This game is pretty great. As others have said, it really does scratch that city builder itch, with the tension of being attacked and dungeon exploration built in. It makes me think of a really simplified paper version of Warcraft 3.

The mechanics are clever, and I honestly found the rules to be fairly clear. After reading through it once, I just started a game and looked things up as I went. Since the rules are only on 1 page, finding a specific rule is very easy and after finishing my first game (with a score of -17

The monsters, the backgrounds, and the adventures are helpful and creative. It's nice to have some staple fantasy creatures statted-out, monster manual style.

My issue is the editing. After giving the new version a quick read over, there were quite a few issues - incomplete sentences, wierd layout, and some aspects of monsters that either weren't explained or just missing. For example, for the Hydra Heads: "Multiheaded (When combining its snapping jaws or headbutt..." but it only has a snapping jaws attack, no headbutt.

The new art is well-suited, too. 5/5 for content, -1 for editing.

This is a really great resource. Rather than a how-to manual, just a collection of essays by authors with very different perspectives. There are many points I can take from here in my gaming (I GM a fantasy game in a custom setting) and the nature of the works means each time I read an essay again I get some new insight.

Nothing amazing, but there is still a good variety of images. I like that there are different art styles, too. I mean, it's probably not enough for your published product, but if you can use a couple to enhance the look and save some cash on custom art, it's worth your time.

Sure, it's a bit of a bother that a lot of this is for Adobe Indesign only, which you're not going to have unless you're a professional, but the included .pdf does have a lot of information about the fonts, headers, etc, that are needed, and it's not too hard to create stuff in other applications. I guess the question is do you value the convenience at $30/month? Honestly, just fidding around with LibreOffice for a few hours gets pretty close, though whether that's publishable on the Foundry is a different story.

The feature I think is lacking is the colours. I had to go to Drainsmith's wonderful dispensary of everything to find the RGB codes for the different blues, orange, red, etc, used in the document. It would be great if they were included in .pdf template.

Exactly what it says on the tin. No art or icon sets - just explanations for how to style your document written for the Genesys Foundry, and I think it's written pretty well. Including it as a .docx file allows you to see the actual styles used, though since it doesn't mention fonts, colours, or sizes, I'm not entirely sure if the ones used on the document are correct. I think you need this plus the "Genesys Foundry Graphic Design Templates" to really create your own documents.

The guide to Laketown is really fun to read. I love the new options and the extra lore about this place which was rather important in the Hobbit story.

The Loremaster screen is also extremely useful. I just printed it out to keep in a display folder, so there is still a bit of flipping back and forth, but I find some of these rules hard to remember so it's great.

I did get this pretty cheap as part of a deal, so I'm not entirely it's worth paying full price for this digital-only version, but the Laketown guide is still extremely valuable.

This game is pretty fun. I believe it does well to capture the feel of the LotR universe, though some of the supernatural elements in some of the adventures (e.g. monstrous plant thing) don't seem to quite fit. As a GM running this for two players, I've enjoyed reading the background information included and the adventure seeds.

I do think that some parts of the game require a little bit too much dice rolling, though. I think the combat system is elegant, but in the base game your available actions are little lacking. Travelling seems cool, but as the GM I found it a little tedious. I built a flowchart to help and it has 15 elements to it. Cool, but a little too much. Also, the rules for extended encounters are a little funny and I found it very difficult to do anything except what was made explicit in the adventure text.

It's sad that the new edition has been halted, but there is a still a lot of content for this game. If the players and GM love LotR, I think you'll enjoy this, but if not, give it a pass.