Pros Flexible mechanics. Solid examples for rule implementation. Engaging gameplay. Easy customization. Excellent art.

Cons A bit of a learning curve, especially for new gamers. Navigation and organization are not optimal.

This book provides the rules and guidelines to use what's in the other WOIN books. The core mechanic is a pool of d6's against a target number. It's simple and flexible. Future Core provides all the info you need to form and use your dice pools with guidelines for skill uses and suggested target numbers. There's also an interesting countdown mechanic for things with uncertain timing, such as the progression of diseases or damaged ships exploding. The various rules have useful examples included, but the real strength of this game is as a toolkit to make the game your own. You can use the rules here to represent myriad things not specifically mentioned. Combat is oriented toward using good tactics, utilizing your character's abilities and the environment. It may be a little complex for those new to RPG's, but once you learn how things work combat flows well and is a lot quicker than I expected in just reading the rules. There's a bit of a learning cuve for this game, but that's true of any of the "crunchy" games. I've been having a lot of fun running my first campaign in this system. What keeps this from being a five star book for me is the difficulty in finding things when questions arise. There are no bookmarks or hyperlinks in the pdf. You just have to look at the table of contents and navigate the old fashioned way. That is further complicated by the organization of information. For example, to fully understand the rules for maximum dice pools you read a few paragraphs on pages 8 and 9 for the basics then find the "Making An Attack" sidebar on page 31 for the details. The information is all there, but not always easily found. Aside from the srengths of the rules and the drawback of organization I feel that the art needs specific mention. The art in this book, and others in the line, is wonderful. There's a lot of art and it's all good. The various pieces could fit in many different types of sci fi, but they all fit together well. I'd say that this game line rivals the D&D and Pathfinder lines visually. Overall this is a rather good book for an excellent game.

As you probably now by this point, Future Core is the game mechanics & rules section of N.E.W., the science-fiction portion of What's Old Is New. The creator is really great at responding and dealing with issues, so that's always a plus to any game. On top of that, it's an interesting system that uses dice pools for tasks, and they don't get too large, unless maybe you want to recreate Bambi VS Godzilla. I and my friends haven't yet played this particular iteration of the rules, but we have played with the earlier stuff, and I've read this latest one in preparation, and so I'm definitely looking forward to it. :)