Sutherland Artwork |
Erol Otus |
As many of you know by now Wizards of the Coast has released a new "D&D Essentials Line" which the 2010 "Red Box" for 4th edition, shares the same artwork with TSR's 1983 "Red Box". I'm not sure if Wizards of the Coast is going for the nostalgia factor and trying to pull in any of us "old timers" into picking up the "red box" or if they're just being lazy like TSR was near their end, and decided adopt TSR's artwork reuse policy. Anyone remember the horrible debacle that was the crop'fest of Spellfire Cards? Egad! I'm a little puzzled why they chose this version and not the original Sutherland artwork which was "ok" or the next version of artwork from when the game really took off and is ingrained into many D&D players memories, which was from the legendary artist Erol Otus. Erol Otus artwork is very iconic and synonymous with DnD as many of the early Module covers have his artwork on the cover and throughout. A few years ago when the resurgence of the "old school dungeon crawl" was emerging Goodman Games even got Erol Otus to do some artwork for their Dungeon Crawl Classics. Check out the cover art for "The Mystery Tower!" here that he did for them! That artwork brings me right back! Regardless Wizards went with the 12th printing Artwork from 1983. They even had a large mock display at Gen Con this year that individuals could take a picture of themselves in the classic warrior pose (or not).
1983 Red Box Contents |
Overall once was started playing it was a nice little dungeon crawl so to speak as you were searching the ruins of an old castle or abby. All the rooms were keyed and you would typically go from room to room to "clear" out the area. There were about 30 rooms. My brother and cousin made a few jaunts into the ruins and made it out safely, running away if needed, and then depositing any of their booty back in their rooms at the inn. When they had enough treasure they would cash in for better weapons, armor and potions, then head back to the ruins. They were hooked! So when the last room was cleared my cousin hurriedly told me to get working on filling out the rest of the dungeon so we could continue to play. You see the box set gave you the map for Level 2 and some ideas but more or less told you to fill in the blanks empty rooms. Level three was entirely left up to your own imagination for both its layout and its content. Seeing that they were both enthralled, it was an opertune time to further their interest into the game and even a bit more complexity. B2 Keep On The Boarderlands from my original box set was put back into service! I had played it as a player with my friend down the street so DMing it wasn't a problem. The entire time my cousin was visiting we played DnD, swam in the pool, and ate blue moon ice cream! It was a great summer!
Original Dice w/white wax crayon for filling in the numbers |
The two rulebooks, one was the players manual the other was the DM's Guide/Monster Manual and mini adventure. |
The only thing else in the box was an advertisement for the RPGA! |
Wow check out those low rates! ;) |
Level 1 and Level 2 |
Level Two was up to you to fill in. Level Three was completely left up to you including the layout to fill in! |
Back of the players manual was the character sheet. See how simple things were back then? THACO! |
The back of the 83 Red Box. As you can tell completely different than the 2010 version! |
The 2010 Version of the "Red Box". I've seen that picture somewhere... |
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