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Gary Gygax's
Hall of Many Panes

I think gamers are divided into two camps: those that like Gary Gygax and those that don't. He was pretty much the driving force for the hobby for a good 10 years, until he was pushed out of TSR. After that, he largely disappeared, since his later projects either didn't do so well or were legally entangled.

Thanks to the internet and d20, he's made a reappearance in the last 5 years or so. Maybe not as big as ever, but once again something of a presence. Whatever his past, he's very affable these days, frequently answering questions and participating on message boards on various RPG sites, where he's downright warm and fuzzy. So much so, I strongly suspect he could sell plush doll versions of his animated form (from Futurama) and make a tidy profit.


Me, I am in the like camp. I always enjoyed his writing style and many of his adventures - particularly S3, S4, and EX1/EX2 (the Dungeonland adventures, based on Lewis Carroll's stuff)

So, when I heard about a new large adventure from him, I was very interested and came very close to ordering it when it was released. But somewhat unexpectedly, I had to buy a new video card and WinXP (Win98 didn't support the video card), which left me broker than expected. So I wasn't able to get it until December of 2005, when Troll Lord had a holiday sale.


The Adventure Background

Hall of Many Panes is actually a boxed set, which made something of a reappearance in 2005. But unlike most boxed sets, which generally come with maps or cardboard sheets or something, this just comes with 4 books (at least I think, mine only came with 3 books, 1-3).


Apparently it was originally written for his new RPG, Lejendary Adventures (LA), but has been statted for d20 as well. Since I am into d20, and don't own LA, I will be reviewing this from a d20 perspective. I haven't gone over them with a fine tooth rulebook, but the d20 stats seem fine. However, because it was meant for LA, it's based on the LA setting, which is probably different than most D&D/d20 settings. It seems to be very Celtic in nature, with the Tuatha de Daneen and all that, so unless you are playing "Slaine", it's probably quite a bit different than your world.

This mostly matters in the setup for the module, ie, getting your players involved. But also some of the terminology throughout, most notably the monster and race names, which are similar to d20/D&D, but slightly different in some cases. Thankfully though, they added a glossary of LA terms, to help figure out what is what.

So anyway, it seems this lady named Rowina has a problem. Basically her boyfriend, a guy by the unlikely name of McGregtim, angered some god. This god was going to do something really nasty to him, but another, friendlier god intervened, and so this guy instead ended up being imprisoned in the Hall of Many Panes (which is actually more shaped like a thermos bottle than a hall).

Personally, when a woman asks for help I am inclined to agree, until I hear her mention "boyfriend" at which point I leave. Because it's usually something exactly like this, her boyfriend is a drunken idiot who is in some sort of trouble, largely of his own making.

If the PCs are more charitable than me, they will presumably help her, otherwise you'll have to come up with a more suitable hook.

The Adventure Itself

So basically, for whatever reason, the PCs enter the "Hall of Many Panes" (or HOMP). There's 51 little tiny windows, in different shapes. The players touch one, and boom, they leave the HOMP and enter the plane/reality of that window.

Once in that reality, they generally have to find the exit, which is little thing in the same shape of the window they touched to enter the place. Sometimes they have to do something to get it to appear. Sort of like Quantum Leap or like this really odd movie from the 80s starring Richard Moll called "The Dungeonmaster" (which also featured the band W.A.S.P., who I don't think I've actually ever heard outside this movie, but from what I remember in the movie, looked like a wannabe cross between KISS and Motley Crue)

The PCs are seemingly pretty much in for the long haul, they have to finish all 51 to save the guy and exit the place. Though they can actually weasel out of it in some places as well.

Realistically though, most of these can simply be recycled as short adventures on their own, either as part of planar travelling or traps, or even just normal short adventures (the more normal ones).


Book 1 (76 pages)

There are nine panes or adventures in this book. This starts off with one of the strangest adventures of all time. Basically, the players are turned into little acorn people, and must flee from some really really hungry squirrels.


Slightly over 20 pages is devoted to a classic style dungeon crawl. (As an aside, while Goodman Games seems aligned with Dave Arneson, and Gary Gygax seems to be with Troll Lord, a "Dungeon Crawl Classic" from him would be very very cool).

It's not a "realistic" dungeon crawl, but is pretty good. Nice mix of combat, traps, and very strange NPCs. And lots of puns.

Another is sort of like a nested adventure. In, they pretty much have to do the same thing as they are trying here - rescue some guy for a lady. In this case, it's a Arabian Nights style world. This would be interesting, except you are really only given the setup. The DM has to come up with most of the actual adventure.

While most of the book is adventures, in the very begining is a list of the playtesters, including the characters - no stats, but their character backgrounds. Nice touch


Book 2 (86 pages, p77-162)

This details 24 or so panes, and so has a lot of smaller adventures.

The first adventure has the players experience what it's like to be Keanu Reeves - that's right, they turn into golems (okay, his acting ability is really more wooden than iron or stone, but close enough)


Time loops are popular in science fiction, from Star Trek: The Next Generation to Sealab 2021 (Queen Doppopopolis? I wonder if that's Greek?). There's one in this, but it's unusual in that its set in a Chinese/Mongolian border area.

One deals with the worshipers of a Cthulhu-like deity called "Dhu-kalkhru". (There's another one of those in one of the other books). A couple are sort of prison scenarios, where the PCs are prisoners or slaves, and hve to escape.

Another has the PCs becoming lions, though thankfully not singing lions. But perhaps the strangest one is the PCs becoming wind. (Which is strangely appropriate for some gamers...)



Book 3 (102 pages, p163 to 264)

This details panes 34 through 51. With 51 being the one where they rescue the boyfriend. And some apendices

The first adventure is this is heavily based on puns (and possibly inspired by an AC/DC song) and promises to make you groan well over a dozen times.

Some other adventures have the players acting out roles from seafaring adventure yarns. Whaling, pirating, exploring uncharted desert isles

One is pretty much entirely roleplaying. A player has to give a history of his character. There's a pun based scavenger hunt.

A couple adventures have the players flying around on various things.


Besides the adventures, there's a useful appendix describing the critters from the setting of this adventure, Lejendary Earth. Seems like a fantasy version of earth, focused on Celtic stuff. Lots of different sorts of feys, plus other original things. The rest of the appendices basically have stats and write-ups of various monsters, spells, gods, and magic items for the stuff in this book.


Book 4 (?)

Since I didn't get this one, I dunno what's in it. Just maps and some art, I think, and it's apparently short (20 pages?)



Looks/Layout


There's almost no white space in this, other than the occasional blank pages at the end of a book.

As near as I can tell, there's no artwork. Generally speaking, while I like artwork, I don't consider it a necesity for the most part. However, I do like having portraits of important NPCs and such.

The layout is pretty good, except for choosing a font for the flavor text (the stuff you paraphrase for players) that is only slightly different than the normal text. Sans Seriff. Once your eyes adjust to the difference you can tell them apart easily enough, but at first it's hard to tell.



Final Thoughts...


Honestly, I wasn't sure what to expect from this. To a certain extent, people are at their creative best when they are relatively young. While that's mostly true for scientists, it also seems true for writers and as well. Look at Orson Welles - his career was all downhill after Citizen Cane, ultimately being reduced to doing wine commercials and documentaries about the Bermuda Triangle.

But thankfully, that is not the case with Mr. Gygax. While it's certainly quite a bit weirder than I thought, I enjoyed most of the adventures quite well and plan to use most of them in some form or another.

With two real caveats (and one minor one).

First off, the deadliness is perhaps a bit too high. Not so much deadliness, but abrupt deadliness. There are some occasions when the PCs do (or don't do) something (or miss a saving throw) and die immediately. However, this is pretty easy to change or ignore, so it's not that big a deal, IMHO.

Secondly, I think the PCs in many cases are not quite railroaded, but almost led by the nose.
There's generally only one solution to a lot of things. Or one way to do it. The PCs are definitely reactive, not really in charge of their own destiny, but often forced to guess the one "solution" to a puzzle. Which is okay for something like a computer game, or maybe a tournament scenario, but not IMHO an ongoing campaign, where players tend to expect more freedom. (The same can probably be said for my first caveat, actually).

And lastly, some of the humor in it is a bit dated. You know the episode of The Simpsons where Krusty gets canceled? Well, some of the humor is similar. The puns are okay, though.

Still, most of the scenarios were quite inventive and like I said, I will probably use a lot of them in some form or another. So I give it a B


I also wasn't sure what to expect from Troll Lord. To be honest, most of their products I had bought in the past were rather crude looking. Crude as in plain or amateurish. But other than the lack of art (or perhaps because of it), this actually doesn't get bad, once you get used to the fonts used in the layout. Neither bad nor good.

(I also can't say that I'm pleased to only get 3 books, not 4, even though the 4th book apparently wasn't much. Especially considering I ordered direct from Troll Lord. I guess Trolls can't count. But then again, I didn't pay full price either. So eh. I'm happy with this)