To start off this game is very unique in it's approach. As opposed to creating a wildly complex RPG like his last attempt Mr. Gygax decided to take the other route and create something very simplistic yet engaging. The game comes off fairly well but has some minor shortcomings that detract from the game, but not greatly mind you.
On to the meat of the review the game system.
Let's start with Characters or Avatars as they are called in the game: Characters (Avatars) have 3 traits (possibly 4, with one optional trait.) These traits are Health, Precision, and speed ( with the optional one being Intellect). The traits are generated by dividing 100 point between the 3 traits (or 4), with adjustments according to race. Speaking of races, they are: Human, Dwarf, Gnome Ilf, Kobold, Oaf Typical, Oaf Major, Orc Greater, Orc Lesser, Trollkin, and Veshoge. Then you pick abilities (skills) The number of abilites are based on your race. You also get to pick one extra ability. Abilities are based on the 1-100 rating. Abilities are associated with your three attributes and depending on which attribute you have you get bonuses for having that ability. Then you rank the abilities in order of importance to the avatar. Now keep in mind this is a simplistic game, but not that simple and this is just a quick overview of character creation. Next would be the fleshing out of the character with background and equipment. Players can also join an order (almost like a character class in D&D), but to be a part of a particular order, you need the proper skills ranked correctly. Depending on how many of the requirements you match you would be able to join the order and POSSIBLY gain bonuses for being in that order.
Combat: Combat is simple. Time is related to ABCs' (Activity Block Counts) there are five in a minute. Everything you do requires you to spend a certain amount of ABCs'. Initiative is rolled with a D10 and the lowest number going first. People stated there actions and the nit is figured by ABCs' who goes first. Attempting to hit a creature would require you to look at your weapons skill (ability), adding the weapon precision bonus adding or subtracting any situational modifiers and attempting and attempting to roll under the modified number. Simple enough. Damage (Harm) is done minus the armor value equivalent. Bonuses are added for Weapon precision and skill.
Magic: Magic is based on your particular magic based skill and casting spells is based on a pool of spell point (or power points as stated in the game), Each spell (or enchanment) has a difficulty level listed next to the name, which tells you how long it takes to cast the spell and how much power it takes to cast it. (An Idea Well done in this game and one of the shining stars of this game in my book)
Overall: Overall this game is done well with a few minor typographical glitches, which is to be expected in any game. I believe the game does a fair job of explaining the rules and presenting them. This is an average game with potential to be much bigger. Some of the presentation could have been better and I believe the layout could have been done with more polish, but to be fair Mr Gygax, I believe, when making this game wanted to do it his way so he created his own company. I believe with more financial backing this could be a very polished and complete game with a fair amount of substance. The book (at least the premier edition does) comes with the first part of a three part adventure. I did not really like this adventure. It was the most confusing part of the book and I believe did not fit with the simplistic nature of the game. I won't go into details with what it is about but suffice it to say that the character are looking for themselves through the whole adventure.
Art: The art is probably the most inconsistent part of this book. It reminds me of early TSR work. Some of it is great while other parts of it I could do better and I am not that good of an artist. BTW: the same can be mentioned for the GM Guide and the Beasts of Lejend book)
Style: 3 Could use more polish and more consistency
Substance: 2 to 3 could use more info and given more details.
Support: 4.5 to 5 This is important to me and I feel should be included in the review. This, for me, will make or break a game and in this game it helps it greatly. I always got assistance from the creator(s) of this game when a question was asked and for me turned a so-so game which I could have easily put to the side without a thought into a ever evolving RPG with many possiblities.
Average Rating on a scale of 1 to 5: 3.6
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