The Book of Lairs II

by David Zeb Cook, Paul Jaquays, Anne Gray McCready

Genres: Role Playing Games, Games, Gaming, Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons

95 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1987

About the author

David "Zeb" Cook is an American game designer best known for his work at TSR, Inc., where he was employed for over fifteen years. Cook grew up on a farm in Iowa where his father worked as a farmer and a college professor. In junior high school, Cook playing wargames such as Avalon Hill's Blitzkrieg and Afrika Korps. "I was primarily a wargamer, but there wasn't any role-playing available then," although in college, he was introduced to the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game through the University of Iowa gaming club. Cook earned his B.A. in English (with a Theater minor) in 1977. He married his high school sweetheart, Helen, with whom he had one son, Ian. Cook became a high school teacher in Milligan, Nebraska, where his students gave him his nickname of "Zeb"; the name derives from his signature, which is dominated by a stroke resembling a 'Z'.

Reviews

[Marko · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is full of 1 or 2 pages long adventures or encounters. There are only couple of maps and almost no pictures. So the production value is quite low.

Most of the encounters are about nearby caves where lurks a specific type of monsters. Although, some of the encounters are with “good monsters” and combat is not necessary or even wise. Any one of these encounters can be easily played through in one session.

I don’t know how well these encounters would work on a gaming table, but they were fun to read, as long as one doesn’t read several of them in a row. There is a lot of repetition. And you need your AD&D-old-school mentality while you are reading.

So giving this book 4 stars might be a bit of a stretch, but I enjoyed reading it a lot and I really liked the straightforward no no nonsense mentality of it.