So to be honest, I first became interested in this title because of Stranger Things. I began role playing in the mid 80’s, so the nostalgia is also very compelling. I am the GM of my family group the consists of my wife, our two daughters and their husbands. I was looking for something new for the group, something that I thought the group would enjoy and be a change from the norm. Now, both of my daughters are Stranger Things fans also, so I knew they should be on board to give it a try. And my wife, in the same age as I, also loves the nostalgia of the 80’s. So the husbands will just have to come along for the ride.

So as I prepped our first adventure, I realized that this wasn’t Stranger Things. Yes you could make it that, but you could also make it Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, Roswell or any of those paranormal dramas that have existed that I have always been drawn to. And I knew my audience, so I knew that I could tell so great stories with this system.

I used ideas from the default setting and came up with a local setting that the players would be familiar with, even with the change in the era. And I crafted the first of hopefully many Big Bads for my players to encounter. We had our session 0 and we went over characters and the rules/ mechanics of the game. The mechanics were simple enough to learn for anyone that has played a D20 based system before, so that didn’t slow anyone down. And the aesthetics in book definitely helped to bring the feel of the 1980’s into the game. While creating characters, I made all of the players roll randomly for backgrounds which provided for some very interesting future story hooks.

Finally game night came and the adventure began. The players, portraying high school students at an end of the summer carnival, encountered a creepy clown. I did my best clown laugh and poked fun at my son-in-law, who was playing a jock, and irritated my wife a little. But then the news of the missing 6 yo twins sent the carnival crowd into a panic. But you know how snoopy teenagers are.

The adventure continued as the players tracked the whereabouts of the children and the possibility that this clown was something a little more sinister. The players were all involved, and had different play styles due to only 3 of them have any really physical abilities. It was cool to see what someone with the Kid Scientist class could come up with to aid in the adventure.

I know this seems like more of a replay of our game session than a review, but let me tell you. We had a seven hour game session. This was probably the longest session that we have had, and it flew by because everyone was involved and having fun. There wasn’t anyone just standing by waiting because there wasn’t anything for them to do. We were able to tell a great story and enjoy it, and the rules didn’t get in the way.

I have always loved Pathfinder 1e because of the crunchiness of the mechanics and the almost endless amount of options there are within the game. But this game made me remember why I love role playing games - to tell great stories, and to have a good time sharing those stories with others. This game let me do that.

I have already picked up several other Survive This!! titles and I am planning on incorporating the material in those books into my game. The game is basic enough to learn easily and open enough to expand in any direction you want your adventures to go.

The only negative to the system (if I had to pick a negative) is that there is not a CR for monsters. There is what is called Hit Dice Equivalence, but there is no formula to calculate that. It is more on the GM to decide just how deadly a creature they create is, based on the examples provided in the book. This doesn’t cause a problem with the game, I think it is more a thing that I’m use to for a D20 game. Overall I think this is a great game. I plan on running it for the foreseeable future, and will review the other products as I use them in my game. It’s been a long time since I’ve had this much fun creating a world and it’s inhabited, and I look forward to what I come up with each day.

My wife looked at me when everyone left after our game session and asked “You’re really having fun creating this, aren’t you?” “Yes I am” I replied. “Great, just don’t do that creepy clown laugh when we’re alone…”