The line about orcs being the result of teen mothers drinking alcohol while pregnant on page 114 is disgustingly inappropriate. A substantial portion of the book was cut out for the public edition and the actual subject of ecosystems is limited to twelve pages in the back of this book. Adding twists to a monster's concept is not enough to make them interesting, nor does novelty add depth. If you are bored with classic monsters, just use something else. Severely disappointing given the high quality of On Downtime and Demesnes.

I wrote quite an extensive review of this book here: https://archiveofthesphinx.com/2022/08/15/review-on-downtime-and-demesnes-b-x-version/

However here is ths short version: On Downtime and Demesnes is an excellent resource for those seeking to take their adventures beyond the dungeon. However it’s eclectic subjects and detailed subsystems make it better suited for solo play – or at most a small group that can appreciate a slower style of adventuring. While the page count has been padded with large lists of NPCs, items, and other curiosities the contents of these distractions are creative and enjoyable to read. While I rarely play B/X the procedures and ideas included in this book are easily adapted to other old-school variants of D&D and it’s derivatives.

Perhaps as appropriate for the genre, this book contains a mixture of things good, bad and ugly. Although simple and fun - it lacked the overall professionalism I would expect from a published book of the price.

The Good

The mechanics are a strong point here with few exceptions. They are written in a clear, newbie friendly fashion. More importantly for me however, they ditch traditions when it suits the genre.

This is a classless system - and one of the most streamlined and flavorful interpretations I have personally seen. Overall it is very function out of the box with no homebrew required.

The Bad

My mostly female group rolled their eyes in unison upon realizing this game has sexually dimorphic attributes. Female characters are supposed to get -1 STR, but +1 to either DEX or CHA. While we don't normally mind if a specific species or race has something like this - having it as a universal rule for characters of all races just seemed awkward - particualrly since it came immediately after an explanation of women being equal to men in the setting.

This book desperately needed an editor. One particualrly glaring example was in the description of Coyote Folk, in which a paragraph ends with a sentance obviously cut off in the middle "Coyote Folk are renowned"

The Ugly

While the western genre has never been culturally sensitive - either in fiction or the real history - referring to native americans as "Savage" is a serious faux-pas.

Combined with depictions of buxom native women with feathers in their hair and pocahontas style tunic, and the listed price for the scalp of hostile natives - the overall impression is barely above an elementary schoolboy's imagination of "Cowboys & Indians"

Final Thoughts This is a book which easily has potential to be a 5 Star product with a few improvements. One of the most obvious - hiring an actual Editor and perhaps someone with more experience in page layout.

I recognize that "Mostly female group heavily involved in or belonging to the local native community." is probably not the demographic ever imagined by the author - but this book is certainly awkward to show to my group.