this might be the game I enjoy running the most, of all time.

the only good book about how to run games. I read it years ago and still the way I run games is based on this advice, while of course building upon the ideas here and even regecting some of them, but it's all based on this.

fun little booklet and some great art, but the game itself doesn't seem fully fleshed out and is kind of a mishmesh. as far as i'm concered it's more of a game to take some ideas from and then run them in a different game. here's hoping for a take that builds on these ideas and fleshes them out more, maybe oven a 2e of this.

I've read puppetland twice, and ran exactly ONE session of it, it might have been the most difficult session of any RPG I ever ran... it was also fasinating and exapnded my view of what and RPG could be. and for that alone it was worth the price of admition.

Really interesting take on the OSR. it's clean and clear and has a cool idea as to how to deal with basically every single element of a dungeoncrawl game. I'm not sure it's as innately insipering as I usually like my games, but regardless it's a good read and I might pick it when next I run an OSR style game.

yesterday I finished my blades in the dark campaign, and it was one of the best ones I ever ran.

the system took a little while for us to get used to, but once everyone knew the all the options and all the rules it was both smooth and consistently fun: my players loved dreading every single roll, and I loved coming up with consequences, offering hard bargins, mounting ever-increasing odds against them, and watching them plan (retroactively) elaborate ways of beating them, while improvising upon unforseen events.

at the beginning of the game the characters were weary and careful, but knowing every single roll can succeed let them take crazy risks non, by the end of the game most rolls succeed, but because of that they took MORE risks, so whenever they failed the consequences were dire. it worked beautifully so there was always pressure, always risks, always crazy stunts and always huge problems to plan around.

this is a wonderful game, and I personally rank it as one of the best game systems I've ever played. I could write a book on the things BITD does right.

the game world is very cool and interesting, but the system would easily lend itself to other worlds, and while I enjoyed it, I probably had enogh of this world in this one campaign.

as it says on the cover "GM gems" is what this book has, it will not solve all your problems as a GM, but it WILL help you create more detailed and interesting game. the empty rooms worth describing part alone has helped me create more interesting, real, and detailed "dungeons" as well as ideas for what to do with these rooms if they aren't empty, so if you are looking for a solid book that will help in areas you don't even realize you need help in, like making campsites more extraordinary, go get this