If you like the Sentinels of the Multiverse card game for its asymmetrical game play as well as its superheroic feel, you'll get more of that from S.M.A.S.H. than from the Cortex licensed game. Looking forward to getting this to the table.

This game absolutely rules! Great system, great setting, great ideas. I especially like the Domain mechanics. Really recommended! Great to play and better to run. If you want a new and original science fantasy game Eternus is for you!

That said while the game itself is a 5 star game, I can't give the product itself 5 stars because the layout could use a bit of work. I found it hard to get into the game when there weren't really examples of play. It takes about 100 pages to find out what type of dice the game uses (d6) and how many you're supposed to have to play. Even in the paragraph called "core mechanic" in the book doesn't list the type or number of dice. The PDF is front-loaded with lore, and while the Lore is awesome, I wish I had a clearer idea of the game and what I needed to bring to the table earlier.

I want to reiterate that the game is ABSOLUTELY worth your time and money. Pick it up ASAP. A 5 star game with a 3 star layout so a 4 star review!

There's so much left out of this game that it seems more like an alpha rules draft than a finished product. Zero rules about how combat actually works. Zero player character construction examples. Repetitious, missing, or incorrect page reference entries in the index. No summaries of powers or special rules (and there are A LOT of special rules).

One thing that struck me is the narrowness of the implied play structure. While this isn't explicitly addressed in the book (along with so many other things), it seems as if every play session is meant to be exactly the same: the players have their characters find clues by using their skills (for which no other use is mentioned in the book), go confront the villain and/or his underlings, and fight. It's like the old Batman TV series.

I am aware of the example of play you can download from Drivethrurpg, but the problem is that it too is only a partial artifact. It's not annotated to reference the rules or explain terms, and the character sheets of the players are not included so you can't see from where numbers or dice or anything is derived. It's a Catch-22: you kind of need to know the game system already to follow along with the example, but if you already know the system you don't need to be reading the example in the first place. It appears it's a hybrid of dice use and diceless concepts, and that REALLY needs some detailed explanation in the rules.

I enjoyed the artwork, especially the different styles. The layout is generally good (although the typeface used for Power Moves is basically unreadable). There are some amusing and different special rules (for instance, the Brick Archetype's “Puny Villain” Power Move lets you grab a villain and use him to swat other villains). The asymmetrical approach to character construction provides a different and stimulating way to think about your character's powers, but with no guidance whatsoever from the authors regarding how to artfully and effectively use these tools, you're on your own.

Overall, I felt letdown buying a supers RPG book that to my mind is an incomplete draft and not a finished product.

Just received my hard copy but have been playing around with the digital version already.

This game is the most fun I've had in character creation in a long time. I love the fact that, because the game is built around accommodating all the different flavours of superhero out there, creativity in character design is rewarded. I can come up with an opportunistic ex-military Green Lantern knockoff (considering calling him the Blue Torch for funsies), a creepy plant-woman made of sentient vines who unravels herself to swing between trees/buildings or to lash out at her enemies with whip-like attacks, a vast octopus-like alien who's Just Here to Help (please stop screaming and shooting), or a simple master of the noble boomerang, turn to S.M.A.S.H with the question: "Can I build that?" and the game will effectively say "sure you can, take these mechanics and run with it."

Character building is also streamlined enough that it is very easy to spend an evening alone with this book and come out with five different characters that you want to play now.

I've had great fun as a player and I'm looking forward to thrashing things out on the GM side of things as I lead some friends on an adventure in a certain established multiverse...

During the last few days I have soloed my way through a fun adventure, S.M.A.S.H. Countdown to Destruction (37 pages). This adventure is designed for S.M.A.S.H. Core Rulebook. My plan was to use this system, but I could not figure it out in a reasonable amount of time. So, I used A.C.E. #1: The Awfully Cheerful Engine! (39 pages, same place). To solo it, I created a solo engine - I changed four lines in Vigilance Absolute Power -d20 RPG.

The adventure started when the government authorities gave the PCs a mission to investigate a crime of breaking and entering. The PCs arrived on site and entered the building from the rear door. They took down two gangbangers in the first room and then two more in the hallway. Soon, they were forced into combat with eight opponents. The PCs won that battle. Next, Rose the PC found the bomb and interrogated the prisoners. Shona defused the bomb. The reluctant criminal tells them that Copycat is involved. When he is forced to give them more information he lies. The address he gives them is for Shadow the Arch Villain, not Copycat.

The PCs go to the warehouse and find an elevator. They take it down and find themselves in a barracks. The PCs take out eight more opponents. They now find themselves in a maze filled with many hallways and a few doors. They find a vault, but they can not get inside it. Soon, they are in combat with Shadow. They take him down, but Blue has taken so much shadow damage (psychic damage) that he collapses. They drag him to the next room which happens to be the living quarters of Shadow. They discover that he has two weaknesses - he has a pet (black cat) and he keeps ALL of his receipts. They look through the receipts and find one from the vet. It mentions the cat’s name. They use this name as a password and get access to Wi-Fi, the personal computer, and the vault. They call for paramedics to help Blue. They open up the vault and find an alien tech gadget. They take it with them but hide it. They don’t want it to fall into the wrong hands. The paramedics arrive and then they all leave the location. All the bad guys are locked up. Blue fully recovers after three days. I am sure this adventure will turn out differently for you.

Give this a try!

Really enjoying continuing to explore this setting, and loving the way this roll system plays. It shields you from that gut-punch moment when you describe the coolest move ever only to have to creep it back when the dice betray you, but doesn't fall into the trap of making success too easy. I've found it really encourages collaboration within the group, as well as strategic thinking. Great for sharing that spotlight and feeling awesome as a party.

So, I picked this up on the quickstart and was quite impressed. The full game is not a disappointment. A great tecno fantasy concept that can be tailored to suit your needs. Core play draws strongly from Forged in the Dark and Powered by the Apocolypse, which for me is a good thing. The rules for creating your Domain, the feudal kingdom that serves as a bassis for your character allow good variation and inspire roleplaying ideas. Equipment and Domain resources, that can be used to aid characters, are varied and dynamic. Definately worth a look.

Excellent game, great setting with loads of depth and some cool mechanics

Brilliantly inspiring setting with a system that encourages good roleplay and full-party involvement. Have played a couple of sessions now and really enjoyed them. Looking forward to the full game release!

Great looking game with lots of promise goinonon whats presented in this quick start guide. Excited about the whole thing now!!

Great product showing lots of promise for the main game. Very accessable mechanically, if your a fan of Forged in the Dark or PbtA you'll love the system. I can see using this game for a very Masters of the Universe style game. Will buy the full game.

If you enjoy Newtonium Engine this is a must have expansion. For a measly $5 you get access to some game changers. First off the sub archtypes are great. For an extra prerequisite you get a further defining of your arcehtype that really helps to give some focus to a character. Even if you don't use them it really helps broaden the scope and ideas of what you can do with the Fury archetype. Furthermore the new combat options greatly expand upon what you can do in combat, giving greater variety and tactics to encounters. Finally, more talents, more options for elemental control (and example elemental spells), and more occult rituals leave this expansion chock to the brim of good stuff for vastly expanding your character creation options. If every expansion is like this each one is a must have for this game as Newtonium Engine will truly come into it's own with all the options on the table.

If you wanna see what 4th edition is gonna look like, don't buy the preview books, buy this! Conan meets Midnight.

An RPG Resource Review:

Presented in the guise of the College handbook given to new students, this book is well-presented with a simple yet effective 'leather look' cover and internal pages that will not overstress your printer (being black and white) but are clear and neatly laid out.

The underlying concept is that 'somewhere' there exists a large university of magic - the Academy of Wizardry - in which this is one of the constituent colleges - there being several, each one devoted to a separate school of magic. Students take classes mainly in their chosen school, although they may take a course in a different school if they so wish. Naturally, further books in this line will describe the other schools...

The first section consists of an in character 'welcome' from the Dean of the College. Interspersed with this, there are sidebar suggestions as to how to use the material in your campaign. This is both a good and a bad thing: good in that the ideas are intriguing and set you thinking, bad in that it makes it difficult to use the book as an in character handout, as you might end up giving a bit too much away!

While you might think that most adventuring wizards have already completed their studies, apart from daily spell learning and the acquisition (often by finding spellbooks on adventures) of new spells, there are plenty of reasons why the College, or the whole Academy of Wizardry as the various books are published, might feature in your campaign. Perhaps the wizards studied here in their youth, and have maintained links with the place. Maybe they return for graduate study, or to give a guest lecture. Or maybe in a radical departure from a conventional game, the characters are students and the whole campaign is based in and around the College...

The next section describes the two 'Houses' that make up the College. Each student is allocated to one of these on arrival, and will live and study mainly within it during his stay. There is a brief history of the Academy and of the two houses, Pendeghast and Hardacre. These houses also allow for greater specialisation, to the level of different sub-classes (chosen just as you would any other core character class) that display different aspects of abjuration. Pendeghast mages are disciplined, almost religious in their fervour; while Hardacre ones practise a more muscular style of magic. This is reflected in the 2 sub-classes available. Particularly of use to those running campaigns set in the Academy, there are full details of the competitions between the two houses, and between the different colleges that make up the Academy, so these can be administered as flavour for or even as the basis of the game.

A Pendeghast student can become a 'Devout Abjurer' and is required to choose a deity (one who includes the Protection domain in his clerical spell list) to worship. Their powers are based on the study of a combination of divine and abjuration arcane magics, which they perceive as interwoven. They gain the ability to turn undead as they progress and may use spells from the divine Protection domain along with their regular arcane spells, but are limited to simple weapons, the chosen weapon of their deity and no armour or shield. They are required to follow the tenets of their chosen faith in the same manner as a cleric, but only risk the divine Protection spells and the ability to turn undead if they lapse from their faith.

Hardacre students, on the other hand, are expected to perfect both body and mind: this is a good house for the more athlectic potential wizard. It's not all hard work, it is a friendly place and comradeship and conviviality are encouraged. Some students combine their magic with martial prowess, while others focus more on sports or pure physical ability, honing their agility and endurance. The house subclass is the Fortomancer, a tough fellow who specialises in battlefield magic. However, there is an even more combat-based subclass, the Guild Scholar. These are students sponsored in their studies by mercenary guilds, who are normally expected to return to their sponsoring guild and provide magical support to the mercenaries in the field. They are able to use all martial weapons, but their spellcasting powers are less - time spent on the training field inevitably erodes the amount of time available for study!

The next chapter, entitled 'A Cosmopolitan College,' shows how different races can be integrated into this setting. It's explained in character by saying that the Academy's been human-only for a long time but now accepts people from other races... but recently racial tensions have arisen that need to be addressed. As an 'Equal Opportunities' document, it's sadly lacking: a sentence that reads "Elves... have a fine attunement with magic above that of our own." sould be thrown out on the grounds of promoting a 'them and us' attitude! Not to mention that the section of elves continues by stating that they do not have the discipline to become successful Abjurers, and that there's only one elf student on the roll at the moment. Dwarfs, on the other hand, are apparently quite good - in as far as they are good at any kind of spellcasting! - at abjuration. Halflings have never attempted to study abjuration, and the College knows of only one half-orc who has done so with any success.

This leads to a fascinating concept, that of a 'Life Path' class, being a special class that a character can take a level in at turning points in their life. It's designed to highlight racial differences, the deeper more philosophical ones rather than the obvious physical and mental characteristics that are dealt with by game mechanics in the shape of bonuses and penalties. These are provided for elves, dwarfs, gnomes and half-orcs; and are specific to members of the stated race who are abjurers.

The next chapter is called "St Johns' Alumni" and in best quality yearbook fashion details some famous and successful former students... who will make excellent NPCs, of course. They are also used as exemplars of a several prestige classes, the Arcane Shieldman, the Monk of St John, the Paragon and the Antithaumaturgist.

Next, we hear about the courses at the College. This is quite detailed, and would really come into its own if you decide to run a game about the life and times of Academy students. Even if you don't, it would provide a very good, deep background, method for determining the starting spells of a wizard character who trained at the College before entering the campaign. Several new spells and feats are presented here, there's a fair bit of interesting material.

No College would be complete without its Library, and St John's is no exception. Former students are permitted to study here, so this at least is likely to be of use even if the College itself does not feature large in your campaign. This section also contains a discussion of Ritual Magic, powerful spells cast by a combined group of wizards using a set and formal ritual to create the desired effect. The 'College Handbook' proper ends with notes on the faculty, minimal details, but sufficient for chance encounters. If your campaign will spend much time on the campus, you will probably want to develop them further.

Finally, there's a section full of adventure ideas. They are intriguing and open-ended, and allow for characters who are studying at the College or just visiting.

As appendices, there are lists of all the new spells and feats presented for quick reference, and a character sheet tailored for an Abjurer - which has an innovative layout whereby skills are listed under the appropriate controlling ability rather than in one long list.

While this book is extremely specialist in nature - only really of use if you want to run an Academy-based campaign, have the characters visit the College or want some deep background for an abjurer character - it makes for a fascinating read. One or two spelling mistakes... but here I have to come clean, I like the College concept at least in part because I teach in one (not, however, of Abjuration! I teach computing!).

Darklore is a land where the gods warred. The land has been altered, become a harsh environment. It is a time where many of the older civilizations of been destroyed and replaced by tyrants ruling petty city states. The world is still recovering even though it is over 500 years after the event of the god?s war. The land is filled with paranoia as people do not know how the war ended or what is happening around them. Darklore Campaign Primer is a new campaign setting by Malladin?s Gate Press. It is a dark world filled with mystery, adventure, and conflict.

The Darklore Campaign Primer is a pdf of eighty three pages in length. It is filled with the lands, the races, the history, and the classes of this world. It offers many new rules to fit the way the game is run to the feel of the setting. The pdf cost five dollars and is received in a zip file of almost 9 megs.

One of the first things I look at with pdfs are the bookmarks. They are an index that one clicks on a subject and the pdf goes right to that page. They make it easy to use if one needs to find something fast like when using pdfs at the gaming table. The Darklore Campaign Primer has an excellent set of bookmarks.

The art in the book is rather sparse and of average quality. There is a map of the described region done by Clayton Bunce. The map is clear and easy to use. It is a full page in size making the details easy to see. The layout of the book is well done in the standard two column format. The book is done in black and white and prints well.

The setting is fantasy based but has more in common with d20 modern. Classes are presented in this book and are written up like d20 modern classes. They are ten levels long, have a defense armor class bonus, and talent trees. Characters are able to multi class without restriction. There are also carrier classes that serve as short prestige or advanced classes. They are all three levels long and easy to get into. They serve to offer some good focus of a character concept though.

The book starts with a good, through overview of the world. It explains some things of the history and what the campaign world is like. It sets atmosphere a little with discussions on how bad things are for many of the peoples. It covers a little bit of history but stresses that many things are just not known.

The first chapter goes into the history, well known history, of the world. It goes over some major events and covers quite a bit. It does a good job of further setting up the atmosphere with its tone and descriptions.

The second chapter goes into detail on the different regions. It talks about the geography of the lands, the politics of the people, organizations that have power and influence there, and the languages the people communicate with. Each region has a close up map of it, though no more detail is given. There is a lot of depth to this section. The setting comes together here and the present is presented in a way to spark ideas and campaigns. There are many things hinted at that I hope to see expanded upon in future books. The ideas are solid and easy to use in this setting or to be used to influence ones own game setting.

The third chapter goes into the races. Each race for the Players? Handbook is redefined to reflect the influences and history of the world. Each race gets a bonus feat at first level as well as bonus skill points. There are no favored classes since everyone is allowed to multi class freely. Most races for a series of sub races that further define the character. Each race has some sort of attribute modification. Some of these are odd numbers which is seen as a problem by some gamers. Odd attribute modifiers can be used to gain a bonus and hide a penalty. Each race is also given a class skill, and if their class already has it they gain a +1 competence bonus very much like in d20 Modern. There is also a availability of each race presented as common, uncommon, or rare. To pick a race of uncommon or rare availability the character has to sacrifice one or two or their advantages. Advantages are a new game mechanic that is explained later in the book.

The fourth chapter goes into the basic classes. Like d20 Modern each is associated with a single attribute. The classes the books has are the Warrior (Strength), Thief (Dexterity), Outlander (Constitution), Scholar (Intelligence), Devout (Wisdom), and Destined (Charisma). Each class is ten levels in length and have many talent trees as options to them. The classes are very flexible and can be used to create a wide assortment of different concepts. With the free multi classing the flexibility is increased dramatically.

The fifth chapter deals with skills, feats, and equipment. There are a few new or redefined skills. The most important is the new fighting styles. Some of them have feat requirements but as one gains ranks in them they get certain bonuses when fighting. While the mechanical part is well done, I am more impressed with the descriptions and the feel the fighting styles have. They can add reinforce the tone of the setting and the particular groups that use them. The campaign world also has gun powder. Guns have two new mechanics with them. The first is penetration and it allows the weapon to ignore X points of armor or natural armor bonus to armor class. The second is misfire chance. If the character rolls bad enough he has a chance to inflict damage upon himself.

The sixth chapter has the carrier classes in them. These work like the advance classes of d20 modern except they are only three levels in length and very easy to get into. There are a dozen carrier classes presented here. Many are simple specializations like Archer or Scout. They offer unique abilities ands serve a great way to help define characters.

Overall this is a world filled with danger and intrigue. The setting is darker then most standard fantasy games, but the tone is well defined. I found myself getting some great ideas while reading this book. As a campaign primer it does a good job of covering all the bases and given plenty of information about the world. It would be easy to start a campaign with just this. But as I read I found myself wanting more detail as there are a few things that are hinted at and mysteries that are presented. The descriptions are well done and serve the setting well. The new rules I think will do a great job of showing the players how the game feels. I really like the classes as they are presented. This is the way to do fantasy in the model of d20 Modern. The carrier classes are a nice addition, simple to qualify for, and will enhance the characters greatly. The races are interesting and are not the cookie color variety that is seen in so many settings. The races are familiar enough to be used with comfort, but different enough to really stand out in someone?s mind. Too many times I see new races used, when the current ones can be altered a little to fill the same role. Darklore does a great job in showing how that can easily be done. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>