Knock is straight crazy. Billed as an “Adventure Gaming Bric-a-brac,” it is hard to call something that feels so substantial a magazine. It’s over 200 densely designed pages that are packed with all sorts of resources for your preferred flavor of OSR play. While there are editorial items — my favorite is an essay by OSE’s Gavin Norman that ruminates on the differences between new and old modes of D&D — this is very much a magazine FOR games rather than one about them. The interior of the dust jacket details a dungeon, that amazing demon that fronts the cover is statted on the back. There is a random table to name it on the spine. Just packed.

The energy in this thing is explosive and infectious. There is just so much stuff here, I want to shake it all out on the floor and get to playing with it all. The bright blocks of color encourage this, I think. In fact, the design sense reminds me of the maximalism of Mork Borg, though without the grim elements. Knock revels in lighthearted fun. Sort of. It is still a magazine about killing (and being killed by) monsters, basically, but it is so zany that it is hard to focus on the darker bits amid the bright palette.

It is impossible to catalog all the goodies. There are tables galore, there’s at least one adventure, many adventure sites, a bunch of new monsters, a fantastic collection of dungeon maps (presented as art rather than utilities). It can be a bit difficult to see where one thing ends and another begins. The verging chaos of it all no doubt diminishes the utility of the book. I love it though, sometimes it is nice to have to roll up your sleeves and dig for treasure.