NWO is a long awaited continuation of the revised Convention books for Mage the Ascension. Within we get an excellent ... http://darkerdaysradio.posterous.com/#!/review-convention-book-nwo-mage-the-ascension

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What more can I say than this being another great little addition to the game, exploring the grim life of the Rookeries of London, providing new NPCs, locations and storyhooks. As always great art, and excellent material, plus a host of new rules and feats and merits for characters.

Left Handed Path is one of those must have books. You could say that with a lot of Mage the Awakening books, but this one offers a lot for your money.

Left Handed Path of course covers those mages that follow paths to magic that go against the Pentacle mages, or the Seers of the Throne. The mages are either outlaws, having broken Consilium law and caused trouble, the mad, Abyss worshipping Scelesti, or the soul devouring Reapers and Tremere. With all these groups covered in detail many new options are provided or expanded upon, give plenty of ideas and suggestions for antagonists for your games.

Read the rest at http://darkerdaysradio.posterous.com/#!/left-handed-path-review

Necropolis expands upon the basic zombie, post-apocalyptic, neo-Victorian setting, and introduces the more spiritual and mental horrors of the setting. Ghosts, psychics and the mad. Once more the book is gorgeous monochrome with excellent art and photography that drives home the theme and mood of this part of the setting. Writing is once more provided by Jason Soles (Warmachine/Hordes/Iron Kingdoms RPG), Nicole Vega, and additional work is provided by Simon Berman, amongst others. George Higham who also wrote content is also the sculptor for the cover art of the book. Speaking of art, we once more have work by Brian Snoddy (Privateer Press artwork for Warmachine and Hordes) and Melissa Uran (Exalted). We also have great photography of awesome looking models.

Read the rest of the review at http://darkerdaysradio.posterous.com/#!/review-unhallowed-necropolis

Fools Rush In is a great little story for people new to the game, and to Iron Kingdoms.

Fools Rush In is an introductory scenario for the new edition of the game. It marks the departure from the previous D20 edition and showcases their new rules and the refinement of the setting that has happened as the table top wargames - Warmachine and Hordes - have grown.

First up Iron Kingdoms is not Steampunk. Nor is it Mecha Fantasy. Think more Napoleonic/Sharpe/Pirates of the Caribbean with magic, fantasy races (Elves, Dwarves, Goblins), and of course the magic tech aka Mechanik, which allows for the creation of devices like muskets that fire off spells, magic steam-powered armour, and of course the show piece of the setting, the Steamjacks. Steamjacks are steam powered, magically crafted automatons used for labour and war.

The pdf is a full colour example of what the full rpg book will be, using the excellent art that Privateer Press has built up over the years. Also provided are battle maps to print out, character markers, and the excellent and simple character sheets.

Now the meat of the pdf. The rules themselves are a adaption of the Wamachine/Hordes rules. This means that these rules take up less than 3 or so sides of A4. Yes it's that simple. Combat is fast paced, with single rolls to hit and then to deal damage. No sequences of rolls to hit, dodge, parry, damage, soak etc. Showing how the wargame is not Warhammer, and how the rpg in many respects is just as quick for combat as the New World of Darkness.

Now of course you my think, damn, I need minis for this. But with a bit of effort and hand waving the game will run fine without minis to represent the fights. Now I would side with using minis for big set piece fights. And really that is just a nice excuse for me to buy their great value minis to paint.

While Fading Sun's revised is an great product for people new to the setting, with all the rules and setting in one place, with adequate rules improvements, the one thing it lacks to make it excellent is a more brave take on the game. Hence why this is only a revised game, not a whole new edition. For those who have the previous version and all the setting material this may not be the book for you.

This book is a must have for games that really delve into the Crone and Lancea, and offers players a deeper magic experience. Now of course there is some talk that this book steps on the toes of Mage, but really it just takes what Mage does well, and gives back to Vampire a more dirty, street, improvised magic.

More at http://darkerdaysradio.posterous.com/#!/blood-sorcery-sacraments-and-blasphemies-the

An excellent addition to Rogue Trader, providing a whole host of creatures and races to use in games (along with some some good rules for building new ones). It's a shame that some of the iconic creatures of the 40K universe were not included (where are the Genestealers!?!?!?) but we do get expanded rules for Orks, Eldar and demons.

As always, excellent art and writing which you expect for a product that has such a wealth of material to draw upon.

Strange Dead Love is a great little addition to Vampire the Requiem. It acts as a sort of answer and antidote to the high profile vampire media that has focused on the subject of Vampires and love.

Strange Dead Love of course meets the high standards that White Wolf set out to achieve, with new art and excellent writing.

Primarily SDL provides a number of shards that offer different potential stories or chronicles to run. Some may seem obvious, but having such a collection laid out for use is great if you desire to inject into your game stories and themes that focus on romance, love, and how twisted and tragic such things become with Vampires.

These shards not only offer story ideas, but they also offer new game remixes, and so changing the manner in which the game is played (for example one shard is all about show casing the secret politics of the characters in order to make a drama filled game not unlike a soap opera).

Of course there is a chapter on that looks into how to fully replicate the paranormal romance chapter, and in particular, how to accommodate such stories in a group of players, for some of whom such themes are not the focus of their part of the game.

Overall a nice addition if you need to show players how romance is not a boring game theme.

Now one of the strengths of the NWoD line is the basic mortals game. This book builds on it and adds loads of great new things.

Second Sight is broken down into a few key chapters.

Chapter 1 looks at the different types of powers and sources of power in general, and how to include them in your games.

Chapter 2 looks at psychic powers, and boy there are a lot of them. All of them take the form of merits, or various ranks, and span a wide range of powers. If you wanted some guidelines on how to run a X-Men type game I would look at these rules. These powers are a great addition and really allow mortal characters some cool new tricks that would make such characters a great addition to any of the game lines, or just a good addition to a mortals game that emulates things like Supernatural, X-Files or Fringe.

Chapter 3 introduces low magic. Again it uses the merit system, and there are 5 distinct flavours. This is basically Hedge Sorcery for NWoD. The magic is slow and not as powerful as that for Mage, but it does lack paradox, and offers a great route to play mages awakening having dabbled in low sorcery.

Chapter 4 gives us the outer dark. Think Cthulhu. Yes monsters of the outer void, mind-bending terror, and cultists. All of this is already within games like Mage, but here it is approached in a manner more suitable for the mortals (or non-mage) game. Again there are a host of foul abilities for monsters and cultists born of these maddening entities.

Finally there is a story in the appendix that is ready to run which deals with the 'Power', a earth-shattering power that is out of control.

Really get this book. The art lends to the content well, and in total is a must have 'Blue' book.

Changeling the Lost is one of the all time stars of the New World of Darkness.

Changeling the Lost is a book crammed packed with story potential, with some of the creepiest gameplay ever. While other games focus on the horror of what people have become, be it a Vampire, a Werewolf, or a power mad Mage, Changeling looks at the creeping paranoia of a being a Changeling, a person who was taken by the Fae, and who has now return to Earth, some how escaping her captivity.

In the game you play people, taken away by the Fae, for strange reasons, and return to the world changed by their durance. They have new abilities, and have to cope with a world where time has flowed differently to how they have experience it, or worse, where they have been replaced.

A changeling's life then is a struggle to find one's life again, reconciling their strange nature, and dealing with the maddening influence of the Fae on how they now see reality.

The rules themselves are fairly standard for a White Wolf game, with only Pledges being a little tricky. The character options really offer a lot of different ways to play the game, and with so many other rules for exploring dreams, the Hedge, and magical trinkets, you will find it hard to exhaust the book in a single chronicle.

If you want a game where fairytales are real, and very very creepy. This is it.

The Danse Macabre is quite a major addition to the line. While other games released after Requiem have become more and more distinct from their Classic version, Requiem had the trouble of being seen as too similar to Masquerade. This also meant that the later game lines have also benefited from the game system becoming more and more well realized.

Thus The Danse Macabre is in some ways Vampire going through it's siblings and pillaging the best bits. The result is a huge tome filled with various bits you could possibly add to your game or use to create a new chronicle that has a distinct new feeling.

Chapter one looks at the Tier system, and how the game works at each tier. Something with have seen used in Hunter the Vigil and Geist the Sin-Eaters. it's discussion with respect to Vampire helps in allowing players and the Storyteller to have a better focus on what their chronicle should be. For each tier we get some sample chronicle/story ideas, which are designed to help look at the specifics of gameplay at each of these tiers. Furthermore, there are great insights given for each of the Clans at each of the tiers and how each Clan has specific issues with each of the tiers. We also get the same sorts of discussions for each of the Covenants. the net result is that we understand the nuances of Clan and Covenant at each tier, and how life can differ for vampires of similar power and age. We are also given 'Rules Shifts', which are options that can be used to further enhance the themes and moods of each tier.

Chapter 1 also adds in new optional merits and powers, plus an interesting series of new merits, called Masquerade and Requiem. These new merits essentially add back into Requiem the equivalent of a Nature and Demeanour system for those familiar with Vampire the Masquerade.

Chapter 2 looks at the Covenants in more depth, and in particular offers new, global, versions of each of the 5 main Covenants, allowing for a setting more akin to Classis Vampire the Masquerade. These escalated versions of the Covenants are given new titles, new positions for their members to fill, new merits and powers. Furthermore, the chapter introduces brand new Covenants, some of which are particularly strange and hideous, there even being one that allows for cross over with Changeling the Lost. Hell there is even one new Covenant that builds upon the idea of the God Machine (remember that in the WoD Core book!)

Chapter 3 is in some ways the sister chapter to Invite Only, and gives more detailed rules for social combat (first seen in Exalted 2nd ed). For me this is the sort of chapter you print out to have on hand to aid in the roleplaying of those scenes where you have many characters talking, and you as the Storyteller just can't do all that roleplaying. This then helps boil the scene down to the key conflicts, be it swaying a jury of vampires, shouting down a rival at a party, or directing a mob.

Further additions in this chapter are Tilts (cool combat scene modifications), how to run a montage for things that take place over long time periods and using Disciplines within those scenes, alternative morality rules, and Banes (a representation of a vampire's distance from humanity as he loses Humanity). We are also given an in depth look at Devotions, how they are created and the trials vampires go through to create them.

Chapter 4 is then a look at how to put a lot of these things together. The chapter is filled with sample chronicles, in a similar way to things such as New Wave Requiem, Mage Noir, and Victorian Lost.

Overall a great book, that will be hard to exhaust, and is ideal for any of the game lines as it can provide new rules and also new antagonists.

Victorian Lost is a great book to prime you for running games set in Victorian London. The books includes great tips on running stories so that they emulate Penny Dreadfuls and other similar fiction styles of the time. Also included are a few new kiths, powers, and also some sample chronicles and stories to run, along with a whole motely to use in games.

Now note, I said primer. That means that this book does not include a in depth discussion of the Victorian period. Instead the focus is on how to get the right sort of feeling and mood into your games.

Other gems are the great artwork, hints for LARP games using this setting, and of course great short stories.

Now my only tips? This book in conjunction with Victorian Age Vampire would make for a more complete look at the Victorian period.