An interesting piece of work, but it's got so formatting issues - trying to find the feat list (fairly critical in the way the system works) as reference seemed to be constantly nigh impossible. That irritation aside, it's got a very interesting Escaflownish feel and a nice start to balancing off mecha/character scale interactions.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: A valiant way to mesh mech/character style interactions, and great world building.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: This product's indexing and contents ordering needed some work. Or at least page citations, in order to find everything you needed for character creation.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Very neat start to a new campaign setting; the Handbook offers all the usual information (character creation, play mechanics, some background) in an attractive format. The system mechanics (using D6s, with the ability to shift die from some stats to one other... at the cost of effectiveness in other fields) is inventive and the combat style looks more complicated than it is. And the actual background for the campaign world is cool. I like the flashback idea. Pure and simple, and keeps it from being another angstfest game.

That brings up my biggest problem... I don't like how the book is organized. The mechanics section feels like it's too late in the book... while things work on the second read-through, I didn't understand how the rules meshed together during character creation (of both characters) really at all until I got through the mechanics section two chapters later. The book really needs an example of play in the front to fix this bug, which could throw off people picking it up for the first time.

Despite this organizational failing, I really am excited about Fireborn, and hope that the Gamemaster's Handbook comes to Drivethru shortly.