Jon Pickens

To start off, some history. Gary Gygax, creator of D&D, set his home games in the extensive dungeons of Castle Greyhawk. While he was in charge at TSR, he made no attempt to write up these dungeons. The details on him being forced out of TSR were finalized by the end of 1987 and this work came out in 1988. Later, after D&D 3, the Internet, and Old School Revolution, Gary Gygax started to write some stuff up as Castle Zagyg, but didn't get very far before his death.

I don't know what the show more general opinion was in the pre-Internet days, but as the events surrounding Gygax and TSR became well-documented, many felt this was a deliberate "Take That!" to Gary Gygax. It probably wasn't, but this module is just bad. The humor is not subtle in any way, shape or form, and it's not really enjoyable as a work for reading. It's the type of stuff that works best as a four or five page Dragon article, not a 128 page book. For playing, you would be very lucky to get a party to sit through one of these twelve adventures.

For example, Level 8 has a Colonel Sandpaper and King Burger fighting, and there's a danger that General Public will get a kernel of truth (a magic item) from Tela Vision and get annoyed with Colonel Sandpaper. There's something about the war between the Countertops and Profits and the Colonel making sandpaper using cockatrices, and what isn't nonsensical is just pointless. The book is very topical, which makes it worse from a modern perspective. A warning notice is signed "C. Everett, Coop Surgeon, General Public's friend". To be fair, the joke was never funny, but how many remember C. Everett Koop, Surgeon General under Ronald Reagan?

This book has sixteen authors, and each level seems to have been worked on independently by its author or authors. Level 7 is just a pile of references; it makes more sense than Level 8, and where Level 8 feels like there might be some underlying logic I'm missing, the players or DM will hold no such belief about this level. Levels 2 and 3 could actually be runnable; level 3 takes some exiled bad cooks whose creations get animated by magic, and plays it straight enough.

I can vaguely see why someone at the time might feel this was funny, though I have a hard time believing they actually read the whole book. I can also see why players looking for the Castle Greyhawk might have felt attacked by it. I understand it's been run, at least part, but I have a hard time believing that any got through the complete dungeon. There's a couple levels that certain players might appreciate, but I wouldn't buy this for gaming material. show less

I had longed for a detail description of Castle Greyhawk. There was a promise of adventures worth of Gary Gygax's D&D earlier dungeon crawl adventures in the imaginary world of Oerth. Pickens is no Gygax and his vision of Castle Grayhawk make a mockery of Gygax and his fantasy world, Oerth. Pickens' form of "humor" in this work, which is scared with cynicism. What was anticipated to be a serious and detailed account of Castle Greyhawk served to mock Oerth, its creator and its players. The show more impact of its publishing destroyed Oerth for this DM/player. Perhaps the new owners of TSR and rulers of Oerth the intended it to be so. - Tim Frankel show less