Fragile Minds is a great addition to Spycraft. If I had to mark it down in some way, my issue would be that this mostly stuff that should've been in the main book; it's that cool.

Fragile Minds adds rules on madness to Spycraft. There's the Table Of Sproing (psychological complement to the Table Of Ouch in Spycraft), plots involving madness,campaign qualities and even creatures with an unnatural, maddening look to them.

Even if you don't plan on your spies meeting Arcane Horrors From Beyond, the usefulness for a campaign with surreal or psychological overtones is hard to overstate.

The Adventure Companion is a great book, with a lot of new interesting settings and even a dense chapter of new rules for crunch addicts. The only remark I could make is that the book could definitely benefit for a few more pages! But hey, the quality/price ratio is still very, very high. Let's make a quick overview.

Cloak & Dagger, as expected, is a blast. The authors have put all the experience and knowledge they had from modern tradecraft (from Spycraft) into a Rome-like fantasy setting. The era, the geopolitical situation (the brink of the collapse of the empire actually), the conflicting nations very "7th Sea" in the spirit, the threats all over the place, the real-world similarities, all this contribute to make it a very convincing setting with a immense potential. Just reading it, you have tons of adventure seeds that come instantly to your mind. Plus it's a real pleasure to play a fantasy game with only humans, for a change! As a side note, this is the setting that would benefit the most from a few dedicated adventures.

Epoch, I wasn't expecting all that much. Sword & sorcery, dinosaurs, mad sorcerers, that's just something Conan does very well, dinosaurs aside. Well, Epoch is just completely different and it was THE good surprise - no sorry, EXCELLENT surprise - of this book. Take a few aspects of Conan, the most barbaric ones (Picts, Stygia, etc.), mix this with an Apocalypto feel, add a little northern Amerindian folklore on top of it and you have a better idea. The ancient tribes (humans and a few fantasy races) are on the brink of extinction since the invasion of eastern conquerors who wield magic and make pacts with demons. These conquerors are just too much like our "civilized" ancestors who wiped entire civilizations out. This time, you're on the other side. What would you do to protect your life, your family, your entire nation from extinction? Coming back to Conan, it would be a little like if you were playing a Pict, and Conan and his troops where marching toward the last Pict village still alive ...

Sunchaser is a little bit more classic in its form, but still quite entertaining. This high fantasy settings is all about playing glorious adventurers wandering four kingdoms the free races have created after they escaped the dominating grasp of The Crone (and evil subterranean race ruled by an even more evil queen). Starting small, your deeds will soon lead you to accomplish epic quests and maybe even protect the four kingdoms from the long feared return of The Crone. This setting is well written and simple enough not to suffer from the lack of more pages. It is perfect for a simple, one-shot adventure.

The final chapter is dedicated to game mechanics. There are two excellent new base classes: the Martial Artist which is of course all about combat; and the Emissary which is the investigator/spy of Fantasy Craft. The expert classes coming after that are quite interesting as well, as are the first master classes finally published. Special note for the Regent, a wonderful way to become a true power player, in the political sense. There are also a lot of new, excellent feats, and a frightening host of Species feats particularly. Don't be afraid like I was at first! These feats are there to let you emulate nearly any fantasy specie ever devised: With Bear Nation, you can make Nyss elves, with Desert Clutch and Dragon-Tailed, you can make nagas, with Orc Blood, you can make half-orcs! The options are almost limitless. After that, a little bit too much new Advanced Actions, a few nice Campaign Qualities, and you're done.

All in all, it is an excellent book. I repeat, while it could have benefited from a few more pages, particularly for Cloak & Dagger and Epoch, it is still an excellent work for the price. All settings are well written, nicely described, and probably fun to play. The rules chapter is worthy, balanced, and completes well the existing Fantasy Craft mechanics. A must have.

Fantasy Craft is basically what was missing from the d20 system for each and every player or GM who wanted a little bit more ... crunch, fun, dynamism, or even storytelling options. It's a package of all that and a little bit more on the top of it. The rules are brilliantly well written, making this 400-pages generic fantasy rulebook something even more huge than it appears. This is a system for any fantasy game, whether you like combat a lot and want to use minis in order to play full tactic battles, or whether you prefer investigation-centered intrigues where social assets and clever use of one's resources is the key, or anything in-between. There are rules for many things, though not to the point that it slows the pace of the game down. However, since the writing is clever and concise, reading the rules more than once before play might be necessary. It's worth it, though, because you can really use this system to play anything, once you're familiar with it. And I really mean ANYTHING, without much things to adjust, thanks to the very modular nature of most options, particularly campaign qualities. Just remember this is a game for people who like well-oiled mechanics. It does not mean it is just for combat freaks. There are rules for smart storytelling as well and some aspects of the game focus solely on social play and intrigue. It's just that there ARE rules indeed, for all those things. It's not left up to the GM every two pages. Of course the GM has the final word, but he is thoroughly guided through the whole book. Similarly, creating a PC for Fantasy Craft may take you at least one hour, but that's only because you have so many opportunities to build JUST the character you had in mind ... well, you want to explore them all! It's thorough, and it requires a little bit dedication at first. But the pleasure during game is only better. All in all, Fantasy Craft is honestly the best fantasy RPG I have ever read.

The book itself is well written and lives up to what i have come to except from Crafty Games. My biggest issue is that they reprinted all of the previously released classes. I don't mind making that avaliable for people who didn't buy them, but a heads up would be nice, maybe even a small price break for those of us who bought them all.

The Fantasy Craft Adventure Companion presents three unique and well-conceived settings with a scattering of crunchy rules. The settings each expertly evoke a different genre, but herein lies the problem: at best only slight more than 1/3 of the book will be useful to most GMs. The crunch chapter is short and sweet, but only the most ardent gamers will make use of all three settings within one book.

Good

Cloak & Dagger: This setting imagines an empire modeled after an alliance of some of the greatest classical Western civilizations complete with decadence, ancient threats, and corruption. PCs tend to take roles as the brave souls that travel between the different camps of the fractured empire currying information and doing grisly work. For me, this is the setting that I loved.

Rules: Includes new classes, feats, master classes, and interesting tidbits. These can be incorporated whole-hog into an existing game or cherry picked for a supported setting, or your own custom setting. I thought they had a lot of interesting ideas and cool concepts.

Fight Against the Fantasy Rut: The system purposefully distances itself from the D&D model. Say what you will, but D&D feels like a tactical combat game that has non-combat adjudications available. FantasyCraft actively encourages characters to take a rich set of abilities aimed at overcoming obstacles and conflicts.

Bad

Multiple Settings: I struggled about how to cope with this issue in my review. I felt “bad” for not being terribly interested in the well thought out other settings: Sunchaser, a high adventure campaign focused on good/evil and Epoch which is a more primal (no D&D power source baggage intended) and savage setting. The more I think about it though, the more I think this is an inherent flaw in the book. With the depth and history presented its inevitable each reader will gravitate towards one offering and away from another. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with the other work, it’s just that I could not get drawn in after I realized that Cloak & Dagger held the most interest.

Ugly

Master Classes: When the system debuted, I griped about the existence of master classes but their noticeable lack of inclusion in the basic game. People more knowledgeable than me have argued that breaking a game up between tiers can be a good way to refine game play and conceptualize a product. However, having only a few master classes to choose from without truly focusing on it seems like a disappointing half-measure.

Final Verdict: B. FantasyCraft is still an amazing system. For anyone currently running the game this purchase is a no-brainer. However, the fact that the book, as a whole, is hard to find a use for keeps it from being an A.

(originally published at http://roll.critical-hits.com/2010/11/13/fantasy-craft-adventure-companion-review/)

Please note that this review first appeared at my blog Stargazer's World (http://www.stargazersworld.com).

When you have read my blog for quite a while you probably noticed that I have a soft spot for Crafty Games‘ Fantasy Craft. But Fantasy Craft is a more complex game than the other games I usually recommend. I have to admit that Fantasy Craft’s rules complexity is sometimes just a bit outside of my usual comfort zone.

But that said I am also convinced that it’s the best game that evolved from the d20 system. The Fantasy Craft core rules open a lot of options for interesting campaigns that don’t follow the classic high fantasy model. And a lot of the concepts in Fantasy Craft is meant to make the GMs job much easier than in D&D for example.

With their latest supplement, the Adventure Companion, the good folks at Fantasy Craft show how versatile their rules system can be used. The 145-paged book which has been released a couple of days ago in PDF format, contains not just one but three unique fantasy campaigns, and a plethora of new options for your Fantasy Craft game, like new expert and master classes.

With the first campaign in the book, Cloak & Dagger, Fantasy Craft comes full circle. You probably know that the Master Craft system first appeared in Crafty Games’ spy game, Spy Craft. Now Cloak & Dagger is a fantasy campaign where the player characters are secret agents for various warring houses in an empire inspired by the classical era, basically it’s Spy Craft in ancient Rome.

If you ever wanted to play in a game freely based on ancient Rome, Cloak & Dagger will be for you. It’s also very refreshing that the book’s author, Alex Flagg, opted to make C&D a human-centric setting. I sometimes get pretty tired of standard fantasy with elves and dwarves, and the lack of non-human player races makes it easier for GMs to use the material in the book for a historical campaign set into classical Rome. The second included setting, Epoch, reminds me more of sword & sorcery settings but with a twist. The most intriguing fact is that the setting is partly inspired by Aztec mythology instead of European one. The premise of the world of Epoch is that the free tribes of the Children of the Dawn fight the invasion of the Keepers of the Gate, who are in league with the ghula. The Keepers of the Gate bring with them civilization and magic which both taint the savage lands. The champions of the last free people stand up to fight the demonic ghula and their followers. Epoch is another great example for a non-standard fantasy setting.

The third setting included in Adventure Companion is called Sunchaser which Alex once described as Lord of the Rings on the Mississippi river. And that’s actually a pretty good description. Humans are the newcomers in the Thousand-Rivers Valley, a place thrive with adventure and home to almost all the races described in the Fantasy Craft rulebook. Among the three campaigns in the book it’s the most “classical”. If you’re looking for a high fantasy setting for Fantasy Craft with elves, dwarves, drakes, magic, feudal lords and ancient ruins to explore, then Sunchaser is definitely worth a look. Each of the three settings contains several pages of background information, new talents, feats and other setting-specific rules, new monsters and an extensive rogue’s gallery. There are even tips for what kind of adventures you could run in these settings. It’s actually astounding to see how many content they managed to squeeze into a 145-paged book. While the three settings are not as detailed as if they released a book for each, they give GMs enough information to make the campaign world their own. I actually prefer this approach to overly-detailed settings like the Forgotten Realms, where every small hamlet had it’s own sourcebook at some point.

The last section of the book contains options for the three campaigns or basically every Fantasy Craft campaign. There are over 150 Specialities, feats, 12 new classes (including Base, Master and Expert Classes), as well as new tricks and Paths. I have to admit the number of new stuff in the last part of the book can be a bit overwhelming but if you’re a veteran Fantasy Craft player or GM you should feel quite at home.

All in all I think Crafty Games’ Adventure Companion is a great product for a reasonable price. The PDF version sets you back $14.99. The printed version will be available for only ten bucks more later this month. Even if you’re not playing Fantasy Craft right now you could probably make good use of the three campaign settings. The rules options in the back of the book can probably be used in your home brew Fantasy Craft games as well, even if you’re not that interested in the campaigns. Please note that this review is based on a read through of the PDF version of Adventure Companion which has been provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.

Spycraft 2.0 Game Screen is a 3-part barrier that you can print and assemble. It has alot of game tables that you may use often in your games, such as Combat summary and Weapons table. The price is just right / get it and assemble it!

If you are looking for a Espionage or Modern D20 ruleset, look no further than SpyCraft.

Enhanced gear and gadgets allow any budding Bond wannabe to equip themselves with the latest high tech equipment. Good selection of character classes and feats. Game runs smoothly though can be tough for new players to get a handle on it. Once they do it's well worth playing.

The game also has a number of supplements/mission for GM's to use.

Only Con that nearly caused me to knock a star off, is that the tables in the book are laid out oddly and difficult to find.

Book is well laid out and easy to find what you are looking for. Rules are base upon Crafty Games MasterCraft ruleset, which uses the D20 OGL. Saying that FantasyCraft is yet another D20 fantasy game does not do the MasterCraft ruleset justice. Crafty has taken D20 to a new level. Character classes and races offer a rich environment for players to enjoy. Gameplay is straight forward and easy for new players to understand.

This is d20 at its most flexible best.

Fantasy Craft solves my biggest problem with its parent fantasy game. With the use of a simple table, GMs can now put their PC's up against any creature, any time, at any level.

In addition, NPCs are a breeze to make by simply going over a section in the book.

The toolkit concepts begun in Spycraft suit high fantasy well. There is simply no better way to run a home brewed fantasy campaign using d20!

This is, in one word, fun. It doesn't focus on being uptight, or realistic (well, particularly realistic), or even a specific thing. It's simply action-espionage, be it from Bond to Bourne. You can play a gritty game, or a game with super-tech and action.

Spycraft doesn't burden or restrict itself. It is what it is, and it'll do anything it wants. It's d20 adjusted for a modern setting, but it does what d20 modern did not. It makes the game fun. Instead of worrying about how your character is arbitrarily defined, you know how they're defined.

The art and quality is top-notch, and if you want something like a simple spy game, this is where you'll find it. A brief glance at other spy systems (admittedly earlier in production), such as an official James Bond game, shows that where they failed to make a simple, easy system for all types of adventure, Spycraft has succeeded.

A little more smooth than dnd 3.0/3.5 in some ways, love the skill system.

Sometimes you just feel a book is too big to be useful. There are some good ideas here, and I like the genre, but I feel that they've attempted to do too much with the game here, and it lacks focus and consequently utility value.

These are classes I would have liked to see in the core book, but for space considerations. The Martial Artist, Monk, and Deadeye are all great for players looking for an agile boxer, a miraculous hero, or a deadly shootist.

While I don't think Crafty Games quite hit their stride with this one, it's a solid bet that you'll find at least one of the classes compelling. At the price, you should say yes if you have the money and if like Fantasy Craft. The Gallant is a solid interpretation of the archetypal dashing warrior, if a little heavy in its area of expertise, personal combat. The Infernalist is flavorful and offers a few tricks not available to your everday Mage. The Monster Slayer is rock solid, my only complaint being that it works best for a character who carries a shield.