This game does everything it says it does!

And what a unique game! Want a game GUARANTEED to be over in about 90 minutes? Are you a GM who can run with 0-prep--just a few randomly generated Story Seeds? This game does it!

And it does it in any genre, with a very innovative "pacing" mechanic. As the scenario progesses, players BURN abilities to leverage the odds, until they no longer have anything left to BURN, and somehow this always seems to come down to the climax of the tale, at which point the players must ask themselves: Are they ready to "give it all" to succeed at the challenge? If the game experience in this scenario is just a one-shot--the format for which the game specifically is designed--then the answer is: "Of course we are!"

The game also is inspiring in its presentation. What a cool layout! And, as one pages through the book, the look and feel--while remaining clearly branded BURN2d6!--subtly and ingeniously changes with the genre. It's a beautiful product.

To me, this isn't exactly a “game.” This is Finch’s interpretation of the Original Rules, along with some commentary about what was or wasn't in the First Publication, about how others have interpreted/run it, concluding with: Now how are YOU going to run it? I run it at conventions "my way," because the core of this is the lingua franca most any gamer knows. But my most fun has been in a Long Game with a group who argues over rulings until we end up with our own great system that is built on the S&W chassis. In this way, this is the ultimate Tool Kit, and, because of Finch's lucid, explanatory prose, it is my favorite rpg to reread.

I don’t think I’ve enjoyed reading a campaign setting so much as I have the Ice Kingdoms. I’m a collector of North-inspired settings and systems, and I’ve learned that my personal game preferences lean more into Viking fantasy than “authentic” or historical representations (this is partly why I abandoned an Yggdrasill campaign) of Viking Age belief, culture and legend. My current game is set in Middle-earth, and I think my next one might incorporate wholly the Ice Kingdoms into the north-central portion of MERP’s mega-continent Arda. Ice Kingdoms evokes a wondrous sword & sorcery, early Middle Ages northern milieu and should be a natural fit for a human centric Fourth Age Middle-earth.

Of secondary pleasure, to me, is watching the authors use decidedly old school sensibilities to achieve this ethos and experience. Personally, I intend to use Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC and some early Rolemaster for my upcoming game. So the authors’ rules systems preferences admittedly is another reason why I enjoy this supplement so much.

The first four chapters entail the usual descriptions and explanations of northern culture, a necessary but (for this reader) tedious offering in books of this nature. (Did I mention that I collect northern-flavored rpgs and settings? Seriously, I have most of them—ICE Vikings, 2e Vikings, Vikings of Legend, Mythic Iceland, Codex Nordica, Yggdrasill, many others. I add these so that you understand that I have points of comparison with Ice Kingdoms.) I suppose that, for this genre of campaign setting, such content is as requisite as “What is Role Playing?” in a typical rules system. However, the authors of Ice Kingdoms still make this interesting and worth reading, probably because of how they mingle the “known ethos and geography” with their own world building.

My interest increases even more while reading about the authors’ pantheon and religious system, which is a slightly weirded and syncretic version of the Northern mythology we already know. This empowers Referees to use these deities and practices “how they want,” liberated from any “canon” of the world’s or the authors’ creation. It also prevents any players versed in mythology from guessing the game world’s “reality.” It also ensures that the game experience takes place in a secondary world. And this secondary world is intriguing, fantastical and numinous while remaining grounded and “realistic.” I particularly like the Gardens of Woe—which is eldritch and yet feels anthropologically “right”—and the Mournwood Forest, which contains, at its heart, the faerie premise that the wrong thought can release something terrible into the world. The authors’ explanation for human centrism (in a 1e setting) makes sense and feels likewise Tolkienian—right at home in my current game.

I have read a number of Ice Kingdoms adventures, too, and they strike me as usable, versatile, and evocative of the world’s setting and purpose. I’ll be following new additions to the Ice Kingdoms canon for the foreseeable future.

It can go without saying, but this product is evocative of 1986’s Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP) from Iron Crown Enterprises, from the overt homage demonstrated in the color cover to the gorgeous black-and-white interior art to its d100 rules structure and attack and critical tables. But Against the Darkmaster (VsD) is not precisely a retro clone. Instead it articulates a number of innovations that can be adapted to many a rules system.

Traditional high fantasy Kins are matched with Cultures (this is common to many games) to identify base Stats and starting Skills. After this, players spend points (as many as 5, for Human Kins) to differentiate player-characters with starting abilities, items or backgrounds. This is a refinement from MERP’s Background Options Table and one of my favorite features of VsD.

VsD presents an abstracted system for Social Class and Wealth that feels slightly at odds with the deeply granular and simulationist combat system common to the games out of which VsD derives. Furthermore, as a way of decreasing this system’s lethality for PCs, VsD uses PC Drive Points to improve Skill tests and reduce the severity of Critical Hits to PCs.

VsD simply has the best magic system out of the games to which this one might be compared. All lists contain ten spells. No spells are duplicated across lists, making all casters unique. All the spells are "useful" and interesting. None are more powerful versions of other spells. While casting a spell, additional Magic Points might be spent to increase/alter effects or durations.

My group has been playtesting these rules since January of this year. After this campaign, for my GMing style and the pacing of my tabletop stories, I might readapt to a d20 OSR system, but I’ll be porting into it many components from VsD, particularly VsD’s XP system, which rewards PCs for doing things and behaving in character. For these reasons I recommend it, and for d100 gamers who want streamlined Skill development in character creation and advancement as well as gritty, “heavy metal” combat, I highly recommend it. Obviously I’m eager to back the upcoming full release on Kickstarter.