This is a hard game to rate. It is a cool idea and its free! But, it feels like owning a #1 of some comic book. Am I going to show it to my friends? Yes. Do anything with it? Probably not. Another reviewer remarked that this would make a nice "one off". I agree; but it felt so much like that because it is not a role playing game.

What is Role-Playing?

How many times have we read that essay? Mythender is great game. the idea is beyond cool; however it kinda left the role playing out. OD&D wants a maze of monsters to a big fight. Story telling wants a good story until the big fight.

Mythender reminds me of that old cartoon. "Hey, I did it! I rolled a 20. I cut off Odin's head!"

Though it talks a lot about "losing your humanity", it feels like goth vampires sulking. This is an epic battle game. It is hard to role play when you can't "hide". In "Highlander" people felt "funny" around the Immortals. Hard to nip off to the tavern when the room full of a God's faithful are doing the same.

The concept of this is great and I would love to use the setting for a role-playing game. The "Amber Engine" might have been an interesting choice for creating the balance of god killing and role-playing. Odd that the absence of dice would work better than 100s of dice.

Should you download this? HELL YEA! I would buy a print copy for my collection and shamelessly steal ideas from it. It could be a fun game at conventions, where people are waiting in line to get their crack at Odin and enjoying the epic battles before theirs. I would like to see this idea developed into an actual RPG without feeling like I'm reaching for the RP part. Sure, it is bad ass.

Much as every RPG begins their game with "What is Role Playing" as a an epic begins with a call to the Muses, I feel this could be a great RPG or another type of game. In those epic poems, the hero had to make the "hero's journey". He did not just grab an arm full of dice an roll for iniative on a god. In the "300", the God King bleeds. Then the 300 are stomped to death.

Starting at the end of the dungeon and fighting "totally awesomely" denies role playing, no matter how good the hand full of dice, the flagon of mead and that horned helmet you got at Ren Faire feel.