Upon purchasing a product I immediately start looking at how many genres the system can mimic easily and how many it can with a little work. The game system and information provided can handle many genres easily with no effort on the GMs part. So if you don't want to be a teen age witch you can easily be a male teen with magical powers or a witch hunter, shapeshifter, vampire, God of past pantheons, etc. with the information provided by means of dozens of samples of npcs and creatures and animals you can be almost anything you want with in the world provided. If you want to be a super hero or government agent with psionic powers you can with very little effort. I immediately started to think of past cartoons that could be mimicked such as 1980's He-man, thunder cats, up to current thunder cats, dragonball z, and many others that can be done. the only genre not possible without a lot more effort is Mecha but as the greatest part of the game is the magic system you probably do not want to emulate that as there are many other systems that do a wonderful job with Mecha. If given a choice of books buy this one over the more recent Respelled as it is a cheaply made copy with only a few of the supplement material added but has a lot of the other info removed. This book and the game system is easy, versatile and perfect for beginners but also has world information and social rules for those wanting more than a combat simply game however if that is what you want it can also provide that.

I backed the Kickstarter for this project (formerly WGA: Book of Shadows) three years ago. Over a year and a half ago, the author simply stopped communicating with the backers, no updates, comments, or responses to emails. Today, the backers have finally received our download codes and I must say, it fails to impress.

After nearly three years of development (half of that in radio-silence), the final product is fairly riddled with typos and formatting issues, lacks vast chunks of promised content (setting information, the option to play non-witches, any kind of bestiary), and smacks of a quick-and-dirty retread of a previous product. A paragraph at the beginning declares that this is actually WGA 1.5 (not 2.0) and is simply meant to be layered on top of the original book. I hate this kind of "update," because it lazily declares "everything in the previous edition is still cannon, except for this, and this, and this..."

Ultimately, I paid $20 dollars, three years ago, for something that now sells for $10, and I would be better served simply playing the original version. Don't give these guys any of your money. It's a poor product, made by people who lack even the most common of courtesies concerning their customer base.

A lot of what said about Witch Girls is still true from my original review. Here it is, with edits to reflect this newer version.

We now have 2, soon to be 3, versions of Witch Girls Adventures. WGA = Witch Girls Adventures (1st ed) WGA-DC = the Director's Cut, this version. 1.5 Edition. WGA-BoS = Witch Girls Adventures: Book of Shadows, 2nd Edition. Out sometime in the future.

Witch Girls Adventures is a a "Drama Diaries" game, using the "Drama Dice" system from Malcolm Harris. This version, WGA-DC is using the first ed version of the Drama Dice system with some of the modifications of the upcoming 2nd Edition.

It is aimed at new players predominantly and girls in particular. The book begins with 10 pages of the Witch Girls Adventures comic to set the tone and mood of the game.

The book continues as it goes on to your typical introduction into what is a roleplaying game and is written for a young or teen girl audience ("just tell the geek (trust me; they are used to being called geeks) behind counter you need... ") cute. But too much of this would ruin the presentation of the game for me. Thankfully this is the only time, but it does establish one thing right away; this game is going for a different audience. The intro stuff continues with some terms both for the game and for RPGs.

It makes an odd left turn to give us optional rules (we haven't had any rules yet for these to be optional to) about how to run a "Harry Potter" like game with this. Eh. Nice, but this should have come last, not first. I still think this would have worked better as an appendix.

Chapter 2 gives us "Cliques" . So perfect. In another game these would be "Factions" or "Classes" or even "Traditions" or "Associations" or "Backgrounds", but given the Middle-school/High-school this is great. Cliques basically give your starting dice and what skills you are likely to have. The system is very easy. The dice system (The Drama Dice system as it is called) quickly reminds one of Cortex or Savage Worlds. Attributes are scored d2 to d12 for most types. The spread even looks the same as Cortex and Savage Worlds. Not surprisingly, afterall it is a logical progression. You have six attributes Body (which combines Strength, Agility and stamina), Mind (intelligence), Senses, Will, Social and Magic. Right away you see there is only one body type attribute but four mental ones. This is the way it should be really, WGA is not about beating people up, it is about the social aspects of the game and about magic, our last attribute. There are some secondary attributes that are derived. Rolls are made depending on the dice vs a difficulty table very similar to d20 or Unisystems' success levels. Cliques are detailed and they are your basic magical girl stereotypes (the Goth, the insider, the outsider…) . Plenty here to work with and if you are so inclined create your own (which is what the "Harry Potter" bit tries to do).

Chapter 3 moves onto skills. Each chapter has some fiction to introduce you to the Witch Girls world. It seems to be a cross between Charmed, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Buffy and the Craft mixed in with anime magical girls. Skills. Unlike Cortex or Savage Worlds, skills are given a + score like Unisystem or d20. Roll the die associated with the attribute (each skill is connected to an attribute like d20) add the bonus the skill provides, check your success, or roll greater. There are 34 mundane skills and 10 magical skills. A little too much in my book, but I am willing to see how it works out here.

Chapter 4 Traits details traits, which are like Edges or Qualities. They are broken up into Talents (which you can get later in life) and Heritages (which are inborn and never change). Heritages have both a positive and negative aspect to them. Typical ones are there like "Beautiful" and others which have to be unique to this game like "Drama Queen".

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 are all well detailed and very straight forward.

Chapter 5 is Magic. Really this is what we came here for. There is a lot more here on what magic is and what it means to a witch. There are different types of magic (necromancy, mentalism, cybermancy…) which you can spend points on to improve your rank. This can provide a lot of variance between witches. Think of it as somewhere between Harry Potter's classes and Mage's spheres. As GM (a Director in WGA) I might limit some of these to NPCs (Guest Stars) and not to PCs (Stars). Spell casting is broken down into a lot of detail. More than maybe the seasoned gamer needs, but given the audience it might be about right. Effects are broken out into Magic Type Rank (MTR) and the overall feel is like a table you might see in Mage or Mutants & Masterminds with what MTR (read as Power level) you need to achieve a certain effect. Want to cast that spell across the world? Better have an MTR of 9. There are rules for Signature Spells, which take less Zap (read: Mana, Essence), choose only one and from the "School" with your highest MTR (which makes sense really). I like the idea of the signature spell and might try it in my other games too. This is all followed by 20+ pages of spells and these by no means seem to be all of them. Since your cast member (Star, remember) isn't going to be buying swords, guns or anything else that characters spend money or points on then this is a good thing.

Chapter 6. Your Star gets an allowance allowing her to buy things like magical computers, flying Vespas, and more brooms than found in Home Depot. There are familiars, clothes, wings and all sorts of magical equipment here as well. You could build an adventure on just shopping for these things cause I am sure getting them is not as easy as going to the mall. Lots of neat wands and I have to say the books for young witches are pretty funny ("Samantha's Guide to Merry Mortals" yeah that made me laugh). And a bunch of mundane stuff like DVD players and skateboards. The allowance system is nice, I like it better than the Modern d20 purchase DCs and easier than keeping track of cash.

Chapter 7 is some odds and ends. A character questionnaire (nice) and a filled out character sheet (also nice). Good detail on what things mean and if you are new to games a certain boon.

Chapter 8 is for Directors, so all the rules of the game. The system, some combat rules (yes this is the FIRST game I have seen where the rules for shopping are longer than the rules for combat. ;) ) Some nice background fluff and some ideas for different types of stories, basically you can do Buffy, Good vs. Evil, Charmed, and Magic School. The experience system is "interesting" (Voodollars), but it looks like it works.

Chapter 9 is the world background. Now this one is kind of neat. I details the various races (witches are a different race) and they are not alone. Some history, some magical places (Santa's Workshop, No joke and it looks cool!) The ruling council of Witches (I am yoinking this for my Unisystem games), Spelling Bees, groups and other schools. Even how the mundane world reacts to all of this.

Chapter 10 presents some creatures. But if the art is any indication most of these are not for combat purposes, but potential dates (well there is only one witch kissing a vampire…) Nearly every kind of creature is covered from fairies to Cthulhu like horrors. But no demons. Seems a bit odd, given it all. Some NPCs (Guest Stars) of note.

Chapter 11 details the Willow Mistt School. Lands, buildings, faculty, everything you would expect to find is here. Willow Mistt is not Hogwarts, but it is easy to make the comparisons. I actually found it closer to Claremont Academy from Mutants & Masterminds.

We close with a sample Episode, some plot ideas, a lexicon, and a list of Witch names (see how many you recognize!), and some NPCs with sheets.

The Good: Harris obviously has a love for this genre and it shows. The rules are well crafted and while there is nothing earth shaking here, they are familiar mechanics done up in a very nice way. The point of view of the work is nice. This is anti-Grim-Dark. It's not all unicorns, princesses and kittens (though it does have all that), it's a fun game. The art is not D&D 4e, but it is good and more to the point very appropriate for this game. For new players this is a great little game. More experienced players may want more, but that is not due to the game itself, but rather expectations. Do not expect this to be "WitchCraft: The Junior High Years" (though you can do that). This Director's Cut has been update to mostly full color interiors. Especially the art.

The Bad: I know Harris is basically a one man operation so I am willing to cut him some slack here. But there are a large number of typos that should be fixed and some terms that might have either been mistakes or from earlier versions (the Magic attribute is called "Zap" in one spot.) I am willing to overlook those IF they are corrected in the 2nd Edition. They should have been corrected in this edition to be honest, but I am going to cut him the slack here but none in the 2nd ed WGA-BoS.

The Ugly: Well....WGA has something of a weird rep online. I am not sure it is entirely justified to be honest. Gamers can get really weird about the oddest things. Are some of the witches depicted here anti-social monsters? Yeah. The poster child, Princess Lucinda is exactly that, but it is presented in the same vein of cartoon violence.

So. Who is Witch Girls Adventures for? Well , that sort of depends but here is what I see.

New players and Game Master get a lot with this book. I see them having a great time. People that enjoy the more social aspects of a game (and of gaming) rather than a bunch of combats. Anyone that is a fan of Magical Girl Anime, Witches or even high school based games. Anyone that has ever wished for a Harry Potter RPG. Anyone that looks at the setting and resists the urge to make it "darker". WGA is not about being dark. You can be evil sure, and as a witch the entire world is after you, but the setting does not need the WoD feel at all.

Last Words This is a fun game. Take it as it is, not as you want it to be, and you will have fun too. If you are an old pro, use this game to introduce younger people to the hobby. I hope that Malcolm Harris is successful and ends up getting a lot of new people, boys and girls, to our hobby.

The Director's cut adds a few more pages and most of the interior is now full color. There are some new pieces of art and some of the older b/w art is now in color. Whether or not this is worth 10 bucks is up to you. I enjoyed the 1st ed so much I wanted to get this.

I have two hopes for Witch Girls now.

1. That the final copy of 2nd edition, WGA-BoS, is out soon.
2. That Malcolm Harris gets someone to help with the editing. It is a shame to mar a great and fun game with some easily fixed typos.

Fair quality scans, but missing pages (e.g., 21-29 in the Halloween Spook-Tacular). Text content not OCRed.

Are you tired of fairy tales with the clichè goody goody Princess who is just a helpless damsel in distress in need of being saved by a knight in shining armor? Then this graphic novel is perfect for you! Meet Lucinda Nightbane, the 12-year-old Princess, whose parents rule over an Empire of 12 worlds with an iron fist. In contrast to the standard Princess, Lucinda is clever, ruthless, and more than capable of fending for herself. She doesnt need a hero to save her, because she has immense magic powers and she isnt afraid to use them against everyone who attacks, insults or in any other form is rude to her (and since she is the High Princess of a whole universe and sees everyone that doesn`t belong to her family as a lowly servant, being rude to her might even include crossing her ways when she is in a bad mood).

Now, its important to note that Lucinda is, in a way, a little evil. She is portrayed as being cruel on a whim and quite self-centered and the rebels who attack her kingdom, the antagonists, are actually trying to free the empire from the evil tyrant family. In any other work of fiction, they might be the good guys, the heroes. But this story is more original than that. Lucinda, who may sound unysmpathetic at first, is actually a great, original character. Shes fun to watch, imaginative in the use of her powers (she prefers permanently transforming her unfortunate victims into all kinds of things, from insects to ice cream) and you can`t help but feel for her when she SPOILER ALERT has to watch her parents die in front of her.

This first issue of what will be a three part series deals with her backstory and how she is forced to move to earth, which she describes as a "small, backwards world in a dung heap of a universe, filled with hairless apes".

I recommand this graphic novel to everyone who would enjoy a twisted version of a fairy tale and is a fan of dark humor. Lucinda is an awesome character, worthy of her own movie or television show, and her story is simply epic.

Less a preview and more of a commercial for WGA 2.0. Still the art is nice and I would have liked to seen a preview of something new in this edition. WGA 1.0 is a great game so my hopes are very high.

I enjoyed reading this. The story is fun, the art is really nice, and I get a huge kick out of Lucinda.

My only complaint about this comic is that it really needs some serious proofreading before going to print - the biggest sin being punctuation. A lack of commas made the story a little hard to read; it was very distracting.

If that can be fixed, it'll be perfect.

The comic that came before the RPG. The first 200 or so pages are comic content of various artists, but all in the WitchGirls School and world. The next dozen or so pages is the Coventry School written up for the Witch Girls RPG. And we end with WGA write-ups for all the characters that appeared in the comics.
One of the great things about the Witch Girls game are the characters. So this is a nice treat really. If you are a fan of the game and want some more NPCs for your own school or need some ideas on adventure then this is a great book to have.

WHAT WORKS: While it isn't politically correct, it doesn't push the envelope remotely as much as the games I have been reviewing recently, meaning it's probably safer for a broader audience. It is tailor made for a slightly tongue in cheek version of an all-star action movie set-up ala The Expendables, allowing for a pretty decent range of character types and adversaries.

WHAT DOESN'T WORK: The book was riddled with typos, in headings and buried in the text. For those worried about game balance, Muscle seemed a tad overly strong, since it is used to get your Tough Points, Speed and affect your damage, while Attitude is pretty much used in roleplay situations. A broader list of Para-Macho-Abilities would have been great, as I could see characters stepping over each other pretty quickly, especially in a larger group. Oh, and ranking The Von Erich Family above Chuck Norris in the Macho Hall of Fame?!?! Are you nuts? I also question The A-Team and MacGyver as being sources of "Grade A" senseless violence, as A-Team was notorious for its "bloodless carnage" and MacGyver was designed specifically as a counter to "violent cop shows".

CONCLUSION: A little editing could have gone a long ways here on the presentation, which also suffered from lackluster art. That being said, there could easily be much fun had with any group willing to embrace the tropes and kick some ass for a night or two of beer and pretzels gaming. I am terribly interested in the superhero RPG advertised in the back of the book, however.

For my full review, please visit: http://mostunreadblogever.blogspot.com/2011/05/tommys-take-on-macho-last-action-heroes.html

This is a really good manga. I read the issue 0 and thought it was funny but this is not like the issue 0 manga In that manga we get Princess Lucinda being a pest on earth. In this we learn what her pre-earth life was like.

She was a real Princess and had everything and not to go all spoiler but we see how she loses most of it. And where the story hits is how sorry you feel for her and her sister. It’s like reading a movie only you get to read the characters thoughts along with what they say.

But it isn’t all story the art here is kewl. Sketches with some ink. I usually hate black and white manga but this is different and reminds me of black and white illustrations old books.

I would give this a six but it just goes up to five.

Originality is a rare thing and should always be applauded.

I’m old school and I remember “Dragon”, a magazine dedicated to Dungeons and Dragons and its sister magazine, “Dungeon”. This product, which I brought for my daughter took me back.

13 Magazine takes almost a dozen articles, write them in the tone of an actual real life magazine aimed at young witches and what could have been ho-hum comes off as gold. I enjoyed reading it, and my daughter is about half way done with it, and so far, she likes it.

The articles cover a wide range of things. My favorite being the one on the “Argus Society”. I always thought Witch Girls Adventures begged for a good old Scooby-Doo style romp and with that article you can do just that and more.

The rest of the articles ranged from short and sweet to almost a full on supplement (The Baby sitter information). I hope this is how Channel M continues doing their supplements because it really fits what I think they are trying to do with their games.

On the downside, some of the art for the equipment is a bit weak and the layout is a busy in some places but I guess that can be said for a lot of my daughter’s real magazines too.

This is a fun product. Designed to be a magazine for young witches in the WGA world, it looks like any number of tween and teen mags that talk about fashion, boys and school. 13 is no different except the advice section deals with how to deal with your vampire boyfriend to a bunch of new spells no young witch should be without. IT looks like there will be regular features such as Aimee the Alchemist, Cryptid Database, advice from Denora the "Wicked Witch of the West Coast" and dating advice from Desdemond. Everything is presented with a little sidebar of notes for the Director of a WGA game on how to use. I particularly liked the "First Jobs" article which dealt with baby sitting, but provided material to play or run younger witches than the core book had.

The layout is really good, full color and looking like a glossy fashion magazine. There are a few typos I noticed, but nothing that distracted me from the text or the fun.

If you like Witch Girls Adventures, then this is a good buy.

Insane, Offensive, over the top. …. and fun.

I wish I could just do short reviews with a few words. but I can’t. I have to go into detail and with this game details can be frightening ..a funny kind of poking fun at the world and my general beliefs frightening.

Macho: Last: Action heroes is social satire with dice and violence. The player characters are near unstoppable engines of destructions based on every trope from every action movie you’ve ever seen. You can be everything from “Die Hard” to James bond. All working for a SHIELD/ GI JOE/ Fringe division organization called the SOCIETY.

And with all that diversity character creation is simple. You pick a cliché which covers every action hero type (there are over a dozen), you divide up dice into your basic 4 attributes and skills. Then you pick powers called Para-Macho abilities that basically allow you to do the crazy stunts you see in action movies, buy equipment and you’re done.

The dice system is all D6 with Attributes and skills creating a dice pool you roll to do things. The more high rolls you get the better you do. Low rolls negate high rolls and that’s the basics. Very simple and it reminds me of a less confusing Shadowrun.

Players also gain and spend Macho Points for doing outlandish things. The crazier the stunt you pull the more macho points you can get. Those points can be spent to uses your Macho Powers and to help keep the character alive. Macho points are a unique and fun part of the game as it encourages action movie crazy and from what I see , role-playing.

The game also includes some world information that seems to be written to both offend and invoke laughter. I found myself laughing out loud more than once. My favorite being the enemy group P.E.E.E which is PETA and Greenpeace combined. And if the words fail you the art won’t. Why? Because nothing is as offense or funnier than clubbing demonic seals to death or fighting a KKK hood wearing robot

Now that I got my gushing out of the way I feel I have to say a few negative things about it. The Bin Ladenesque bad guys are in bad taste more than ever now and I think should have been removed.. The rules lack detail, not enough to make it unplayable but I usually like a little more meat with my game systems. The book itself is more mini-rpg than full and thought that’s not what I like I have to praise Channel M for being able to make a fully realized RPG in under 50 pages

Paranoia, Toon and other Rpgs have proven comedy and gaming need not be separate things. To that list add MACHO: Last Action Heroes.

The first thing I noticed when I opened this PDF is that the interior of the book is in color, although a lot of the art is still black-and-white. While this was something I've seen other reviewers demanding from the original Witch Girls Adventures rulebook, this isn't something that really helps and wasn't something I really care about one way or the other.

The art quality has gone down since the original release. I'll be honest, some of it was pretty bleakh this time around.

The most constructive thing I can say is this: This book has the same feel as the old 2e D&D 'net "guides" from the days when PDFs weren't commonly available. Some good content, but some that makes you wonder just what the heck the authors were thinking.

A nice, cute indie RPG for those of us who are tired with all the gloom, doom, and corporate chicanery of more conventional settings, but also don't want something overly saccharine. This looks like a wonderful introductory title for a young gamer, better than the blue book D&D that I got from a used book store and enjoyed to nigh-destruction when I was a pre-teen.

The art has a cartoony feel, which isn't bad for a game like this. It gives a feeling of Kim Possble and Winx Club, which is pretty appropriate for the target audience.

This book does have a few down sides, however. The most noticeable is the author's over-dependence on autocomplete and spell check while writing, which leads to such gems as a 1950s-style broom with "lots of crime accessories" instead of "chrome accessories."

There's also something about the layout that bugs me, but I can't quite put my finger on it.