I apologize for the poor formatting of this review. DriveThruRPG won't let me add additional returns to make it easier to read.

After a couple sessions with this game, it's become clear to my group that it has some problems.

-The rules are just not well explained. They're very different from most tabletop RPGs, and that means extra care should be taken explaining them. That care was not taken. I had to read the book several times and write up my own linear summary to try to deal with the nonlinear way the game is explained. In addition to this poor organization, some concepts and responsibilities aren't explained well. In particular, they need to make the Big Shot's responsibilities clearer. How much of the bounty and the story are supposed to be created by the players? Who thought it was a good idea for the Big Shot to give the session a name at the beginning when the narrative power is supposed to be mostly in the hands of the players, who might render that title irrelevant? What is the point of the first "tab", or act, when the PCs are just goofing around before they begin the chase, and why bother to have an objective clock in that act? I have a hard time believing this was play tested thoroughly. -I understand that the writers were trying to make frequent references to music and the show, but sometimes that gets in the way of clarity. "Tabs" should be called "acts". The approaches (jazz, tango, dance, blues, rock) should be named something that tells the player what they do (something like skill, social, action, empathy, and resist). -It's so difficult for players to keep track of their options. I have a GM screen, but what do the players have? They need a summary sheet of some kind. -The mechanics are supposed to be narrative-focused, but they get in the way of role-playing and storytelling. So much of our table discussion revolved around trying to combine player traits, riffs, and grooves so that they could generate enough hits to fill the objective clock and move the story forward. It made it hard to focus on role-playing. First-person conversation shifted to third-person exposition. Partially that may be unavoidable in a game that gives players narrative power; they're not going to talk to themselves. How does a Big Shot role play an NPC if the players get to decide everything that happens? Are the players supposed to role-play both sides of a conversation? -Ideally this game would allow a group to tell a story in an hour or less; the show was 39 to 52 minutes. We found it difficult to wrap up a session in less than 1.25 hours. The explanations of Cowboy Bebop lore are great, and of course, the art is gorgeous. At our next session we're going to try stripping out some of the mechanics to see if we can get something that moves faster.

excelent, this piece of art can be an entire campaing and be absolutly beautifull

If you are a diehard anime fan, and have never played standard D20 RPG's, and never experienced OD&D/OSR/OSE, and you are not over 50 years old, then, this complex movie action visual-themed rule-styled game is for you to figure out with new players excited to try a table top game for the first time ever. Possibly, this is a game for players who have experienced Murder Mystery parties and Dinner Theatre shows, and most likely with Larping experience from White Wolf, such as Vampire the Masquerade. Or an anime fan.

I rated 3 stars because I am not a Larper fan and a game based upon the Cowboy Bebop setting, where your character is a Bounty Hunter (BH), is 3 stars minimum. Cool and Respect.

Honestly, I stopped trying to figure out the rules, so I can not rate higher because I lost interest. The player who runs the game is called the Big Shot. (In other RPG's, this role is the Dungeon Master, game master, story teller, judge, etc.) If I could experience a play test I would figure this all out, and running this game as a Big Shot (BS) I would need several sessions to practice with players to figure out when to when and what to what. The game is setup with a Bebop theme, I suppose, so all terms kind of relate to the theme you are to roleplay.

The game system will be hard to explain because the rules are not about types of different dice to be used for character skills and abilities, and no specific dice are needed to succeed or fail versus challenge ratings because Cowboy Bebop uses only d6's. There is no initiative because your turn is based upon the Test you discussed with the BS to achieve success or failure in three Tabs, using your Traits for action results where your BH rolls d6's for Hits to succeed and the BS counters with Shocks. Forget about me explaining where or how the Clock comes into all of this, where your BH adds Hits and your BS adds Shocks to challenge you achieving your Test. And if you fail you can Push to add a die to try again but if you fail you cross two slashes off your Bullet and then you go into a Phase. That's all I got, so far.

If you don't have a character strength, or a personality, or a querk, your BH will not achieve their Tab to achieve their Test goal. This is where roleplaying appears. If you can not include your character background story and Traits into your turn you fail and receive a Shock. Example: If you do not, imitate Bruce Lee's fist knuckle clench everytime you fight an opponent, one Shock against you. If you do not include your signature backflip landing cat-like the way Spider-Man and Black Widow do, fail, and you recieve a Shock.

Sounds fun if you have energy and hyperness to keep this up every encounter, or Test.

To help you create your story background using Cowboys themes to help visualize your BH actions, you need to sellect an Approach. The description examples used sound like an Alignment that decides your BH moral decisions to explain their actions: Rock, Dance, Blues, Tango, Jazz. No, you do not dance around to a music type, but your action is a feeling of the music type, I presume, like an anime chase scene with music in the background, or the Cowboy Bebop opening them song. So an Approach is just an action without no morality involved. (Example with using an alignment to explain the reason for the Approach: Rock = Chaos, Dance = Evil, Blues = Law, Tango = Chaos or Evil, Jazz = Law.) So your Traits help influence or decide on your Approach, by how your BH looks and acts.

For extra challenges, the Big Shot can add Risk to a die roll on top of Shocks.

I feel the style of the gameplay is based off the original anime series and not from the streamed adaption. Judging from the game art using clipped art from the original series, I bank my opinion this game is influenced from the original anime though game mechanics tend to not have any kind of agenda in mind, and if you have not viewed the original anime, or never cared to view the remake adaption, then this game is for anyone who is a fan of Cowboy Bebop. Young and old. Well, maybe not the old.

One thing I like about the Cowboy Bebop universe is the fact there are Astral Gates which could bridge this setting to any other RPG world you know or would like to involve, like any sci-fi settings, such as: Spell Jammer, Blade Runner, Traveller, Star Frontiers, or Star Wars, etc. I feel this game is more a roleplaying interactive game creating a story with the Big Shot. No maps. No Dungeons. More a Larping and Theatre of the Mind gameplay. And if you are a fan enthusiast, Cowboy Bebop will have you creating many Traits to imitate your favorite character.

I thought there would be a LOT more to this adventure. Instead, it's almost entirely setting info AND not the useful kind that gives you locations you can drop into your campaign. I was very disappointed.

"What happens if you take Cowboy Bebop, the celebrated anime, and make it into an RPG? Well, in this case, something kind of magical." - Aaron Marks.

Read the full CHG review here.

I love this game. It has fresh easy mechanics that put the character in charge of just how much risk they want to use to get actions done. The art in the book is amazing, the text is easy to read, beautiful formatting. If I had any criticism it is that the resolution mechanic (time to draw the tokens) takes a little longer than rolling dice, but the outcomes make it worth it. I hope this game gets some press via online reviews soon.

As one who purchased this map pack and battles beyond the sea and the rune thief sagas. I find it very poor that this only contains the maps for the main book and not battles beyond the sea and rune thief books.

The maps are both gridded and ungridded which I find quite nice.

Love this. I'm drawing on various sources to set up an early Medieval Campaign world. Liking the The Runemaster Class especially. Is there any chance of being able to get the book printed?

The Quickstart of an excellent 5e setting. Beautiful. Nothing else to say.

I jokingly refer to Historia as "grimdark Ironclaw" but that's not really fair; aside from the furries and the European Renaissance vibe, Historia is a whole different animal.

It advertises itself as a campaign setting for DnD5e, but Historia feels like its own game due to its completely different character options. Races and Subraces are here called Familiae and Species, and include most European (with some exceptions) mammals, and a tremendous number of different avians; no cold-blooded creatures, no fantasy races. Classes are instead called Professions and are perfectly tailored to theworld of Historia, revealing a great deal about the flavor of the setting and the flavor of the adventures it is intended to support. Instead of Backgrounds the designers went with what they call Ventures, which encourage players to think about where their characters came from and where they're trying to go with their lives. Other games have tried to encourage players in this manner before, but while 5e's backgrounds ask you who you are, and some game's goals ask you what you want, ventures ask you to think about how who you are led you to want what you want. Seems to me this sort of approach should help even the most roleplaying-challenged players think at least a little bit more about why they're playing how they're playing. Murder-hobo-ing can be fun, and I think Historia could support it if you wanted to just use the setting as window-dressing, but I like the attempt to promote deeper roleplaying. Factions and Careers round out the character options, both granting certain benefits at different ranks. Many factions are predictable, some aren't (keep an eye out for the austere pugs), but they all seem like fine options for promoting further characterization and helping the gamemaster set hooks and create plots, while Careers provide a finishing touch that can help a character lean in to a particular archetype or diversify their skill set a bit.

As far as the setting itself, I don't want to give much away other than what it says in the marketing material; Historia is a grim fantasy European Renaissance setting populated with anthropomorphic characters. Whether you're here for the furries or because you're looking for renaissance options for 5e (or both!), the world of Historia has you covered. Nations and factions are interesting, as are the world's notable personalities, and the character options are carefully crafted to add to the worldbuilding.

And it's all brought to life with the tremendous amount of absolutely fantastic art. Perhaps it's just that I adore the style they focused on, but for my money Historia has some of the best art of any RPG ever published. Production quality overall is fantastic (it would seem the language issues mentioned in early reviews have long since been solved), and to be honest it's the art and polish I saw in the free materials here on DTRPG that led me to pick up this core book, and I couldn't be happier that I did. My regular table has yet to play it, but first impressions have been great all around, and I'm looking forward to running people through the adventure book.

Backtracking to the art because I love it so much, I went so far as to buy everything Mana Project has put out in hardcopy for Historia simply because it's a great "coffee table RPG", the kind of thing you leave in a semi-conspicuous place so curious potential players pick it up and browse through it, and I have to say it's one of the most browse-friendly RPGs I've seen in a while, the kind of book that gets players thinking about who they'd want to play. Add the fact that it's a 5e module, meaning if your table knows 5e they already know how to play Historia, and it's a very appealing game indeed.

Ten out of ten, would buy again (and in fact I did).

There is almost no setting material in this document, it's pretty much all "how to tell stories" and "narrative authority" and so on. It's very much designed in the "RPGs as storycrafting" / "RPGs as thematic exploration" approach, gaming from a directorial stance -- most of the material and mechanics are about creating the nominal flow and feel of an episode of the show. Characters and ships don't have any mechanics beyond a set of vague "narrative tags" that don't tell us much of anything. There's very little on how to create a new character or assign new traits over time. Evidently traits can be blocked from being used after a failed roll, meaning the characters almost deteriorate over the course of a "session"?

For gamers who want to explore engaging characters doing interesting things in the Cowboy Bebop setting, who prefer a character-POV / actor stance -- rather than trying to force repeated rehashings of a story structure -- this will be a disappointment.

Historia is a dark, low magic fantasy setting for 5e with anthro animals, and it delivers a great piece which is only downplayed by its english translation (the company is italian, I believe)

Visually, the book is stunning. Each and every art is a masterpiece, with a style similar to ye olde oil paintings. The colors, the light contrast, the poses, the action (when depicted)... everything contains so much detail that I'd recommend those that aren't interested in the setting itself to buy AT LEAST the artbook for the sake of the quality of the images contained within.

Content wise, the ideas in Historia are fantastic too. As said above, Historia is less magic than the standard 5e experience, meaning the classes had to be redone. We do still have casters and magical warriors, but most classes are strictly mundane, which, in a way, bring something refreshing to the table, and reinforce the darker world proposed. I want to point out theres a whole section discussing how to deal with pets and the common version of the animals depicted as playable species, presenting 3 solutions which are bound to fit the way you wish to tell your story. Backgrounds have been dismembered, with their traits (personality, ideals, bonds, and flaws) scattered throughout the other options you might make at character creation; in particular, Ventures are a new choice you make instead of Backgrounds, which set some objectives for your character through some quick questions, while also helping you define why they left their normal life behind in order to go on adventures. The book also includes Factions and even a Career (aka profession) system, both with a simple progression table, granting benefits as you raise in ranks. These last 3 sections (Ventures, Factions and Careers) also come with a template form meant to allow you, player or DM, to create new motivations, groups and titles to better portray your setting and character.

With all that said, while I myself purchased almost the whole product line, there is one single thing that tarnishes the gold here (for me, at least)

The English translation; its the only reason I'm not giving this product a 5-star review

There's no need to go into greater detail where others have already pointed this out, but reading the book might be a difficult process; its by no means impossible to understand the rulings, but it might require the reader a second take to actually understand some triggers and effects. Depending on the group you're dealing with, you might even not reach a consensus on how to apply certain abilities by RAW due to poor wording. I suppose the italian version might give some straighter answers to whatever question one might have, but since I can't speak italian (yet), I haven't read that version, so I can't speak for myself about it.

All in all, this IS a great product and I fully recommend it, but be warned the the (english) writing isn't well revised and you might need some patience to understand it fully

These are some of the best-looking fantasy horror tokens money can buy. Whether you are into Nightfell or not, buy the bestiary or not (I recommend you do, no matter what system you're running), these images are so evocative you'll have no trouble rolling your own monsters just from looking at them. Throw these bad boys onto your VTT and I guarantee at least one of your players is gonna ask you where you got them. They're that good.

While an interesting introduction to the world of Nightfell the translation leaves a lot to be desired, with common amateurish spelling mistakes, editing errors and grammatical peculiarities making it hard to deciphered in some places, however the world and general idea is intriguing enough to promise a truly amazing full release if these issues can be resolved.

A fantastic game that puts story first. We've played a few playtest and every single time it's been an amazing success. The book is full of great ideas and the system is extremely simple but engaging. I was looking for an alternative to HeroQuest and Fate to try out weird setting ideas and I found my home with Not The End