This is a great introduction to Brancalonia. Very fun, and playable setting in an anti-heroic tradtion. Gives you just enough to get an idea for the game and its adpatation of the 5e rule set. love the brawling rules and shoddy weapons. Very rich and thematic.

Noticed the brawling table has AC (armour class) back to front. which i guess is a translation issue? but everything else reads great. Recommemded

Very tasty quality adventure - get it!

The adventure has an Arabian knights/Sinbad vibe to the setting, which jives well with the high fantasy D&D game and sets up expectaions for high adventure. There’s convenient suggestions for placing the advenure in Forgotten Realms or a setting of your choice.

The author does a great job in succintly describing setting and the main characters, giving the GM everything they need quickly grasp those key aspects. Encounters are very nicley realised with helpful suggestions on how to bring the scenes alive, including helpful tools for generating incidents that bring the game world and scenes alive. The opening bar room brawl sets expectations for thrills & entertainment, which carries through the rest of the adventure. Without giving away too many spoilers, there's a unique take on a dungeon crawl, where players enter the rotting corpse of a giant sea monster - Very colouful stuff!

Imaginative, fun, and a lively take on high adventure. The right length to be up and running with minimal prep very quickly. Ticks all the boxes.

Recommended.

This is a great book for those that enjoy 5e but wish to play/explore a more OSR style play. The game uses 5e, but adds some b/x inspired mechanics to help it play a little closer to those early edtions of D&D.
You dont need the 5e core books to play as the necessary rules are all stated again across the books. I find the presentation of the 5e rules in Into The Unknown to be much less wordy and easier/quicker to digest then the core 5e books. To highlight some of the changes to vanilla 5e there is:

*** • The return of the 10min round for dungeon exploration, which is a helpful formal structure to keep pressure on the pc's, and keep track of supplies etc The threat of Wandering monsters, dwindling light sources, and the need to rest are all devices that keep the tension going in old school Dungeon explorations. Theres a clever table to roll on which takes care of these aspects, making it easier for the DM to run dungeon crawls without too much book keeping.

*** • Slower healing rates to make dungeon exploration more dangerous.

*** • Paired down classes, and race as class. With some nice new feaures that can be taken at 1st level which replaces the addtion of the 3rd level archtypes in standard 5e. You'll recognise the basic classes from 5e, but the new feature at 1st level gives some good flavour and options, retaining some variety to characters.

***• A strong emphasis on improvisation in game play akin to that engendered by the older rules lite addtions of d&d. This I really liked. it opens up the 5e rule set to a more open ended style of play. In fairness to vanilla 5e it has been designed to allow this sort of improvisation along side class abilities, but the text heavy nature of those rule books and myriad of class options somehow gets that message a bit lost. Into The Unknown puts that aspect front and centre, and has great advice on how to improvise actions within the 5e rule set, something only lightly hinted at in the core wizard of the coast 5e books. If you find yourself getting repetitive & overly perscriptive in your 5e PC options this is worth the price of the books alone.

*** • In place of individual skills there is the option to just use areas of proficiency.

All in all if you like 5e but want to try a b/x inspired flavour of 5e i'd recommend it. Thanks to its suggestions its made me reappraise standard 5e ( for the better). The suggestions and options can inform vanilla 5e and vice versa thanks to its compatibility. Also worth considering if you fancy running any of the Goodman Games 5e conversions of classic D&D modules, or even better make up your own dungeon crawls old school style.

Wow! I'm SO impressed with Rough Nights & Hard Days.

We're seeing the bigger picture for the new addition of WFRP4 with the release of Rough Nights & Hard Days. This is classic WFRP (Rough Night in The three Feathers), expanded and extended with additional adventures to form a mini campaign. Though they can also be easily played separately.

The production values are superb, with fantastic artwork. I advise anyone to view the PDF full screen, double page spread to truly appreciate the layout and panoramic art pieces.

The adventures are pure quality from the hand of WFRP legend Graeme Davis. Using innovative simultaneous multi-plot hooks to create potential for true farce. Appropriately one of the scenarios is set in a Grand Opera House. They're a challenge and a joy for the GM to run. Whilst having a clear structure to the Multi-plot hooks, there’s plenty of room for improvisation, and its expected. This is farce after all.

I think Rough Nights & Hard Days really helps to show what makes WFRP unique in the pantheon of Fantasy RPG's. It presents an opportunity for characters to explore the Empires high society and the cultured elite, whilst getting into all sorts of trouble. The multi-plot hooks are a genius way to explore this farce.

Finally we have the Gnome renaissance! Gnomes are back as a playable character species. To my delight they've been brilliantly reworked to fit the WFRP world in a much more compelling way. Significantly they are no longer the poorer cousins of dwarfs, they are their own thing. They have more in common with the darker tales of gnomes and small folk from European folk lore. Inherently magical, they have an affinity to the dark colour of magic, and a new talent "Suffuse with Ulgu". These Gnomes are natural illusionists, and very hard to find if they dont want to be found. Three new Gnome gods are presented. The old Gnome god Ringil is there but is now the god of Merriment, Entertainment, and Trickery - The previous smithing aspect has been dropped in the reworking - These are very much WFRP Gnomes, suitably dark, mysterious and magical.

And the final curtain call is "Pub Games". A selection of pub games is provided along with fun rules for each of them. Clearly a lot of work has gone into crafting this section of the book. The Old World is a rich world and these games as well as being fun, really help to bring the Old World alive. I can see a game of "Dwile Flonking" quickly getting out of hand.

This is an exceptional release from Cubicle7. I highly recommend it.