Large gorgeous maps, a clear and useful rules summary booklet (with page numbers referencing the Player's Guide rulebook), and lovely blank character sheets. All of it in high resolution. All of it free of charge. Thank you very much indeed.

Decent ideas, disappointing execution. The real travesty here is a lack of examination of the tremendous potential of scifi tropes it interacts with. Also, the ripoff of Eywa from Avatar doesn't help.

This thing is great. Very cool and slightly crunchier version of standard Fate. Look forward to GM book.

The first out of three books to complete the rules and setting for "the Chronicles of Future Earth." I question the wisdom in only releasing one of three needed books, as the ‘player’s guide’ isn’t a complete RPG by itself.

The ‘players guide’ is a great and beautiful tomb of a book and it allows you to create player characters, but only provides the bare minimum for the GM to run adventures, and that extends to both setting and rules.

The section on combat and mundane skills and their use in the game provides enough detail, but there is little to nothing on protagonists or antagonists. The section on magic is surprisingly good and really elevates the fantasy part, but yet with many of its sections left barebones with references to the two other books. These issues are hopefully addressed and covered in the two next coming books, but at the time of this review the rules and setting are incomplete.

The ‘quick start’ version with the included adventure Swallower of Souls provides some remedy by including some enemy profiles and more on the setting, but provides more of a snack sized sampler, than a fix.

I cross my fingers that the next two books will be released shortly, and that they indeed will cover the holes left by the first book.

Although, regrettably, incomplete at the moment this title has the potential to be one of the most interesting RPG titles in some time.

A great S-F read full of great ideas - spectacularly fast moving and with a heck of a reveal at the end. Yes, it is very plot driven as reviewer Christopher mentions, but I didn't find that a problem, and the character development was pretty nifty, too. The only drawback for me was that it's not well integrated with the Mindjammer RPG sourcebooks, and could use it's own sourcebook. More Mindjammer, please!

After the excellent The Lair of the Leopard Empresses (a direct best-of in the sword & sorcery genre), Sarah Newton brings us the second edition of her major work begun in the early 2000s. This first volume, dedicated to introducing the system and character creation, offers an immediately exciting and inspiring glimpse into the universe. At the crossroads of strong literary influences (G.Wolf, J.Vance, M. Moorcock), the game context recalls Numenera (itself inspired by the first edition of the chronicles) but explodes the limits of the imaginary. These chronicles have as much potential as Glorantha, in my opinion. I'd also like to add that the FATE-based rules system is remarkably well-written and the layout is very attractive. For me, one of the best, if not the best, role-playing games of the new year. I look forward to seeing the other two volumes.

I've been waiting for the full-blown version of this setting since the slim BRP version published by Chaosium in 2010 ... this is now officially my favourite science fantasy setting. It's a deep, lore-rich setting with dozens of human, human-related and wholly alien ancestries (my favourite of them being crab-like creatures and something that looks a little bit like a land jellyfish), with in-depth descriptions of cults and societies and cultures, with a cosmology of deities and demons (both probably more some kind of extradimensional entites) ... and with a millenia-old empire that's encrusted in its rigid traditions and seems unable to change it ways, even when threatened with extinction - so there's dire need for adventurous souls with a propensity for lateral thinking.

The setting is both similar in its core assumption to Numenera's Ninth World and even to Troika! (and I love the latter), but also totally different in tis approach -as I said, this one is a deep setting, nothing is handwaved away as just some millenia-old mystery that can't be explained. Future Earth breathes its future history. Like Numenera and Troika!, it is also a setting that feels colorful, and the art is suffused by a sense of hope and adventure. There's dark stuff in here, for sure, but it never feels dominant.

The system in this iteration is "Cosmic Fate", which is basically a crunchy version of Fate Core with d6-d6 for added swinginess, a cap on bonuses from aspects and crits and fumbles. It leans heavily into the "Fate fractal" where everything from a contact to a demonic weapon to a mount can become it's own little entity with aspects. It looks like it needs some investment, it's definitely not a variant of fate I'd fly by the seat of my pants, but I like both the increased swinginess and the cap on aspect spamming.

It needs to be said that this seems to have pretty much all the rules, but there's still a GM book and a setting book coming. For now, this is just a great read for me, but I really hope I'll be able to get a campaign going as soon as all three volumes are out.

The artwork is gorgeous. I would love to see the game that goes with the art. Mindjammer is not that game. Mindjammer is described as transhuman space opera, based on Fate Core. However, the actual text of the game materials is aggressively hostile to this conception.

The designer consistently describes transhumanism as a threat, one that the player characters are assumed to be actively fighting against. This is quite explicit in the tie-in novel, written by the primary game designer. The core book, and most of the supplements, like the novel, assume the characters are agents of the technologically advanced Commonality, working to extend its influence through a frontier of lost colonies. However, the source book for the Core Worlds, Earth and the other worlds of the Commonality, describes its inhabitants with the deeply problematic term, "decadent", because of its advanced technology and its limited tolerance of transhuman technologies. So the characters are supposed to be spreading the political influence of the Commonality, while stopping the spread of its dangerous technology.

The game mechanics are nominally based on Fate Core, a narrative game system. However, it goes so far in battering Fate mechanics into the mold of a "crunchy" game system that it is no longer recognizable as Fate. In particular, Mindjammer abuses the concept of Aspects, arguably the central concept of Fate. Instead of being a freeform description of a character that has narrative weight, Mindjammer restricts Aspects to a fixed list of traits with fixed modifiers.

I'd be tempted to say that Mindjammer tries to force Fate into the shape of Traveller, but it also lacks Traveller's elegant simplicity. And beyond that, the now classic game Diaspora does a masterful job of hybridizing Traveller and Fate mechanics.

I'm ultimately puzzled why the game designer even tried to create this game, when every line of text makes it clear they hate transhuman science fiction and every game mechanic makes it clear they hate Fate Core. I can only imagine they were under some sort of contractual obligation.

With The Lair of the Leopard Empresses, Sarah Newton delivers a near-perfect version of the Monsters!Monsters! and Tunnels & Trolls game systems. The customization of the rules is perfect, in my opinion, and demonstrates the power of this system. But beyond that, the imagined universe is highly original, and stands right alongside Beast & Barbarians, which I think it ably complements. The presentation is clear and ultra-readable, as well as being beautifully illustrated maintaining the proposed universe (AI or not). Full of interesting ideas, rich and wild cultures, African color and leopards! I immediately wanted to mix the universe with B&B and use the extremely well-developed rules. Another Sarah Newton success story that makes me want to play.

I've read all of the rules, mechanics, char creation, magic etc... parts of the book (a couple times) with only some of the setting still to read through and I'm loving what's here. Made a few characters and about to run them through some solo adventures, but i haven't played it yet so this is more first impressions than any review.

This is the best version of Tunnels & Trolls (even though it's technically MM) I've read. Better written and better explained, without the constant dad jokes, bad puns, cringy spell names and oddly conversational writing style. It also answers and fixes those rules ambiguities from the newest MM rulebook that aren't explained well so I'd say it's a better MM rulebook too, although the latest MM is the only one I've ever owned and read so can't speak for the previous ones editions. It's mostly written in a straightforward easy to read, clean neutral tone with lots of explainer breakout boxes and examples. It does still have minor instances of changing to a conversational tone and feeling out of place at times (like the start of the Stunts section: "Here we are at last! Let's talk about stunts! Here's the skinny"), but after a sentence or two it usually snaps right back and it's rare and minor.

The general page layout is great, very easy to read, with bold, red headers. It's really good, up there with Barbarians of Lemuria Mythic edition or one of the Legends of Steel books. I've only found one typo so far (and everything else is so solid I was surprised they missed it). However I don't love how they broke up the sections. I dislike when a game goes straight into setting, instead of straight into rules or character creation and after a brief "what is rpg" section this jumps in with an overview of Ximuia, timelines and calendar tables that feels like it should be at the back of the book with the rest of the setting fluff (especially if you don't want to use it).

The art is really good, very evocative and cohesive. There is a pretty good amount of it and none of it is bad. A definite step above what you usually see in a T&T publication. If AI art means we start getting smaller and/or indie publications with really good art instead of the terrible art they can generally afford I'm all for it, especially since bad art and presentation can really ruin what would otherwise be a good game.

The book itself is one of the most evenly built, straight and well bound Drivethru books I've received, unfortunately the paper is of a lower quality. And while it's full color everything (other than the cover) looks like Drivethru in ink-saving mode which is unfortunate for the price of the book. Everything looks slightly washed out or faded. The black type is easily readable, but it isn't dark and crisp as you would expect. It's the least colorful printing of all the full color books I've ever ordered from Drivethru which is a bummer since the artwork was obviously created super bright, colorful and vibrant. But that is all on Drivethru, not the quality of the work the creators put into the book. And it could also be that mine got shafted somehow and everyone else got a bright, colorful print, but I thought I should mention it.

Even with that I'd say it's the game I've always wished T&T could be, plus more. It's that classic ruleset, much better presented, well laid out and written with much better art and a more unique S&S-ish weird-fantasy sword & sandals setting which seems awesome and fresh in its own right. The ruleset they've built from those T&T/MM components is really, really good and I'm very happy to own it. It's one of those games that really makes you want to play it while you're reading it. Of the 86 books I've purchased and read from Drivethru this is the first one that prompted me to write a review... so there's that.

Lair of the Leopard Empresses is a great game with an excellent story. It's what got me into Monster! Monster!/ Tunnels and Trolls and the fact that you can use stuff from other M!M! books is really cool. The only huge problem for me is the AI art. Now, I'm not a critic of AI art and I'm not complaining about the fact that it was used. I just personally didn't enjoy what was included in the book. Some of the art they used was kinda offputting and I actively went out of my way to avoid looking at it. Now, that's just my opinion. You may not share my opinion and maybe you like the art. Regardless of if do or don't, it's a good book and game and I highly recommend buying it for that alone.

Yay, one of my favourite authors and publishers is back on the scene - and doesn't disappoint!

Sarah Newton's Lair of the Leopard Empresses is based on the Monsters! Monsters! rules, which are based on Tunnels & Trolls, which means that they are from a family of RPGs I've only ever had the most fleeting contact with. My takeaway after reading most of the rules chapters of LotLE is that it's a system where the players have to start thinking out of the box, and quickly, if they find themselves outmatched. Your randomizers are usually 2,3 or 4d6, added to stats than can, even at the beginning, reach values like 30 or 50, so even a stellar dice-roll might often not allow you to come close to what a superior opposition has in store. I've decided to consider this a feature and not a bug, because at the very least, it is interesting and new (to me), and it really leans heavily into a "rulings, not rules" philosophy.

Combat will look strange to anyone not familiar with Tunnels&Trolls or Monsters! Monsters! (like me), It's basically both sides rolling all their attack/damage dice (which are the same thing), comparing the totals and the side with the lower total suffering the difference as damage to be freely distributed among them. There's special cases like missiles, spells, triggered effects and, most importantly, stunts to mix things up. Stunts are free-form with some guidelines and will probably often be about trying to distract the most dangerous opponents for a round so that you get a chance to chisel down on the others, weakening the opposition. The core system is as simple as it gets, but there's an extended combat example that shows how things can get pretty complex and tactical. (You should also definitely read the example to understand how missile damage worked - I feel that this is not made clear in the rules.)

Anyway, I came for the setting, not the rules (though I think I might stay for the rules), because it's by Sarah Newton, who has written Mindjammer and Chronicles of Future Earth, two settings that are practically exactly what I would have come up with and how I'd done it if I had the time, the talent and the discipline.

LotLE is your basic gonzo ancient world stuff with a decadent empire, lots of terribly dangerous places to visit and a few twists: For example, there's something along the lines of forest elves living at the bosom of nature, but they are more like jungle elves, and instead of being tree-hugging vegetarians, they love to eat other intelligend kindreds after having toyed with them a little. Okay, there's also proper forest elves, and while LotLE clearly is a Sword&Sorcery setting, it also has the Tolkien stuff - dwarves, hobbits (here they're called Hobbs) and orcs, some of them with nice little twists attached, others pretty much how you already know them. The overall vibe, though, is more Talislanta than Westeros and more Fafhrd then Frodo. It is also more Glorantha then Forgotten Realms: There's really a sense here that cultures, realms, species and languages are in flux. You won't play a fantasy viking who speaks fantasy viking, lives in the realm of fantasy vikings ruled by the fantasy viking queen and who prays to the fantasy viking god. There's a short historic overview at the beginning that makes it clear that rulers and cults have come and gone, that borders keep changing and that a realm or nation not always equals a culture. Admittedly, that also means that you'll have to dive a little deeper to make sense of the setting, but it's worth it. By the time you reached to Cults&Brotherhoods chapter (around page 100), this will already feel like a living, breathing, complex word. Luckily, the system supports mixing and matching of disparate character elements, because in the end, it's all about picking whichever 2 or 3 special abilities from your kindred, class and cults lists you like best. (Which means that you can even go classless by just picking from your kindred and cult lists.)

And while this is a big book (400 pages) with lots of setting material, Newton really excels at concise, atmospheric and flat-out funny descriptions of setting elements. Take this NPC description:

An ancient Leopard Cultist who never leaves the Empress' side. She has only two teeth: One tells the future, the other the past.

(I'll let that be the one glorious quote to represent the fun that is reading LotLE.)

I have only read about a third of LotLE yet (maybe half, if you count skipping ahead a few times), but it really makes me pump my fist - YES, that's how you do a proper fantasy RPG! Intertwine the setting with the rules, but don't lose yourself in point-buy micromanagement, trying to represent each and every character detail in the rules. (LotLE doesn't even have a skill system, and I strongly feel that it doesn't need one. It does have dozens of spell lists for different magical traditions.) Create interesting species, cultures and organizations for the characters to be part of, but don't box them in. Make the world feel like a real place by giving it a history that creates hybridity and diversity. Most of all, have FUN writing it and let it show.

Finally, LotLE feels very much like a played-in combination of setting and system. The setting clearly flows from a love of the rules system, but it's also obvious how the setting then has changed the system, and how actual play has lead to tweaks and clarifications. The result is a beautifully organic whole that really just makes me want to play it.

(This review is from my blog swanosaurus.blogspot.com)

I've never come across the Monsters! Monsters! rules before, and am surprised by how ahead of their time they must have been when they first appeared - but the appeal of Lair for me is the setting and world-building. A Sword & Sorcery setting without the problematic elements they often have, it's an evocative and violent setting with potential for lots of different types of stories. Really excited to see where Mindjammer go with this new property.

I really wanted to like this, but it starts middlin' and gets worse over time.

Pros: Some character development Mindjammer!

Cons: Plot-driven to a fault — the characters need to be stupid for the plot to work, so they are stupid, especially the team leader. My god, what a disaster he would be. “And now the bad guys can do—THIS!”

I wish this novel was anywhere near as good as the game.

The first game produced by the Old School Revival that really caught my attention, Monsters & Magic combines an old-school D&D sensibility with more modern narrative-focused mechanics. The core system, called the Effect Engine, features a ton of innovations that make it one of the most interesting variations on D&D I've ever seen.

Its best ideas include character-related traits that can be applied to checks; certain degrees of success allowing you to add narrative effects to the results; mental hit points, used in social combat and other forms of mental stress; and alignment focus and drift, allowing you to better define what alignment means for your character as well as what tempts them towards other alignments. This is also one of the few RPGs I'm aware of that makes a serious effort to integrate large-scale play into the core rules, through a concept called Constructs - allowing characters to plausibly affect everything from gangs and armies to cities, nations, and even worlds. (Usually, this is treated as a separate subsystem.)

This is such a great system that I wish it wasn't trying to be compatible with old-school D&D... because I think that's seriously holding it back. While they try their best with new takes on concepts like Treasure Types, it still feels like certain aspects of classic D&D should have been abandoned to make a better, standalone fantasy RPG. Perhaps we'll see something like that in a future evolution of the system?

Speaking of old-school compatibility, my other major complaint is the limited amount of monsters, spells, and magic items described in the book. They expect you to use existing D&D sourcebooks for additions, but I would have appreciated more conversions, to better compare this system to its relatives.

All in all, though, this is a very cool and inspirational system, and I look forward to using it! (Originally posted on Goodreads)