This system is a realistic, congruous mechanism that allows for a greater emphasis on detailed roleplaying. Best used by veterans of the gaming genre (best appreciated by them), the system and supplements create a family of sourcebooks that do not waste an inch of space. By far the best bang for buck I've encountered in my 20+ years of roleplaying. I do not even miss having splashy full page color images and borders/fonts. If you truly "get" Legend Quest, you will realize that these are not helpful or valuable in terms of adding to the game mechanism, they are at worst limiting and cost prohibitive.
I have been slowly switching from a bastardized d20/2e mechanism to LQ over the past year. Out with the BS, in with the fun. I have spent more time with Board Enterprises products than any other publisher. BE and Raging Swan give me more than enough of what my game needs.

Like all of Board Enterprises' products, Urban Developments is well worth the money, with more history, useful information and explanations of fantasy life than one could extract from even the largest and most well-thought-out campaign settings. Think of these products as the steward who manages a campaign behind-the-scenes; it's the details that make it all work well, and if a GM doesn't invest in the details, things can quickly get too out-of-control and the players can feel that they don't really know the world that their character's inhabit. Grab the bundle of these products and spend a couple of days reading and then let it soak into the way you approach your world and how you make sense of it. Recommended for GM's, authors, designers; whoever wants to get closer to seeing their worlds as a place where not only do campaigns and adventures take place, but where the characters and stories are grounded in the same sort of pseudo-reality that make our favorite novels so compelling. I remember when David Eddings released "The Rivan Codex" which was a books "about" the world in which his set of 12 books in the Belgariad and Mallorean (and the two bios) had taken place. I loved it, because I loved reading about the little mundane thinhgs as much as the adventures, they made this world that I loved so real. Urban Developments (and BE products in general) runs along the same lines, offering up a closer look at the everyday. BECOME THE EXPERT OF YOUR OWN WORLD.

An extremely thorough breakdown of a fantasy economy. Some may call it dry, but I like to to think of it as scholarly and well done with enough humor to keep the reader's interest. Those involved in fantasy world building would do well to pick up a copy and apply its principles to your projects.

A rather lengthy overview of the coinage used in a particular game world. At first glance it might seem useless if your game isn't set in that world, but it doesn't take long to find some great information you could port into just about any game system. Instead of just using a standardized system of coinage, breathe a little life into your game's monetary dealings with new coins for each realm.

This guide sets up the predominate coinage as a base and compares other countries (or city-states) coinage to that base. Coins can easily be compared to US coinage for a real-world comparison as well. The author takes some space to explain alternative exchange systems and even why barter might be preferred in some areas.

Some designer notes and instructions for making alterations to suite your own needs are included, but I think most GMs could easily borrow elements from this supplement. After reading this booklet I plan on incorporating some new coinage into my game world.

The Royalty is another useful niche product from the people who brought us Grain Into Gold. It does what it purports to do: it comes with a boatload of NPCs. It's sadly not as much of a look at processes as Grain into Gold is – it's a collection. If you need a menagerie of connected NPC aristocrats of various sorts, many of which are relatively generic if not for the intricate family lines, then this would be a useful product. I find that the NPCs could've used some more expansion, and more of a variance – there's an awful lot of whining miscreants and cheeky gossips.

Great game. Concise system. The use of percentages makes it intuitive and approachable. Well done.

A good read and has provided an number of ideas for my own world's economy and coinage. I would have liked to have seen some comparisons to other world coinage and older coinage but apart from this it was a good expose.

I found this series to be weak and formless, the whole thing was so amatuerish I felt cheated. The City wouldn't work in any world unless really modified, and it seems incomplete even for the area the book is based in.

Grain Into Gold is a very simple PDF with scarcely any artwork that sets about the daunting task of trying to teach you how to work your fantasy town's economy and the myriad of factors that will change it. Grain Into Gold is system-neutral, but accounts for many things that are likely to be common to standard fantasy rpgs. Grain Into Gold presents the subject matter in a very accessible way, and through humorous examples (that farmer thinks very little of John the Miller) and explanations in plain English, Grain Into Gold follows the fantasy economy from the Bread that sustains the peasant, to the cattle, and ultimately to the wizard's magic trinkets and the adventurers who covet them.

I found that the book did a very good job in keeping economics from being dry and unapproachable by using characteristics of settings we've all played in and concepts we're all familiar with. If you don't feel like constructing your own economy from the ground up, there is a base price list in the back. But this book is so much more than economics to me. It gave me a small picture of the struggles and triumphs of medieval life, a lot of ideas for campaigns (how's about a campaign around fighting dragons for their thingies to give to your wealthy wizard patron?).

While I ultimately can only recommend this book to real tinkerer GMs who like to play around with every aspect of fantasy worlds, I am certain even if not you'll find a spark of creativity from this book.

A good, sensible system; quite gritty with a lot of armour damage, fatigue, bleeding wounds and the like. Characters are fairly mundane - with skills like Brewing and Bookkeeping and the like - though there's a fair selection of other fantasy races to choose from (albeit that they differ mainly by attribute scores). Game mechanics are good with a universal mechanic that lets you cross match different skills and abilities depending on circumstances, and lots of tightly integrated mechanics - e.g. counter spelling an enemy works like aiding a ritual spellcasting in reverse, and sleep spells cause fatigue damage; spellcasting system is quite interesting and allows diverse spellcaster types, more than might be expected in such a short rulebook. The combat system is pretty solid with a variety of options (disarming, fending, giving ground, two weapon fighting, etc) and looks fairly realistic; monsters are also interesting, with a good balance between a European mythic feel and creativity.

A well written supplement that takes what should be a dry subject and turns it into a fun and interesting read. Clearly written, this volume is packed with useful information about the economics of a game world, that I never would have though of. I contains excellent examples, and a good dose of humor to help get the points across. I highly recommend this to GM's of any fantasy system, looking to add a realistic economy, or just trying to figure out what your household, manor,castle or merchant can produce, sell and buy.

A very good concept, which, regretably, didn't quite get where it was going.

The authors point out that they didn't want this to be a dry, true economics textbook...unfortunately, when they started piling assumption on assumption, after the first chapter I felt myself longing for something with more true data & less guesswork.

It IS a considerable work, and has MUCH good information. I'm sure it lends itself to a far more believable set of economic relationships than one could get from picking apart the equipment list of any game.

In the end, I just had trouble trusting the numbers they came up with. But, if you're willing to replace your game's price lists, I'm sure it will be more than up to the task of keeping the players from trashing your economy...or at least justifying the trashing the players do to it.

Well, I can see why it's being given away free. Haven't these people ever heard of "spell and grammar check"?

That aside, I have my doubts as to the usefulness of this product for a campaign designer. What takes over 18 pages of fluff could have been accomplished with the two-page table at the end of the document. Also, given the subject, a few specific illustrations of the representative coins would have been nice.

All in all, it was worth exactly what I paid for it.

This supplement has been extremely useful in improving the realism in my campaign. The tone of the supplement has successfully made what could well have been a dry subject more accessible. Would highly recommend.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Grain into Gold is one of those source books that gets easily overlooked by the average gamer. "Why should I care about the price of bread in a town my character isn't even in?" A good GM takes the time to make many maps, NPC's, and points of interest available to the characters. Very few have the time to flesh out a complete economics system for them as well. Characters try very hard to amass a great fortune and it's up the person running the game to take it away from them bit by bit. This book was very helpful in many areas. I don't have the time to paint figures let alone come up with the economics of walnuts in the area. If I need something I grab the book and look it up. Like any game product some changes may need to be made depending on how you set your game. If your characters live in an area that grows cork or olives, of course, the prices will be much different than if you live on the tundra. All in all, I enjoyed this supplement.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: The charts are worth their weight in gold. (no pun intended) The distance from the source increases were great to show the mark-ups of trading from one to the other.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: There was no art other than the cover, but the subject doesn't lend itself to pictures well. It should not be read all at once. Look up the areas you think you'll need and browse through the rest at your leisure.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>