I love this game, I've had a lot of fun playing with both my friends and my kids. Lots of options, lots of great mechanics for people to create some amazing stories with.

Options and simplicity of design have never been so well presented. A book that would easily be worth a price for free that contains literally (not figuratively) dozens of classes. Races for whatever your style is (two types of goblins, kenku, and psychotropic frogs), steam powered armor, and rules to give you whatever kind of game you prefer. It would truly be a mistake to not give this a read.

I haven't yet had a chance to play a session so this is just on impressions. Overall this looks very intriguing, the leveling system is different but seems solid, I like the idea of using armor as DR and attacks target your reflex, makes the player decide whether they want to be hard to hit, or hard to hurt. There's a section on owning property so immediate brownie points there. Overall, looks very interesting and I can't wait to give it a try!

Have had the books for a while now, but not the chance to play. However, a game run at our FLGS every week and the players have a great time. I have enjoyed reading through the books. It seems like a cool system.

What I have read so far, has given me a positive impression. As fluff is mostly implied through mechanics in this book, I cannot give say anymore then d&d mild eberron likeness(Steampunk, industrialism, victorian?, pulpish?). I like that magic has been split more between different classes, ensuring that obvious 3rd edition D&D Wizard/Cleric/Druid domination is not so obvious. A sort of race class (Dhampir) is also interesting approach into supernaturally powerful beings. Lots of d20 mechanisms so that basics are familiar. Maybe in the beginning there is too many ability choices, but I consider that a benefit. Allows differentiation. Adventurer and heroic capabilities seem to be around, none of the class abilities seem plot shattering types (which can be good or bad, depending on taste).

Anyway, I consider it good for its price of $0.00. If you wish a somewhat new approach for d20 games, this might be worth even when it costs money.

This is by far a product of ridiculous quality for the price! As a publisher myself, I couldn't believe what I was looking at when I saw it. This book is not only thorough, but very well laid out. The art is more than competent, and the writing fluid. I can't strain myself enough to explain what an amazing product this is, and at a price of $0.00, I can only wonder why you are still reading this and haven't gotten it yet?

This download also comes with the Monster Folio. Both are jam-packed with so much detail, it makes the electrotech setting really believable, yet an oh-so-familiar evolution from d20. There is also a basic errata document for the guide.

For anyone at least somewhat familiar with Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition and Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition, this book is clearly an attempt to take some of the ideas the author liked from fourth edition and fit them into third edition. And as far as attempts go, it's superb. The art is also great, and the setting is a nice mix of steampunk plus steampunk-biotech plus traditional Dungeons and Dragons -style fantasy.

Characters have the six Dungeons and Dragons stats with normal bonuses (typically -4 for awful ratings up to 5 for awesome ones). Characters have a race, one of human, elf, dwarf, gnome, lizard-man, goblin, goliath, and about a dozen others. Characters have one or at most two classes, i.e. professions, out of Bard, Barbarian, Elementalist, Fighter, Monk, Necromancer, Invoker, Warlock, Sage, Thief, Sorceror, and about a dozen others. The character experience is rated in levels, from 1 for beginners to 20 for the best. Each class has a huge selection of special abilities the character picks from as they gain in levels, covering things from a bonus to stealth to extra damage with a favorite weapon to summoning earth elementals, based upon the class.

Feats are gone. Skill points are gone. Spell lists are gone. Everything is governed by the special abilities given to each class. The game has many options, great artwork, and great flavor, but a lot less of the complexity that plagues Dungeons and Dragons 3 or 4, or a lot of related Open Gaming License (OGL) derivatives of Dn

Radiance is a game with a ton of things going for it; it uses a tried and true d20 base with an analytical look at how the core mechanics work in order to create a system that combines the familiarity and simplicity of the d20 system with a more flexible character handling system that not only reduces the difficulty of learning the system but also allows some pretty neat other things.

As far as the Players Guide goes, it has very high quality; it has more art and a more coherent design than an average free PDF, but it also has superb writing and contains a great amount of content. Its sleek and streamlined rules allow for a book that isn't terribly gigantic but still contains a ton of stuff for players to handle all sorts of situations, and provides an interesting insight to the setting, even though there's not a terribly high amount of connection to a setting within the book.

All in all, for a free game, Radiance is definitely stellar, and I'm seriously considering picking up a hard copy to have laying around should I have to run a game session without my laptop handy.

The Radiance Players Guide is a wonderful product and at precisely zero dollars an unreal bargain. A nice blend of classic fantasy and steampunk, set in a victorianesque world with a spectrum of fantasy races (many of those re-imagined to be better PC options). It uses a d20 ruleset and the rules seem clearly presented from what I could tell in a initial reading. Layout is clear, without any glaring typos or grammer. The art is great, with nice examples of items, tech, classes and some snapshots of the world. At nearly 300 pages this is clearly a labor of love. I would buy this if you wanted to up your standard d20 fantasy world into steampunk. If not played alone (this is a stand alone product) it would be good resource to raid for steampunky or pulpy ideas. I have seen this idea attempted before with less coherent results from other publishers (who shall remain anonymous for their own portection). Things can get tricky when you mix magic and steam tech but Radiance has been been viewed from a more coherent lense than those other guys. Hope to see supplements and scenarios in the furture!