An interesting, curious, whimsical and delighting work. Wonderfully written and designed, packed with great ideas and tools. The only thing missing are more adventures to use with it! I hope some modules end up coming some day, as this really deserves further love and content.

I love this book. There is all you need: rules, examples, tons of tables and a starter dungeon. At first I was afraid that the rules were a bit overkill, but it worked flawlessly and my players had a blast exploring The Smoke and The Lindsore Estate. *****

First off. this book was a blast to read, I really enjoyed the humor and rules presentation, like it is explained in character, but not too over done.

Second, and this is the best bit, is all the tables! I have to be honest and say I probably wouldn't ever run this game with it's ruleset, I tend to stick to Scarlet Heroes when solo-ing or Troika/DCC/D&D 5e when playing with friends.

Before reading, I was most interested the city generation tables to play with other systems, and am definitely going to nick a lot from this book.

Full disclosure - I am a fan of almost everything and anything Melsonia touches and they kindly sent me a free preview for hanging out in their Discord. Beyond that, I'm not affiliated with them.

Please trust me here though that, from my (almost totally unbiased) perspective, I am incredibly excited for this game - as evidenced by me buying it again here even though I already own a preview.

The setting is engaging, the magic system is brilliant, and, best of all, the book is well written - like an actual book and not just using plain "rules-manual" vocab. Several genuine laughs escaped me when reading the rules in this, and that is rare to come by with any RPG book.

So yeah, Swyvers; this is very much one to watch. My only comment is that it is a little crunchier than I'm used to, and packed FULL of tables, so maybe a boxset (or bookmarked PDF) in the future would be appreciated. That, alongside a play/combat example and comprehensive price sheets maybe. Yet saying that, I've never seen a physical copy so maybe I'll change my mind when I can thumb through it with my greasy fingiees proper-like.

But to restate; this is very much one to keep an eye on if you like grotty, gritty, games - because the Blinking Larry will CERTAINLY keep an eye on it otherwise...

Swyvers is a game that is written like a Swyver is teaching you his trade. It will almost certainly be the game gets my players to do character voices, and it has some of the most unique mechanics I've used in a tabletop game.

The magic is interesting, mysterious and way deeper than the player thinks it is, you kind of get to reveal the layers to the magic system as time goes on, and it just kinda makes it all FEEL more mystical, unknown, and interesting.

I love that Skill checks are Roll under so the player always knows what they are aiming for, but the number of DICE you roll is determined by the GM, this is great because it lets the GM have a lot more RANGE between difficulties. Fewer increments that mean more are easier for me to parse, and the player always knows their targets. This also has a side effect of making skill checks physically feel more challenging as the higher number of dice clatters around in your hands.

It also generates a world for you! And these kinds of games are my favorite. It gives it all more of a boardgame like structure to me, and lightens the load for any "writing" I might have to do. The world is also CHARMING and the characters give it meaning. I thought it was just a little passing joke when it mentioned "The town has a real name but the players don't know it" and when you generate the smoke, you give you town a real name.

It does a very great job of building the world around the perspective of an illiterate violent criminal. Swyvers is going to be a CLASSIC I recommend to anyone who wants a game where you play as the bad guys.

Very thematic system, it just oozes flavour and does a few interesting things (magic as blackjack etc). Can't wait to sink my teeth into the full release.

If a PDF could be a piece of art, this one would be a Victorian painting…that was stolen, of course. Full of some of the most flavorful writing I’ve ever read in an RPG and tons of tables that let players organically interact with a campaign’s criminal underworld, lending a sense of verisimilitude to any tabletop - whether using the clear and concise Swyvers ruleset or any other. Can’t wait for the full physical release.

What a joyride this was. I got an email with a drawing of some pigs and of course I clicked it. The link took me to a very weird and quite inexpensive RPG. I would be somewhat suspicious, but those were pigs I clicked, so I trusted it implicitly and bought the thing without even checking the preview. And wow, this looks like tons of fun.

You know when you read stories about old London and our hero, or their weaker companion, ends up in an alleyway surrounded by disgusting ugly caricatures who should be beaten up by the hero? Here, you get to play those caricatures, ideally without getting beaten up that often.

Characters and RPG in general feel a bit like Warhammer frpg, but in a completely urban setting and you don't play anything remotely close to a hero. It also has a bit of that OSR mindset "simple rules, avoid rolling the dice". Characters have only physical stats, which is excellent for all of us smart and pretty people who can now use our amazing intelligence and charm without any dice rolls ruining that. Most of the book is tables. Tons and tons of random tables.

While I'm usually not a fan of random tables designed to make you laugh while reading through them, these actually work. Other "funny" tables are full of boring choices that are only here so it makes you laugh because you read the previous row, but don't work by themselves. But in these tables, most of the results do work without disappointing you. They could confuse you, shock you, even enrage you, but they will not disappoint you.

As I said, you play the lowlife scum obviously inspired by Warhammer's rat catchers, beggars or charcoal burners, but you don't advance to a hero that saves the world. You really don't save anyone. You steal, kill, maim and cheat to get money and go party. Partying raises your social status, but is also a set of tables that tell a story of how you got drunk as hell and ended up in trouble, which includes fines, jailtime, debts and sometimes even an affair with a noble.

Most games don't do "magic is rare and scary" right. This one does. Magic is hard to get, random, disgusting and VERY dangerous, I love it.

This is a preview version that doesn't have an intro adventure yet, but the game provides many tables to generate your own little places, jobs and situations. All in all, highly recommended if you can find a group of lowlifes depraved enough to play this.