Unlike the red box, this is a complete copy. The box is in fair-to-good condition. Upon removing the shrinkwrap I found the top corners to be ripped, but otherwise it's far better than the red box's bottom-of-the-bookpile-chic look.
The rulebooks, on the other hand, were fucking PRISTINE. I'm not entirely convinced this set was ever actually used, though the condition of the box tells me it must have been. I was in genuine awe--I handled these things with a care approaching reverence.
The maps were also in good shape, though they showed some basic wear and tear on the folds. They're nicely-done--I had to fight the urge to put them up on my walls! And the cat's endless fascination with all things D&D continues. I knew I should have named her "DM Kitteh".
D&D Basic didn't have too much in the way of campaign settings--certainly not the plethora offered with AD&D. Most of those it did have were set in Mystara, a campaign world which got sort of lost in the shuffle and failed to outlive D&D Basic itself.
Hollow World is one of those settings. The basic concept is that the world of Mystara turned out to be--guess what?--hollow. The problem of gravity IS explained, but this should still mean the planet wouldn't have a magnetic field, or plate tectonics, or...
*WHAM* *WHAM* *WHAM* Sorry, I just realized I was trying to inject hard science into Dungeons & Dragons so I had to go slam my head against the wall as punishment. Not getting a square peg in that round hole, not even with a lathe.
Anyway, a bunch of Immortals (i.e. deities--Mystara's gods are nearly all mortals who reached one form of apotheosis or another), led by the superintelligent turtleneck-wearing dinosaur Ka the Preserver, hit upon the idea of terraforming the world's interior and using it as a nature preserve of sorts. Over time, they also started adding communities of dying civilizations, magically inhibiting them--using the "Spell of Preservation", which I came to think of as "the Tupperware spell"--so as to make them more or less culturally static (and provide justification for the planet of hats phenomenon, for once). They can still fight and enslave one another, but they can't be assimilated or wiped out. That's where the PCs come in--probably through the huge-ass holes at the planet's poles (and I just know some pussy indie-rock band will be swiping that for an album title).
My main gripe with Hollow World is that it tries way too hard to stay 1:1 with real-world ancient history. Damn near every culture described in the DM's Sourcebook is an expy of some ancient Earth civilization--Azcans (Aztecs), Nithians (ancient Egypt), Oltecs (Mayans), Beastmen (Inuit), etc., plus dinosaurs. Because everything's better with dinosaurs, right? (PROTIP: yes) They've usually been changed around a little--to introduce a little more gender equality or to create some obvious campaign antagonists; the Azcans, for example, are so incredibly evil I'm amazed nobody complained. Personally I play D&D to "experience" stuff I can't see on the History Channel. This setting is weird even by D&D standards (it's lit by an artificial sun that never goes down and the horizon curves up, for Stickly's sake)--if they'd taken that weirdness and run with it I would've been much happier.
Unlike the red box, this set is almost all fluff. I'd heard it was renowned for its completeness (that's why I sought it out) and I can see why. The level of detail on each culture in the DM's Sourcebook is nigh overwhelming, and there are a lot of them. Sure, they're not all winners, but even the duds (the Kogolor dwarves, the Kubitts) are more hilarious than irritating. And kudos to TSR for injecting some originality into the dark elves for once.
I couldn't help but notice a surprising number of typos in both this and the red box. I didn't mention it then because I thought it was just my nitpicky side at work again, but if anything Hollow World has even more grammar and spelling errors than the red box. Who copy-edited these things, Glenn Beck? You might not think it's a big deal--Chris--but remember these things are rulebooks, where even the most obvious errors could very well attract interest from the Lollipop Guild. Even if it that's not the case, it wouldn't kill you to look these things over before you charge people money for them. Hell, I write a free blog for an audience of, maybe, six and I still try to make sure words are spelled properly and the grammar is halfway decent. And that's why you should give me all your money. Right now.
The Player's Guide is pretty much a less detailed version of the DM's Sourcebook, including rules for playing characters from the various Hollow World cultures (which weapons/armor the Tupperware spell will/won't let them use, what bonuses they get if the limitation are severe, level caps, etc.), the penalties for going against cultural biases (the Tupperware spell won't even let you DISGUISE yourself as a member of another culture), the higher requirements for learning magic, which spells don't work in Hollow World, etc. Funnily enough, the DM's Sourcebook says not to let players read this Guide the whole way through, which seems a forlorn hope to me.
The Adventure Book is exactly what it sounds--sample adventures and plot hooks both for getting into the Hollow World and keeping players occupied once they're there. There's nothing particularly wrong with this one, but I was surprised at how meanspirited some of the hooks are--the Beastmen one in particular isn't suited to D&D's style of play at all. If I were running this I'd take it in an entirely different direction. Like the DM's Sourcebook it insists on making more work for DMs by making half the damn NPCs willing to join the party's entourage.
Again, I'd play Hollow World. The ruleset is starting to branch out a bit, testing the waters of demihumans with character classes (e.g. the warrior-elf and wokai, who were originally called "wicca". That's...unspeakably hilarious) and so forth. Its own simplicity sometimes gets in its way, especially with the alignment system--it seriously expects you to believe the plainly Lawful Evil Azcan emperor is Chaotic. It does, however, flirt with the system's boundaries, including sympathetic Chaotics and asshole Lawfuls. And the basic concept is similar enough to 4th edition's "Points of Light" conceit that it's an easy conceptual leap.
Oh, and I wasn't kidding about that turtleneck. See?
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