This is a great idea, but, as is standard for Modiphius, it's just not taken seriously.

A lot of work was put into it, but then the editing staff didn't bother looking at it to catch dozens of errors. Items described and missings. Items on lines but no descriptions. Tables omitted from the book. Sections discussed and not present.

This book needs about another year of editing and re-writing. Modiphius should refund everyone who purchased it. The book isn't complete.

Okay, so first and foremost, I have the strong belief that you should get your hands on, and read, as many games as possible. So, when you run across something in your favorite game that you don't like, you'll have plenty of options to fix it. Additionally, I'm a GURPS guy. Maths and I are close friends. I like my games like I like my peanut butter--crunchy.

This, however, is crunchy like eggs--and just as inedible. Someone has use the wrong ingredients for this and handled it poorly.

It's much ado about nothing. It introduces all of this extra complexity, all of these extra steps . . . and they do nothing to enhance the game. Saying this is compatible with most D&D publications is misleading--GURPS is compatible with all D&D publications, if the GM is willing to do all of the heavy lifting, which, is basically what this book is--it's a conversion from D&D to . . . whatever this is. This is more like Phoenix Command, but it clearly wasn't written by a genius rocket scientist.

Art should have a purpose, not just be filler. Great googly moogly, this book is so busy with line-art that does nothing for the book. And then there are the pages that it looks like someone just barfed art all over it thinking it would "punch it up" where it really just made it incomprehensible and bloated the file size.

Words have meanings, learn them. Use them. "No player downtime between turns in combat?" How?! Unless you consider the maths you need to keep checking "engagement" you're pretty much all downtime. Don't the other players get to go? Do the monsters? (Spoiler: yes, they still do, and with the massive increase in complexity, there's even more downtime for players.) Using 10 words to say what you could in one doesn't make you look smart, it makes you look pretentious. An introduction to Contract Law would be a good investment--it'll teach you how to write clearly.

If you want a better D&D experience, this ain't it. D&D 5E is a better, player-focused game than this is. This isn't 6E, this is just fractially worse than D&D 5E--and that's coming from a GURPS gamer who thinks D&D 5E is suitable for small children and people recovering from brain surgery.

You would do better with your own house rules--at least you know how they work. There are no examples, let alone worked examples, so there is no way to see how this might work better without taking a massive investment of time to decipher everything and try it out on your own. And, um, yeah, don't do that. This "Player First Design" reads like someone, who doesn't understand how to run TTRPGs, was upset at a GM who wouldn't let them run their Edgy Edgelord of Edgyness character because they don't understand the complexity in setting up a story and running it.

Save your money. Even $0.99 is too much for this. The bulk-padding of random tables doesn't help this book. I haven't found anything in this book that is redemeable. Normally, that would be some art--but, as said above, not even the art is worth it.

And, um, check your file--the page numbers aren't included. But, that seems par for the course.

I'll be honest, this is one of the worst Superhero RPGs I've ever read. PbtA is an awful fit for super heroes. I can't even consider this an RPG. If you like PbtA, you'll probably like it. But, if you like TTRPGs, this isn't one.

I love Homeworld. I bought it when it first came out (I’m also old). After beating it, I let a friend borrow my disc. Two weeks later I decided I wanted to play it again, so I bought another copy. So, buying this was a no-brainer. But, unfortunately, Modiphius seems to have done a less-than-stellar job with this book.

The book seems much more amateurishly put together than previous games. I'm sure the A4 presentation to my American eyes doesn't help. That just exacerbates the issue, it isn’t an issue on its own. However, beyond that, the fonts don't quite line up, even with themselves. The "e"s and "s"es in their blue font are all abnormally large, making words look funny (seriously, take a look at "The Great Wastelands" on p188, that word makes me motion sick just looking at it).

The two-column format with minimal art harkens back to Palladium books. When you get to the ships, there's more art, but, that's not that helpful. It looks like a first-draft of the print edition and it's . . . sub-standard. The book just doesn’t look professionally laid-out. That can all be fixed on updates.

I really wish that Modiphius' "new iteration" of their 2d20 system would have introduced a real combat range system. The area-based range-system is just awful. It might be okay for fantasy, but it is just useless for anything that isn't fantasy. It sucks in Star Trek, it sucks in Fallout, it sucks in Dune, it sucks in Infinity, it really sucks in Devil’s Run and it'll suck here.

Otherwise, it's basic 2d20. The rest of the system has a solid foundation, but is poorly implemented. Whatever their “new iteration” is, it’s not in the mechanics. Like Star Trek and Dune, it tries to do too much with too little, when there is ample room for more. Six attribute and six skills equal thirty-six options. Nuance is sacrificed. There’s a core for a good game system in there, and they’ve found it before (Fallout being the best, but Infinity is also good), but they seem bound and determined to over-simplify some IPs. It's the same game as all of the other Basic 2d20 games. Just the stats/skills have been crossed out and new terms written in, in crayon. Star Trek, Dune and Homeworld deserve better than this.

But, at the end of the day, with the exception of one of the worst range systems in modern TTRPGs, the rest of the system is functional. I won't use this game in 2d20. The implementation of the system is just too much hot garbage. I'll use the history and background and import it into a different system--one that doesn't prevent you from melee attacking someone on the other side of a door, because they're in a different, arbitrarily-assigned area. Look at the Star Trek maps for some absurdity and realize that, in many, many situations, shooting someone across the room is an easier shot than someone on the other side of the door that you're right next to. The range system may work fine for a fantasy game, but it's just awful for anything else. Could it be fixed? Absolutely. And, I had hoped that their "new iteration" would have done that.

Seriously, Modiphius, fire the person who thought areas were a good idea (out of a cannon--ideas like this should be punished). Hire someone to make you a new range system. Write a core book, based on the Fallout version and release a Generic RPG 2d20 system. There is a core of a good system that wants to get out; both from the flaming monkey poo that is the area/range system and the deliberate hamstringing of the writers.

TL;DR: It’s 2d20 Basic. If you like that, you'll like this. If you're here for the Homeworld lore, it's a good buy. It's more valuable as a sourcebook than an RPG.

I'm a GURPS guy and not terribly fond of the d20 in general. However, this game seems quite interesting. My group is going to, after our current game goes on its break, give this a try. It looks interesting. It has a lot of similarity to D&D 5e, but, really, in a good way. The short description is 2d20, roll low, success-counting. Each die is read separately and can generate its own successes. Successes are counted compared to a required number of Successes. Extra Successes build up Action Points which can be used to do other things. Damage is handled with specialized d6’s, but, they’re easy enough to emulate with normal d6’s. It’s like every other 2d20 system out there. Just a bit more crunch added. But, honestly, not enough crunch. But, take that with a salt-mine, I am a GURPS guy, after all.

Mechanically, the only thing I really have a problem with is the horrible "area-based" combat. It barely worked for FASERIP Marvel back in the 80's, and it doesn't work for this game. In one scene, you can shoot across a city block, in the next, you can't shoot across a room. Areas are bad. It doesn't fit for Fallout--they need to spend some time and get an actual movement/range system. Me, I'm going to be cribbing from D&D. I thought about cribbing from GURPS, but other than using hexes, D&D is a better fit.

Beyond that, the book has a bunch of errors that have been reported, but haven't been corrected yet. I did reach out to the publisher and they told me that since the game hasn't gone into full release yet, they haven't updated anything. I deeply appreciate that they took the time to answer the question of internet guy. But, the decision to not update is a bad look for the developer. If they're asking for money, this shouldn't be selling the play-test documents. At least, not without saying “hey, these are the playtest documents, if you go here you can give us feedback.” At the very least, they should have an official errata document bundled with this indicating that they are aware of the error, and will be correcting it in the future. One of the best “source books” I can suggest is getting the Fallout 4 GOTY Strategy Guide and using their cost/weight information for anything that seems hinky (because it’s probably typo’d or two columns in a table have been swapped! I’m looking at you Powered Armor table!).

All in all, the game looks interesting. Experienced GMs will have no problem fixing the bugs in this game. Much like the CRPG Fallout 4, this game will be made much better with community-provided Mods.

ETA: I'm docking my review by two stars as they said, in September, that errata was due to be out by the end of September, and nothing came out. They've been radio silent here for five months. The book is more than six months old, and looks like there is no, further support for it.

In a 265-page game book, I expected to see more of a game and less of a setting. Make no mistakes, this is not a game book, it's a setting book for generic supers with some rules in case you don't have your own system. And it's a very minimalistic setting book focused more on inclusion (which is specifically called out in their basic ideas) than on actually setting up a world.

I would rather have seen 200 pages spent on the game and decent examples of character creation and play instead of a minimalistic, generic super-hero setting that I'm never going to use. As it is, the rules encompass pages 4-43 . . . and the rest is their setting for their rule set which they don't really bother following most of the time. Not a single one of the characters depicted in the book followed their character creation rules so there weren't any good examples when the rules were unspecific--which is the norm not the exception.

At its core, there's something here that might be useful to experienced GMs, if they're willing to dive into it, fix its problems and wrestle the system back from the brink of mediocrity. The basic mechanics are interesting and have some potential, but the entire game needs to be looked at and refined into something greater than itself. And definitely greater than the 200+ pages of sub-standard, ultra-generic, inclusion-above-all setting. Their unwillingness to focus in the name of inclusivity is a crippling detriment to their setting.

If you’re looking for a good supers game, this isn’t it. If you’re looking for a good supers setting, this, also isn’t it. If you’re looking for a, well, tiny idea in a game system that has a great deal of potential, and you’re willing to put the legwork in. Then this would be for you.

These aren't nearly as good as a Future Tiles: Starship (which, while better has its own issues). They're a different scale, and they're different scales from each other. Trying to load them into my VTT of choice (Tabletop Simulator), which has the ability to load them onto tiles so they can be placed on a table, is a nightmare as they're inconsistent in both size and shape so they don't match up with other products, or even themselves without a lot of individual work. It also appears that, instead of being designed to create any number of ships, they're only designed with one layout in mind, and that layout doesn't allow for modifications with other sets.

All in all, a disappointment.

Interesting, but not great. Fortunatley, they're a uniform size, but they lack versatility. All of the ships must follow a similar layout, with only specific rooms fitting in specific areas. There aren't enough of any specific type of room/wall structure. Could really benefit from another product that followed the same layout, instead of the other products that are of random sizes and don't match up.

Well, it was an interesting diversion for about an hour–editing errors aside (page 35 of the ebook has a glaring error). Roskiman’s Tale was actually the better of the two, in my opinion. So much can happen in the Jungle Drums scenario . . . yet . . . so little did.

I would rather have seen more of the characters’ personalities come out in the story as opposed to being told what was going on. It made sense for Roskiman to tell us how he felt as he was new to a lot of the emotions in his situation. In comparison, we were just informed of Jan Augusta’s observations and told he was an expert on reading people. We were told about their emotions but not shown them.

All in all, I give it 3 out of 5 stars. A good first attempt. Needs work, but definitely the right steps in the right direction. Looking forward to more novellas.