When I started reading this, I wanted something to smash. I thought "28 pages?". I'm not really in a great mood, so I figured: eh, 28 pages, can't be good, easy target.

This product fought back with a vengeance. It's not so useful for a gamer, so much, as a wannabe publisher or potentially a GM who wants to figure out how to share his setting with other GM's for a bit more money.

Ultimately, it's a niche audience. Not for everybody, not terribly useful for the dedicated. But, if you want to see a good, concise guide to what you should do to sell products (untested, but they provide examples of products that inspire their advice), look no further.

So, in summary: Good, not great, niche audience, wanna publish stuff? Look here.

And, you may wanna remember that I wanted to kill this when I saw the review offer, so it's doing better than I thought it would.

Blood & Honor is the antithesis of a game like Eclipse Phase. It lacks hundreds of pages of background and numbers. Instead, there is a simple core mechanic that is built up into a sort of network until everything meshes together flawlessly.

It's great.

I have never seen a game for $5 that presents as much as this one. It has some of the best advice I've ever seen included with a game, for both players and narrators. Professional typesetting with authentic art makes the game more natural to read.

For a unique take on an Eastern adventure, look no further than Blood & Honor.

This is the best guide to GM'ing I have ever read. Ever.

Including advice and ideas, this will renovate your game mastering.

I'm not sure how much I could say without giving too much away (there's already a preview), or managing to look like an idiot, but I'll say this:

This is the most enjoyable read I've had this week. It is enlightening and also funny, with a mixture of good advice and anecdotes. It's worth the $5.

Picture Eclipse Phase. Now imagine it without the core rules, because you already have those. Just put in the art, character examples, fluff, and a few new threats and items. I'm not doing it justice here. This has a lot of information, be it fluffy or hard stat data. It's 200 pages of the same caliber of stuff as the core Eclipse Phase rules.

If you like Eclipse Phase, this has all you'll need for inspiration for lots of games to come.

Eclipse Phase is something I'd steered away from. I'm not really a fan of the whole horror thing, and I'm not normally a fan of a d100 system (Usually they're just too simple, and I'd rather just use the Fallout rules that you can find freely available if I had to run a percentile game for some reason).

I missed out on it for so long. I've never seen a tabletop game made with so much care and detail. The fluff is wonderful, taking place in a transhuman society. It's far sci-fi, but doesn't get to the point where everything comes down to pure technology. Skills and attributes are just as important as a plasma gun, and when push comes to shove, you need to be quick-thinking to survive.

I also like it because despite the horror standard setting, it could be run without horror as a standard sci-fi game (and you could bring in horror elements as needed to keep players from using brute-force).

The reputation system is genius.

All I can say is that Eclipse Phase is like a second Shadowrun to me.

I have two gripes with Bump in the Night. It's incredibly well written, as is everything Eclipse Phase related, but these are just too big to ignore:

A. Not Firewall related, meaning that while it's good to start off, you don't necessarily get a lot of stuff. B. Price. 11 pages. 5 dollars. I like it and all, and it's got some awesome art, but the problem is that the main reason I'd need an pre-written adventure for Eclipse Phase is not a lack of creativity, but a lack of time to set up the game, and with only 11 pages of content, it'd be hard to run a full-length game, especially given that my group would just gun straight through.

It's well-written, and got great art, but to be honest, Bump in the Night can't get much more than a 3 star rating. It's professional, but it's not so bountiful.

This is a good product, but there are a few things holding it back.

First, it's not terribly generous with stuff. I mean, it's a quick-start, I realize, and free. But I have a copy of the old MechWarrior 2nd Edition game, and I am not really enticed to upgrade by this. I mean, it's not bad, but it's nothing exceptional. The problem is that it just doesn't have anything I couldn't have guessed at, which may be a sign that I'm too hardcore when it comes to Battletech.

All-in-all, it's a good quickstart, and it'll run you a game, but I'm just not sure if it's enough to entice me to buy. Still, the rules are fun, and easy, so there's no reason to jump in, it is free, after all.

Codex Martialis is a giant pack of weapon goodness.

The one downside: Not much that isn't easily available. However, since it's all statted out, this can be forgiven, since I've never seen such a large collection of weapons all statted out for the same rules, and most medieval weaponry is pretty easy to find, but not easy to actually know much about other than general function.

All in all, it's good, has lots of diagrams, and all that jazz. However, it just feels like it's missing something, so I feel that I can't give it a five. If you need a ton of weapons quick, this may be your best bet.

Well, this is a mixed bag. On one hand I really like the system. On the other, it feels a little sparse.

At 74 pages, this is a refreshingly light read, meaning that you'll be able to get through it and digest it pretty quickly. There are tons of encounter tables, which are decently written. The downside is the lack of different types of zombies. I recognize that this is traditional, and it's not too hard to whip up your own, but the variety could give an insight into what happens.

I like it on one hand because it's easy to run and play, and I feel the mechanics are nice and original.

The one downside: Over simplicity, combined with a bit too much fluff. Of the many, many skills, stuff like theology, all the performance skills, disguise, usually anything with computers, forgery, history, artist, jeweler, pottery, research, sewing, and a few more will never see use in a campaign, and while they add depth to a character and a game, and could maybe be used in semi-contrived skill checks, they are just bloat in the majority of campaigns. Filling a whole character sheet is not necessary, and it could be simplified to make it easier to run a game quickly.

With some simple editing, this could easily reach 5 stars.

The way I could sum this up is that it is as epic as all the other New Epoch stuff. Great illustration, written well, easy to understand. You get a feeling that this is willing to be its own game, and it's packed full of high-fantasy steampunk action.

The adventure codex pretty much just covers rules for resting, travel, combat... well, everything. It also covers the sorts of environments players are likely to find and the weather that might be encountered in outdoor areas.

Ultimately, there's not that much to say about this codex. It's rules, plain and simple, but they are plain and simple rules.

The New Epoch looks like it's shaping up to be one of the best role-playing games ever.

Every once in a while, I see something that is both well-written and balanced, and makes me almost squeal in delight at the awesome contained within (not that I would ever do that, mind you!). This is one of those books.

The more I delve into The New Epoch, I find that where I first accused it of being a trite fantasy setting with steampunk, I was being far too shallow. This book, while a necessary part of The New Epoch for playing (there are six books in all, if I am correct, and only the Character Codex [1] and Adventurer Codex [3] accompany this one as of October 17, 2010), is a glorious read. I do not believe I have enjoyed a list of equipment so much ever. There's a lot of variety in here. My initial gripes with the Character Codex have been put to rest with this, as the equipment pulls together the system.

Gunswords, airships, and steambikes, as well as the traditional swords and sorcery await you in this reliquary of awesome. If you're at all considering The New Epoch, I would say that you should not hesitate to get it. Its system is the best d20 system I have seen (and yes, I am looking at Pathfinder and D&D [3.5, not the trading card one] here).

The New Epoch is probably one of the foremost products on this site, and maybe anywhere. Good writing combines with art that makes me shed tears of joy to form one wonderful ball of goodness. I go now to review the Adventurers' Codex, and I am practically shaking with anticipation.

Ok: Gripe number one: The two downloads are not labeled, meaning you have to guess on whether you're getting the PDF or powerpoint. But that's not too horrible.

The powerpoints are giant, a 11.3 mb file. This is not a gripe, though. This means that there's quality images in there. Unfortunately, my OpenOffice.Org is acting finicky, and won't open them, but they are in a format it says it supports, and the preview works.

The only other gripe I can think of is that there's not terribly many miniatures. But, since you can print them over and over again to make an army, that's not so horrible.

With the powerpoint and great art, this is a must get for any classical campaign (so long as you don't try to pass them off as Romans, given that there's a major equipment difference between the Greek and Roman armies).

Ok, I'll make this short, because my previous review was eaten by Continue sharks.

Best modern-setting based zombie game I've ever seen, my only real gripe being that the Rider Against the Four art is at low resolution while the rest is at full-glorious-awesome-resolution. Also, some of the chicks are [very] scantily clad, not sure if that's a penalty or bonus, but I'm pretty puritanical, so I felt I'd mention it at least.

All I can say other than that is that this game is worth getting if you are going to run a zombie campaign or collection of zombie short-sessions, though $15 is a lot for a game that you'll only use once for a little while. That said, if you're a fan of d20 stuff at all, and a fan of zombies, you will use this more than once.

I like this product, I must say. However, I have several gripes with it.

It's too random. Now, granted, it is scavenging tables, but it's just way too random. I get a feeling that more than 1/50 books you find will be a Bible (best selling book ever, anyone?), or that not as many as 1/100 outfits you find will be a silk kimono. I mean, in some places, yes. In a representative sample? No.

I recognize that the strength of this sort of thing is randomness, but there needs to be some moderation. You are not more likely to find illegal drugs than syringes, even accounting for variety. Syringes have common legal use, and are practically ubiquitous. Wheelchairs (electric or traditional) are more common (each, not combined) according to this table. I mean, I know it's gameplay, but it just bugs me.

While it's great for inspiration, I might be tempted to forgo rolling and just choose a result at random. It's got a nice list of stuff, and it's a lot of stuff, but the percentiles could be reworked. Some things could be split off into sub-tables, like illegal drugs (since, to be honest, six-hundredths of scavenged medical supplies will probably not be drugs, given that there is a lot of effort to conceal them in addition to their scarcity).

So, as much as I like this, and find it interesting (if a little disturbing, since the random tables include grenade launchers and assault rifles [and similar mil-spec stuff] without accounting for situation). If I were to use it, though, I'd probably have to vet the rolls a fair deal, since only so much can be explained away by anarchy.

Arrr, this be a lexicon f'r talk'n like a pirate, aye! Gather yer bearings and head into this doubloon of piratey sauce!

And rem'ber, yer don't want t' be too close to any hostile sabers or roundshots, so make terms with the language before you swing for lack of 't! Have the wind of the lubbers with this chart!