A very good adventure which can be done in one session.

The actual adventure are only a few pages, but you get more material like detailed description of a village and npc's, a map of the village and a really good map of a small cave system. The players are free in their approach on solving the issue and the GM is getting guidelines, motivations and information instead of a pre-planned story to follow. It even contains examples and explanations of different outcomes and hooks for further adventuring / follow ups.

However, I was a bit disappointed because I was expecting more of a mystery or interaction with other npc's to solve an abduction or something similar. In fact you get mostly a dungeoncrawl. As it is very well done and a good introduction I will give 5 stars nevertheless. Although the price is very high when you are considering it is meant as an introductory module. Many publishers are giving similar modules away for free. The difference is, however, that you can use the village description later in your game.

I expected a variety of tables to chose from. Instead you get three pages of tables which seem to be the same like the free Screen Inserts, downloadable from Pinnacle Entertainment's Website and a collection of artwork for the front. This product is completely useless for me. They should make it clear in the product description that there are only three pages of tables or they should add the tables to the preview, so you can see which table pages are included.

It misses details and elaboration, especially on the actual writing part. However, what can you expect for $3? It is a good start, nothing more, nothing less. If you get more into adventure writing you might leave some of it behind and explore the depths and possibilities of adventure writing that are out there. I for myself don't like writing adventures in the form of scenes. The scenes are something which happens in my game, not on the planning table. I have to be honest - the author implies that his guide is for GMs how want to play the adventure after they have written them. I do it the other way around, first I play the adventure, then I might bother to write it down for others, will the input and insights I gathered from playing. I think it is a waste of time to write adventures in this way befor you play them. Especially with that in mind the book doesn't get in the art of rewriting and redacting your adventure.

So, in the end I give a solid 3 out of 5. It won't change my game, but it wasn't a waste of time or money either. Maybe I will even try to write one of my next adventures exactly like it is recommended in the guide.

At first I have to say: I am new to Fading Suns. When I got interested in this setting - I loved the idea of combining medieval feudalism and a strong church with starships and high technology worlds - the third edition was already announced, so I wanted to wait. I did for some years and now I got this revised edition as soon as it was out.

When I opened the file and skimmed through it, I got really shocked. Nowadays RPG core books often look like professional art books. This looks like done in the 80s, with much plain text, crampy, small margins... The artwork is fine, though it is from the 90's. Contrast is good and the PDF allows copy&paste, is searchable and got bookmarks, which is good.

The setting is really great. I don't want to get into detail, you may read reviews of the old editions for that or you allready know the setting. But as this is a Player's Guide, it misses some background info, like about the planets or the jumpweb. I wonder, how I can chose a planet my character comes from, when I don't get any information about them? I fear a player will need the GM Guide, too.

To me it seems, this book was poorly edited. There are carryovers from second edition (which is bad for a revised edition), there are repeatings of rules (shouldn't it be streamlined), rules explanations are complicated and hard to understand, like for players who already know the rules. Was there even Playtesting? Did they give this book to a gamer who never played Fading Suns before and asked him for his opinion? I don't think so.

As far as I know there are some changes to Second Edition. In combat you now have a passive Defense and don't have opposed rolls anymore. There are some basic combat actions, some of those contain the possibility of multiple attacks, and additional fighting styles giving more maneuvers. There are Fighting Stances, for example, in aggressive stance you get a penalty to defense and a bonus to attacks. Nice idea.

Most of the rules seemed bulky to me and deserve some streamlining, like the skill rules. It's very detailed and doesn't seem supporting a faster and more dramatic style of play, which I thought Fading Suns and this new edition is all about. This game is still stuck in the 90's. But you have to say, it has some interesting ideas, like bad side effects for magic, called Hubris and Urge. This concept is something I really liked, rules and setting are fitting here. And I really do love the Lifepath system.

Don't get me wrong - had I got this game around 2000 when I was playing Earthdawn 1st, Shadowrun 2nd/3rd and the like, I really think I would have loved this game. But now we have the year 2012 and as a whole this Player's Guide was a disappointment to me.

Ein interessantes Regelwerk, ein geiles Setting und eine super Aufmachung.

Der Basismechanismus ist eine Poker-Variante - ziemlich ungewohnt, aber wer damit nicht zurecht kommt, kann auch auf den "Würfel-Hack" zurückgreifen, mit dem man auch ohne Spielkarten spielen kann. Die Regeln sind nicht detailliert oder auf Simulation der Wirklichkeit hin ausgerichtet, sondern ziemlich locker. So hat jeder Charakter nur eine Handvoll Werte und der Spielleiter kann auch recht frei improvisieren. Gewürzt wird das ganze durch Spezialfähigkeiten.

Gespielt wird auf einem anderen Planeten, in dem das Diesseits, unsere Dimension, mit zwei Parallelwelten in Kontakt kommen: Der Halbwelt und den Jagdgründen, alptraumhaften übersteigerten Versionen des Diesseits, in denen Mutanten, Zombies und schlimmeres unterwegs sind. Durch das magische Doomstone-Erz können sie auch in das Diesseits vordringen. Dies liefert ziemlich abgedrehte Möglichkeiten, so dass in dem Western-artigen Setting auf einmal Mechs, Zombie-Armeen und Mech-Zombie-Kreuzungen marschieren. Man muss es wohl lieben oder hassen. Im Zentrum steht der Konflikt mehrerer Fraktionen, die untereinander verschiedene Bündnisse und Fehden hegen und letzten Endes dreht sich alles um das Doomstone-Erz.

Leider ist das Regelwerk ziemlich mies strukturiert, aber bei nur 90 Seiten ist man schnell durch und kann drüber hinwegsehen. Für eine bessere Bewertung fehlt es jedoch vor allem an Settingdetails. Man kann damit zwar spielen und erhält wirklich viele Anregungen - gerade mit den Konflikten der Fraktionen lässt sich einiges anstellen und ich habe schon lange nicht mehr ein Rollenspielregelwerk so interessiert und schnell durchgelesen. Aber trotzdem... hätte ich gerne einfach ein bisschen mehr gehabt, wie z.B. Karten der Stadt Doomstone und der Umgebung, ein Kapitel zum technologischen Stand und zum Alltag in der Welt von Doomstone und dergleichen mehr. So bleibt einiges vage und muss selber gefüllt werden. Gerade bei einem derart abgefahrenen Setting ist das nicht unbedingt leicht. Machbar ist es aber allemal, gerade, da man schnell merkt, dass dieses Setting nicht todernst ist und es nicht auf jedes Detail ankommt. Hauptsache, es fetzt.