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The Dungeon Survival Guide is a slim volume with little text and lots of illustrations. The back copy doesn’t really tell you much about this book talking about survival, exploration and uncovering treasures. With it’s size format and Dungeons and Dragons logo, the new 4e one, it looks like it’s meant to go on the bookshelf with other RPG products. However, it has no RPG information or mechanics.
Now in graphics, layout, and design, they’ve got the whole of the Dungeons and Dragons library, including the magazines so it’s got a lot of great art and has a nice flow for the most part. It’s a very attractive book.
Well, what does the introduction say? “…this Survival Guide was created…to provide adventurers with the knowledge they need to complete the quests, slay the monsters3, and win gold and glory.”
I honestly don’t know what market it’s aimed at. Children or young adults have a lot of opportunities for various fields of young fantasy that don’t match this price and don’t rely on 30 years of gaming history. Some gamers, like myself, may pick this up and wonder what type of desperate cash grab this is.
It starts by breaking down various assumptions about the Dungeons and Dragon setting like classes, races, and the default adventuring party, Regdar, Jozzan, Lidda, Mialee, and Tordek. All names that are probably familiar to anyone whose been playing 3rd edition or whose read the various youth oriented novels. It then talks about various adventuring gear including weapons and armor, different dungeon environments, inhabitants, traps, and other bits. The advice would probably be aimed at… I want to say 10 year olds. “Don’t use slashing weapons when you take on an ooze.”
When looking at the famous adventurers, some of them are in print, like Expedition to Castle Greyhawk, or Expedition to Castle Ravenloft, but others are long out of print like The Keep on the Borderlands and the Caves of Chaos within it or the Dungeon of the Slave Lords, part of the Slavers series. The adventures picked seemed to have been done so without rhyme or reason. Some of the material has free updates and versions like the 3.5 version of the Tomb of Horrors, but that’s not mentioned in the “About the Adventure” section.
Whoever this book is marketed towards, it didn’t float my boat. I would’ve loved to have seen some designer’s notes or other bits from the adventures that are in print or some actual methodology to why some of these things were picked or something that made this a Dungeons and Dragons product. To me, it looks like it should’ve been released under the other WoTC line and aimed at the children’s market instead of slapping the D&D logo, reusing the art, minimal text and trying for some wider appeal.
