The hex crawl has a lot to offer with a myriad of ways to handle it. Unfortunately, this PDF offers very little that isn't already in the core books, whether it is Labyrinth Lord or the classic Expert set. In all fairness, it does say in the description "Compiled directly from the Labyrinth Lord core rulebook," but I expected at least a commentary on those steps with perhaps alternatives. Without that additional material, this PDF has little to offer. It is a PWYW product with a low suggested price, but it should be billed as a primer priced at $0.00. The most useful part was the resources section with links to blogs that offered much more content.

The cover of this product gives you a good idea of what you're getting. Inside is a keyed legend with a marked map, another that highlights the different districts in separate colors, a plain b/w line version for you to mark up how you like, and the sepia version from the front. That's it, but that's all they advertise and it's all I need. The rest is left to you to fill in to your needs.

What I particularly like is the scope of the map. Most maps I encounter are sprawling high medieval to renaissance layouts. While those certainly have a role, Black Hand Source has the potential to fill out a good niche in offering smaller maps. If you play in a fantasy game with a younger, earlier civilization -- or if you have a need for a small walled town -- this is a good map with plenty of inspiration. However, be prepared to do some work and write in the details yourself.

I'd easily rate the product at 5 starts, but the price is a little high and loses one for value. There are other products that offer similar amount of pages (I don't count blue or black versions of the the exact map as separate pages) for about $2. Still, I'm happy to have purchased this product and hope they continue to do more and create a series.

I've used Mythic mostly as a GM emulator, a little as GM tool, but never as a system entirely on its own. My review does not include the system.

As a GM emulator, I've been repeatedly impressed how it manages to throw surprises despite that it essentially splits the GM role among the players and engine. A friend actually described it as a sub-plot generator and I think that is accurate.

The players (or GM, if you're playing with one) decide together the main plot. It is a brief write-up and the less specific the better. Those will happen during the game. Then you decide the first scene -- again, very brief. From there everyone asks simple yes/no questions to flesh it out. With every question there is a chance of a random event determined by rolling on two charts -- the subject and action. Between everybody's input via the questions they ask, plus the Mythic engines input via the random events, truly dynamic situations develop.

It's not perfect. Everyone still has to police themselves to make sure the game remains on track, but that is true of every game. It's just more true with Mythic. Also, sometimes the interpretation of the subject and action is difficult. Despite these small criticisms Mythic does what it claims. I reserve five stars for a game that is virtually flawless. I'd actually like to give it four and a half.