The Good: This is basically 1st ed. AD&D, with better organization and clarification of rules issues. For example, teleporting to a location you can see is clarified as a "very familiar" location. The spell tables are now alphabetical, not alphabetical by level. All the classic AD&D races and classes have been kept; none of the crazy kits, races, and new classes of 3rd ed. are here, as well as none of the cumbersome rules for "attacks of opportunity." The Bad: This is basically 1st ed. AD&D. There's no unifying mechanic or point-build system. Experience is still given for killing monsters. And so on.

The Good: The PDQ (Prose Descriptive Qualities) is easily incorporated into other systems. Characters are rated by Qualities, but these Qualities also have "penumbras" where they -vaguely- apply. Also, Qualities are divided into -five- stat blocks: Mental, Physical, Social, Professional, and Other. The overall system is applicable to many situations due to its non-specific nature. For example, range is divided into "Near," "Middling," "Far," and "Too Far." Damage serves to reduce Qualities, as chosen by -the player-. The Bad: Players who like their games crunchy, or with setting-specific rules, will probably hate this. Although Qualities are easily adaptable to a given setting, they do not "scale." Period. You can't match Superman against Robin, for example.

The Good: Excellent rules for ship travel , navigation, construction, and crewing that can be adapted for any setting, and most time periods as is. Both normal and magical (flying) ships are included as well as rules for weather. The Bad: None, really. The document may be too large and expensive if you just want to buy it for a specific feature, like just ship travel, but that's a minor quibble.

The Good: A very evocative, balanced setting. Players take the place of small animals, and can use the power of the Way (from Nature) or the Bane (from Man -- always Man with a capital M, no women here!) Think of it as Star Wars meets Glorantha, but set in Redwall. Combatie, evocativelly named "Tooth and Claw" is deadly, with rules for maiming. Most modern tech (magic) is usually instant death. Rules for overpowered NPCs (large animals), monsters (common predators) and new creature generation are also included. The Bad: The setting could have been explictly expanded. The two included adventures take PCs to places that are not listed on the map, or talked about elsewhere in the book.

The Good: It's an RPG about sentient vegetables. There seems to be no other product covering this niche. IMHO, buying this with Tales of the Wood, and Mundi Animalia plus some searching for the "Hyborian Mice" setting would be awesome.

The Bad: The game doesn't nearly live up to its full potential. Although the "awesome items of magic" which are really normal human items are there, veggie culture is poorly developed. The only interesting thing is that broccoli (and other crucficers) are evil (presumably, because no-one likes broccoli :) ) The crucifierian vegetables could be written as a Aztec-style veggie-sacrificing religion, while the other veggies are a dying-rising god religion. I'd also like more alternatives for the possible origin of the veggies...not to spoil anything, but it's basically a Deux Ex Machina