As a gamer who doesn't have children, I'm still very jazzed on this book. The simplicity fires the imagination, and really gave me a lot of new thoughts on settings and characters both. I've burning out on 5e and this helped fire up my interest in fantasy gaming in general. I always like a nicely done rules-light type game, and this is super well done. Absolutely worth your time to take a look at, but even moreso if running games for kids is something you have an interest in.

Don't just stay away from this one, RUN away from this one.

While the content is interesting in places, the editing here is so very poor it rivals the problems the core book had on it's first release. Some sections can't communicate the ideas they are trying to explain, others have examples of rules that are harder to parse than the core concept and use different modifiers than the tables they reference. Rules that are intended to connect to each other go by different names in two sections of the book and are never connected in the text. Some rules are simply absent or too vague to be meaningful. In one part, the text switches from prose to rules in mid-paragraph like it was copy-pasted into the wrong place. This is beyond bad from an editing perspective, which is a shame because it's got some interesting ideas under all the jargon, insider references, poor organization, problematic layout, edition blindness, missed spellchecking, and odd art choices. I thought at first those owuld be enough to salvage this book a s purchase for me, but it just isn't.

This feels like someone posted an early draft by mistake. The editors and proofreaders really did their authors no favors here. In a perfect world, CGL would fix this up and re-upload it, but let's face it, that has no chance of happening. Poor quality (particularly in editing) is a staple of CGLs Shadowrun products, and this one is a big example of how bad it can be. I'm totally fine with the occasional typoes and missed table updates from any publisher. It happens. This is a whole step beyond that.

If you still want this book for some reason, at least wait for a sale or a bundle. This is really bad shape for any game book. I'd honestly suggest DTRPG remove it until it's given a proper do-over. I would say it's hard to believe this was released in this state, but it sadly is totally believable. I had higher hopes after seeing how nice Sixth World Companion was, but this shows how illusory that was. I've never requested a refund on any gaming product before. I am today.

This book has a ton of options in it. Some of the best provide alternate character generation methods, and rule variants to patch some of the issues many SR players find problematic with 6e. For a 210 page book, it pack a lot of options inside. Character creation is definitely expanded to be in line with prior editions, but there are also lots of RP options in here.
As someone who has chosen not to play SR6, this book is the one that could make me take a new look at it. The variant rules make certain issues I had go away or become workable. The editing also appears to have had a lot of attention paid to it. I am happily suprised at the content and quality here. Hopefully the quality here is an indication of future products.

Just so you don't get your hopes up, this is a physical scan of the original product, not a natively digital PDF. Not a particulary great one at that. Quite usable though.

There's a ton of options in this book. If you are looking to recreate some of the classic RPG settings with 5E rules, this book is essential for your DM toolkit.

Settings I can see being able to create with the tools here:

• Shadowrun
• Cyberpunk
• TMNT (The Animyst race is ready made for this setting, and the Martial Artist class and Ladders are so versatile you can go anywhere you want with it)
• Alien (or any Space Marine game, ie Starcraft, Halo, etc)
• Star Frontiers
• Steampunk (or any retropunk game, really)
• Robotech (and similar)
• Cthulhupunk (and similar)
• X-Com

The list could go on.

Some things to keep in mind: It's a labor of love, so you'll see some typos and such. Some rules could be a little more clearly presented. You'll also need to tweak the rules to fit your table, but the book assumes this and speaks to it.

There are a lot of rules, but think of this as an opportunity to try new things in new ways. I feel like there's a good chance this book has some rules that will inspire you, or provide a mechanic you may like as is. If you like homebrewing, this book has ton of inspiration to offer. Also, as a homebrewer, you'll probably be wanting to make your own player doc anyway, so just adjust the things you want to fiddle with while making your new document.

If you and your table like to try new rules out, the book also includes settings ready to roll to try out every kitchen sink in this book. Throw together a demo game, and try it all out! If your group feels like D&D5 is too rules lite, check out some of the options here. There are so many mini-powers you can collect during your character build your character can come out feeling much closer to a Pathfinder style character. If classic D&D5 doesn't feel tactical enough as a rulebase, this book is worth checking out for the tactical aspects alone. If you want a grittier feel, the UltraMax rules are there for you too.

Also, and this can't be said enough, the art in this book is utterly fantastic. For me, each picture inspires numerous game worlds and suggests setting tones and feels that I would love to try to convey to players. This looks very professional and well done.

I'm working on a Space Marine style setting myself, having run a couple games with the prior UM5 ruleset. This book is an upgrade across the board. Kudos to DEM here!

Overall, as the first glimpse of 6E proper, I have some issues. On the sheet itself, it has a number of items it doesn't explain. If you were totally new, you wouldn't know what half the gear is from the dossier. There's also a lot of stats it doesn't explain, and items that don't say what they even are. The gear bloat from SR5 seems to be here with a bunch of the same mods to gear, but with no explanation what they do or even what the item is you are reading. She has an Armor Jacket, but this doesn't seem to have any stats. Apparently these are explained on a card.

It seems complete as a character goes, but I can also see a lot of strange choices, like an absurd amount of debt to be paid off. It's nice that they included a conversion chart for meters per combat turn to kph to miles, but weird that it stops at 70. There's a weird (P#) annotation on some tables, which I guess must be referring to the place in the QSR document to find a better explanation?

There's also some goofiness of 6E showing up here. The action economy charges you a Minor action to drop an object? And a Major to pick an object up or put it down? Pretty unconventional for any game to not make it a free action to drop something. Edge is baked into every single quality, with Gearhead seeming to imply you can't spend Edge on a non-combat task unless you have a Quality that allows it. 50000 ways to get or deny permission to spend Edge doesn't seem like an enhancement to the game, really. In fact, it feels like they are moving Edge into the same slot that Limits occupied before, trading one type of clunk for another. I miss the days of just having a stat, a skill and some basic modifiers. While this is substantially more approachable than 5E was, it feels like I will constantly be overlooking some way to have earned or spent Edge, which makes the game feel cumbersome and underwhelming. I wouldn't have reservations about playing this version, however. I feel like I can intuit what to do as a long time player of prior editions.

The character sheet itself is not great in terms of layout or presentation, with some very tiny type in some places, and a poor font choice that causes characters to run together (same from 5E) so you can't read it very well, and everything is abbreviated, hindering new players in finding things on the page. Since the gear cards are what explains everything (I guess) there's things on here you won't be able to use or parse without the eventual Core Rule Book (I assume), since the character has 20+ gear items, but only is supposed to take 3 gear cards. The sheet itself did not get laid out with consderation for being viewed as a PDF with the sheet cut in half awkwardly, and not aligning to have both halves of the sheet able to lay out side by side in a PDF viewer.

Lastly, this is not a printer friendly document. It would kill your ink budget to try. You'll want to upload it to your phone if you plan to try to use it in a game. But with the sample run placed in between the tables and the character sheet, you will be doing a lot of scrolling to get between the character sheet part and the rules tables.

It really doesn't feel like a lot of thought or consideration went into this product. Reviews on the digital version of the QSG suggests it would be best to skip the QSR version as a purchase. I don't hate the edition from this product, but this product does not do what it's trying to do very well at all.

These are some great RP ideas, all faithfully in line with the core PHB. Having played characters based on these concepts before, I can say there are many great ideas in here i never thought of for my own characters. Definitely would allow these in my games as well. Jacob has great instincts for story and design both. One to keep an eye on!

A good intro to the game, helps explain some of the newer gaming concepts well. If you are considering buying in, check this one out.