When it said Emulator I expected it to be paired with a program that did the randomized set up. Considering there are free programs that will give you a random set up like Rpgsolo.com I was expecting if I was paying money I would have gotten a higher quality program component but this is only a book with some charts and storyboarding sheets. I would ask for a refund but there was obvious thought and care put into the system.

I bought this product years ago along with "Mythic Variations." I've read through it several times and it has some great advice for creative stories, running your game and keeping track of things whether you're using it as your game engine or just the GM Emulator part. Although I find the Mythic system intriguing I have never used it. I'm sure it would work perfectly well for running a game with. The main selling feature for me was the Game Master Emulator. I'm almost always the GM for the games I play, and the idea of being able to get a group together and join them as a player was very appealing. I've used it a few times with Mutants and Masterminds 3e and Savage Worlds and can say it works great. You need to know how your chosen gaming system works, and the GME does the rest of the work for you. I'd recommend Mythic for that alone! If you do want a generic system, you get that too...so it's a great purchase for folks looking for one or both of those things.

Summary : a very interesting product, perhaps more on the story game side than some other RPG. As a generic RPG system, 4 stars, the fifth because it contains a great deal of advice on how to actually use the system for many things AND for the potential as a GM tool.

I reviewed the pdf, which I bought. I played solo games only.

Content description : The system description starts with character creation, probably to allow reader to figure the new system more quickly. Everything is described with on a ladder, compared to an "average", decided by the players. Then you have the Fate Chart, which is quite central to the system (percentage of success or getting a "yes" to a question, based on the ranks defined before), followed by task resolution, fighting rules, how to generate more randomness in your adventure, how to generate an adventure with and without GM, and advices on converting other games to the Mythic system. There is a complete play exemple, on about 15 pages. It is ended by various reference tables and sheets.

Layout is clear, but internal links are lacking.

I do not like the art. I feel it is cheesy, almost unprofessional.

How it works ? Basically, the GM and/or the players asks questions, and the answer is provided by a roll on the Fate chart (answer is pass / fail or yes / no). Hence, if the GM allows it, you may actually err quickly on the story game side. Though, it is pretty interesting to make a call on many situations.

What I liked :

• system is easy to grasp and covers a lot of ground, though a bit of work during game may be needed (taking notes for further reference)
• still there are many examples and advices provided, which illustrates clearly the system, making even easier to understand it
• the solo GMing part actually works, and I guess it also would as no GMing system
• the work is modular, you can use a part of it, or as a whole
• many references sheets. Print them, stick them together, and you have your GM playmat withing minutes

Could have been even better with :

• better art. The product seems to be a Platinium seller on OBS, so it could make sense to give a few hundred of bucks to an(other) artist to improve it. It is almost disheartening, with many half naked women, one naked mer-dude taking a shower, and a few bad designed monsters… It does not convey the sense of "Mythic" by any way and could maybe even be removed without loss
• the fight rules are more complicated than the rest of the system, which is a bit surprising, and would slow down everything. The author gives only a few lines of advice on how to get ride of it, a simplified version of fighting rules could have been useful, with examples
• internal links. We are in 2018, even a pdf bought for a handful of bucks should have them
• no SRD or CC licence, which I think is a bad point for a generic system nowadays

I've been using the Mythic:RPG system for years. After having a family it showed me that I could still enjoy all of the role playing games that I had been missing. After reading this book I've used it in several games and found that it is a fantastic update for the Mythic:RPG system! The author has expanded on the system to provide better support for NPC interactions and introduced checks that have more direction on how to interpret their meanings. This has improved the quality of my lone wolf gaming.

Any of the new things introduced in this book are optional. You can mix and match these new checks in to your games on demand. So far I believe that all of them add much to the play experience. There is a bit of a learning curve to the new NPC checks, but I've been very happy with the results from my games.

Bottom line, if you like the Mythic:RPG series and use them this would be a solid update to the system. If you've never tried to use the Mythic GM Emulator you would want to get that book along with this.

Fantastic system - obviously a lot of thought has gone into it. I like the emphasis on creativity on the part of the players. From my point of view, this is a great resource for DMs, as you can create your own adventure by actually PLAYING THROUGH IT and creating it as you go!!!

The open nature of the system really appeals to me, and it works incredibly well with D&D 5e. Amazing work :)

Clearly an amazing product, just look at who produced it! Valuable for any RPG setting it is invaluable for the solo gamer. It creates such an amazingly rich enviornment The Location Crafter is well worth your hard earned cash, and for around $3 USD, its a steal.

I've always wanted to play a pen and paper roleplaying game like DnD or Pathfinder, but never had the chance to actually play one of those games. Almost everyone said it was way too difficult and expensive, so I'd almost given up. Luckily I found this book. I love the concept of using ranks instead of tons of numbers and including random events that might change your easy sounding mission completely. The instructions were easy to understand and the many examples really give you a lot of inspiration. However you don't have to use them. After reading the book I really wanted to give this a try, so I convinced my sister to play with me. Both of us have almost no experience in pen and paper roleplaying so I was amazed how good it worked. Our first mission was a simple task: Defend the peasants sheep from giant spiders. Before the spiders were even there a random event occured and we found out that the peasant (with no combat experience at all) had decided to help us. So he was hiding behind a hay bail with a pitchfork in his hands. Our characters an angry orc and a werefolf didn't even see the spiders as fast as the peasant tried to attack. His success was very unlikely so we already expected his attempt would fail. It got even worse for him: He was caught in a ball of spider web! Defeating the giant spiders and saving the peasant kept us entertained for almost an hour. This was our first try and we both enjoyed it a lot. I can really reccomend this book! (English isn't my first language so there might be some mistakes in this text - sorry for that.)

I purchased this more for the GM Emulator features than the Roleplaying system. The main purpose of this system is to allow you to apply the tools in this book to play any RPG adventure without requiring a game master. This allows solitaire and cooperative play. The foundation is actually pretty simple system with two key parts: Yes/No table and two-word keyword system.

The Yes/No table can be used to present Yes/No questions to the system, with the chart providing a mechanism to determine the % chance of yes, no or exceptional yes/no. You roll percentile dice (1-100) to get the result. You ask questions of the system as you might ask a game master when you need more details of a setting or what's happening, such as "Is the market crowded?", "Do I find the gem on the dead goblin?", or "Is the weapons officer a traitor?" To provide a weight to favor the more likely answer, you determine how probable it should be for the answer to be Yes. For example, "Do I find the gem on the dead goblin?" might be unlikely if you have more powerful enemies that haven't been defeated and the gem is key to the story, or it could be very likely if you slayed the goblin in a dungeon where the type of gem is pretty common for the treasure the dungeon contains. You cross-reference this probability of being likely with a Chaos Factor, which begins at 5 on a scale of 1-9. The higher the Chaos Factor, the more likely are Yes and Exceptional Yes responses. This factor goes up or down between each "scene" of your adventure based on how chaotic you think the previous scene was.

The Yes/No table can also be used to determine % of a challenge succeeding based on the cross-reference of the skill of the character attempting the challenge with the difficulty of the obstacle or competing character. For example, if you want to determine if a Ninja succeeds in hitting a target with a shooting star, you would consider the Ninja's skill (likely Exceptional) with the difficulty of hitting the target (average for a target character with average dexterity). You then get a % chance of getting a Yes, No, Exceptional Yes, Exceptional No and roll percentile dice (1-100) to get the result. This is using the exact same table as above.

Finally, there is a two-word keyword system designed to provide you with a random two word combination to help stimulate (or "seed") your imagination to apply it to the current situation. You have a supporting table that can also determine the subject of the keywords, if applicable. For example, this can be used to generate a random event in a scenario when doubles are rolled on the percentile dice. The first roll would determine the subject, such as Player Character Favorable, and the next two rolls determining the two words from two different keyword tables that are used in combination. Each table has 100 different keywords. For example, you might produce a result of "Passion" and "Attention" from the two tables. So if you're a spy sneaking into a secret base and get a random event with "Player Character Favorable -> Passion Attention", it's up to you to apply it to the situation. In this case, I might say that nearby guards are chatting with a beautiful officer in the hallway that would allow me to sneak past them undetected.

The book contains more information about how you can apply this to your adventures, and it even uses this system to let you play a full RPG game without requiring any other RPG rules. Where the book really shines is in the way it demonstrates the use of the system in a variety of settings (Sci-Fi, dungeon, mystery, etc.). But if you already have a rule set that you like, such as Pathfinder, you can use the tools mentioned above to allow you to play your campaign without a dedicated game master (though one player or the group will have to provide interpretations on the results produced by the system, as well as when and how to apply the charts.

Why does this work so well? If you're just setting up the adventure without any guidance, you tend to direct the adventure along a particular path. Once you've set this process in motion, your mind will tend to propel forward in a particular direction. When you use the Mythic system, you interrupt your story at various points to determine whether the story proceeds as you initially design. When you get a No, Exceptional, or keyword response, you're forced to stop and reevaluate your story and might be forced to redirect the narrative path. That's where the surprise comes in.

The only problem I've had with this is that I haven't felt like the Chaos Factor has worked for me as intended. I've had several times when the Chaos Factor keeps dropping to the point where I can't get anything to happen. But I need to play around with this more, as I might need to be more proactive in making something happen, even if it's in a different direction.

Excellent product for structuring encounters into a great night's session. I used this in Traveller to set up a city quickly that the players explored and then created a second 'location' being the journey out of a city towards a destination town in a forest.

It gave me a simple way of moving the story along - roll again on the table I had generated. It also provides for Random and Special locations, objects and encounters that stimulate your imagination. At a key point in the session I rolled two random words that changed the direction of the story.

I would absolutely recommend this product for all GMs who need a quick way of keeping players interested when they don't have time to draw up maps.

This was a great product, full of good ideas i love the abstract exploration model that is used. Makes those random houses that thieves like to entet much easier on me, and special for them.

It is simple to use, genre neutral and let me tell you: it just works. A great add-on to Mythic GME. All you need to come up with is a good imagination and about 15 to 30 words for a small to medium location.

Your words are then divided into three categories on which you roll randomly to fluff out a location. Easy, simple to use, no frills and really well explained. You cannot get wrong with this.

What my wife said after the first GM-less session we played using the Mythic GM Emulator, " I can't believe it works". I have to say, that after losing our usual group of roleplayers and not playing a regular campaign for the last three years, this has been a godsend. Now, me and my wife can both scratch both the player and gamemaster itch, while not needing a large group to play with. Using it with the Cypher System (which lends itself nicely to improvisation gaming because of the ease of making up NPCs on the fly), and can't wait to use it while beta testing the Dresden Accelerated rules. I'm sure this won't be for everybody, but I can say that purchasing all three books in the Mythic series was one of the best things I could have done for my game ( or lack there of). If you're skeptical, don't be... you have to try it, it's awesome!

P.S. I have to say that at the moment, I have been using the GM Emulator, and haven't used the system rules presented in this book yet. Regardless, I'm glad I picked up all three books, they are well worth the price.

What my wife said after the first GM-less session we played using the Mythic GM Emulator and Variations, " I can't believe it works". I have to say, that after losing our usual group of roleplayers and not playing a regular campaign for the last three years, this has been a godsend. Now, me and my wife can both scratch both the player and gamemaster itch, while not needing a large group to play with. Using it with the Cypher System (which lends itself nicely to improvisation gaming because of the ease of making up NPCs on the fly), and can't wait to use it while beta testing the Dresden Accelerated rules. I'm sure this won't be for everybody, but I can say that purchasing all three books in the Mythic series was one of the best things I could have done for my game ( or lack there of). If you're skeptical, don't be... you have to try it, it's awesome!

What my wife said after the first GM-less session we played using the Mythic GM Emulator, " I can't believe it works". I have to say, that after losing our usual group of roleplayers and not playing a regular campaign for the last three years, this has been a godsend. Now, me and my wife can both scratch both the player and gamemaster itch, while not needing a large group to play with. Using it with the Cypher System (which lends itself nicely to improvisation gaming because of the ease of making up NPCs on the fly), and can't wait to use it while beta testing the Dresden Accelerated rules. I'm sure this won't be for everybody, but I can say that purchasing all three books in the Mythic series was one of the best things I could have done for my game ( or lack there of). If you're skeptical, don't be... you have to try it, it's awesome!

Great game - and a great GM / Gm-less tool! I've not yet digested the system enough to use it (just skimmed through the PDF for the first time).

And still: its' brilliance shines through clearly.

Damn, I'd never EVER imagine a tabletop RPG system where not only the world, not only characters and events can be improvised on-the-fly... but RULES??

Wow! Deciding, say, the rules of magic half-way thru adventure - isn't it incredible? And whatever else may come up during adventures?

Which automatically means - we get an ideally customized ruleset while we play. Because it's we, the particular group of players, who choose the rules. The way we like them!

I love this Mythic!