I've been a big fan of Dr. Desing's superhero RPG creations since the first "edition" of "Sentinels of Echo City," and each version of the game (SOEC Deluxe, Stalwart) has been better than the last. Desing's game has come a long way from its "old school D&D but for superheroes" origins, but it had to start there to get here. Stalwart '85 does genre emulation without excess abstraction, and superhero action without too much "realism." Beyond the super cool system, this book is PACKED with characters, setting info, and ideas. This is a can't miss book for fans of the genre.

this companion really adds to the excellence of this game, a must have!

A perfect, concise expansion that not only opens up the possibilities of the core game, but stands as an example of how easy it is to add or change what you want without making the game more complex. And at PWYW, it's a steal :)

These 16 pages comprise one of the best "mid crunch" superhero rule systems that I have read in a long time...

and for one American dollar!!

AMAZING!

If you are a fan of superhero TTRPG's pick this one up, an elegantly and logically designed game and there appears to be plenty of support on the blog... a great game...

I've followed Dr. Desing's game design journey for quite a while now, and if you look, you'll find several other 5-star reviews of his efforts here in my name. They were all earned at the time, and they still deserve them now. However this latest iteration of his approach to the supers game, "S:TWNSRPG," has also earned 5 stars from me. This in no way "takes away from" previous games like "The Stalwart Age" or "Sentinels of Echo City." Those are still awesome and playable in their own rights. What THIS game represents though, is an evolution in quickness of character creation and sheer playability that could only have been achieved by going through all of the previous designs before it. What we have here is brevity achieved without nearly as much of a loss in granularity as one would think, with the optional levels of complexity often being left up to the player in the moment (see the rules for multiple actions/attacks). I'd get into the rules a little more here, but this game costs One Dollar, is sixteen pages long, and is already supported by tons of free additional content on Dr. Desing's blog. Get it!

Recently, I soloed my way through The Tomb of Myriad Horrors (3 pages at DriveThruRPG). It was designed for Hack’D & Slash’D, but I used Ordure Fantasy (a d6 system, 19 pages, same place). To solo it, I used two tools. The Bing Copilot answered my questions and I used Oldskull Underworld Generator 1: Rats in the Walls (260 pages, same place) to generate two additional rooms and two outside encounters. For the PCs, I used Chalk and her four friends, this was their third adventure. So, the PCs heard about the Tomb from a wandering peddler and headed off in that direction. Before they saw it they heard the sounds of orcs talking loudly. Terence the PC summoned an orc and then the group attacked the orcs guarding the entrance. The PCs killed the guards and then entered the tomb.

On a wall they saw the riddle. They had no idea what it was about. In the first room they found a bunch of dead orcs. Traps had killed them. In the second room their was a puzzle. The PCs were clueless and they triggered an Animated Statue. Terence got rid of his summoned orc and summoned an Animated Statue. The PCs won this battle. There was also a trap in this room and Chalk did not notice it. Luckily, Terence saw the trap and they were able to avoid it. In the third room (puzzle) they fought gargoyles. One of them had to be killed twice. In the fourth room they saw a sarcophagus on a platform. The PC’s animated statue investigated it. Another trap was triggered. The statue flew up to the ceiling taking damage, and more damage when it fell back down to the floor. It was now dead. Terence summoned another one. It then went on the platform to investigate the sarcophagus and a mummy came out of it. The PCs killed it.

At this point they had to make a choice and they did pick the better one. In the next room they killed giant rats. They did find electrum and gold pieces hidden in the debris. In the final room they found a skull on a stake and a skeleton (not animated). They then exited the tomb and headed back towards the nearest town. The next encounter was two aggressive chaotic wizards. Terence started a wizard duel with one and that wiz went down. The other wizard summoned an animated statue and the battle started. The PCs won that battle. They searched the dead bodies and found a wand of magic missiles (seven charges remaining). So, the PCs finished the adventure and had plenty of loot to pay for meals, lodging, and supplies.

Gremlins Take Ostenwald (7 pages, a DMDave adventure) is a fun adventure for third level characters D&D Fifth Edition. To create my solo engine, I changed five lines in table #333 in the FlexTale Solo Adventuring Toolkit (613 pages at DriveThruRPG). The RPG system I used was Hack’D & Slash’D (1$, 21 pages at DriveThruRPG). I used five second level characters.

For the first scene, the characters enter the township of Ostenwald. Within minutes, they are in combat with five gremlins (like in the movie Gremlins). The PCs kill the gremlins. During the second scene, the PCs encounter two PCs and a dog. They gain valuable information. During the third scene, they fail an IQ check, pass a Wisdom check, kill five more gremlins, and find the apothecary’s den. For the fourth scene, they heal the apothecary, acquire a magical bead, climb down a level, and blow up 50 more gremlins. For the fifth scene, the PCs fight the Boss gremlin, take more damage, and watch as a PC kills the Boss (well, that was a surprise). For the last scene, they climb back up to ground level and encounter a fighter and his henchman. They have a chat and the fighter pulls out a scroll. There is a tense moment and the fighter explains that it is a list of quests. He marks off the gremlin quest, and reads the next quest from the list. The adventure ends when he tells them. “Let’s go!”.

Give this RPG a try!

Dr. Mike Desing has condensed and refined his already great Fantasy RPG into a concise 54 page book without losing any of the funor sense of completeness that one expects from a core rulebook. Character classes, Races, an excellent Magic system, a packed Bestiary, world-building, and an adventure are all here, and all spelled out in clearly written and eminiently playable fashion. If you're looking for a new FRPG with an old school feel that gives you "more" in less than 100(s of) page(s), look no further!

(Apologies for the delay on the review- better late than never...) I bought this title on sight, just a few years ago, and I enjoy everything about it. From the art to the game content, I'm a happy customer. It's sci-fi. It's Dungeons and Dragons. It's small press, with an intriguing setting. Ergo, it's getting my money. I'd love to see more content for this game!

Lastly, this title is very lean on certain details throughout- I consider this a good thing. While I am not a simple man, I nonetheless enjoy simplicity for its own sake, particularly in this instance- I will cheerfully fill in all the blanks as and when.

Recently, I soloed my way through House of Whispers. It is an interesting free third level Fifth Edition adventure at adventuresawaitstudios.com (six pages). The system I used to play it was Saga of the Splinter Realm (free/pay what you want at DriveThruRPG). I used Solo Cutz as the solo engine (same price and place). Halfway through the adventure I generated an interesting encounter. At this point in the adventure, the adventuring party had explored half of the rooms and had not seen a ghost (they did have to fight some beasties). So now, a sleepwalking girl walks onto the porch and proceeds to rock in the rocking chair. The female ghost senses her presence, walks up to her, and gently touches her on the head. The girl wakes up and runs back home. What is interesting, is that the characters did not know this even happened. - -

The Saga RPG system is 144 pages. It includes an index, bookmarks, 12 races/classes, 4 cantrips, 78 spells, 100 + monsters, 30 talents, and uses a d20 system. Give this smooth system a try!

"The Stalwart Age" is a sequel to or even a reboot of the "Sentinels of Echo City," which until recently was my favorite superhero RPG. Now, as you may have guessed, I have a new favorite: this one! Really, though, this game takes everything that worked about SOEC and tweaks it and trims it into a leaner, meaner, smoother-working package. The action economy is designed to be even more "comic-book-like," and there are plenty of creative options for heroes, using "Resolve,' and viallins, using "Tenacity," to keep things interesting and exciting. Perhaps my favorite part of this game, though, is the immersive quality of the universe it's set in. Not only is there a GREAT overview of the world, but there's a brief but very complete overview of a new home-base city (Midvale, which is located between the two cities featured in previous iterations of the game), and a very well-written three-part starter adventure, complete with four 1st level villains and plenty of other monsters/traps/puzzles for the players to encounter. All of this is fit very nicely into a startlingly low page count without feeling cramped or rushed. What's more, at the Stalwart Age and Splintered Realm blogs, Mike Desing is building and detailing this world all the time, including "summaries" of various issues of "comic books" from the history of this universe! If you join his Patreon, you get to see even more stuff, too. Really, folks, if you're looking for a new superhero RPG that's built for fun, speed, and creativity: look no further. Mike has more releases planned, and I can't wait to see 'em.

This is yet another excellently written and crafted supplement for what is, in my opinion, the best superhero RPG on the market. Like all of Mike Desing's work, this product contains just enough detail and information to inspire GMs and Players, without bogging things down with of self-indulgent "fan-fiction overdoese" exposition. I want to take chanracters to this Hideaway, and I want to create new bad guys for those characters to interact with. This is fun, enthusiastic, entertaining stuff!

Support for Sentinels of Echo City is back, and it couldn't be cooler! In one page, you get two new superheroes, and one new supervillain for your game....and also for 50 cents! Heck, the publisher isn't even forcing you to pay that much! They also aren't stopping you from paying more than that, either, which is what I did. Get it! Encourage the creation of more issues!

Another fantastic issue! This a perfectly bite-sized but power-packed product, filled with just enough short fiction and statted-out gaming goodness to make you really feel like you are taking a quick vacation into the Stalwart Age of the SOEC universe. Buy it, enjoy it, and encourage the author to make more of it!

Better late than never? I regret not making time to review this RPG back when I first got it, but on the plus side I've had plenty of time to think about what to write. Maybe?

So, I came across the first edition of the Army Ants RPG back in 1997. Not sure how my local comics/game store even got a copy, but the cover and concept of anthropomorphic ants caught my attention and I bought it. From there I collected the Army Ant comics. Simple, B&W art with an interesting style and enjoyable characters. I bought the second edition of the Army Ants RPG the following year, which was a much higher quality product as far as production value. In 2013, I supported the Kickstarter and got a soft cover of the third edtion of the Army Ants RPG (this Legacy Edition).

The RPG game system changed quite a bit from the second to the third edition, but seems perfectly fine for the setting. Well, I've never liked having a level system in my RPGs since I started playing Chaosium RPGs back in the day, but that's more about me than the rules in this Legacy Edition being unplayable or bad in some way. I've only taken the time to learn three new RPG game systems in the past 20 years and I've forgotten most of how ONE of those worked.

So, all this time Army Ants has been on my list of RPGs I'd like to play in or run a campaign for someday. I'm still not keen on learning the details of the game system though, but I found out in the last several years that I really just need the setting details and an easy and familiar game system to run adventures in. I'm actually in the process of converting a BRP (Basic Role Playing) character sheet to use for an Army Ants BRP campaign. The BRP game system is easy to teach to new players (everyone gets it when you point them to their percentage chance with a Skill) and with no worries about remembering the rules I can focus on bringing out the fantastic setting. And that is the real strength of the Army Ants RPG Legacy Edition -the unique setting. At this discount price, just grab a copy and use whatever game system you want. Pretty much any RPG that can handle modern firearms can be used to play Army Ants. You may even prefer the rules as written, which would make running a campaign even easier.

Now, I gave it a four out of five star but I'd go four and a half stars if I could. I dislike leaving no room for improvement. No RPG game system is perfect.