I was pleasantly surprise with layout and illustrations in Dolorous Stroke. The rules read very easily. It introduces cleaver ways of role playing in a table top wargame, making altercations become more than just about "the beat down". Players can really delve into their settings and characters.

My only negative (and its a big one) there are no scenarios...at all. the book tells you step by step how to build one but never presents you with some sort of pre scripted setting. I feel this would have given players a spring board form which they could build from. If anything it would give you a clear understanding how the game was meant to be played. This may not be in issue for some, but the first time I sat down to play I felt like to make the game come to life would be a chore.

There is a lot of good content for story building, but just no story pushing me to use the combat system over over another I'm more familiar and comfortable with. I give The Dolorous Stroke a 3 out of 5

Side note: I'd be more than happy to return to this system if the publisher/designer were to write a story expansion.