This is a great product that adds a refreshing twist on d100 systems.

Riftbreakers runs on a framework similar to Basic Roleplaying (BRP): with skills ranging from 1-100 and requiring the player to roll under their skill rating on d100. This is very intuitive for new players, and players familiar with BRP.

However, the Author has added several features that avoid some of the issues with other BRP systems: which can be bland and combats become a tedious roll 'to hit' only to find your opponent just rolls successfully to parry/dodge your hit. Riftbreakers has added a large selection of abilities (called "hearts") which are very reminiscent of D&D4e's abilities: as some are 'at-will', 'encounter' and 'daily' abilities.

Each 'Heart' focuses on specific areas of interest: Arcane Heart has abilities that function like magic spells; while Arrow Heart are abilities if you want to specialize as an archer. Similar for Blade Heart, Shadow Heart, Bastion Heart, etc. There are 10 Hearts in all. These Hearts specialize and make your character unique. They make combat very exciting with "moves" that are simple to execute. (I much prefer this, rather than the Mythras/RuneQuest matrix with special successes that can leave players with 'decision paralysis'). Since (like BRP) this game is class-less, players are free to make any combination of Hearts to get exactly the abilities/PC they envision.

Another distinct flavour of this game: the author has (purposely) made use of several mechanics to emulate video games (MMO's). Riftbreakers makes very good use of Difficulty Tiers, Loot Quality, Crafting, etc. These don't feel 'gimmicky' for the sake of emulation - they are very functional rules that I would happily import into any BRP game.

The game also boasts rules for Solo play and random quest/dungeon design.

I highly recommend this game, and the Author is very active on the Discord channel if there are any rule questions.

Some great inovations here for a 5e hack: This is probably the best version of Armor as DR I've seen. (Using attack's margin-of-success as added damage).

A fantastically simple (but robust) way of converting to a classless/level-less version of 5e.

A great view on character death (and heroic death).

"XP" awarded at the beginning of the session (to spend during play) is very innovative.

And a great foundation of Magic-as-a-skill check (the author has mentioned more forthcoming in a future update).

The pages are dripping with inovation. This is my first exposure to Neoclassical Geek Revival (I had never played the 1st ed).

It is hard to call this an OSR game, as it is filled with inovation and 'Indy-like' mechanics. None of which seem 'gimmicky', but flow smoothly. One could easily port many of these rules to a D&D 5e game.

The game designers realized that social interactions (like negotiations with a King) and stealth/covert actions (like sneaking into a wizard's tower) are just as exciting and important as combat, they are treated in a similar fashion (no simple pass/fail check).

Every spell is customized with simple formulas, so no out-of-the-box-generic magic spells (yet very easy to recreate all the classic spells).

While there are a few referrences to "advanced" rules (in an upcomming Kickstarter), the game feels very complete.

I love the game so far. They've done some fantastic things to bring the genre alive, and mimic those high-flying Kung-fu movies we love.

For example the Qi power: "Heroic Pose" is almost screaming for my players to stand-up at the table and say something cocky (but poorly dubbed in English so their lips don't match the words...hahahaha).

Also, I love the rules for "Improvised Weapons" (again, another standard of the genre) with damage output that doesn't make it a poor choice.

The 'Cinematic Sliders' is fantastic, and so simple, that other rpgs should have this for an easy 'heroic' mode.

The simple 'one-line' of stats for minor NPCs is perfect. I don't want to wade through lines of stat-blocks for mooks who are going to drop like flies.

This suppliment made all the difference!

While the CORE rules are great in many ways, they were a little lacking in flavour for spells. The difference between shooting a bow and casting a magic beam were mechanically the same (except different 'effort' dice, and 'tags'.), which left a lot of flavor up to the GM to describe. But ICRPG Magic fixed all that.

I was skeptical when I first browsed the pdf. I was worried the extra bulk of magic rules would take away from the simplicity that made ICRPG so great. But the rules were a breeze to play and added so much added flavour (and effects) to the game. Simple spell blasting and endless heals have now been replaced with crazy vampiric mists that suck life from enemies and heal your allies, or unnatural winds that blow your advisaries back down the corridor away from your group. Yet the rules are still lose enough for immproptu and narritive style that encoumpasses ICRPG.

I was also worried that characters must sacrifice (cost) Hit Points to cast spells. But some of the old-school players loved this, pointing out that in early editions of D&D, wizards had very few HPs....with ICRPG all characters start off with 10 HPs (a heart) but now with Magic costing HPs to use, it once again makes spell-casters generally low on HPs for most of the encounter. This was a brilliant design.

On top of all that, ICRPG Magic also has additonal monsters and adventures, making this a 'must purchase' for any magic-filled game of ICRPG.

I originally bought this game to introduce my kids to RPGs. It has a lot of great kid-friendly art (I later found out one of the authors writes a comic: modest medusa). As I started flipping pages, I was blown away by the sheer amount of content, and clever ideas (some rules I'll be now using for my grown-up rpgs!).

At its core, the main mechanic is a simple d6 pool, where your stats/attributes (called "core dice") and things like weapons and special abilities all add aditional dice to your pool. The total of all your dice is compared to the Game Master's target number, or in the case of a competition, the other player/monster's total.

Player Characters (called "friends") will gain dice (either in their stats or special abilities) by advancing in a class (called "Heroic Jobs") or through some roleplaying challenges. Players create a "friend" based on archetypes like: Big Sister, Bully, and even a Dog. Heroic Jobs give access to special abilities (including magic) and uniquie abilities that are only available to that Herioc Job.

Combat is always repersented on an 8 x 8 grid (obviously for simplicity, although I don't see any reason that couldn't change). Your attack pool (which includes weapons) is compared to the target's defense pool (which includes armor) and if you have the higher total, you remove 1 of thier core "Tough" dice.

So far, all of this is pretty standard rpg material (purposly so, to help kids learn the rules). But there are some very clever twists on traditional rpg rules:

Combat initiative allows the Players to always go first. But introduces an "Excuse Me" rule, where monsters can try to interrupt and take their turn instead. Based on rolls, this means each round of combat has an unpredictable initiative order - keeping everyone on their toes.

Teamwork is the key to winning fights, as every success the previous player gets, allows the next player to get a culmaltive +1 bonus die to thier pool. This means you are excited to see your fellow players succeed - and slowly ramps up the action.

Hiding and Sneaking is brilliantly done, allowing the stealthy "rogue" types to hide, removing themselves from the battle board. If they come in at the end of the first round, they can enter any 'edge' of the board. If they sneak further, coming into play after the 2nd+ round, they can place thier charater in ANY square on the battle board. Of course there is risk to this, and a monster can use it's action to try and spot/stop them.

Magic allows your character to use any spell they know, but the more powerful the spell, the higher the Target Number they have to roll to successfully cast the spell. But your spell roll is also used by monsters to 'resist' that spell. So rolling great has its rewards. However, magic can also be "fumbled/backfire", if you roll two or more "1's" in your pool. These can have very chaotic (and fun!) results.

No one finds it fun to die or go unconscious (loosing all your Tough pool) during battle - especially kids. But the game introduces "ghosts". While you are temporarily out of the fight, you may have "ghost" actions, which may aid friends, 'haunt' enemies, or even do battle with other ghosts. This is a great way for to ensure players can still have fun, even if thier character is temporarily disabled.

I could continue to ramble-on, mentioning scores of cool magic items, the great villians/campaign that is built in, how important calandar dates and the "friend's" age becomes important, and how it uses lavish illustrations throughout to walk you through the rules.

If I had to give one negative to my review, it would be about the organization of a few of the rules. Often I found myself flipping back and forth to find rules. For example, spells are introduced early in the book, but magic backfires are explained later in the book. Or how weapons are described in one section, but how some weapons require 2 hands to wield is descibe in a different section.

This is a stunning game, and while it is geared for kids, it would make a valuable addition to any RPG collection. Highly recommended.

D&D has literally had its roots in table-top wargames ("Chainmail"). But as the concept of a "role playing game" evolved, characters began to spend more time in dungeons than on the battlefields. Now, some 40 years later, there are attempts to add the 'wargame' back into the RPG. I have come across one such gem: "D&D 5e Mass Combat System".

I've looked at many such systems, but most I consider a failure, for several reasons:

• Too much detail: if players wanted a wargame simulation, they would just play a wargame. While some players may enjoy the minutia of determining every last detail of their army, it makes for an incredibly dense and slow game to cross-reference the number of vassals on the land base, determine the peasant militia and then calculate how many bushels of grain it will take to feed them... Neither do people want to learn a whole new system, then get out protractors and rulers and shuffle 100's of pieces on a board for 8 hours to determine who wins.

• To narrow of scope: some systems just focus on the 'battle' aspect. They don't include rules for how a PC (character) can influence the battle. Or they don't include rules on how much it costs (time, gold) to field an army. Or they don't include staples of fantasy battles, like fantasy races, monsters, or magic: what happens when four dragons attack a castle of 200 elf wizards?

This is where "D&D 5e Mass Combat System" hits my sweet-spot. The rules are only 29 pages long (compared to most systems that are over 100 pages). It makes use of 5e's system of 'advantage' and 'disadvantage' to remove a lot of the minor battlefield modifiers. It scales easily from 20 people per side, to 10,000 people per side. PCs (heroes) make a huge difference on the battlefield, yet it doesn't require keeping details of which spells or abilities they use. War-lord economics are broken down to the basics, and focuses only on the really cool stuff that most players want to get involved in (e.g. building a castle, instead of figuring out how farmers are needed to feed your population).

Because this system 'mirrors' the 5e rules, (actions, moves, reactions, bonus actions), players instinctively know how it works...they don't need to learn a whole new system.

If I ever need to have a mass battle in my game, I'll be using these rules.

This is a fantastic alternative start to Tomb of Annihilation. It adds more depth, giving some foreshadowing to a certain Lich at the Heart of Ubatao. It also adds way more detail to the Wizard's Journal (given by Wakanga O'Tamu) - which helps focus the player's trip through the jungle (instead of hex-hopping). It adds 5 more random encounters in the jungle, based on real-life African Folklore. The clip-art and maps are minimal.

This is a great book. It is a very well laid-out book coming in at 141 pages, with colour pictures throughout. At first I thought it might be a D&D retro-clone/OSR but I'd say it borrows many elements from 3.5e and 5e, yet keeping the simplicity of earlier versions.

It has 4 basic races; the human, elf, and dwarf you might expect, however the kobold rounds out the list, which may be an odd departure from the usual halfling race. Apart from that, the racial modifiers/abilities are pretty much what you'd expect.

The game has the basic 4 classes; Cleric, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard. The details for each class are based upon choosing talents (akin to feats in other versions). Even the wizard and cleric's spells are listed as talents (instead of a list of spells). This is very much like Dungeon World. While the list is limited (around 8-10 options for the Fighter or Rogue, and around 15-20 for the cleric and wizard), it definately gives you the customization you'd expect in later versions of D&D.

The game is limted to level-5 characters, and I'm really interested to see more options if later additions come out for this game.

The game has a detailed skill list (but not too large) and rules for crafting. It has a fair selection of equipment, and a streamlined set of combat rules you'd expect (there are no rules for Attacks of Opportunity, disengaging the enemy, etc, so it can easily be played in the Theater of your mind). Combat is slightly different in that it uses Armor for both the target number to hit (e.g. AC) as well as damage reduction (DR). Characters have both Wound Points (e.g. HPs) and Vitality Points (VP) which seems to be a way of recovering a portion of health between combats (which I like better than later D&D's version's "healing surges").

There is a small DM section, as well as a well put together list of monsters (about 25 of them), and magic items.

Overall this is an excellent value for your money. I'm really looking forward to seeing what they do next (levels 6+).

Esper Genesis is essentially D&D 5e with a sci-fi skin applied to it.

This free starter adventure requires the 5e rules to play. Most of the gameplay from 5e remains the same. Indeed, it seems like arcane spells (renamed channeling) and divine spells (renamed forging) remain almost the same, but with different names (e.g. Firebolt is now "force bolt"). Healing potions are now healing elixirs, etc. Weapons and Armor have close equivalents to their D&D counterparts. The authors explain that while future weapons would be far more deadly than their fantasy counterparts, but armor has also advanced as well, so instead of introducing a cumbersome "mega" damage or multiplier, they had just scaled them down to match each other for ease of play. It works. There are additional rules for modern weapons like shotguns (cone effect), spraying (burst) autofire, and recoil. It is all quite eloquent.

The re-skinning of the D&D rules makes it easy for anyone familiar with the 5e rule-set to jump right into the game. However, this starter book lacks some elements that one might expect in a sci-fi game (e.g. no mention of cybernetics, robotics, etc). The book also gives a brief taste of starship combat.

The majority of the book is a starter adventure "Fall of the Eos Keldor" which adequately shows off the new rules and flavor of the Esper Genesis universe. It has 4 pre-gen characters to quickly get you into the action (the equivalents of a Fighter, Rogue, Mage and Cleric). The adventure has a good mix of combat, investigation and star-ship battle.

Because this book seems to be a condensed or play-test version of the rules, it is not without its problems. For example, when playing through the adventure the 'Specialist' (rogue) wanted to pick up some of the guards weapons. While we know which fantasy weapons a 5e rogue has proficiency in, we were uncertain what the sci-fi equivalent would be from the weapon chart. Star-ship combat requires lots of rolls against a ship's "maneuver defense", yet that stat was not listed on the enemy's ship's stat block. And there were some blatant errors, like the channeling talent (spell) "Lightning Whip" which has a duration of 1 round, but the description clearly says "...for each of your turns for the duration..." (it probably should have a duration of 1 minute).