I too am concerned about the condition of my RC, and might end up picking up a copy of DD because of that.

I like the changes mentioned so far.

I once thought of writing a D&D RC add-on to LL (doing with the RC the same thing the AEC did with AD&D 1e), but I'm glad someone did this.

Quote from: Benoist;384376Samwise7 from DF made a YouTube vid about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1dQe2uZKvo

Pretty cool.

IMHO as a video review and as a video reviewer, that is pretty fucking lame.

Quote from: winkingbishop;384192...the illustrations chosen are so bland I can't honestly imagine myself putting this book in front of a friend and hoping they would get excited about it.  Sincerely, I think I would have preferred the author ask his buddies that sometimes draw stuff to do the illustrations over the bland and sometimes misplaced artwork.  I'm no art snob, either.  It almost never factors into my purchase decisions.  I disliked the art that much.

I disagree.  I like the shoe-string look of retro-clones.  It indicates that they're meant as simple tools to do the imagining with rather than carrying loads of implications.

Books with smick art almost always dictate particular themes, like the dungeonpunk and fantasy supers styles that are currently popular.  I feel DD is more blank-slate.

I also think that a lot of the pics are quite fitting.

Ok, i sprung for a copy of the hardback, so I'll report back on initial quality with pics once it arrives.

Quote from: kregmosier;385414Ok, i sprung for a copy of the hardback, so I'll report back on initial quality with pics once it arrives.

Awesome. Thanks for volunteering!

Dark Dungeons Hardcover has arrived in my hot little hands from Lulu!  I will update with pics and an aesthetics/physical component review as time permits.  

I will go on and say that Lulu has the best packaging in the business, only second (if that) to Amazon.  Secure box, book wrapped in bubble-wrap, then shrink-wrapped to a cardboard insert so it slides out the of the exterior box.  You can really tell on this particular book, because the glossy mostly-black cover is pristine, free of any smudge, ding, or scratch.

More (with pics!) later...

Well, here's the "no rules"-review of Lulu's printing of the "Dark Dungeons" hardback.  I'll apologize in advance because a) I'm not a professional reviewer by any means, and b) the iPhone camera isn't the best for detail, but "ya gets what ya gets".  I'm just going to provide links to the images, as some people hate inline photos.

All Photos:  http://img251.imageshack.us/g/xprtset2.jpg/

Simply put:  it's pretty great!  I picked it up during the free shipping period, which was a huge plus, and pretty much the reason I took the plunge.  

The book is very well constructed, with lay-flat binding that seems pretty durable.  The print quality is pretty good overall, but I think it could certainly be darker...I couldn't really take a decent photo that showed it, but a few pictures are way too light, but this I believe is less Lulu's fault and more so the DPI of the images used in the document that was uploaded.  One that immediately comes to mind is the illustration of the dice on page 13, and also the appearance of anything in Italics in the rules.  It's still readable, but seems slightly fuzzy.

Another minor nitpick is the appearance of blank pages.  They're at the end of each chapter/facing page of each new chapter. (seen here: http://img341.imageshack.us/i/oopsy.jpg/ )  It's not a huge deal, but it's weird.  Should have probably been caught with the proof copy, or maybe it's by design.  Who knows, but again, it's minor but annoying.

All in all, I'm very satisfied with the purchase.  I wasn't about to buy a collectors copy of the RC, and lets face it: WotC are ignoramuses with regard to .pdf products of older edition material.  

Hope this was helpful/informative to someone.

Awesome, man. Very useful indeed.

I'm guessing all the illustrations are in shades of light grey instead of black and white, right? That kind of bugs me about the art of Doré. It's supposed to be high in contrast. That's my own personal minor nitpick from looking at the PDF.

I appreciated the pic of the spine. That put my mind at rest in that regard. Looks pretty solid, right? It makes me think of the OSRIC hardcover I own (from Lulu also).

Kudos for the tatoo, as well.

Quote from: Benoist;387682Awesome, man. Very useful indeed.

I'm guessing all the illustrations are in shades of light grey instead of black and white, right? That kind of bugs me about the art of Doré. It's supposed to be high in contrast. That's my own personal minor nitpick from looking at the PDF.

I appreciated the pic of the spine. That put my mind at rest in that regard. Looks pretty solid, right? It makes me think of the OSRIC hardcover I own (from Lulu also).

Kudos for the tatoo, as well.

Absolutely correct on the illustrations, and that was my own nitpick as well.  Should've gone black and white with more contrast.

Yes, the spine/binding seems imminently durable.  Again, this is my first HC purchase from Lulu, but I'm very pleased with the construction quality.

Thanks for the tatt mention: my geek-flag flies high.