Really captures the feel of Howard's pulp barbarian tales. Good introductory encounter for setting. Well done!

Adventurers is a great minimalist RPG system, perfect for one off games or short campaigns. It would also be of value to someone wanting to introduce friends, or children who have never role played to the hobby. All in all I am quite pleased with the game and would recommend it to anyone.

This is the first "add-on" fo ADVENTURERS! from same company (Gramel). This is the first official setting, with specific rules, specific monsters, some back ground info, main PNGs, and a complete adventure. Let's go one by one: Setting: This is a "darker" Britannia, and i found it really charming. Everything is explained with a text line or two, but gives you anyway an idea and the feelling, the mood of the world. Specific rules: some more player choice, with tipical archetype explained. And also magic expansion. Specific Monster: very usefull patch, to implement some tipical "knight&wizard" foe in to your game, according to fairy tale and arthurian legends. Back Ground and PNGs: there is a very simple, schematic info of major events, major places to go, and major "personalities" that can be part of the adventures (but not mandatory ;P). Adventure: classical adventure with some good ideas, can't say more! (spoiler reasons) Conclusion: It costs less the a Cappuccino at Starbucks and totally worth it! Good for either newbies and experienced.

I love fast and simple RPGs, and if you are looking for a fast, funny and simple one, well you found it. And it costs less then a Starbucks Coffee or a Bus Ticket. And totally worth it. This is perfect for:

• Having a "one shot" adventure, even with no preparation from GM side and players alike. It takes 15 minutes to read and get everything. 5 to 10 minutes to make PGs. It provides also monster stats (in a standard and usefull format).
• Theaching Newbies to the game. THe mecanics is fast nad simple, but gives anyway the right old school game feeling.
• As an alternative to board games night with your friends.
• For Expirienced gamers that want to make some breack on the main campaign, or just having some unexpected game night.

Attention: No Fluff or Back ground in it. Just your immagination!

Ok,

Where to begin. I was just a kid when Conan the Barbarian movie came out on the TV for the first time. And since that day, those style of movies really shaped and formed my visions and views on the Dark, Gritty, Sword and Sorcery style of RPGs.

I truly do, love the style of dark fantasy settings. Over the years, I have been playing various forms of RPGs systems and in the past few years have pretty much migrated all my games over to the Savage Worlds system, which as far I think is the best system out there.

So, over they last few years I have been searching for a dark gritty fantasy setting, and I really didnt pay much attention to Beast and Barbarians at first.. But after some time, I decided to ask around and everyone I spoke to pointed me towards this setting.

So I took the plunge and bought it.. and you know it turned out to be the Best RPG buy in the last year for sure.

First of all, the artwork through out the book is awesome!

The book describes a setting, which fits the feeling, atmosphere, and darkness of what the old style conan movies betrayed to me as a kid. But it does it in such a way that you dont see a copy and paste with new names but it actually transports you to the lands in which the books describe. Which is very well done, I might add.

There is a lot of information on the setting, but not to much where you can not add your own ideas and you need to worry about it not working with the already established cannon.

The new edges, hindrances , and skills in the book capture the feel for this style of genre superbly. Also, what really makes this book shine (for me) is that they take full advantage of the flexibility of Savage Worlds and make go well past any set expectation you think you are gonna get ahead of time.

The book also offers a great GM section, gives great advice and support in running your games. Based on what I have read, the author must be a true fan of the setting as he covered aspects that makes this genre so unique in a dark fantasy rpg.

Hats off!

Pros: Book is well laid out. Artwork really captures the feeling of the setting. Very flexible setting, allowing lots of room for your own person touches. Great background story overall. Chocker blocked full of info and useful stuff. Good GM support. Great Read, if you are just looking for setting info!

Its a great book. Buy it...

This is my first real experience with a micro RPG. I've always enjoyed lighter rulesets where player creativity and DM flexibility are what allowed a game to really shine and take on the characteristics of those playing. This game seems to be completely in tune with that aesthetic. Oh, and it's really good too. I'm utterly baffled at how focused it is. It really does cover 90% of what I want in an RPG. I love the combat resolution mechanic (think a streamline version of Dungeon World) as well as the simplicity of heroic points and team assistance. He's taken cumbersome and baffling skill rules from D20 games and made them sensible in just a few lines. Skill challenges, something that was boring and mechanically tedious in 4E are here, streamlined and improved to the point of being usable in just 6 lines. A fully functional gameplay reward system is implemented in 3 lines. I'm sitting there writing this review and looking at my multiple shelves chock full of RPG hardbacks and wondering, "Do I even need these anymore?".

My only two issues/questions are these.

1. Monsters don't seem to conform to the same calculations as far as Attack, Defense and Endurance math. Not sure if that's intentional but I think it must be.
2. The example given for how to calculate your attack stat based on your core stats and weapons seems off, or I'm not understanding it. It lists a character with 3 agility wielding a dagger having an attack of 2. But I don't understand where that came from as it states that when using a dagger, your attack stack is that same as your agility stat. Maybe just a typo or I misunderstand something.

I will probably use this ruleset for game nights where some of the group are missing. But I could honestly see myself playing an entire campaign using this ruleset. I can't wait for the micro settings and adventures. You can bet I'll be buying them immediately. At less than $2, this product is a steal. An absolute steal.

[please excuse possible spelling or grammar issues in the following review, English is not my native language]

Beasts & Barbarians is a wonderfully done Sword & Sorcery-Setting for Savage Worlds.

The book begins with a hand drawn map of the dominions which is immediately followed by the book of lore. It gives an overview over lost and existing kingdoms, followed by a description of the different races (which are all human). As Howards hyborean age, there is a resemblance towards the ancient cultures of Europe, Asia and northern Africa. This makes describing the game world quiet easy, since anyone can relate to those realms quite easily, which I like.

Character creation explains changes to hindrances and edges and which ones are not used in the setting. Then there are about 30 new hindrances and edges which nicely set the sword & sorcery touch of the game (my personal favorites are the hindrance damsel in distress and the edges ghoulblooded and loincloth hero).

The next chapter introduces three arcane backgrounds, which replace those found in SW. Lotusmastery is the art of making powers usable as potions by brewing them with ingredients won from the lotus plants (and is the only arcane background offering magic healing). Sorcery is more or less classic magic (I love the related failure table, where the dark gods demand their tribute, wonderful idea). Path of Enlightenment is the mystical martial arts of far eastern monks with mostly self affecting powers. This is complemented by a modified version of Summon Ally and four new powers (Analyze Foe, Draining Touch, Ledgerdemain, Poison).

The chapter gear covers weapons, armour and other equipment common in the dominions. It is mentioned which metals are used by which cultures. Iron is only commonly used within the iron empire, otherwise bronze is most common. The more primitive and barbaric cultures even use stone, bone and wood. This can be used to great effect during dramatic moments, because a weapon can brake if used against weapons or armour made of a stronger material. The magic metal in this setting would be steel, granting weapons the ability to be armour piercing and armour to be lighter and tougher.

The players guide part is concluded by some setting rules and the “After the Adventure”-chart, where players can optionally draw a single card and, depending on colour and value, see what happens between adventures (this can even lead to another adventure, much room for creativity here).

The GM-section begins with an introduction on how to set the tone in sword & sorcery adventures, how to play with only few players, alternative healing rules and other gm-stuff.

The relics chapter describes the magical items of Beasts & Barbarians and reminds the gm that they should be scarce, of limited use or plot relevant.

The adventure generator is a true gem within the book. One can create a whole adventure by simply drawing four cards, look up what parameters depending on value and colour are given and flesh things out. A wonderful tool which I really like.

The bestiary covers some additional animal and monsters and features a lot of npc-opponents sorted by their origin.

Finally there is the introductory adventure “Night of the branded Devils”, which is not a short one (can easily fill 2-3 evenings) and covers nearly anything one can expect from an introductory adventure.

Beasts and Barbarians is a wonderful sourcebook which really shows the authors love and knowledge of the sword & sorcery genre in all its appearances (movies, comics and the classic pulp tales). I can recommend it to anyone interested in the genre.

P.S. There are several supplements available to further flesh out the setting:

Beasts of the Dominions: ten new monsters embedded in their own savage tale each, plus a new group of potential villains, the disciples of the black temple. Nice sourcebook.

Tattered Banners - Bandit Lords and Mercenary Captains: a sourcebook covering bandit and mercenary companies and how players can manage them, new mass battle rules and a chapter covering conquest point campaigns (allowing conquest-centered campaigns). Good source for many SW-settings.

Jalizar – City of Thieves: as much a sourcebook to Jalizar as a thief/assassin companion with new equipment, Jalizar specific setting rules and extensive history for a more urban campaign, new creatures etc. Wonderful stuff.

I have yet to play B&B but I've used the adventure generator it contains twice to generate successful adventures, one for a Barbarians of Lemuria session and the other for a Mutant Future one. A lot of cool concepts are contained in B&B that can be used with other Sword and Sorcery games as well as other SW settings. That being said, even though I have yet to play it on it's own it looks really good as a SW campaign setting. Recommended.

TimeZero is just what it says on the tin, a a supplement aimed at using the Savage Worlds ruleset to run time travel adventures. The focus is very strongly on time travel as the way to get to the adventure, rather than as a problem solving tool - it's possible to meet yourself, or live the same day over again until you get it right, but if that happens, something has gone horribly wrong.

There's a fairly detailed setting included, focusing on the efforts of the TimeGuard to preserve the timestream from assorted meddlers, most notably the sinister Triad, but the book supports a number of different styles. Whether you want to focus on carefully researched political intrigue in the court of Louis the XVIth, or racing to stop the Nazi werewolves from assassinating Good Queen Bess, the book has you covered. There are explicit setting dials for things like the existence or non-existence of psychic powers and how much futuristic equipment the characters are lugging around. And while the book is designed around Time Agents using portals to get around, there is some support for "madman with a box" style play.

The crunch is generally solid - the edges and other player options are appropriate to the genre and balanced with the core Savage Worlds rules. the real standout is the concept of hypnotraining - characters can swap a limited number of skills and edges between adventures, allowing them to pose as fighter pilots one adventure, and pirates the next.

TimeZero is a spectacularly gameable setting, and it should be easy to steal stats and the like from other Savage Worlds books as well. It's certainly worth a look.

Dark Camelot est le premier setting disponible pour Adventurers! Dans ce cadre de jeu, le Roi Arthur est gravement blessé, Excalibur a été volé et Merlin a disparu, comme on peut le deviner, le royaume est dans la tourmente. Les maraudeurs saxons, les barbares pictes et les barons voleurs ne sont qu'un problème mineur car de sombres choses ont quitté le monde de Faerie et pourchassent les villageois. Les joueurs incarnent de preux chevaliers, des mages ou même des roturiers audacieux, tous unis par leur volonté de sauver la Bretagne d'une catastrophe imminente. Dark Camelot propose une description du cadre de jeu, des idées pour créer des personnages dans la Bretagne médiévale, deux nouvelles compétences, de l'équipement supplémentaires et 24 cartes de créatures. En complément, le meneur de jeu dispose d'une aventure complète, la Folie de Sir Richard et 4 héros prétirés.

Dark Camelot is the first available setting for Adventurers! In this setting, King Arthur is seriously wounded, Excalibur has been stolen and Merlin has disappeared, as you can guess, the kingdom is in turmoil. The Saxon marauders Pictish barbarians, robber barons are only a minor problem as dark things have left the world of Faerie and chase the villagers. The players are knights, wizards or even bold commoners, all united by their desire to save the Britain of impending doom. Dark Camelot offers a description of the framework of game ideas to create characters in medieval Britain, two new skills, additional equipment and 24 creature cards. In addition, the playmaker has a complete adventure.

Dark Camelot is the first setting/adventure for the rules-lite Adventurers! RPG, and like the 'core book' it's got a lot packed into a (very) small space.

The Good Bits: The setting takes up two sides of a single page, as does the adventure, which means you don't have a lot of printing or space demands when it comes to adding this to your Adventurers! binder. At first glance it may seem that there's not enough there, but on closer inspection it becomes apparent that a lot of good bits have been packed into a small space. The setting lays out the basics very well, and also includes some new equipment (mostly for knights, because this is an Arthurian setting after all) and some new 'monsters', along with the setting's premise, a brief gazetteer, and a summary of who's who. The adventure also takes up two sides of a single page, and is surprisingly well thought-out and flexible for something that's not twenty-odd pages long. I'll admit to being a bit biased, but "The Madness of Sir Richard" has all the things I like in an adventure: evil things to be bested, damsels to be rescued, and problems to be solved. As an added bonus, Dark Camelot also includes 4 pregenerated characters and three pages of monster cards for the setting (as well as two extra pages for your own creations). All in all, quite a tidy package for your $1.50.

The Bad Bits: If you're one of those GMs who likes to have everything spelled out for you, and every location detailed to the fullest, you'll be disappointed. Factions, locations, and people are all described in a single sentence. For me, this isn't a bad thing, but there are those who prefer more detail. Much like the core rules, this setting is best used by GMs who are willing to make things up and develop a setting on the go. There are a few grammatical problems--largely due to translation more than anything--but they didn't hinder my ability to understand what was meant. I also found the names in the adventure to be a little 'flat' ('Richard' is ~so~ 12th century), but that's more a personal issue, and not one that will rub everyone the same way.

The Bottom Line: Once again, Gramel has delivered 'no frills' gaming at its best. No interior art--although there's a cool piece of cover art included--just lots of useful bits crammed into a couple of pages. The setting itself is potentially fun for a number of reasons, but the adventure and the pregens mean you can pick this up and be playing/running in almost no time flat. Over all, I'd be inclined to give it the same 4.5 rating as the core rules--rounding down for the little glitches--but since the whole thing is dirt cheap and I feel like I got more than my money's worth on it, I'm rounding up again to 5 stars.

I've invested about $3.00 in this series so far, and feel like I've already gotten more from it than some series that I've put ten times that amount into. I'm looking forward to seeing more good things come along for my Adventurers!

Non vale un centesimo dei soldi spesi per acquistarlo e la presentazione trae in inganno. Un gioco fantasy non puó prescindere dalle "canoniche" classi che un po' tutti si aspettano. Qui invece ti vengono date le indicazioni per creare un personaggio del tutto anonimo basato solo sulle caratteristiche e su una manciata di skills... e basta! Nessuna possibilitá di distinguere a colpo d'occhio un guerriero da un ranger o mago o chierico ecc. Molto meglio scaricare Microlite20, Nanolite6 o Risus, che, a paritá di pagine, offrono ai lettori esattamentemquello che si aspettano da un gdr ultraleggero e sono pure gratuiti! Ah, dimenticavo: esempi vari nel testo pari a zero, manco a pagarli a peso d'oro...

Diving straight in with notes on low survival rates, equipment and the reality of being a soldier on Cor, there's a look at how best to run a military-themed game wtih the average bunch of adventurers - who, after all, are the heroes of their own stories and rarely take kindly to orders or discipline.

Then comes a survey of various units - artillery, cyborgs, special forces, etc. - and the officer corps, as well as the potential scope for playing mercenaries in a war situation rather than regular troops.

The discussion then moves on to the planet itself. Jungles, untamed wilderness, and mind-twisting Horde monsters, undead and more... it's not just the enemy these poor soldiers have to worry about. And not just soldiers - you may choose to involve the party as civilian casualties of war, perhaps they crash-landed here, or are passing through on the way someplace else and just get caught up in affairs. Several ideas are presented that could build into adventures or even a whole campaign for groups whose original intention was to be going about their usual businesssomewhere else.

This whole work is about setting the scene. There are quite a few ideas which could be developed into adventures, but there's still a lot of work to be done before they are player-ready. The flavour is here, the background - especially that of the armed forces and different units in which the party could serve or at least meet - and the scene is set to help you to make things happen here on Cor.

I really like this game. I'm a sucker for 'Lite' systems (M20, Risus, SoTU etc.). There were a few things I was confused by though. Namely, with the Transmutation Power, especially the example in Personalizing the Game: Transmutation (Werewolf). And also, some of the monsters in the Bestiary seem to have more or less points than they ought to, For example, the Ogre has a Str and Agi combined total of 6, to calculate End one should add 3 to that but the Ogre only has 7 End not 9. Their Def is also 1 higher than it ought to be, although it is easy enough to assume they have Light Armor.

I'm definitely looking forward to see what these guys come up with in the future.

Adventurers! is a rules-lite RPG with a lot packed into a (very) small space.

The Good Bits: With a 'Players Guide' that takes up two sides of a single page, and a 'GMs Guide' of the same size, you can't really ask for a more compact rules set. And, as far as simple systems go, this one manages to achieve it and stay elegant: everything is pretty much roll 2d6 and add a modifier. In the four pages of rules, almost every notable contingency is covered, and I found myself with very few questions regarding game play. There's only a handful of Stats but there's a broad enough base of 'Skills' to allow a lot of diversity in character building. Even the gear list gives a fair number of options to work with. Coupled with a short list of 'monsters', you can pick up this game and be ready to run in mere minutes.

The Bad Bits: Because the rules are streamlined so much, if you're the type who wants games to provide lots of details, this isn't the game for you. Many things, like Powers (i.e. Spells) are left with a lot of room for creativity, and players (or GMs) who aren't good at thinking outside the box might not get the most mileage out of them. In short, the rules are simply a sort of toolbox to allow a GM to quickly put something together and run with it--which means he or she had better be able to think creatively. On the other hand, Gramel promises future releases of short adventures, which means that may not be a problem forever.

The Bottom Line: This is 'no frills' gaming at its best. You won't find a lot of cool artwork inside because... well... there just isn't any place to put it. Print out a single-page guide for each player, and a single-page guide for the GM, and the game is good to go. Over all, I'd give it 4.5 stars. Normally I'd round that down to 4, but since the whole package (plus character sheets and monster cards--really just some printable forms to keep track of your bad guys) is only a buck-and-a-half, I'm rounding it up to 5 stars for being the best gaming deal I've seen in a while.

This is a great game to have around if you want to get a game going quickly without a lot of muss and fuss.