I bought this supplement because I was beginning my campaign in Arcanis, which has a Roman analogue. Eternal Rome is quite accommodating of alternate histories, featuring a "What If?" section in the first chapter. It covers the various regions contemporary with Rome and their opinions of Romans (hint: not very good).

The second chapter digs into the guts of D20 systems and modifies them appropriately: steppe barbarians don't rage, bards are divided into Celtic and Orphic types, druids are more like their historical counterparts (a change near and dear to my heart, as I've been railing against the "hippy druid" portrayal for over a decade), and the new gladiator class is reminiscent of the same class from the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition Complete Gladiator's Handbook. Like the 2nd-edition version, the 3rd-edition version is powerful. This is a fighter class with the uncanny dodge chain and a host of other abilities including bonuses to combat, from weapon styles and preferred opponents. Strangely, this section downplays paladins ("The Romans didn't regard spellcasting as compatible with the virtues of the warrior...") but gives the vigil prestige class access to spells. There are surprisingly few classes focusing on the legendary Roman fighting styles and, to my disappointment, no professional legionnaire core class.

Feats and skills round out the third chapter, many of them superseded by Complete Warrior.

Chapter four is where Eternal Rome distinguishes itself from other supplements with its Fame score. This is the much vaunted distinction between a Roman-style game and a typical fantasy sword-and-sandals epic: politics. Be it senators or gladiators it details a range of bonuses and penalties that come about from being famous or infamous. The equipment chapter is fifth and features the full range of gladiatorial weapons and armor.

Roman magic covers the sixth chapter, which features the usual spells and magic items. It's distinguished by two entries, the evil eye and the Legion Eagle. The Eagle Standard figured prominently in my campaign and the description does it justice, but treats it as an artifact without explaining how these important staples of Roman warfare were created. Making them artifacts changes the role of the wielder (an aquilifer, which was the role of my character in the Arcanis campaign) significantly.

The monsters chapter features such well-trammeled territory as the catoblepas, fury, hippocampus, and siren. There are also two races, nymph and satyr - anyone remember the half-nymph and half-satyr article from Dragon Magazine?

Chapter eight fleshes out the Roman world and places for adventure. Chapter nine is a historical primer, although game masters would be better-suited picking a period in Roman history and doing their own research. The ninth chapter covers Roman culture and is by far the most valuable for a game master planning a Roman campaign. Chapter eleven details Roman religion which is better represented in other works but still relevant here for its cleric rules. The book concludes with an adventure for 4 to 6 1st-level characters in which they visit a Sibyl. I would have preferred fleshed-out NPCs, like the patron Strabo who makes a cameo in the adventure along with a map of his estate.

Eternal Rome takes on a massive topic and does its level best to encompass all of Roman history, myth, and legend in one book. Although it struggles in parts to cover every aspect of Roman life, Eternal Rome lays a solid foundation to launch a campaign. It will still require a considerable amount of effort on the game master's part, and probably a few other gaming supplements, to fully flesh-out a Roman campaign.

Set 2 brings some badly needed components to the table for Dragon Age, including some very useful non-combat/utility spells for Mages, rules to advance to level 10, and information about the Grey Wardens including the rules for becoming one of their number. Everything in Set 2 is done well, and information provided is detailed without being exhausting. The only major issue are that half of the GM's guide is taken up by an adventure, which becomes dead pagecount for those who write their own content, and that some parts of the extremely intriguing world of Thedas still lack any description and beg a visit to an external wiki to get more information. However, the essentials are now here - I, personally, now feel comfortable committing to an extended campaign in Dragon Age's world.

The DA Game Master's Kit is an excellent resource for an already excellent game - the charts are obviously highly useful and the included art work is top-notch. Similarly the included adventure (A Bann Too Many) is well-written and interesting, and is written specifically to be a follow-up to the adventure included in Set 1 (The Dalish Curse). My only hesitation in recommending the kit is the fact that the PDF version doesn't really give you a screen (obviously you have to make your own) which largely defeats the purpose of the whole thing if you like a screen between you and your players. Personally I prefer to game without a screen and so the product is perfect - print out the tables and laminate them to use as quick reference sheets and away you go!

Fantastic. A well thought out and presented setting. I have stolen so many ideas from it. I am not even running a MM campaign (FASERIP) but I wanted ideas to color my world with and boy did I get them. I highly recommend.

Vengeance in Freeport is a 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons adventure for characters level 7 through 9. This review contains spoilers. I have identified groups experiences with the adventure using the PLAYTEST tag.

Vengeance links to the original trilogy in that Drac is still the bad guy. Even from the grave, he manages to threaten Freeport. He set a plan into motion that would, in the event of his death, leave the city shattered by bombs. The adventure opens with an explosion near the PCs and, from there, they are called upon by Sister Gwendolyn to investigate.

PLAYTEST: I’ve always felt that players get far too comfortable with adventures, just assuming that monsters sit around in dungeons waiting to die. I figure that as PCs get higher level, they should be reminded that they’ve made enemies, and that those enemies have enough resources to hurt their family and friends. This session reminded our heroes just how vulnerable they really are.

The characters first lead is a shard of pottery used in the explosion. But when they arrive at the potter's home, someone has beat them to the information--a group of orcs known as the Crimson Death. From there the PCs can either confront the orc group or follow the next lead to the wizard who commissioned a set of jars matching the one used in the explosion.

PLAYTEST: I changed the location of the explosion to the Last Resort from Tales of Freeport. I changed Parnass the Evoker to Kenzil, the wizard who commissioned Scarbelly to steal the staff of defense from the Freeport Trilogy. Scarbelly was put in charge of the Crimson Death as their leader. All this helped make tie the scenario into the events that went before.

No matter which path is followed, the PCs confront who now has the fire bombs and learn of Drac's final plan. But when the jars are accounted for, two are missing and scheduled for delivery to their targets at the same time.

PLAYTEST: Vengeance in Freeport seems more interested in having PCs solve a mystery than putting them in any danger, so I amped things up a bit. I changed the adventure so the PCs had time to stop the bombs, but to do so they had to split up and rush to different locations: the Temple of Yarris, Temple of Althares, Falthar's Curios (from Focus on Freeport), and The Courts. This was a much more exciting conclusion.

Overall, Vengeance in Freeport is an interesting follow-up to the trilogy. It just needs some tweaking to tie it more tightly to the characters and locations from the previous events.

Continue reading on Examiner.com: RPG review of Vengeance in Freeport - National RPG | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/rpg-in-national/rpg-review-of-vengeance-freeport#ixzz1KfUfjepz

Ten ready to go archetypes that you can drop into your game now, or tweak a bit. I grabbed this one due to the higher number of magical based archetypes. The Vamp and the Demon were instant hits. Of course the others are great too. The art is what you expect from GR, so it is fantastic.

Fantastic art and easy to read. Print it out and load it into one of those GM screens you can buy at your FLGS.

The latest incarnation of Mutants and Masterminds is an evolution of the system, building on previous successes. If you like superheroes and variants of the D20 system, this is almost certainly the game for you. While the changes from the previous edition (and the core OGL) are noticeable, if you have played M&M before, you will have no problem picking it up. I have no complaints and think it is the best version of the game so far.

Mutants and Masterminds (3rd Edition): Heroes Handbook is a 233-page PDF (230-pages if you remove the cover and OGL) with writing and design by Steve Kenson and published by Green Ronin Publishing.

The layout is taken directly from the print version with a 2-column layout. The (many) tables are clear and interior is packed with impressive full color art. It is a great looking book, no doubt about it. The table of contents is very complete and there is an index as well, so finding what you are looking for should be easy.

3rd edition builds on the lessons of the previous versions of Mutants and Masterminds, combining flexibility and simplicity. Using the OGL as its basis for the rules, anyone who has played a D20 system game will have a basic understanding of the system though several parts of the game have been renamed from the base OGL (eight statistics rather than six, advantages rather than feats) and it uses a damage save mechanic.

The character creation system is point based and divided into power levels that provide a cap on, well, how powerful characters can be. This cap is applied to offense and defense, balancing off ability to hit with ability to inflict damage and ability to avoid attack with the ability to resist damage. The system is designed to minimize the danger of characters being maximized for combat effectiveness alone.

To help get players into the system there is an extensive chapter on character creation that talks about motivation, origin and other important things for the superheroic genre. Additionally, fifteen prebuilt archetypes (from crime fighter to martial artist, energy controller to mimic) are included as examples as what can be built or to just take and run with. Two example characters (The Rook - crime fighter and The Princess - powerhouse) are uses to show how character creation works.

Much of the book (about 60 pages or nearly 90 if you include gadgets and gear as well) is devoted to Powers, which are often the core of being a superhero, and ways to modify them. The power system is very flexible allowing a great deal of flexibility and customization in design of powers. It does not allow the same level of fine-graining as, say, Champions does but it is enough to build most characters and their powers.

The rules system is complete and clearly explained, though it might be a challenge to pick up for someone entirely new to roleplaying games. The Gamesmastering section is short but direct providing some good advice and ideas. Unfortunately while there are statistics for variety of basic NPCs (thugs, agents, animals) there are no sample villains or introductory scenario, both of which would be useful for new gamers.

Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.

Re the previous reviewer, the por files are HeroLab portfolios. HeroLab is a builder program for M&M (and other games) which you will need in order to be able to open them.

I have several issues with this product. To start with the most glaring, half of the files are Corel PORs, not very useful without an enhanced graphics program that can open them. Why not the more standard gif or jpg, or even PDFing them like the others?

The layout is sub-optimal, since if you're reading them instead of printing them you have to scroll past large stat blocs to resume the text. This could easily have been prevented if the M&M2E style of having the stats up top and the text below had been adhered to.

The characters feel unfinished, if not bland. Unsurprisingly, the one that's the most developed (Ultramarine) is also the only one with three pages. The Rook also has potential (homage characters having almost as long a pedigree as Masked Adventurers), but pretty much comes off as a less stalkerish version of Blackbird II From Frredom's Most Wanted.

Most damning of all, it makes Emerald City seem like a rather boring place to play.

It does get a star for the Villain Notes, since at least three of the 'heroes' feel more like villain of the week material. Another star for the price, which makes this easier to take a chance on.

I'm sure several of these issues will be addressed when the writers revise the product after they develop a better feel for what they want the Em City to be, but until then it just doesn't do it for me.

This one will be a short one folks. First off, the artwork on this bad boy is crazy awesome. Your assumption that the primary use of the GM kit is the handy dandy tables that summarize almost all the numbers you need to run the game. That's obviously useful and I love having it as a PDF over the physical screen.

Now for the surprise. Rather than an introductory adventure, Green Ronin went with a character generator supplement. Character generator you say? Well that's probably just a set of quick start rules that you could get anywhere. WRONG! The generator is an awesome place to create quick PCs on the fly for Con games or a one-shot. You can whip up NPC enemies almost as fast as you can come up with a concept. Choose your options to create what you want or roll randomly on the tables. There are 20 archetypes that start the rolls. Then you get sub-tables from there. Everything from Battlesuits to Weather Controllers are there with plenty of mechanical options which underneath provide flavor for how to play your character. Did you build your own suit? Inherit it? Get it as part of a military experiment? These are the types of choices that lead to different stats, skills, and traits as well as a framework within which your character's personality can shine. The only thing I can't speak to is the balance of the various characters. I would hope they are all roughly equal in power and capability, but it'll take some real world testing to get a definitive answer. This will absolutely make sure I run the game though. It's too easy to get ready and go with whatever superhero world you can come up with.

Green Ronin now gives you the opportunity to explore The Seven Kingdoms. For anyone not familiar with the books, they follow the political and social intrigue of a handful of noble houses in a time of great conflict and when an ancient evil is stirring in the north. HBO has the rights to turn this into a TV series, which launches in a few weeks. Each novel in the series will be a Season and Martin is heavily involved in production (which is why he’s obviously not working on his next book – much to the dismay of fans). The major themes of loyalty, honour, trust and family are easily recognisable to any fantasy fan. Whilst the system has a robust combat system (and bloody, costly battles can be easily integrated as part of a campaign) the focus is very much on the social aspects of the story. Thankfully, the designers have stayed true to the core concepts of the novel and given players and GMs the tools to tell lavish tales of intrigue and betrayal. It offers an interesting system of linked abilities, called Techniques, that allow a character to customise how their character interacts socially with the rest of the world.

‘Journey to King’s Landing’ is a well-written, engaging module that really does deliver on the promise to showcase what the game is all about and can easily be played over a few sessions. There are six characters to choose from and all of them really display one of the unique aspects of the world. The authors clearly spent a lot of time reading the novels and faithfully rendering them into an RPG.

From: http://www.miragearcana.com/news-a-blog/40-game-night-blog-12-free-your-mind

This is a good game thanks for the stuff lets do it again sometime

I have a love/hate relationship with the 70s. I grew up in the 70s and have good memories of them. Loved classic rock, hated disco. Loved the new age occult revival, could have cared less about some of the other stuff. I grew up then, but consider myself a child of the 80s.

Damnation Decade though is the pure raw distillation of everything 70s, good and bad, into one awesome game. It is a historical game, in the same way Ghosts of Albion is about 1839. Damnation Decade takes a wrong turn in 1974 down a dead end. The world is sort of like ours, yet also very different in some key respects. Damnation Decade is also quite possibly the one RPG product to ever tacitly or implicitly illustrate that things under President Ford could have been a lot worse that what we really got. Reading through Damnation Decade is at the same time a trip down memory lane and an exercise in identifying puns and analogues to our real world. Green Ronin: did we really need a world where folk singer Edmund Fitzgerald sings about the Wreck of the Gordon Lightfoot? But I guess you are forgiven by giving us the first RPG product to feature a real Fantasy Island.

It reminds me of another great game, Solid!, which is also about the 70's. If Solid! is Parliament, then Damnation Decade is Grand Funk Railroad. Damnation Decade though gives something that Solid lacks; memorable NPCs. Sure if you can get past that most of them are amalgams of 4 or 5 70s figures, for example Humboldt Suede is not just a bad Hugh Heffner rip-off, he is part Hugh Hefner, Bob Guccione AND the Son of Satan. Though some are original enough to be useful outside the 70s atmosphere; Theramin Hunker for example could work well (maybe even better) in 21st Century games full of conspiracies.

Damnation Decade works great as a d20 game AND it has a True20 appendix that might even be better.

Ok, wish I got more for my money. Not bad just not complete in my opnion