I think this is BRILLANT! check out my review https://youtu.be/d_QAH40LaiM Pick this up! Its 2$ for a complete game! A win in my book!

Great 5e book for anyone who is a little tired of pixies and wands, and want's something a bit more gritty and real. The book itself, (I own the hard copy), is nicely designed, layed out in an easy to follow manner and has some nice artwork. Buy this book before WoTC nuke it from orbit..!!

I found the book poorly written with poor quality production. Phrases and sayings were often worded strangely, and the system was not clearly explained. The background information was somewhat nonsensical, feeling like there was an attempt to copy other "grimdark" settings but outdo them. It's not offensively bad, but it isn't interesting enough to be worth the time.

Let me start with I ADORE THIS WORLD!

I came late to the party having missed the Kickstarter. I picked this up on a whim off this site, while looking for a Grimdark setting. It's got grimdark in spades, being equally and in some cases more bleak than any grimdark setting I've encountered.

The system is a relatively simple D6 pool with a stand out dice (meaning one d6 of a different color or some feature to make it easily told apart). It works really well with this setting, and grim theme, at times offering up only that sliver of hope, when all is otherwise lost. This was a boon to my group as we look for relatively easy systems that we can easily shuffle into the background of play.

The setting is like enduring a Norwegian Black Metal album. Elves screwed everyone causing a cataclysm. The world is a wreck and societies have remolded themselves into insular, communities, run predominantly by fear and reactionary tactics. This really shines with some intresting environments and regions to explore at one's own peril. There are enough adventure ideas and quest nuggets to fill a truck.

Artwork does a great job of defining the grim world, providing visuals for the author's text. Envisioning the world isn't difficult.

Now, my gripe: This book requires another set of eyes (editing) on it. I can understand forgoing an editor, due to costs, but it's an excessive number of errors. Spelling, repeating words, improper sentences, word arrangement, are all in higher proportion to what would be considered a "normal" amount, I stopped counting in the 50s and I wasn't that far into the book. This said, it's just distracting. Nothing prevented my understanding the points the author was making. This is the only reason I took a star off.

If you're into grimdark, I highly encourage you to take the plunge and check out this book.

Hope this helps,

Rob

I got my copy this morning. It is an easy read, being one of the few books I've read from cover to cover. And the safehouse rules, the nationalities, and new skills could be used in a "The Spy Game" or a GI Joe game. It is not overly complex and for the most part simple to run, but...

Though the standard editing on this book was okay (with one glaring spelling error Linguitics on page 40) the rules editing leaves something to be desired. The experience table on page 13 shows that the Proficiency bonus increases by +1 per three levels but the tables on pages 34 and 37 show the proficiency bonus as +2 at levels 1-4, +3 at levels 5-7, and +4 at levels 8-10. Page 13 mentions that a character "to choosing their operators Class and Subclass" is missing an aposthrope and mentions Subclass even though that mechanic is not used in the game. Though it is nice that skills are in front of character creation it still takes page flipping to go from there to page 63. Strangely due to redundancy of class features ICO are maximized as Agents because they have one feature from Tactical Police (Breeching gained at 1st level) and one from Special Forces (CQB at 5th level) whereas PMC and ICI do not have such restrictions (though the Driving abilities of PMC and Agents has overlap). The experience rules on pages 13 and 94 contradict each other with page 13 shows a standard experience table but on page 94 it says that "Each Operator needs 50 xp in order to reach the next level" (Possible Fix: change the xp awards from 2 to 15, 3 to 20, 4 to 25, and 8 to 50 xps). The encumbrance rules on pages 45 and 64 also contradict each other (is it 200 lb or 15 lb per point of strength?). The separation of range, caliber, and weapon type is justified before the section on guns, this also produces more annoying page flipping to determine which weapon does what damage at what range. And 80 feet per round is 6 mph so a Very Fast vehicle is errr...not so fast. And just as a nitpick conditions are something that occurs to the character so I just think that "irradiated" should be used instead radiation. Any why is it that on pg 52 AoE is in meters?

I know these can be easily fixed in the .pdf form, but it is annoying when I also ordered a print copy.

What is promised here is not what is delivered. You do not get 100 maps, and what you get are mostly unusable junk. VERY disappointed.

Great looking book. Simplustic and easy to follow layout. Enoutgh new Edges and Hindrances. A good amount of info for playing special forces, teams,law enforcement personnel and enough difference between the various units that are practically the same in real life.

The only thing I would have changed is instead of making a handful of new skills is

• A: Used SW Skill Specialization and had some of the new skills be speclizations of existing skills.
• B. Turned some of the new skills into Edges - esppecially new skills that "could" fall under 2 or more skills.

Othe than those two changes, I love the book

First of all, I do not usually leave reviews, much less bad ones. But this products is severely lacking in usability. What we are essentially presented with, is a set of homebrew rules, resulting in a game that is hacked from 5e SRD, but closer to OSR products. What we don't get (what I thought I would get) is a way for players who love OSR principles of quick fights and harder survivability, but have groups who like to play 5e for crunchy character building or its modules to have that happen. It is something entirely else, there is no way to use the rules without using the custom classes presented, there are rules for nerfing HP and damage for players and monsters, but MM monster abilities, high damaging player spells are not accounted for, neither the original class system, if you want to stick with that. Who is it good for, let me ask? Those who are okay with playing an OSR system are going to just play one of those, like BFRPG for about the same price. And those who would have wanted to stick with 5e for its merits cannot plug these rules in, because it doesn't account for much of its contents. What would have been useful, is to make these changes completely modular and compatible to 5e, so if I would like to use 5e monsters, class system and modules, I can do so with a quicker grittier fighting system. What else do we get? We get a lot of rules which are introduced just for the author to tell us that it is up to the GM to handle however he wants. Well... no shit! My favourite of these is the part about hexcrawls. We get told that BFA is played on hexcrawls. No rules for that, no suggestions, no nothing, just that. Play hexcrawls, because the author likes hexcrawls. Also, a bunch of random tables, with "imaginative" content like a bunch of goblins running at you, orcs blocking the road, and kobolds in caves. And if I wanted to buy this in print, then because for every 50 purchase they add new content, by the time it arrives my copy would be out of date already. All in all, what I would recommend the author to do for the next milestone, is to spend less time doing art (which is very good, to say something positive), and less time apologising for the word fuckin' (LotFP RPG has child rape magic, no one cares about your fuckin' word), and spend more time on designing the content to be more modular and usable with published 5e content without using the custom classes. Otherwise the product description is completely misleading. It is basically a new game with its own class system, and has not much to do with 5e in itself. Sorry, if I sounded too harsh, I hope that this product is going to evolve, the idea is good, just the implementation is lacking. I would be happy to hear the author's opinion on the subject, other than what is written in the product that it works for their group (happy to hear that, but if it is sold commercially it should present real usable value).

My video review on YouTube says it all.... https://youtu.be/leti03g2yGk

First of all, I backed the Kickstarter, I was sent a free copy but I backed the KS and got the D6 version of the game! So ya I own 2 copies so thats a pretty positive thing!

So I have a video review on my YouTube Channel which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/MKhU3B22tAM

FeralGAmesInc knocked it out of the park! This is a DARK setting, there are VERY mature themes in this game so parents beware!

The physical layout: AWESOME I like the dark them and aged looking pages the book is hardback and will hold up to much use.

The Art: Amazing! there is a oil paint esque look to the art and it imparts a very dark tone! It is consistant throught the book.

The Story: Wow this is where this setting really shines! You will have hours and hours of adventures in this setting wether you go with the D6 or D20 setting.

The MechanicsL I have both the D20 (5e) and the D6 system, I prefer the D6 mechanics, but the 5e one is very well done. If you go with the D6 rules there is a minor learning curve but I feel it adds more to dark setting but either rules setting will work for you depending on your rules preference.

Overall this is a buy in Mr Means world. and I am glad that it is in my library!

As always your milage may vary and this may not be your taste or the setting may be too dark, but either way this is a great addition to your gaming library!

Angel's Citadel just reviewed this title. You can check it out here: https://angelscitadel.com/2021/02/05/review-stranded/

I paid big money for this KS. What I received wasn't a bad product, though the paper was a little low quality, the RPG itself was fairly decent.

What I am disappointed by is the book. The limited edition, KS exclusive cover was a sleek affair, what we received was a poor image on stark white hardback with red text, it looks shoddy and disappointing for the money paid.

So try the RPG, avoid the books.

You awaken on a beach surrounded by the debris from a wrecked ship, exhausted and with little more than the shirts on your back. Welcome to the island of Cragbarren. Welcome to Delve 2e.

As the game’s title suggests, dungeon-crawling plays a prominent part in the game. But there’s a very real reason for it in Delve: the players are on a resource-poor island, and indeed start with nothing save that which they were washed ashore with, so dungeon-crawling is about acquiring means of survival and betterment. The theme of the game is survival and exploration, so the setting leans toward a gritty and dark tone.

Mechanically, Delve2e is more sophisticated that AD&D but less complex than 3e, with a system that’s almost a love child between AD&D and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. I like both games, so I found the system appealing.

Character generation is somewhat narrative in that part of it unfolds during initial gameplay. After selecting race and class, followed by determining ability scores and skills through a point-buy system, characters find themselves in media res on a ship breaking apart in the surf off a dangerous island. Why where they aboard ship? Decide now. As for trappings, they only have a few randomly items in their pockets upon washing ashore and that which can be salvaged from a shipwreck. It’s a fun way to begin.

Delve 2e boasts a number of refreshing and noteworthy mechanics. Armour, for example, not only grants an AC bonus but also has its own hit points that can soak the damage. Eventually, armour will be degraded and eventually become useless. Ominously, with the lack of smiths on Cragbarren, armour is hard to come by.

Also adding to the gritty feel is a random timer mechanic used to determine when a light source – candle, torch, or lantern - goes out, and as a result PCs will never know exactly when they will be left in the dark. That adds to the drama and challenge of dungeon-crawling. Nice!

Bartering plays an important role in the game. As there is no civilzation to speak of, coins have little value on Cragbarren, save as a source of metal. Instead, objects have a barter index score based on how useful it is for survivors. Fuel and food, for example, are far more valuable than even the rarest gemstone. For the same reason, crafting and tinkering is more important in Delve 2e than in most FRPGs.

Cragbarren is a compelling setting: a rugged island at the edge of a sea lane used by sailors to avoid a frightening Eldritch Mist. Save for a village of shipwreck survivors, Wreck Haven, the island has no civilization to speak of. What it does have is lots of monsters, ruins, and a compelling backstory that can be uncovered through exploration.

Delve 2e clearly emphasizes low-level play focused on survival, and yet Delve 2e’s greatest weakness is the lack of fully fleshed-out introductory adventure to get one started and assist gamemasters in evoking the theme of the game and its rules. And there was a perfect opportunity to do just that, as shipwrecked characters have to find their way off the beach through a series of caves. Instead, the game presents the journey through the cave complex as a prose tutorial for gamemasters. Its a missed opportunity. Curiously, there is a short adventure in the tome, The City of Stench, but it’s a high-level, campaign capping piece. The lack of introductory scenario is not a gamebreaker by any stretch, and resources are available from the publisher to overcome this challenge, but it is something of an oversight.

In a similar vein, while the bestiary is pretty complete with several dozen monsters, you’ll note that monsters suitable for low-level characters are under-represented. You can make do with what’s there, and certainly the system is easy enough to allow a gamemaster to whip up his own challenges, but again it appears as something of an oversight.

Formatting and layout are well done, and the artwork employed is consistently nice. Delve 2e is a professional-appearing, visually appealing product. Unfortunately, editing is lacking in some areas, and some rule subsets – notably armour degradation through combat – needs to be clearer.

All in all, FeralGamersInc. delivers with Delve2e an enjoyable game that’s full of imaginative ideas and gaming potential. There’s much about the game that I genuinely enjoyed. It feels fresh, with a rule system boasting pared down magic and mechanics to make a survival story practical and a setting that begs for adventure.

If you want to play a fantasy game where survival comes before the heroics, Delve 2e may well be for you.

Ruins of Windtorn Manor is a solid adventure that doesn't disappoint. A few important notes to take into account: Our group is made up of 3 players and 1 GM.
The PC's were all level 3 at the begining of the adventure. The plot hook I used was that the group was assisting a devout follower make a pilgramage, but many plot hooks can be used/created to get the group to the manor. The module was completed in 2 sessions.