Well, my minimal Lulu edition of OD&D has arrived. (Shhh… Don’t tell the ghost of Gygax & Arneson ffs!)
The verdict?
It looks quite nice actually. There are some problems with it, which I kinda expected tbh.
Firstly, due to the shoddy quality of the original scanned PDF that required re-sizing, etc…, some of the text is very close to the edge (even over the edge). Basically there’s no margin or header/footer space, which is annoying. But it is only a big issue on one page, as far as I can see, where half if the top line of text is chopped off. Other than that a few pages have the very top of the letters trimmed a little too close for comfort… Oh well, no biggie! And a few illustrations are chopped closer than I’d like, but as the quality of the art is poor anyway, I don’t really give a fuck.
There does appear to be another problem on a page or two: missing text and a few blank pages. Tbh it doesn’t seem to be anywhere very important, mainly in monsters and treasure, so the rules themselves look readable for my purposes.
Overall, I’m pleased with my Lulu OD&D, despite a few niggles, most of which are to do with the inadequacies of the original PDF rather than to do with Lulu.
Next time they have a sale I’ll do Chainmail I think…
