Basics– New boss, new random magic thing, new place, who dis? Year of Era’s End sets out to establish the next and final meta plot for Starfinder Society 1st edition. The Starfinders have made new friends with the Anacites on their barren homeworld. Will the Society understand how the latest found magic item works before evil robots try to kill us all?
Mechanics or Crunch– This adventure is fairly simple and similar to the usual first adventures of a season. You have a few fights, a few social encounters, and a few skill challenges as you explore. It’s not crazy, but it all works well. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– Much like the mechanics, this adventures is pretty standard for the first adventure of a season. You will meet the new boss, meet some new friends/middle managers of the Starfinder Society, and a new adversary group. The adventure is split in two, with two different goals in each as you try to understand the newly found device. It’s standard, but decently well done. 4.5/5
Execution– Paizo knows adventure production. Layout is good, text is easy to read, and organization is good. The maps are all available, and the monsters and NPCs all have pictures that I don’t have to crop myself. I’ve even adjusted to the increase in cost as nine bucks is about the price of a movie and this will take about three to four hours to play. Solid work. 5/5
Summary-It’s the end of the world, and I feel fine! Starfinder Society First Edition is going away, and this honestly is a decent start to that. It’s some simple mini adventures that get a metaplot started, introduce new characters in the lore, and allow for some fun encounters along the way. If all the final adventures work like this, it will be a good send off. 93 %
Basics– Time to fight the peddler! Cryptid Creeks is a cartoon monster of the week RPG where players are all members of River Scouts. Ghosts and an enigmaticWatcher (think Zordon from the Power Rangers) guide the new scouts as an evil thing called The Peddler gives gifts to people of Clawfoot and bestows curses on them, making them more evil every day. Will you have the day? That’s the hook, and let’s dig into how we play.
Base mechanics- This is apocalypse engine basically with additional parts built in. You want to do a thing? You roll 2d6+modifier. You score 6 or less, bad. 7-9 good with a but. 10-11 good! 12+ CRITICAL and you get some awesome stuff to happen.
Advantage and Disadvantage– If something is good, you have advantage and if something is bad, you have disadvantage. In either case you roll 3d6. For advantage you take the best two and for disadvantage you take the worst two.
Bad things- As you do things, you get misfortune. These are the bad things that happen and give you those disadvantages.
Investigations- The bulk of the game is spent trying to remove curses given to townspeople from the Peddler. To get rid of the curse, the scouts have to investigate. This mostly is the players running around and gathering clues via investigating with their abilities and checks. When the players think they have enough they make a check like above but use the clues they gathered as a bonus and the difficulty of the curse’s investigation as a negative. Know enough and you know how to end the curse.
Sashes and abilities-Players have tools in their arsenal to fight the evil. Players start with one of three classes that give the a watcher’s gift and a playbook move. Both of these give you places where you can throw advantage at a situation. You also have sashes from the past dead members of the River Scouts. You can remove one to gain a bonus to a situation. And lastly you recover clubhouse collections of random things that you can take with you to fight evil.
Ok, let’s review!
Mechanics or Crunch– What’s here is good, but there is not enough to fully help me. I don’t have much experience with the apocalypse engine for RPGs, though it’s easy to run a 2d6+mod as a system. But, the rules discuss moves. I don’t think that term is ever fully discussed. Also, there are examples of how to do all these things, but not enough to fully run through how to do it. That said, I think I understand it. Again, the math is 2d6+mod to see how you do. And furthermore, the game is not designed to be a smash mouth, grind the PC to a paste dungeon crawler. It’s a collaborative story where the GM and the players both have equally active roles in playing and running the game. It just needs more description of how to do this to really make me more comfortable running. 4/5
Theme or Fluff– I love Gravity Falls, and as a child of the 80s, I love Saturday morning cartoons. This is an episode of Scooby Doo that I get to play. If there was a talking dog class, it couldn’t get more on the nose. It’s got a lot of soul in its delivery and world building. 5/5
Execution– While I might be playing by ear for figuring out exactly how to play, there is a lot here. The basics are well covered with hyperlinks, pictures, layout, and two full adventures in the book. What’s more, there are player handouts, black and white maps of the town, character specific character sheets, and even handouts from the get go. This was three bucks for me, and worth every penny. 5/5
Summary-Cryptid Creeks is a fun Saturday morning cartoon. I like the theme and the execution of it, but I need more explanation. It’s very much a narrative RPG and not an adversarial RPG. This is a game you play when you and your friends want to tell a story together and don’t just want to write a book by yourself. So, keeping that in mind, you will have fun. But maybe read the base Apocalypse World book to get a bit more of an idea on the mechanics. 93 %
Basics– Fight the Necromancer Zgol! Slav Borg is Mork Borg set in the eastern block during the fall of communism, but if the world was only goblins, magic, and the fight between the haves, the have nots, people with power(s), and the people caught in the middle, set with the love of cars that Mad Max brings to the table. It has rules for cars, races, multiple new classes, two COMPLETELY NEW ways to play Mork Borg, and even new character elements so your character gets some fun ways to mess with the dice.
Mechanics or Crunch– This is a fun mix, but suffers from some of the same elements that Mork Borg does. What’s here is absolutely amazing. But, I would like a bit more introduction to how to play the game. The new rules are fun, but they also don’t have explanations beyond the basics. Running through a few examples would really help. That said, all the Borgs don’t care about being exact with the rules. If you need perfectly balanced encounters where you can rules lawyer through the encounters, just keep walking. This is absolute a grind house epic set in the world of Night Watch (if you don’t know, go check out that underrated classic!) 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– From my experience, all the Borgs ooze style and this is no different. Honestly, this book is DOUBLE the page count of the original and it uses a hefty bunch of those pages to build a bigger world for you to play in. It’s still gonzo urban slavic and end-stage communist era fantasy, but I am here for it. 5/5
Execution– Slav Borg is a Borg game through and through, and much like the patriarch of the family, this one sacrifices some readability for style. The book is gorgeous in a grime covered, ork infested, end stage communism kind of way. It is a solid love letter to a tragically underappreciated time and setting. That said, its absolute dedication to style hurts legibility. I also didn’t see hyperlinks, and that makes me a slightly annoyed in a book that came out after 2020. And finally, the book is good and gives two new ways to play, with one being a rogue-like adventure method, but it doesn’t give a basic adventure. Give me an adventure I can instantly play with my friends when I buy your setting book! But it needs to be stated, my issues are absolutely with what is not here, because what is here is amazing. 4/5
Summary– Slav Borg is in good company. I love the mechanics that are here. I love adding new crazy things to the world. I love the community that decides to take a rules-light world and just throw the craziest damn things at it. This is a new deep vision of a part of the world that lots of people don’t know about and a way to bring it to light. It’s well done, and everything from the miniatures used in the art to the lovingly crafted gritty story is handcrafted. That commitment to the grit motif does make it harder to read and leaves some explanation out. That’s what hurts the product a bit. But my complaints are that I’m wanting more. What’s here is phenomenal and if you want a Mad Max goblin commie block world where you fight the necromancer to save the soul of your family, then this is the book you need to pick up. 90%
TL; DR– Death Metal DCC RPG mixed with Cypher system set in Dark Souls. 90%
Basics– Hear the call of the double two-headed basilisk! Mork Borg is an old school RPG with themes that feel like you’re playing in an 80s death metal album covers. Let’s break this game down.
Basics- This is a d20 rpg. Your character has four stats and you roll 3d6 for each and use a chart to determine your bonuses for each stat. From then on you will use the bonus for each statistic and roll a d20 with it for any test. The default test success result is a 12.
Combat and Rounds- Each round of combat is about six seconds. This is a VERY old school game as someone rolls a d6. Roll high, the players go first as a group, and low the enemies go first as a group. Each round, each character gets on action and a move. That’s it. What’s interesting is the GM really doesn’t roll dice. You attack with a bow? Roll presence+d20 with a DC of 12. You are attacked? Roll agility+d20 DC 12 to not get hit That’s it. It is NOT a deep crunchy system. If you hit or are hit, you roll damage dice and take that much damage.
Classes- There are a few presented classes. These classes give you hit points and different abilities. These are pretty random like most of the system.
Powers- Characters can gain powers. These are either holy or sacred spells. You can use them a number of times per day equal to d4+presence. These allow you to do attacks, talk with animals, or any of a handful of different abilities.
Morale- Monsters run. If they are hurt enough or the leader dies, the may bolt. When they are dealt enough damage or enough of their friends die, someone rolls 2d6. If the result is over their morale, they monsters either run or surrender.
Monsters- Monsters are simple with a number of hit points, a morale score, abilities, and damage for attacks. Each has a beautifully horrible picture.
Alright, thats the basics, let’s dig in.
Mechanics or Crunch– This is a VERY rules-light RPG. You already know almost everything you need to play. It’s not deep, but it works. Some things are not described well though. That’s kind of intentional as this is much more a fun, gritty RPG and not a deep musing on the human condition. It’s much more a SOLID OSR game where you know how to play since you’ve got dice older than some of the kids at the table. But, that rules light approach makes it harder to start playing. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– If this game goes deep into one thing, it’s the theme. This game feels like what Dark Souls wants to be. It’s gritty, it’s dark, and it has mysteries wrapped in mysteries and isn’t afraid to make it harder to play to make the atmosphere perfect for the game. It really does feel like playing DnD in a death metal cover. 5/5
Execution– I like this game, but the commitment to theme hurts presentation. The book is hyperlinked. So, it’s good. But the commitment to the zine and hard core metal makes it hard to follow everything. Also, the reliance on audience assumption of how games work is maybe a bit too much. I know what I am doing, because I’ve gamed for over 20 years, but newer players will be completely lost. 4/5
Summary– Mork Borg is an artist committing to their vision. The game itself is exactly what these people wanted. It’s light on rules and deadly without being a slog to play. The theme is exactly the dark world they wanted with enough places to play and explore. That commitment is admirable, but it does take away from the ease of getting into the game if you don’t know what OSR is or how to play old school DnD. It’s a bit of an ask for new players, but for the old grognards like me I understand what they are aiming for. I like what’s here but if you’re newer to RPGs, then ask your older Forever DM friend and we’ll blare some Cannibal Corpse and show you a good time! 90%
TL; DR– DCC and DnD5e had a more realistic baby! 93%
Basics– For Edervale! Distal is a new RPG currently being kickstarted. The writer has provided a MASSIVE preview that includes a lot of character options, several pregens, and even a short adventure. Let’s break it down for a review.
Basics- This is a d20 rpg. You have five statistics and a combination of 20 skills and knowledges. When you want to do anything, it’s D20 plus the statistic for checks or D20 plus the statistics and the bonus for the knowledge or skill. That’s it. Common things are a DC8 most are a DC10, and things can get EXTREMELY hard with some things being a DC22.
Dice steps- Like DCC RPG, this system uses dice steps. Distal sticks to normal dice with the dice chain being d4-d6-d8-d10-d12. No funky dice here!
Character creation- This system has a ton of options and a ton of randomness if you want it. Characters choose a race/lineage and a class. There is also a background. Backgrounds provide what you would expect: additional skills, items, and knowledges based on the life events you experienced. What makes them interesting is you can also randomly roll on several charts to randomly build a background! No traveler death during character creation though!
Combat- Combat is round based, but not based on your normal initiative score. After the GM determines who has the drop on the other side, each side does one action, then the other side does an action, alternating between the two. Characters get the expected actions in a combat round with a move, an action, and smaller things like techniques that are quick actions. In addition to the checks above, characters have an attack bonus based on their class, and it’s just D20 plus that bonus to attack. Damage is dice based like DnD with bonuses based on your statistics. The interesting change here is damage reduction with armor. Armor doesn’t really provide a bonus to defense, but reduces damage taken. Each armor provides a damage reduction die. If you roll a 1 on that die, then you don’t reduce much damage and the die gets one step smaller. Go too small and the armor is completely broken!
Willpower- Characters have willpower dice as part of their character class. These dice are gained at the start of combat and through other events, or as my favorite: story candy and buying the GM beer. When a character wants to add just an extra bit of extra to a D20 roll, a character can spend willpower and roll their willpower die to add the result to their total.
Magic- Magic is very similar to DnD5e. Characters either prepare spells once a day or know so many depending on their level. In either case, the caster can cast so many a day depending on their level and then they are out for the day. Characters might not be able to cast a lot of spells, but spells are extremely powerful with the ability to easily kill a first level character straight out!
Death- Death is PERMANENT! There is no resurrection. If your guy dies, hes dead! You do get deathmarks, however. When you drop to zero hit points, you begin to die and take a deathmark. These build up as you continue to die and each time you fall down again. You can remove some as you relax, but get too many and eventually you will not be able to get back up again, EVER!
Alright, thats the basics, let’s dig in.
Mechanics or Crunch– This is an interesting RPG. It is not a copy of either DCC or DnD5e. It is VERY close to both, but in good ways. It’s not brutal nor gritty, but it is more realistic as damage hurts bad and death is close. The mechanics are simple. Maybe a bit too simple and you don’t get a ton of skills, but that’s by design. Combat is not too simple, but simple enough to make the game flow easily. Overall, it’s good, but not the most original RPG this year. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– The fluff of this world is interesting. The preview doesn’t provide everything for good reason, but what is presented is good. It might not be the most original setting as it feels like many of the classic RPG setting pieces I know and love. It sticks with the more usual suspects like undead, monsters, and dudes with militaries being the bad guys, but those are fun things to smack back into place to save the world. Not the most original setting, but still a fun place to play. 4.5/5
Execution– This is a solid preview. There an OVER 100 PAGE document showing the system and world WITH HYPERLINKS! There is a full adventure with at least four premade characters. This is exactly what I want when I see a new RPG kickstarter. It’s new, but shows what’s to expect. I love what I’m seeing, AND IT’S ALL FOR FREE!. 5/5
Summary– Used to love DnD5e and I love DCC. This RPG is a solid mix of those two right down the middle. Simple mechanics with just a D20 plus numbers, but skills and knowledges for all. A simple world where there are bad guys and how the world addresses that. It’s the most new in any category, but it is done well. I can already see the first source book as the one group is summoning undead and those undead are running around, and I didn’t see a player character undead race. Given what I’ve seen, this will turn out to be a solid RPG that will get my silly friends to be a bit more serious and my serious friends to play a bit more loose! 93%
TL; DR– Power Rangers meets Dark Horror with NEON! 97%
Basics– Let’s cancel the Apocalypse! Knight: An Avalon RPG is a near modern day retelling of Camelot with men and women donning power armor to kill horrors out of the dark. Let’s break this down.
Basics- This is a d6 rpg. Your character has five aspects with three characteristics under each aspect for a total of 15 skills. When you want to do anything, you total the correct aspect with the correct characteristic and roll that many dice. Each even result is success and each odd is a failure. If you hit the correct amount of successes determined by the GM for the thing you are attempting to do, you succeed. A good aspect is a five and your off aspects are about threes with your characteristics ranging from one to three most of the time. The normal difficulty is three successes. No success at all is critical failure, while all success is a great feat/critical success.
Combat- Combat is round based and mostly theater of the mind. You have initiative which is 3d6+ an initiative score. Each round a character gets a move and an action with some reactions. When you attack a target you are aiming at the defense score for melee and at a reaction score for ranged combat. Here is the fun meat and potatoes of the game. You are not just a dude with a gun fighting horrors, you are a guy/gal in power armor. Your power armor has a force field that subtracts from all damage dealt to you. After that, you have armor points which act as the armor’s hit points and for every 10 the armor loses, you lose one of yours as you get battered around in the suit. Once the suit’s taken enough damage, it retracts and you’re just a guy/gal fighting the horrors of the dark!
Suit powers- Your suit has powers as well and these are fueled with the suits energy points. This works just like magic points in any RPG as you spend as much as you want until the suit is tapped out and you’re just left with your guns, fists, and harsh language.
Hope- Hope is sanity in this game. As you experience the horrors in the dark, you have to make checks to see if you lose hope. If you lose all your hope, you effectively die as you just become an agent of the darkness.
Heroism- Story candy! Heroism is the story candy of this game where you get it for story reasons or just being the guy/gal to buy pizza that week. It lets you reroll dice, avoid dying, not lose hope, or any other cool thing that the GM lets you do.
Alright, thats the basics, let’s dig in.
Mechanics or Crunch– This game plays like a strange version of Shadowrun and that’s a good thing. This is a VERY crunchy game with piles of d6s being thrown at a problem. I like that. Some things feel a bit inconsistent, like choosing DCs. When I want to do something opposed by a bad guy, the DC is half their relevant ability, but you do not do that for their defense stats. That feels just a tiny bit off. Not enough that it will keep me away, however. 4.5/5
Theme or Fluff– Want gritty power rangers with rampant evils of capitalism and magic crap all over? Yep, I do too. That’s what this game feels like. Do you remember the 90s TV cartoon where football players went back and were working for Merlin with magic power armor? Mix that with a little Clive Barker and TONS of neon light tracery, and you get this. Yes, I want that. 5/5
Execution– This is well done and almost perfect for a crowd-funded project. There is a 30+ page book with art, a basic walkthrough of the game, and a short adventure WITH five premade characters. My ONE issue is that there is no hyperlinking. But it’s 30 pages and free. If I wanted to play it with friends, it took me 30 minutes to read through cover to cover and have enough of an idea how to play and run. That’s a hell of an introduction. 5/5
Summary– I grew up in the 90s and am a sucker for any power armor heroes. I also loved the Matrix and Dark City. This is that in a blender. I have some slight reservations about how numbers are calculated, but that’s not enough to keep me away. This is one to check out as it’s free, and in my opinion well worth your time. 97%
Basics– The Critical Roll bunch have an RPG! Let’s look over this d12 fusion RPG!
Basics- This is a 2d12 rpg. You roll both, add abilities and statistics, and see if you hit a desired DC. Pretty simple for the basics.
Hope and fear or 2d12- The basics are not too strange, but when you roll, you roll 2 different colored d12. One is your hope and one is your fear. If the hope beats the fear value, then you gain hope. If the fear beats the hope, then the GM gets to stop the action and jump in or gets to bank a fear for later.
Using hope- Hope is used to either help yourself or an ally when they roll. You can spend hope to give your friend an additional d12 hope die and choose the better of them. Also, you have a set of experiences. These are akin to skills in DnD. When an experience you have makes sense for a particular action and you want to, you can spend hope to gain the value of an experience as a bonus to the roll.
Combat, turns, and damage- This is a VERY heavy roleplaying game with less focus on crunch. Combat is not round based. Players can do any action from using abilities or attacking and place a token on the action tracker. This continues until a character rolls higher on the fear die. Then the GM gets to play using each token on the action tracker to do something such as attacking, using abilities, and removing conditions on enemies. In either case, if an attack is made, the attack goes against an evasion score. If the attack hits, then the attacker rolls damage. Damage does not just reduce hit points by an amount, but instead the attack goes against damage thresholds causing between zero and 3 hit points. If the attack hits but fails to hit the lowest damage threshold, you take stress. Stress is another stat and represents your body gradually being beaten down, but not enough to hurt you hard. Stress can also come from the environment or abilities you or enemies have. In addition, armor allows you to reduce damage, but it also gets beaten down with use. If you choose, you can reduce damage by your armor value, but you have to check off a use. No uses left means you can’t use your armor. No stress left means you can’t use that ability and all rolls against you have advantage.
Using Fear- Fear is the GMs version of hope. Fear allows enemies to do some actions, for the environment to do some actions, or even for the GM to add additional tokens to the turn tracker.
Alright, thats the basics, let’s dig in.
Mechanics or Crunch– The mechanics here are interesting. It’s not deep enough to be DnD, but its also not deep enough to be Shadowrun. It’s heavily based on the Cypher system. That’s not bad, but it’s also really up in the air. If you want consistency, this won’t be the game for you. If you can handle the give and take of this game, it’s a solid game. 5/5
Theme or Fluff– For the story, what’s here is good, but it’s also not done. It’s got a solid adventure, but you won’t see much world building here, but more is coming as they write more. I don’t hate anything, but I need more details in the base game, not just the adventure. 4.5/5
Execution– This is an interesting one. I love online materials, but Nexus does not have an app. I also don’t like the lack of an index. If it’s present, I have a hard time finding it, so that’s just as bad. The basic functions work well, but again there is no app. So, using a phone for this can be a bit of a pain. The adventure is nice and is fun. The character PDFs are nice as well and have solid help sections for the players. 4.5/5
Summary– This RPG leaves me optimistic. The mechanics and theme are interesting. I want more. Give me an app and give me some more world building, and I’d be even happier. That said, if you need hard crunch this won’t be for you. But it’s free, so check this one out. At worst, you see the system building before your eyes. It’s also an interesting mix of several different parts from other RPGs. You got bits from DnD all the way to the cypher system. I like those, so I like this as well. 93%
Basics– The blacksmith’s gone MAD! The kind hearted man has attacked and been contained but why… Can the heroes save the town from some deeper lurking threat?
Mechanics or Crunch– This is a pretty simple adventure, but solid enough to jumpstart a campaign. The adventure has exploration, combat, and social parts to allow the characters of all types to shine. It’s gonna be a bit hard, but Schwalb Entertainment adventures tend to be a bit killer. Complaining about that is like complaining that spicy food is spicy. It’s balanced for what it’s aiming to be, but still fun for those looking to get into the system and maybe even a campaign. 5/5
Theme or Fluff– Again, this is simple but what Schwalb wants in his adventures for this setting. It’s heroic with little to no gore and moral ambiguity. It’s just the heroes finding the cause, finding the solution, and killing bad guys along the way. Solid fun for a hero. 5/5
Execution– I like what’s here, but that’s contingent on there being more in the future. Right now, the item this links to is prepublication. If you want some Weird Wizard, then this is a good enough document (it even has a map!) that will get you playing in about 10 minutes. That’s good, but the layout is a bit lacking. Also, and this is a pet peeve, I want pregens. Give me at minimum a party of four with a better option being eight, two of each base class. They don’t even exist on Schwalb Entertainment’s website. That would make getting this play started even faster, and make getting my friends in even easier. That said, for the price you get a solid adventure with a map to explore. It’s good, but when fully published, it will even be better! 4.75/5
Summary– I do love me some “shadow” system by Schwalb. This is a good, but uncomplicated intro to his vision of how to play. It’s got the three pieces of a good adventure, and will let all the different characters shine. If you need Game of Thrones levels of background and intrigue you will be disappointed by this adventure. For the execution, it works, but this is a prerelease. It’s also pretty cheap, so even if it doesn’t massively change after layout, it’s still enough to justify the price. So far, I’m happy with how this system is working. 98%
Basics– Moonlight library madness! Our heroes are hired to infiltrate a library that only appears at night. Can the heroes get in, get the goods, and get out while nature fights them at every turn?
Mechanics or Crunch– This adventure is well balanced and has several different pieces for the players to play with. There’s combat, social, and a big skill test to find the hidden book. Many of the combats use standard creatures, but there are custom encounters and haunts as part of this adventure. Overall, it’s a well done crunch. 5/5
Theme or Fluff– Beyond the Horizon is building a world adventure by adventure. This adventure builds off other published adventures and characters they introduced, and the continuation is appreciated. And as in the crunch, there are social and skill tests to let different players get into the action. It might need a bit more box text to build into the story, but overall it’s well done. 4.75/5
Execution– I like what’s here, but this needs a bit more to be amazing. I like the text and pictures. I have one minor issue with the layout as I think the background color is a bit strong and partially distracts from the text. I like the fact that the adventure has a separate bestiary with all the different monsters in it. I HATE when a book tell me to go somewhere else when I paid for this book! The one issue that might hurt this book is the lack of maps. Other adventures from Beyond the Horizon have had maps, so that might have helped here. But it’s hyperlinked and reads fast, so my only issue is I want more. 4.5/5
Summary-The Hidden Library is a solid adventure where my real only issue is that I would like more content. The crunch is good, and the company is building a world piece by piece leading to something bigger. I’m enjoying what is coming out. I would like a bit more story and maps, but if you have some generic maps you will be fine. And for the price of FREE get this one ASAP! 95 %
TL; DR– A LOT more but not what some expected. 99%
Basics– Family friendly fantasy Schwalb! Shadow of the Weird Wizard is Schwalb Entertainment’s family friendly fantasy RPG. Let’s look at the basics then the breakdown.
Base Mechanics- This game is d20 based with the normal base numbers you would expect. There are only four attributes (strength, agility, intelligence, and will). The interesting part is your abilities directly determine a bonus to any roll. If you are asked to make a will roll, you look at your will attribute, subtract 10, and add that number to a d20 roll. So if you have a will of 13, then then the bonus is +3. Simple. This goes for everything from attacks to opening a lock. The number you are aiming for most times is a 10 for a success.
Boons and banes- Aside from a d20, the other die this game uses often is a d6. If you have an advantage in a situation, then you roll a boon or a d6 and ADD the value to the d20 roll. If you have a disadvantage you roll a bane or a d6 and you SUBTRACT the value from the d20 roll. If you have multiple boons or banes, you roll multiple dice but combine only the most extreme penalty or bonus to your d20 roll. Boons and banes counteract one another, so two banes and three boons mean you get one boon on the roll.
Combat- Combat is a bit simpler than Shadow of the Demon Lord. Here, each side takes a turn with the GM or Sage going first. All their NPCs go first moving, attacking, or casting spells, and then the players can choose whatever order they want to take. Each turn a player can move and take an action. These actions are attacks, spells, and anything else a player can think of.
Leveling up– This is the biggest change Schawlb brings to the world of RPGs. Leveling up in all the Shadow games is simple and occurs quite often. After a four hour adventure, you level up. Not after multiple sessions. Not at specific XP levels. Just after every completed game. Leveling up is also predictable. Level 1 and 2 you get levels in your base class or your novice path. Level 3 and 4 you choose an expert path. 5 is back to your novice path. 6 is your expert path. 7 and 8 are a master path. 9 is your expert path, and finally 10 is the master path final level. The classes/paths are split into four basic areas: fighter, rogue, wizard, and cleric, and this is the same for both the expert and master paths as well. So you can be a novice cleric, then a mountebank (rogue), and finally an alienist (wizard) and the flow will be fun and works well.
Ok, now my breakdown.
Mechanics or Crunch– I like the Shadow games. This is no different. This one doesn’t have the slow/fast turn mechanics of the Shadow of the Demonlord, but that will make this appeal to a wider audience of gamers. Aside from that, this game’s goal is to be fast. Schwalb wants to make an approachable game that flows fast. And this does. 5/5
Theme or Fluff– Schwalb is not known for being family friendly. His other stuff is just bizarre and gross AND I LOVE IT. This is meant to be a very different experience. It’s well done, but if you want the gothic horror of Shadow of the Demon Lord, you will be disappointed. However, if you want a family friendly game then this is the Schwalb Entertainment that you would bring to the table. 5/5
Execution– This is a solidly put together game that meets all the base requirements I need and want in a book. There is art that breaks up text blocks. There is a solid layout to ease reading. And there are hypertext to make this a breeze to move through quickly. The one thing I do not like is the lack of a walkthrough of making a character and leveling up. I know it’s not hard, but those things are something I think really helps the new players. That said, this is a near perfect book for production. 4.9/5
Summary– I have always loved what Schwalb Entertainment puts out. It’s a very different philosophy compared to other RPGs and companies. This is no different, but it is a change from the normal tone of Schwalb. Not bad, but different. You have to know exactly what you are getting here. This is a player book, not a full system book. The original Shadow of the Demon Lord was an all in one book. This is not that. If you think that this one book will do it all, you will be disappointed. But this book doesn’t skimp on content as you get a crazy amount of things for your money. I just would like a few more examples for perfection. 99%
Throat Punch Games 