I prefer the Savage Worlds edition of this game. Overall the designers know the source material very well. I wonder why it took so long to see a prodcut like this available on the rpg market.

A wonderful and inspired setting book that only gets 4 stars due to the number of grammar and spelling issues throughout. Considering this is a Savage Worlds conversion of a previously published work, these mistakes are inexcusable. Other than that, it is a terrific book (though a tad overpriced) and I look forward to running it soon!

THE GOOD: The skill challenges presented run the full gamut of heroic through epic tier, and some of them offer interesting and inventive situations. Even the typical or predictable ones would save a harried DM time designing them for himself or herself. The supplement's concluding section suggests new uses for old skills, some of which are worthwhile.

THE BAD: Author David Caffee ignores the errata on skill challenges, even though they were among the first errata issued for 4e. This hit me full force when I got to the second skill challenge, which was marked as "Complexity: 1 (requires 4 successes before 2 failures)." But that's not right. Per the errata, a complexity 1 skill challenge requires four successes before three failures. Per the errata, all skill challenges require N successes before three failures. At first, I wanted to believe the typist had simply struck the wrong key—but all of the skill challenges (except, inexplicably, "High Crimes," p. 6) are written with the failure threshold as 1/2 the success threshold, following the printed, pre-errata table in the 2008 Player's Handbook. This rules misstep so colored my perceptions that I found it hard to like anything else about the product.

Several of the skill challenges presented are bland or even predictable. A few might as well be combat encounters instead of skill challenges (Pit Fight, Tavern Brawl, and The Gauntlet--I'm looking at you). Some (Arcane Door, Puzzle Trap) substitute skill checks for players' own wits. Arcane Some of the new uses for old skills make warp the rules (one describes an "opposed check" of "Acrobatics vs. Reflex," but by definition an opposed check is check vs. check, and there is no such thing as a Reflex check) or lack all verisimilitude (for example, one suggests that you can dig a five-foot-long tunnel with an Athletics check as a standard action, that is, within six seconds).

THE UGLY: The pages lack numbers, and the writing exhibits noticeable grammatical errors. Artwork is scarce, stock, and cartoonish.

Overall, this is a very disappointing supplement, below the level of quality that I've come to expect from Adamant.

Sword and blaster adventures on the red planet! As a fan of ERB's Martian Tales I can say that this book is everything I thought it would be and more.

A vey good "Falkensteinish" work up of Victorian style Faeiries.

If you want to add a little 3D to your tabletop scenery but don't want to go all the way to the kind of full 3D experience offered by Fat Dragon, Arid Hill, and other publishers, drop four bits on this little product. In just a few minutes you'll have 1" or 2" wide dungeon doors (wooden) that you can set out at appropriate intervals on your battlemap. Since you'll be printing these on cardstock and folding them up yourself, be prepared for them to fall over easily, though. Some game stores sell plastic bases that you could use instead of the fold-up cardstock bases provided (so to speak) in this product. The extra weight would help keep the doors in place. A little more variety in the doors would have been great, and if you're going to go 3D with doors anyway, you might want to skip this product and go straight to Fat Dragon or Arid Hill products for a richer 3D experience.

This warlock wields the powers of voice and light - but not necessarily of Good. Nicely judged (apart from, I thought, some potentially uneasy interfaces of game mechanics with the Warlock's Curse) and makes great use of historical flavour.

This Savage Setting has everything a gamer needs to play "planetary romance" campaigns in the vein of Edgar Rice Burroughs and other pulp sci-fi writers of yesteryear. Highly recommended for everyone who enjoys "Sword and Blaster" fantasy.

At last, MARS with the combined with the ruleset that really will let the setting shine! The book is well laid out and well illustrated, as well as being very printer friendly. MARS is a world packed with monsters and villians to vanquish, and really presents the sword and planet genre well. An incredible product! Well done!

A good reasonably priced guide for creating your own monsters. The guide lines are easy to follow and the included examples makes the gm's life a little easier.

I picked up this trio for $1, and as such it badly over-priced. There is very little material of any depth. The ‘setting’ information is available on Wikipedia for free. The writing in these products is poor, and the editing is worse; for example, ‘the’ is often used in place of they’, and mis-use of words is common, for example the use of ‘Straight’ instead of ‘Strait’. The first three issues weren't bad, but these latter three are worthless. A few minutes browsing Wikipedia will obtain more information for free.

I got this for the GM DAY sale... A complete steal for 240+ pages of well-know, well-loved material from various sources on one of the most enthralling settings and subgenres to ever appear on written form.

MARS works as very good d20 setting, as the system is fine-tuned to fit the overall atmosphere and feel of the subject matter, and even if you--like me--don't like/use the d20 system that much, the information presented here in a cohesive, entertaining and concise form, will let your imagination roam free and fuel your gaming sessions, and make for a great role playing experience.

MARS is a self-contained game. Every single thing you need to run a game is right here, for you to work with it. So yes, many of the skills and feats are here, again, but localized--where needed-- to the world you are about to enter. That means you don't need additional books to play or refer to while creating characters or running the game.

Then if you, like me, just can't refrain from adding a few thing to it, as it's d20 you can easily port your evil Illithids here to add to the mix of opponents the players' heroes will face over the course of their adventures in this beautiful, dying world setting.

Do yourselves a favour: Buy it. Especially if it is avialable at a sale price.

Adamant Entertainment has yet to dissapoint me with one of their releases, and quite frankly MARS is one of the best they've put out.

LIKED: The presentation, the quantity and quality of the information and it's adaptation to the d20 system.

DISLIKED: The relatively few illustrations. For such a grandiose setting and the sheer amount of source material, this could have had a few more of them pics!

QUALITY: Very, very good.

VALUE: A veritable steal taking into account the quality/price ratio!

SATISFACTION: Extremely satisfied.

...the most comprehensive take on faeries I've seen for d20 Modern, or for d20 3.5 for that matter. The Imperial Age Magick book is all but required to get the best use out of it though.

There's not a lot of "new" material here. It's essentially, as advertised, "Urban Arcana" in the 1890s; that being said, I'm a big fan of the Imperial Age line because the pdfs have a sort of charming appeal to them.

I agree with Jerry Linscott's review. ...one of the best of the Imperial Age line. If you run d20 Modern at all, you'll probably want this in your collection.