Role-playing in the world of Indiana Jones requires loads of action, exotic locations, mysteries to solve, and crowds of interesting NPCs.
All that can be overwhelming for a game master. Indy games don't work with random encounter tables and dragons that need to be slain. "Lands of Adventure" paints the globe in broad brushstrokes and points GMs to sites full of potential for adventure.
Adventure seeds are good. Mapped adventure seeds with good NPCs are excellent. "Lands" has several of those. One of my favorites involves a latter day Caribbean pirate. Too bad his ship didn't have deck plans, though. Most of the world gets covered, albeit loosely. GMs should read this in order to understand what was happening in the world in the '30s, accepting that future trips to a library are in order. Entries for each nation work as a sign post rather than a Fodors guide.
There is an insubstantial feel to this book. There are aspects of settings that needed more fleshing out. "Lands" has a little bit of everything, but not a lot of anything. Dryness creeps into the text in several places. While useful, reading it wasn't as much fun at times as it might have been.
Drab. "Lands" pre-dates "Adventures" and "Magic & Mystery." The style present in those two hadn't arrived yet when "Lands of Adventure" went to print. Many of Paul Daly's drawings are very pulpy, if not quite as much so as in the later books. A few other pieces got my attention, though not for good reasons. One of the maps was confusing and ugly, and a few of the drawings were bizarre and best appraised as though they're abstract.
For anyone running an Indy game or planning to do so, "Lands" is second in importance only to "Artifacts." For those who don't have either, they should first get "Artifacts" and then give it a companion with "Lands of Adventure."
Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 3 (Average)
