DISCLAIMER: I've started working on my own games recently, and I also use the Scabard platform created by the creator of Easy D20 to host some of the content for those games.

Easy D20 is a game that sets out to achieve something that is difficult: create a system that works to provide much greater simplicity for game content than the existing d20 system games with some amount of interoperability. It succeeds on some points, but in many places it shows more potential than practical outcomes.

From a purely mechanical perspective, Easy D20 allows that to an extent. There are a lot of tables and charts that make its name a little harder to swallow, and I get the feeling that some organization or bookmarks would really add a lot to the book. There are no page numbers in the Table of Contents, which exaggerates these issues.

As a result, while the actual play of the game is highly streamlined, there are gaps that things fall between. With a good GM, it works fine. The advertised "great for introducing kids to roleplaying" really only applies if they have people who can help them through the process, however. There are countless abbreviations and tables, and while I don't think it would be impossible for a sufficiently motivated child to figure out the rulebook it would probably extend past most youngsters' attention spans. The counterpart to that is that other than character creation the rules are super-light, and actually have the flexibility to allow adventures to take off. It doesn't include specific rules, but that's what the GM is for.

Actual play, however, only comes after getting through the rulebook. It would not be far off to put a "Some Assembly Required" sticker on the cover: while you can play a game with the rules provided, you need someone with knowledge of d20 System products to really make it work because there are a couple missing pieces and places where concepts are not fully explained. As someone with a lot of d20 experience, I would say that I would certainly enjoy some aspects of Easy D20 over other products (and, perhaps, also point out that D&D's 5th edition had similar ideas), though I do have some minor concerns regarding whether or not characters really feel diversified, because most of the feats and special abilities are unlocked by potential rather than individual purchase and as a result some classes receive access to more feats (albeit at the cost of raw power). While not likely to be a balance issue, this certainly could bother some players who are used to having exclusive access to some abilities. The concept of saving throws is entirely absent in the core game rules, but is mentioned by traps, spells, and attribute descriptions, and has a spot on the character sheet. While these things are fully explained in passing, they are not explained until they would come up, potentially leading a player to feel like they were being lied to. There are some places where parallel design becomes confusing; for instance, races have what looks like an advancement table, but they do not advance using it (instead this determines how they can shift attributes around).

The rulebook is divided roughly 50/50 between rules and appendices, which provide a fair number of challenges and baselines for adventurers.

I would say that Easy D20 is best suited for people who have existing d20 System experience and want to move to a lighter, more fluid system that allows for more speed and less complexity. It's certainly got a minimalist feel to it, and it would probably benefit from being expanded a little to make more of the game concepts clear. There are a lot of references to separate documents, which often include things that reasonably could have been included within Easy D20. It's just a little too complicated to live up to some of the promises that it makes, which could be easily solved with some minor changes to how the information is presented, and it introduces a lot of loose ends that could really have been omitted entirely and worked out between GMs and players. There is also a lack of any real introduction and overview, making it ironically unfriendly to newbies who have never heard of an RPG before, though none of the concepts that are not explained are particularly difficult.

To summarize it in one sentence: Easy D20 is a good game that's only 90% there.