to combat leading to death. I actually liked it, though when I ran it for my Delta Green group, I ditched the whole werewolf thing and made the werewolf family a clan of degenerate backwoods ghouls. Deliverance + Ghouls = Egads! The book itself has held up well over eight years, and while my copy is covered with coffee stains, I can hardly assure you that yours will end up the same. Most of the interior art is done by the talented, if static, Kevin Long, with the occasional drawing by Kevin 'I Should Stick To Writing' Siembieda. In conclusion, it was a good book for Beyond the Supernatural, and with work it can be neatly adapted to the horror RPGs of today. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 4 (Meaty)