This is easily one of my favourite games of the last few years, and every time I've played it has been an absolute blast. It does such a good job with both the action/combat and romantic/dramatic sides of play, separately and together - I can't think of another game I've played where every fight felt so personal, as well as dangerous and thrilling. Although I haven't run it (yet), I have enthusiastically stolen its ideas for other games, including the brilliant collection of scenario starters and specific mechanics, like Entanglements - a way to set up difficult romantic and other relationships at the start of play, one of the best approaches to setting up those connections that I've come across. I'm not very familiar with the genre and would not have guessed I'd enjoy a wuxia game this much, so I really recommend this to everyone - it's that good.

I was a big fan of the designer's previous game Brindlewood Bay, and have been anticipating this one. So far I've run two sessions and am really excited for more.

This game does a great job of evoking a spooky Victorian atmosphere - with 50 atmospheric 'unscenes', sets of notable Moments and thematic prompts in each Threat, and playbook moves that are incredibly (sometimes horrifyingly) flavourful. The approach to presenting NPCs is incredibly efficient and lets me as GM create a compelling, diverse cast at the table with minimal preparation. I have started using this approach in my notes for other games I run and it works fantastically well.

As much as I hope I get to play a character in this game at some point, there is so much here for the GM to enjoy. The formalised play cycle (four phases - dawn, day, dusk and night) gives you a unique tool to pace the game dramatically. The way specific playbooks can trigger or unlock particular threats - the Pinkerton coming for the American, etc - is a really fun dynamic to run. The overarching campaign structure - the Mastermind - works like a special playbook, with fascinating questions and choices the GM gets to make as the game continues, and a play-to-find-out emergent narrative that drives toward a big dramatic climax. I really enjoy a lot of pbta games, but often find it hard to bring them to a satisfying conclusion, and I think this and Brindlewood Bay offer a really elegant and exciting solution to that problem.

I definitely recommend this game if the concept and tone appeal to you. Even if they don't, I think there's a lot of really useful mechanics and ideas packed in here that you can use or hack for other games.

These are all wonderful, pitched perfectly between comedy and terror. I especially love the Ancient Family Dog's second level ability, and can't wait to spring it on my players. If Wizards hasn't already hired Oliver Clegg to design an official Ravenloft product then something is seriously wrong, but everyone involved did great work on this.

One of the most useful kinds of content for me as a DM is something that is more than a random encounter (like 2d6 goblins or whatever) but less than a full adventure, something I can quickly insert into a session over anything from 30 minutes to two hours. This is packed with that kind of material, and the encounters are at a very high standard with some that are just fantastic (it's worth it just for the Awakened Shrub encounter, tbh). Special mention also to the art, which is really stunning - nothics have never looked better.

As a DM, I always wish I had more time to flesh out the NPCs the party meets - not just the ones who are important to the story but the background characters who make a world seem lived in. This book gives me the tools I need to do that, and has immediately become one of my favourite 5e supplements. It's such a delight to read and look through (with great, evocative art and design) that I wish I had shelled out for the hardcover rather than pdf (even though shipping to Australia is a killer). This is the sort of content that is going to immediately enrich my games at the table (can't wait for my Saltmarsh group to meet, say, Brenn or Colette Abban) but also provides ideas and inspiration that will enrich and brighten my campaigns in the longer term. And apart from all that, it also continues the important ongoing conversations about diversifying DnD that make the game better for all of us.

This is easily my favourite Tomb of Annihilation supplement, and added a lot to the adventure. The encounters are incredibly fun and flavourful, but also simple to run. I kicked the campaign off with Tavern Trouble, the first encounter in this book, and it really embodied the swashbuckling chaos that I wanted to carry through the adventure. The others have turned out to be just as good. Beyond the content itself, I feel like this helped me to think in a more creative and interesting way about random encounters in ToA and in general.

I know the reputation LotFP has so I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised, but reading Kiel's blog he seems pretty progressive. This adventure features some really glaring racist stereotypes - the 'pygmies'. The text weirdly emphasises they are not, in fact, pygmies, but they are short, brown-skinned, violently primitive foreigners. If I tried to run this as written at my table, half my players would walk out and not come back. Very disappointed.