Some call it D20 Light. Some gripe that it's so much like OD&D that they can get OD&D clones for free.

Bah!

I call it Light, all right -- Light hearted and fun! What gives PFRPG its edge, is the fun and almost-whimsical tone of the writing. The style is friendly and encourages reading.

As to playing -- Well, a lot of people like the Knacks. It's a good skill system which doesn't go off into Feat-land, a place which still gives me shudders! The various classes are fun - there are some which are significantly strange that I'd love to play them.

There are some quibbles with realism. My experience is that a person in combat who goes berserk is going to take MORE damage, not less. That's why we trained so thoroughly, so that when a panic situation occurred, we would NOT go berserk. Trust me, I've seen people (fortunately, very few) who "lost it" and became real machines of destruction -- but left their defenses wide open.

I could see this ruleset encouraging good roleplaying and well-structured adventures. Unfortunately for me, I really can't see myself using PFRPG when my two favorite FRPGs (Castles & Crusades and Tunnels & Trolls) cover everything I want or need in a fantasy RPG. There's nothing here to really pull me away from either of those two. And nobody's selling extra hours for the day or extra days for the week....

If you haven't found your perfect rolegame yet, or if you're willing to try something new, you could do worse than try this game. Unlike most rulesets, it's fun to read. And you might get a few good ideas from it, even if you never actually play it as written.

Peryton's gimmick is its Knack system, which is a good idea. The book has a decent layout; the cover is it's best art. Because it reads like ODaD, it inherits some of the problems of its "parent". There is some innovation here, but not enough to justify the cost if you already have a free copy of some other ODaD clone; save your money if this is so.

Two aspects of this retro-d20 game I like:

1. the knacks system--Castles & Crusades could take a page from Peryton here;

2. the write-ups of the Mystic, a class less like the Monk of standard d20 and more like an archetypal guru [Jedi, minus the light saber]; and the Templar, a cross between the d20 Cleric and Paladin;

Aspects of the game I don't like:

1. too few classes;

2. the magical class it retains is the Gygaxian Wizard; the OD&D convention I like the least is the guy lugging the spell book into the dungeon.

Basically, this is a solid game, but is it better than free retro-d20 fixes, namely Basic Fantasy? No.

d20 Lite, this game uses the d20 system but without skills in a way. It uses whats called knacks, skills you get as you try doing certain things many times between levels, when you say try and ride a horse many times, when you advance to the next level, you can add it as a knack and have an easier time at riding horses. It kinda reminds me of the old 2e AD&D amalgamated with the 3.0 D&D d20 system somewhat. It makes it quite easy to use Monster Manuals from D&D 3.x and modules with PFRPG.

Liked: A simplified d20 version and open gaming system.

Disliked: Not much, it could use more monster pictures, this seems to be the way most OGL books are anymore, lack of monster art.

Overall its a nice workable set of rules based on the d20 OGL and some old school rpg systems, I recommend them to anyone looking for a game without feats and tons of skills.