Goodman Games Ilse of Dread Review 

If you are new to D&D and starting out learning and playing in 5E, put both of these books "Into the Borderlands" and "Isle of Dread" on your wish list. These two books illustrate how the originators of D&D conceptualized playing the game. B1 gives an example of a straight forward dungeon crawl and the elements that can be found inside. It will teach you how to stock and restock a dungeon. B2 shows a sand box campaign with an example of a starting village on the edge of the civilization and the wild lands with a open sandbox area for exploration. X1 is an example of creating a large campaign world with a map with a variety of countries and shows you how to run an overland hex crawl exploration adventure. These are all concepts of playing D&D that are not explicitly explained by the 5E books and these ideas will greatly improve yours and your players enjoyment of the game regardless of what adventure you are playing and my even inspire you to create your own campaign world. To expand on this pick up B3 to see an early example of a more story driven module, closer to a railroad style of adventure. Then check out B4 to see an example of how to build a megadungeon for your campaign.

I used the original module so much, it needs a folder to hold it together. Still though, I've got 3 more copies of it. That includes a copy of the red edition. Mystara is my bag. If they convert Mystara to 5e it would be fantastic. The amount of readily available material already created is staggering.

I absolutely love these books. I just bought all 3 off of Amazon and got them in yesterday. I can’t wait for the next one coming in about a week! I hope they do a bunch more of these!

Basic is what got me into D&D (Holmes blue cover, 1979, followed by the Moldvay Basic boxed set in 1981), so I'd LOVE to play in this world with 5E rules 41 years later. Outstanding.

I ran the 5e conversion and it was very successful. The players really enjoyed it and got really invested in exploring the island. We also used a lot of the expanded material, so I have to say this book is one of the best rpg purchases I've ever made. I'm about to run it again for a different group (the BX version this time).

Great review. I was planning on picking this one it does look great. I must say I was the least thrilled about The Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, it just didn't do it for me when I played it in the old days.

I ran this adventure book for a 5e group. While we had a lot of fun with it and I liked the new additions Goodman Games made, the ordering of locations on the map was a big headache for me. For example, if you have location 5 one hex away from you, the next nearest keyed location is 73. Also location 73 is in a different section of the module, so the flipping and searching for location information really annoyed me. There were also editorial problems, so the book still had room for improvement. Still enjoyed it.

I love your review, and I think it's tipped me over the edge to get it. I bought the Borderlands book, and my biggest concern was that once you start the sessions, most of the content isn't required. It's a big, heavy, fantastic book that you only need a portion of to run a game. The publisher states that there will not be a digital version, so it's a tough call to make.

Hardbound, stitched binding, 200 pages, classic, and new content? Yeah, it's definitely worth it!

Very cool I still use Mystara in my 3.5 game. There are so many maps for it out there Thanks

Good review of a classic module. I have copies of both versions but I may have to pick this up. The additional content is welcome although (being a die-hard OSR grognard) it's in 5E so I'll have some retro-conversion to do.

This kind of format works for some classic modules -- this and "Into the Borderlands" would be cool to have. For many others it might be very excessive; it would be nice to have something like the B1-9 "In Search of Adventure" compilation, but I sure wouldn't see the size of cost worth it for "Journey to the Rock" on its own!

Thanks for the review, very helpful.

These books are amazing i have all 3 and the 4th book the lost city on the way delivery scheduled for Friday

Enjoyed the video... I've tossed around the idea of purchasing this book... I do own X1... So do I need it, is the question... Lol the book would be easier due to no need to convert... Ugh... What to do...lol...

Great review - it's inspired me to pick up a copy :)

Its funny in 5e is in the Plane of Water and in 4e was in the Feywild. That island hops a lot. Great review. I am liking this 5e conversions.

Would love to see a Temple of Elemental Evil review. Thank you. Great video

I have the Into the Borderlands and Castle Amber releases from Goodman games and baring a few nitpicky things I feel they knocked it out of the park with these. I agree that these books are worth the price of admission. I'm going to pick up their release of B4 at some point. Great stuff. Cheers!

Just ordered my copy today

What levels does this adventure cover?

Hell, they have Keep on the Borderlands in Dungeons & Dragons online and I have been playing it.

Like the last one you reviewed, I still have my original. So I didn't get this book either. If I didn't have it, I probably would have picked it up, despite the price. But with it I just couldn't convince myself that it was worth the 50 bucks. (Even though it probably is.)

Do Gg exist any more? I struggle with the uk site and nothing DnD is searchable

I have the B1/B2 and S4 Goodman books and I'm losing my mind waiting for the Castle Amber and Temple of Elemental Evil conversations but I don't know why I haven't been able to pull the trigger on this one. Do you think I should get it? I would like to have the complete collection but I don't know if I'd run it.

Inflation, hello! $10 in the 80s was more expensive! Yea I like this presentation and I will buy it

Goodman's pricing is comparable to Wizards pricing for 5E books. In these compilations you ae actually getting more for your spending, than the 5E books give you. While I don't have these, yet, I would hope that they recalibrated the maps from the original 1 sq = 10' to the 5E calibration of 1sq (1") = 5', because if not then the maps will NOT match the written descriptions. I have a pdf copy of the A1-A4 Module set Against the Slave Lords, with the 5E Conversions for them, and the maps were not recalibrated. There is one map, that due to the sheer size of the map, you need a Battle mat of at least 12'x12', just to cover the total area of the city, which is 600' on a side (120" or 10').

This book is the sole reason that I started playing D&D again after all these years. I started playing it in Jr. High in the mid-80s when it was still First Edition and this was my absolute favorite module. Switched to other RPGs since then and hadn't looked at D&D in 30 years until I saw this book on the game shop shelf. It blew my mind that there was a modern homage for this, for the current edition of the game, and now I've become a D&D junkie all over again, painting miniatures, etc... And yes, "Tomb of Annihilation" is a talentless lazy rip-off of better game writers from D&D's golden age.

5e modules are the same price so i have no problem with the price

Hmm its the Isle of Dread.

The tomb of annihilation hook was dumb the mutliverse affected by that and 1st level PCs are sent to deal with it????!!! In the Forgotten realms???!!! Waaaa???!!!

As long as you don't call a bulette a booh-lay I'm ok with your pronunciation. 🙂