I use the variations for a few years, I have also Mythic 1 but I largely prefers what the variation bring. Personally I made a hybrid system, called GMCore, based on the work of this book (mainly the fate / detail / event check) and I've been able to interface to it the moves and momentum concepts from Ironsworn to it. I also use the Behavior Check, even if now I use the more streamlined and very good one in Mythic Magazine and I integrated it to a 3-levels npc interaction system (1 level for a specific need/interaction/investigation).

Anyway, all that to say thanks for the incredible (and ongoing, via the magazines) work! M1 was good but MVII definately put the bar for tabletop solo RPG gaming! Keep it up!

An excellent addition and update. It's clearly written and it hangs together nicely.

The Fate Check (for yes/no questions) is cleaner and easier than the earlier Fate Chart. You don't have a table of 297 numbers to look up (198 of which were in a microscopic font size).

The Detail Check (for open-ended questions) is also good. I like the mix of possible outcomes that inspire a direction to take: some that focus on particular characters, some that focus on particular threads, and some that stir emotional reactions. The table of examples ("Victor Milgrew Detail Check Question Examples") is helpful.

The meaning tables for descriptions and actions don't do much for me. Neither did the previous Action/Subject tables. They're too generic and they don't always match up well with each other. Results like "Helplessly Healthy" and "Imitate Portals" are more likely to slow me down than to help me. My preference would be to see something like a "Meaning Table Crafter." Instead of handing you two prefab d100 tables that are supposed to accommodate every genre and every tone, it would guide you in creating your own d20, d10, or even d6 pairs of tables, for themes that suit you. You might use the Adventure Crafter themes (Action, Tension, Mystery, Social, and Personal), or just Combat and Conversation themes. You might also prefer tables that suit your game's tone, such as light entertainment, noir, or whatever. I'd get a lot more out of something like that than I do from universal tables. Granted, the meaning tables are completely optional, so I can skip them and no harm done.

The Event Check is nicely done.

I like the Behavior Check. In a sense, it's the Chekhov's Gun principle, applied to character descriptions. (One version of Chekhov's Gun: "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there.") In other words, the Behavior Check is a way to make character descriptions directly relevant. If you say a character is cheerful or gloomy or whatever, the Behavior Check gives you a way to use it.

The Behavior Check also exemplifies the "Focus on the Critical Few" principle. Some game systems would have you roll up bunches of traits for characters -- traits that you might mention once and then forget about. In the Behavior Check, no more than three traits are going to matter, so indirectly it encourages you to use restraint when cranking out traits.

As much as I like the other chapters, I don't see the point of the Statistic Check. It's six pages on rolling up character stats (or other stats) into a generic form, and then you have to convert the generic results to the game system of your choice. In most RPG systems, stat generation is already pretty straightforward ("Assign these values to these stats" or "Roll these dice and assign them to these stats"). Even if I played a super-crunchy system with character creation that involves hours of dice rolling and lookups in tables and flowcharts, I'm not seeing how the Statistic Check would help. It seems to me that the Statistic Check complicates the process without enhancing it. In addition, I've stopped feeling the need to randomize every creature's stats. If you're facing an ogre, here are the ogre's stats. Period. Every time. Is the game really enhanced if Ogre 1's strength is a smidgen higher than Ogre 2's? Not for me. The more interesting situation for me would be that Ogre 1 is power-hungry and Ogre 2 is lazy, or that Ogre 1 is the chieftain and Ogre 2 is a hunter, or that Ogre 1 is known as The Mighty while Ogre 2 is known as The Sly; those traits will manifest when you do a Behavior Check. I don't need to randomize their stats to make them interesting.

Finally, kudos to the writer (and any editors) for the good, clear writing. So often, RPG writing makes me think, "For crying out loud, use a spelling checker, learn what apostrophes are for, and study grammar!" Not here. Nicely done.

These second set of extensions to the Mythic rules streamlines a lot of the process.

• The biggest and most noticeable difference is the Fate Check replacing the Fate Chart. In the original rules, you would refer to a chart, comparing the odds of succeeding with possible influence from the Chaos Factor. I personally found it daunting. Instead, the Fate Check forgoes the chart and simplifies the process so you could easily manage it in your head.
• The Detail Check is an alternative means of getting details on an entity, or rather, it's a random word generator to inspire your imagination. I've personally found its selection of words satisfactory.
• The Event Check is more or less the same as the Random Event from the original. Aside from how it's triggered (from the Fate Check), I can't see a difference.
• The Behaviour check is fascinating, if a little fiddly with the numbers. With it, you determine the intensity that an NPC acts and can randomly pull out unexpected actions. It has a particular consistency that helps it along in comparison to simply making a Fate Check asking something like "did the guy cower in fear?"
• I confess to not using the Statistics Check, as the games I play using Mythic were devoid of crunch.

I personally found these variations to be my favourite as they get the job done quickly and with minimum fuss.

I've been using the Mythic:RPG system for years. After having a family it showed me that I could still enjoy all of the role playing games that I had been missing. After reading this book I've used it in several games and found that it is a fantastic update for the Mythic:RPG system! The author has expanded on the system to provide better support for NPC interactions and introduced checks that have more direction on how to interpret their meanings. This has improved the quality of my lone wolf gaming.

Any of the new things introduced in this book are optional. You can mix and match these new checks in to your games on demand. So far I believe that all of them add much to the play experience. There is a bit of a learning curve to the new NPC checks, but I've been very happy with the results from my games.

Bottom line, if you like the Mythic:RPG series and use them this would be a solid update to the system. If you've never tried to use the Mythic GM Emulator you would want to get that book along with this.