This is the kind of rules light game that I like. It's simple, quick and smooth-running, but the authors haven't used that as an excuse to be lazy. The combat can provide a touch of tactical depth and this was achieved with relatively little in the way of added rules. Players can customize their mechs because not only are there several chassis and pilot types to choose from, but there are also lists of weapon traits and modules to add to mechs. The GM has plenty of example enemies, with abilities that can be copied over to their own creations.

This is the kind of simplicity that feels like a lot of work was put in to achieve that simplicity and make the best possible version of this game.

having only run a few sessions my experience on the table is limited but totally positive. the system is both thematic and elegant, something that is a huge benefit to my group having only about 2-3hrs a session.

mecha role playing games almost always get buried in minutia and irrelevant details that are fine, great even, in a skirmish wargame. TMH doesnt sweat the little stuff but still feels complete and even robust in character options and solid gameplay mechanics.

i will say for my own mini campaign im running for a planned 6-10 sessions i have done some "hacking" of the game changing some rules a little and some a lot, and the core game mechanics are showing how fantastic and adaptable they are. its the most fun i have had running a game in a long time.

personally i didnt even have a single experience much less an interest in "The Black Hack" style of games before this one either, but its brought them into my sights for sure

this is easily one the best expansions for a table top game ive ever owned. and i say that not too lightly as ive been playing games since the mid 90's now through all sorts of systems and genres going through hundreds (thousands?) of corebooks, splatbooks, adventure logs, etc

The Mission Manual, as the title suggests, has a huge host of excellent pre-made missions that are created to be immediatly accessable AND customizable as needed. you can play them as teh basis of your adventures or plug them in to an ongoing story as you see fit. and the book contains new player options as well as GM material. the player options are substatantial and quite interesting not feeling over or underpowered from the corebook (with only the Pariah Pilot feeling a little "hmmm not sure about this one") and the GM material is equally excellent and useful.

the art is equally enjoyable in a minimalist but stylish sense thats never feels like its wasting space. the setting material is interesting and useful as well, while avoiding the awful "im just reading someones fan fiction" that too many RPG games dive into.

A truly terrific supplement including new player mechanics like an all-new class system, flavorful cultures and plenty of player options for those who dare to delve deeper into its fathomless pages. A Dead Man's Guide to Dragongrin is presented as a campaign setting that's chock full of detail, spanning multiple timelines to create the world of Dragongrin, a gritty and dark world that you can really immerse yourself and your players in. The book also contains new classes, spells, feats, NPCs and even a few adventures that can be dropped into your own campaign without having to tweak them too much, even if you are a new DM. However, some advanced mechanics - like the cruxes, for instance, may need a little bit more effort to adapt into your 5e game, since this edition of the game is a bit oversimplified (but I digress). A lot of time and effort have gone into this whopper of a book - I've only managed to playtest a few things so far, incorporating them into a one-shot, but the Eloquent class was an instant hit at my table. Bascially, the new mechanics in this setting are well-balanced and provide plenty of fuel for roleplaying. Also, they go well with the tone and flavor offered in this book. All in all, I think this is one of the best settings, if not the best setting, for dark-fantasy gaming in D&D 5e.

My players have had an absolute blast with this module. While it took a little tweaking to make it fit the sewers under Port Nyanzaru for our ongoing Tomb of Annihilation campaign, its mixture of weird environmental effects and kooky enemies has made for a real fun twist on a traditional dungeon crawl. The includes NPCs are a lot of fun to roleplay, especially when you have them essentially bidding for your party's allegiance.

The art included is top shelf and the writing is of a good standard. One of the better adventures I've picked up in my time.

Well, it is quite difficult for me to write a review. Why? Because this booklet is very, very short. However, it has one brilliant idea on how to create interesting battles and/or points of decisions for adventures. If you give your players some options to decide for A or B or C and map out, how things will go forward at a latter stage of that battle, that really makes for interesting battles. Your players will not be able to do A and B and C. Therefore, whatever they do, will result in a different second stage of the battle. This makes for really interesting scenarios, as your players will be able to influence things, while you are still able to make at least some bad things happen and increase tension, regardless of what the players do (if players defend against A, meanwhile threat B will grow and create complications later on). It is like a decision tree, where every decisions the players make, will lead to different results later on.

Well, you can buy this book. But you should not.

Why? Because you will not find anything in it that you will not find in the Dungeon Masters Guide (Dungeon & Dragons) or any other book on DMing that you already have.

We all already know that you will have to decide on whether the gods of a fantasy world are real or not. And we all already know that there are worlds with lots of magic and other worlds with no magic at all.

Abstract texts on what one may or may not decide for a campaign world, will not help me that much. I am far more interested in things that are not that commonly discussed, like, for example, ideas on how ones decisions will affect the style of play. Are the gods fickle? Do they demand sacrifices or holy vows? If yes, how do I incorporate that into my game? What are the disadvantages of a game where everybody has 200 hitpoints and can kill half the city with one magic spell? Is there perma-death and no resurrection, cure disease or magical healing? How will that affect the mood of the game? How should poisons work? Should you have diseases, stress or madness, like in DarkestDungeons? Why would you want to do away with some spells (like travel-magic or create food and water or gamey spell like Ottilukes Grand Hotel)? Does it make sense to limit certain classes to certain races or cultures or can anybody, even someone from NewYork City, become a druid or a barbarian?

What is more: There are 20 pages of "fluff" that are simply there to increase the page count. I was quite disappointed.

Im a big fan of Dungeon world and 5e and any system that lets me get into the fun of things.

Mecha Hack does that and it does it well. It's not a perfect system but it's a good system and the bite size reading footprint makes it easy for me to handle with my ADHD.

I use this adventure kit often to plan out dungeons or quests in different locals. i love the layout and the tables that make this kit wonderful to use. Dice rolling dungeon layouts is mind-blowing, I would have never thought of something like that before.

Thank you for putting together an awsome product for all to enjoy.

I found this while doing my once-a-year search for new mecha tabletop rpgs; I waffled a bit on whether or not to make the purchase, as I am not generally an OSR person, but I find myself extremely surprised by how much I like The Mecha Hack. If you're looking for a straightforward, streamlined, combat-focused mecha game that captures the spirit of the genre, you will find a lot to enjoy here. I took a quick look at a free version of the original Black Hack, and the rules presented here stick closely to the source, with just the right number of minor tweaks and additions to make it truly a mecha game and not just a quick re-skin. Part of me wants a bit more in the game for what to do with characters outside their robots, but an equal part of me thinks it's not really necessary. Given the popularity of The Black Hack, the simplicity of the system, and the number of spin-offs it has generated, I imagine that it would be extremely easy to expand on that part of the game if it became important.

Art and layout are good, flavorful, and functional.

5/5. Recommended.

TLDR AT THE END- I have just checked out the rules in the book and I am here to offer my thoughts. First of all, the character generation system enables for quick character/mech-stats generation and thats pretty cool (also expected by an OSR-based game). One thing key to this game, is the actual melding of the pilot stats and the mecha stats, so your character is the pilot AND the mech. That kinda goes against the spirit of most franchises the game is inspired by (such as Battletech and MS Gundam, where the pilots are somewhat often seen swapping mechs) but it is easily mod-able and does not limit the GM in making and presenting the players with their own unique mecha designs, just by tweaking some stats and upgrades here and there. The upgrades presented for the mechs are very nice, and a solid base to build upon. The weapons, combat and such are solidly represented, powered by the fluidity of the Black Hack's system and a series of very slick modular upgrades that offer many customization options, without making things too complicated. Another thing, the reactor dice is a neat-and-fast mechanic for tracking heat and exertion (Battletech could take a few notes here). The micro-setting presented within the book is a kinda basic sci-fi setting with aliens and various factions, and serves to fuel the reader with ideas and also introduce a person with limited knowledge on mecha to the skeleton of a story they can build upon, all and all, fairly cool stuff. The art and formatting within the book is very nice, with thematic pieces and nice, industrial, cyberpunk-y, black-and-white designs so that's a big plus for me. The extra tokens and paper minis are a nice addition and much appreciated.

TLDR- All and all this is a pretty nice toolkit that a mecha-nerd such as me will find very useful if they want to run a hard, sci-fi giant robot campaign. As a plus, it is quite compatible with other OSR products and adapting other Black Hack supplements will prove very easy. If a GM wants to present different mechs of their own design I would recommend splitting the pilot stats from the mech stats. I am probably going -for my own game- to let the players generate separate stats for their pilots and I am going to create standard arrays for the mechs. I skimmed the book and am already brimming with ideas!

This is a ground-breaking kit it comes with many great plot hooks to start the adventure to suit your groups individual needs. Plenty of building charts for encounters monsters treasure all the basics in one place to not only run a smooth adveture but customizable enough so you could run this adventure several times with the same group each one being different & probably better than the last! Oath of the Frozen King is definitely setting a new higher benchmark in Adventure creation for the RPG community. This adventure can be run in other biomes also ncluded with this kit. 5 STARS ☆☆☆☆☆

I enjoyed this module-

1. The effects of the crystals really helped to set the mood that something strange was happening.
2. The artwork and descriptions also help to build a unique setting.
3. Some of the encounters may not work for some players -- I think mine will roll their eyes at zombie dinos, but others may see it as a great change from the usual.
4. The BBEG is OK - a bit of a moral conflict for characters as they realize that he might not be bad...plus some frustration with not being able to get at the monster pulling the strings - this isn't bad - it might be a hook to a longer quest that is driven by player interest.

I just ran this last night and this is my first review. Overall, I loved the quality of this adventure and the story was excellent. I will definitely be looking at others created by this publisher.

Pros: * Excellent artwork and organization: The maps and monster information were professionally done. The whole thing was laid out great and I never had a problem finding anything.

• Plot (No Spoilers): The story was tight and easy to understand. There was a chart at the end to give you multiple options for the cause of the issues. Instead of just one villain/ally, there are multiple choices that can go either way.
• Variety:There was a good selection of puzzles, traps, environmental effects that could be inserted wherever you choose. A combination of village/NPC interaction and dungeon crawling. The monsters were unique twists on basic creatures that really added to the flavor.

Cons:

• Level requirements: I had a party of five level 7 players and they completely decimated many of the fights. I even scaled up one fight from two of each creature type to TWENTY of each and that didn't help. I would definitely advise sitting down ahead of time and running through combat with your player's characters to get an idea of how the fights will go.
• Length:This adventure was 60+ pages but my group went through it in one session of about 3-4 hours. If you wish to make it a longer campaign or multiple sessions, I highly advise using the dungeon generator to extend it. Or possibly add sidequests to the village so that the players don't get all the information they need right away.

Disclaimer: I have read the adventure in detail, but have not gotten to run it yet.

All in all, a fun adventure with some neat stuff that could easily be moved into your other games. The production value is quite good, with nice art and maps. It's well laid out and easy to follow and reference.

I have a couple of minor quibbles with a couple of aspects, namely how the "disease" that is plaguing the town is described and its cure, which I'll avoid here for spoiler prevention, but those things are easy enough to alter as you see fit. I also agree, at least at first blush, with the other reviewer that the suggested level seems a tad high for what your adventurer's will actually be up against, but you can adjust that easily as well.

Well worth the purchase price.