Out of the Shadows

Dragon Warriors RPG #4

by Dave Morris

Genres: Role Playing Games, Fantasy

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 25, 1986

Reviews

[Steven Poore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though the game itself was perfectly playable (if geared toward the deadly end of dungeoneering) with the completion of the initial trilogy of books, Morris & Johnson's mid-80s budget paperback-serialised RPG had a quite limited scope. As Knights, Barbarians, Mystics or Sorcerers, "you and your friends" could do little more than bludgeon your way up through the ranks via barrows, dungeons, castles, and assorted random encounters. Out Of The Shadows broadened the adventuring scope in more ways than one: it introduced the Assassin class, gave the GM some higher-powered creatures to pit against the players, and advanced a basic storyline in terms of the campaign that had already been outlined in the second book, The Way of Wizardry. Here Morris also included new characteristics as well - PCs now had Stealth and Perception scores, to fit the skulduggery of the Assassin class.

The scenarios given in Out Of The Shadows still lean towards deadly - in each one your players will likely need replacement characters before the end. But there's also a growing awareness of a wider world beyond the broadly Arthurian/Dark Ages background of the earlier books, and a set of adversaries that perhaps provide a greater challenge in terms of actual role-playing, not just in combat (the contests of verse required by the Blue Men come to mind, as does the final adventure in the castle of the unfortunately-named Sorcerer Myrkyn).