This book is a treasure. As you may have read in other reviews, it is a book of tables. that may sound unimpressive at first, but everything about this book is genius. It acts as a catalyst for your imagination in far too many ways for me to elaborate on here in this review. Whether you are designing a story, villains, plots, creating NPC's, towns, locales, monsters, and yes dungeons… The book breaks everything down into sections and you can work on whatever aspect of your adventure you want to focus on. I have had so much fun using this… That's something I haven't heard a lot of people say … It is so incredibly fun! For example, I have really enjoyed just sitting down on the front porch at night with a glass of wine and dice and using the monster section to randomly create bizarre, terrifying, and fantastical demons, beasts, and monsters that are unique and unlike any other creature I have seen in other RPG books! I then sketch out what they look like based on the framework the tables gave me to work with. Every section of the book gives you this kind of creative process, and aside from its practical nature, it is ridiculously fun. I backed the last kickstarter and can't wait for the hardcover to arrive.

Updated Review

Originally, the pdf did not include the cover art, but now it does. It has everything you need to run a great game, and with the beautiful art by Peter Bradley, you can insert it into a customizable screen and get to it. 5 stars.

A great companion to the BBF line! If you want to expand your game, this it. Another quality product from DWD Studios.

I jumped in on the RQII bandwagon when it first came out and followed Mongoose into the Legend title change. I am not a Glorantha fan, but I was intriqued by the rule set, especially the combat. Now bear in mind, the skills are streamlined, which is welcome, but combat is definitely crunchy and fairly slow moving. There are times where I desire crunchy combat, and the combat manuevers presented here really allow some gritty, tactical choices for those that like such a thing. Combat doesn't go on forever, because it's deadly and over in a couple of combat turns usually. I am not a huge fan of the division of magic here, as it assumes most everyday folks have some access to magic spells, but this is easily overlooked and revised for your own style of play. I recommend this product highly, and you can't go wrong for the price.

What can I say that hasn't already been said? It really accomplishes a lot of things at once. It is a great entry point for new gamers, including preteens, and is a blast for old school gamers as well. It recreates the Red Box feel and simplicity while adding more character customization without making it more difficult.

Character creation is easy for even new players, and the game mechanics are fast and efficient without being too simplistic. It is advertised as a rules light game, but it tends to get very close to the rules medium arena, which is just right for me. I have my teen kids playing this now, and they love it. It's also easy to houserule and create your own game out of it. The whole BBF line is so good, I bought it all! Including the new Covert Ops game line.

I was hesitant at first, thinking this was just another run of the mill gm aid, but the positive reviews convinced me to try it. Wow! Am I glad I did. It really hits the sweet spot for me as an world/adventure building aid without being too exhaustive or too brief. Not only are there all these tables to either pick from (or of course roll randomly), but you get some nice worksheets to build your world. The hex crawl work sheet and settlement work sheets are great to print out by the stack and get to really building your own world. I don't even own a d30! So if you don't have one, don't worry about it. It's inspiring to just read the lists and choose what you want to. Still, I now feel the need to buy me a d30! Excellent product that really feels old school, from the tables, the art, all the way to the choice of fonts. Highly recommended.

Another excellent FDG product.! The ruin has multiple texture choices, allowing the building to be customized in appearance (its model structure does not change), from stone to stucco, optional fire scorch marks, and even movable fire models to place on the roof and about the structure for those cinematic "oh no the village is on fire" scenes! I like the ground tile as well. At first you think it's just one tile, but the layered pdf allows for customization, adding various stone and timbers, moss, and even a trap door in the floor ......

Great buy.

Great old school fun! A simple sandbox style starting area with head nods to all the old classics like the Village of Homlet and Keep on the Borderlands. I used Labyrinth Lord to introduce my children to roleplaying games back when LL first came out, and this really helped immerse them into the game.

It is written in a non-linear away, allowing the characters to simply explore the area and take on whatever challenges they feel they want to tackle. Excellent work.

A very long time in the coming, but worth the wait. This is an exhaustive tome covering an incredible amount of material, from expanding classes, equipment, and dealing with such things as hirelings and so on. The real beauty in this book is that it is just as much a toolbox kit as it is a DMG type of book. It has multiple rule variants, giving alternate options to magic (mana points vs Vancian), wound levels, hit location, multiple critical hit systems, optional skills, optional feat-like abilities, alternate armor rules (ie armor doesn't add to armor class, it soaks damage, etc). You really can design your own game with this book. The optional combat manuevers are a cool tactical option as well.

So besides the standard gamemaster type of subjects you would expect, you also get a lot of stuff to customize the game to your liking. Castles and Crusades is a rules light game but for folks who want to crunch it up a little (or A LOT) can mix up a batch of homebrew goodness with what is in this puppy.

A classic!

Awesome fun. The detail is great, construction fun and easy to do, and makes for some visually enticing gameplay.

This is a solid old-school campaign, with interconnected adventures and a sandbox adventuring area and mini setting introducing players to the world to Aihrde. It really has incredible depth, tone, and material for months of gaming. An excellent product. I now also own the boxed set.

I liked this system so much after buying the pdf that I bought the book as well. Similar to Savage Worlds in some ways, but I like this system a bit better than SW. I would have given it five stars, but it lacks a basic magic system; it does give you some ideas on how to create one yourself, but it would have been nice to have a basic framework to expand on. For people who think this doesn't scale well for high powered games, they're wrong. There are scaling rules that show you how to do this. Overall, I am actually blown away at how cool this actually plays. For me, it is great rules light replacement for my Gurps 4th edition, and yet just crunchy enough...it hit all the right notes for me.

I lost my original copy and found it here! Man, was I glad. This is a GREAT product for adventure designers and even story writers (which I have used this for with great success).

There are different parts to this, and my favorite and most used was the Adventure Cookbook, which consists of a detailed breakdown of possible settings, themes,plot hooks, pc goals, and lots more. You can roll randomly or pick and choose. It goes over villain choices, making memorable henchman, possible red herrings for PC's, and the list just keeps going.

Included are a plethera of design forms and templates to flowchart your story or adventure. Don't listen to the previous reviewer who said the forms are already filled out. There are sample forms filled out to give you an idea of how to use them, and then the blank versions also.

Warning...if you only like pointless dungeon crawls with very little story, you may not like this product. If you love depth to the campaign, and want it worthy of an epic novel, this may help.

Okay, let's see if I can lay this out in a fair way.

I was excited to see Goodman Games come out with their own RPG, since I have been a huge fan of their products for a couple years now. So, when Eldritch came out, I bought it right away.

The cover art of Peter Bradley got me from the getgo, since I have been a fan of his for some time and love his work in Troll Lord Games (Castles and Crusades,etc). The interior is clean and seems well polished.

The mechanics: Ah the meat and drink of it. Wellllllll, how do I say this? It is different to say the least. Characters have Die Ranks in skills, starting with, lets say, a 1d4 in general melee, upgrading to a 1d6, then a 1d8, and so on. Interesting mechanic in that you also gain additional die by specializing in a field of study, for example, getting an additional 1d6 in swords, and then a mastery rank of, say, 1d4 in a rapier. Soooo, if using a rapier, you get to roll your 1d4 for melee, 1d6 for swords, and 1d4 for rapier and add them all together for Potential Harm. Your opponent has similar die added up to form a defense pool, which has Hit Points, and you must batter through this abstract barrier to harm your opponent. Different but just as viable as other systems I suppose.

Overall Impression: Well, I just don't like it much. The author states it is a Rules Transparent system, not rules light, to facilitate the story, but I don't get that part. It is just as complex as other systems but combat ends up being far more abstract than I care for. It could be fun for some, I am sure, but it's definitely not for me. I was actually a little disappointed in my purchase, and for the price, it was not worth it.

I feel it was professionally done, and may be fun for some people, therefore I won't slam the rating based on my personal bias.