I was really excited when DTR announced PoD. As this is my first order of printed book from them, and pdf version was already reviewed by others I'll concentrate only on print quality and technical aspects of books offered in DTR PoD.

1) Cover is amazing. I ordered hardcover version and was really pleased how it looks. Vivid colors, glossy finish, solid binding. A+ 2) Interior print quality. There is small banding problem, perfectly visible on full-page artworks but its not that bad. Text is razor-sharp. Everything has a slight gloss. "Weird info" for printed books lovers - PoD book don't have that specific paint smell. Too bad. Overall, printing quality is really good. B+ due to banding problems. 3) Interior paper is below your average printed RPG source book quality. It's really white - which is nice, but of very small substance (g/m2). Its really, really thin. B

So, it looks like everything is wonderful. Unfortunately, it isn't.

THERE IS NO BLEED! NO BLEED ON INTERIOR PAGES! GOD, HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE IN A XXI CENTURY?!

That's right. On every page you have that disastrous, ugly, ridiculous white border. Even on those with full page art. It's ugly. It's raping my sense of aesthetics.

How is this possible? Well, i can think of two possibilities: 1) Ligtingsource prints only on fixed paper sheets (say A5, A4 and so on), not using a cutter. Thus, pdfs are slightly scaled down to fit on page. Witch results with ugly, uneven white border around the page. If thats true, then Lightingsource is a really bad digital printer.

or

2) LS prints on paper of any size, but DTR has no "quality check" over materials issued for print. Publishers rushed to what seemed "easy additional money", without properly preparing their source files.

I was expecting that I'll receive a quality product, but I ended with two shoddy articles (no-bleed problem is present in two -of two - books I ordered). I'm seriously considering asking for a refund. I feel cheated.

I was really excited when DTR announced PoD. Hoping to get Wraith in PoD. Sadly, seems like I need to look after that on e-bay.

Please note - Mirrors are a great book. They aren't great PoD pod. My rating goes for a "technical" quality, not for this book "substance".

This reminds me very clearly of the first edition book ‘Unearthed Arcana’ and effectively it does many of the same things – just for the World of Darkness. I must admit a little confusion as the advertising before publication didn’t lead me to believe that this was the type of book that it turned out to be – however, it is well worth purchasing. The book presents a number of different ways to play and to tweak the mechanical aspects of the Storyteller System, including alternatives for streamlined play, advice for one-shot games, a discussion on morality systems and how they flavour a chronicle and even methods of altering the morality systems to suit your game. Of great interest was the suggestion of a Reason statistic. Reason functions in the same way as SAN for Cthuhlu and is a useful way of charting how forbidden knowledge impairs the characters ability to interact with the ‘real world’. The other major value lies in the series of short essays (much like those found in the oWoD Storytellers Guides) which give a lot of food for thought.

In all, the book works as a toolbox, which is both its greatest strength and weakness. Its strength lies in practical advice to tailor the rules to your particular type of play experience and all of the ideas are extremely easy to implement. However, this isn’t something you’ll need for every game, and fills the niche of a reference book. It is its’ reference nature that would make me prioritise other titles that I would use more often for a purchase. It would be perfect if you are trying to start a new, or reinvigorate and old, chronicle, and as such is much more of a storyteller title.

Although the core mechanics of the World of Darkness line are (mercifully) transparent and mutable, 'WOD: Mirrors' takes the flexibility of the system to its furthest extremes. In short, almost any sort of addition or replacement to the core mechanics that you may ever (as a player or a storyteller) have wanted to see changed is probably covered somewhere in this book.

It is a fine reminder of just how much manipulation the basic mechanics can take.

Everyone will respond to different aspects of what is offered here and for the most part, readers & gamers can cherry pick the adaptions they like and ignore (or further alter) those they fine disagreeable. The book is somewhat lighter on expanding the narrative universe, however. There is some attention paid to possible alternate realities, but this section of the book feels a bit less enthusiastic then the straight mechanical alterations.

Still and all, there is much to think about here and much to test out around a gaming table.

This has quickly become my favorite book for the World of Darkness and has been featured on several episodes of Shark Bone and will be making future appearances, I'm sure. The book has several alternate systems for just about every facet of the Storyteller system. It's just like anything in the system; if you like it, use it. If you don't, kick it to the side. Or, as I like to do, change it until I do like it. This book is your cookbook for making the World of Darkness be the game system and setting you want it to be. If I could rate this with more stars than 5, I would. I highly recommend this book.

If there's ever anything that irked you about the Storytelling System, this is a book that lets you toy with the mechanics on pretty much every level imaginable, from the character creation rules to the way combat works, all the way to getting rid of Virtue/Vice and Morality and replacing them with alternatives.

The things that I liked the most, however, were the rules that added to and expanded the game as opposed to revising what currently exists. There's a social combat system called Sway that seems rather solid, so much so that I may adopt it for use across all my games. Another mechanic that I really enjoyed was called Anticipation, which once per session lets a player make a roll to insert a flashback scene explaining how their character was smart enough to have anticipated their current predicament and taken steps against it.

The final chapter goes into alternative takes on a chronicle, from a World of Darkness where mortals are aware of the supernatural to a dozen different flavors of apocalypse scenarios. Finally it presents a modern fantasy take on the World of Darkness, which oddly enough presents a brief version of a unified cosmology for all the game lines. It is by no means the official word on the nature of the World of Darkness, but it is certainly interesting enough to merit an experimental play session.

Probably what I enjoyed the most, however, was the Appendix, which featured the various writers waxing philosophical on their favorite house rules, some of which were in the vein of "I Hate Experience Points: So Here's How to Get Rid of Them," but all were interesting to read, and all presented valid reasons for their changes.

I've heard rumors of a PDF expansion to this book that will contain Sci-fi material. As much as I look forward to that release, I must say that I was very satisfied with what I found in this book. The Afterword has made a lot of fans worried that White Wolf is getting out of the RPG business altogether, and the lack of communication from the once talkative company has been of some concern, but I've been assured by multiple sources that they are merely changing their publishing model; core rulebooks for their game lines will be 'evergreen,' meaning always in print, while their supplements will be moving to PDF, and later Print on Demand once their setup is complete. But as far as the last traditionally published supplement for core World of Darkness goes, this was a pretty solid release and I feel that it was well worth the wait.

Now if we can just convince White Wolf to stop using scribendi for their editing...

OK sourcebook on different styles of play for NWOD, also gives info on playing different alternate realities.