TSR's extremely successful gaming system Dungeons and Dragons has seen the production of literally tons of gaming material. Several generations of rules, countless rule books, gaming modules, supplements, add-ons, boxed sets, reissues have seen the light of stores world-wide since a couple gaming buddies started scribbling on bits of graph-paper years ago.

Given the vast quality of material produced, it was only natural that eventually, somebody would have the idea of producing a CD-ROM with a selection of those publications on it.

Core Rules CD-ROM 2.0 is the second release of this concept from TSR. It is largely the same as the first release but has a number of bug fixes and some additional content. But, regardless of version numbers, this is a really great idea.

The CD-ROM contains nine key rule books (Players Handbook, DMG, Monstrous Manual, Arms & Equipment Guide, Tome of Magic, DM Option: High Level Campaigns, Combat & Tactics, Skills & Powers, and Spells & Magic) plus a nifty index that ties them together. It also contains dice rolling software, a character generator, map makers, treasure and encounter generation utilities and links to some online sites.

It's unclear how many players might actually have a computer at their finger-tips when gaming so the dice roller may or may not be of much use but, as a reference tool, this is an unmatched collection. DMs can build an adventure from their desktop PC, referencing everything from monsters to spells, building encounter tables and treasure lists.

The CD is surpassingly easy to use. The character generator contains pretty much every combination of race and class imaginable and the user can choose to follow or ignore some of the more stringent rules (like actually having to have money to buy stuff). Characters can be saved, imported, updated, printed and generally manipulated pretty darn well.

Map creation is similarly easy with a drag-and-drop interface. The resulting maps look much like most computer game maps do. Add a decent printer to your system and you could produce quite nice maps for gaming use.

Personally, I like having the nine rule books in one easy place to reference. Some others may prefer to use the encounter generator that allows you to build and detail encounters. But, regardless of your style of use, the Core Rules CD-ROM 2.0 has a wealth of material for all players. It's a welcome addition to the formerly paper-centric library of TSR material.

Wayne MacLaurin is a regular SF Site reviewer. More of his opinions are available on our Book Reviews pages.