It’s nice to have more technoir since it was such an interesting premise that was quickly unsupported and fell into obscurity. Morenoir doesn’t really add much, however, and ultimately I found it disappointing. It would have been better off as a blog post or twitter feed as the hints and tips here are more high-level ideas than actionable rules.

Simply a 1-page overview for the full game. It has an interesting mechanic and mixes new RPG concepts with some old-school crunch. I was interested enough to buy the full game and so far I'm not disappointed.

This is an amazing product given that it's free. Starting with the negatives - the presentation is text heavy with simple B&W illustrations every-so-often, but what do you expect from a free product. Having said that the writing is good and the layout makes it nice to read. Th download also includes character sheets, a primer and various other worksheets which I'm even thinking of adapting for other games.

The system/game is written like a series of toolkits - making missions, making characters, handling bases, doing missions - it's a very interesting approach and I think it'd work very well for gaming groups who need a quick break from a campaign and just want to have some fun. System is easy to learn and is quick and fun. It's one of these indie-type games with fate-like conditions. Contentions are resolved by building up conditions until an opponent is forced to yield. It'll work well for an energetic and fun time around the table.

The setting puts you/your team as a group of rebels fitting against some evil mastermind. What I perhaps admire most is that the approach to taking down the mastermind; a series of attacks at the various resources and sources of power for the mastermind until they are vulnerable to attack. It's a series of mini-sabotage missions to take down the oppressor.

You can't really fault this - download it and play it now.

Playable game, seemingly a fairly standard old-school d100 system with lots of bonuses and conditional modifiers and table look-ups typical to old-school d100 systems. If you've played something like runequest you'll know what to expect, not that that's a bad thing.

Also checkout the Lost Roads of Lociam official site because there seems to be a growing amount of new material such as sample adventures, GM sheets, character worksheets, etc.

Castlemourn Cortex Quickstart is a quick summary of the cortex rules followed by an introductory adventure. All in all it's a good, well presented and well written pdf. The system seems to work well and the adventure description is clear and characters are interesting.

Pros:

• well written and clear. Adventure is described really well with good overview sections. Some funny and innovative additions to plot.
• cortex explained well and works well with the setting, though magic seems a big complicated at face value (see below).
• not a bad combat/resolution system.
• sample characters explained very well, including narrative around skill and trait selection.
• interesting scene framing for adventure opening - it begins in the middle of a fight with a call for initiative!

Cons:

• text laid out well but text just a bit too small, especially reading on a computer/tablet. Lots of content for 36 pages.
• character traits and possessions can get a bit overwhelming, especially since this is a quick start introductory book.
• adventure throws you in the deep end, perhaps a little too much for a quick start, though it depends on GM prep and familiarity with fantasy settings.

Overall great product, especially for free, and good intro to cortex.

DSURPS is a rules light attempt with the stated goal of being simple yet elegant. Average presentation is the first thing to hit you - text is neatly formatted, but with a few hanging sentences and typos, but tables are pretty ugly. The rules get off to a good start with character creation, which is a point buy system with advantages/disadvantages and skills without the need for attributes/characteristics. The included skills cover a nice list of running, fighting, shooting, talking and knowledge skills that should cover all situations.

Unfortunately DSURPS seems to fall apart near the end and my biggest gripe, and it's a biggy, is that I can't seem to find the rules that actually describe the task resolution system. When I attack I roll d20 vs the opponent's (I think, it's not clear) to hit number, but I don't know what this number is or how to determine it. How to I test skills? Not sure.

It's a free product, so a thumbs up to the author for bothering to put it together and making it available to us but I'm not sure I'd pay money for it.

Not too bad, can read most of the names onscreen and I assume you still could if it was printed big enough (A3 still didn't come out clear enough for me). I'd personally search the net for other maps if you wanted to set a game in the Caribbean, there are a few less detailed, but more usable maps out there.

Set out like all Columbia Games/harn products with the sidebars and wonderful presentation in colour. It feels like a series of summaries, enough to get a priest up and running with a handful of spells each. Harn is a low magic setting so don't expect too much fancy magic in this one. Piety Points (from HM3) are finally explained here, but still left me feeling slightly confused.

Borderline value for money but leaves you wanting more. You might be able to get by without this one but at some stage you're going to want a priest. If you're using harnmaster in a no-magic setting, such as medieval England, the you could give this one a miss.

Everything related to Harn is of the highest quality and always is. Having said that I think that this product is not value for money; it's expensive for pdfs and the magic and religion articles are too light on information for me. Religion does not seem very well fleshed out, while the magic system has a great fundamental base but few spells - they expect you to make your own (you can find huge spell complilations on the web for free though).

Remember that when you are buying this you are only buying the system and not the setting. Either use these rules in another medieval setting or fork out loads more cash for other modules. You really get the feeling that you don't quite have enough to play a game without additional material because of the references to languages, kingdoms, etc. during character generation.

The harnmaster rules are detailed and well refined (after 3 or so revisions). You'll also find houserules and a strong community that will further enhance your game.

A useful reference and how can you go wrong for $0!?

A breath of fresh air. A simple system that trades rules complexity for imagination on the part of the players and GM. The skill system is simple, though perhaps too simple if you want a complex living world with crafting, starvation and other mechanistic things. Task resolution system is simple and unified - also check out the rules addition that simplifies the system even more. It is also a system that is easily expanded on with your own setting, though the default setting is based in feudal europe (setting is only superficially detailed).

uses a step-dice (pool) system which appeals to me without the numerous modifiers that ruined Savage Worlds (for me) and the Burning Wheel (not step-dice but dice pool). Mouse Guard was a touch too abstract for me but CF appeals more too me. Overall this is a game that I wished I'd come up with because it's how games that are meant to be rules light should be made.

A general overview of the US. Bits of information without going into detail. Worth getting if you ever intend to head back to the US, other wise not that much use.

Good adventure full of detail and exciting scenes. Quality of maps is ok but otherwise good. Easily used with v2 or v2.2. Macro combat rules for mass combat are worth a look but are v1 centric.

One of the best source books ever made. Full of maps and details. typical of twilight scenarios it's an open sandbox. For v1 but you wouldn't even know and is ready for inclusion in v2 or 2.2

Good for a few maps and one-off convention style settings. Would be better for MERC but still useful for tw2k.