I purchased this pdf when it first came out, but even though I was quite excited about the game, I had a very hard time trying to wrap my head around the mechanics.

However, the Eldritch pdf was recently updated so I downloaded and printed it off again. While I haven’t checked to see how much of the original text was changed, what I do know is that the updated version IS VERY EASY TO UNDERSTAND. This time, as soon as I had finished reading through the chapter on Character Creation (which is only eight pages long), I had a very solid grasp of the system. And that’s before I had even read the next chapter that describes the Action System!

Personally, I really like how the how game uses the same basic resolution method (other reviewers have detailed it well) for most everything – skill use, combat, spell-casting, etc. It is intuitive, quick and easy-to-pick-up.

Yeah, the text is kind of small and the interior art is dark and too cgi-looking for my tastes, but the Game Design notes found in the margins of nearly every page as well as the cover art are great!

Truly, Eldritch is now exactly what it claims to be – a perfect rpg for cinematic fantasy. I’m changing systems!

Four Stars – text size and interior art brought it down from five.

John Adams Brave Halfling Publishing

~First Impressions:

Sadly, one of the first things you will notice is the unfriendly layout which makes learning the rules a little frustrating at times. Just do yourself a favor and make sure that isn't the last thing you see because the rest of the content does much to make up for the difficulties you run into over layout. The artwork is well done and well placed, the text is easy to read and the pdf has a full set of options for navigation. Also, it's worth mentioning that a free Quickstart Guide is available and this goes a long way towards fixing many of the layout oddities.

My favorite thing about the way Eldritch was put together has to be the many sidebars that not only give optional rules but also give you a little insight into why a certain rule works the way it does. This kind of thing really makes it easy to make changes to the game mechanic.

~Play Impressions:

After reading the Quickstart Guide (which I recommend before reading the pdf) and the pdf itself I found Eldritch to be very interesting indeed.

The game is skill based and it's quite easy for even a new player to pick up the game and have a character ready in under 20 minutes which I find to be a big plus.

The mechanics are based on ascending die types (d4, d6, etc) and you have the option of taking specializations and masteries to increase the number of dice you roll. This ends up being a very simple yet workable mechanic for handling all random actions (skills, combat, etc) in the game.

One of the things that caught my eye first was the level of participation players have during combat. Gone is the standard "to hit" roll vs various target numbers. In Eldritch, each player takes a hand in deciding how his character will defend himself against any attack. This allows the player to get more involved in combat which often makes up the bulk of any fantasy adventure. What's more, this level of involvement comes with no sacrifice in speed or ease of play.

Eldritch also does well in supplying you with the things that you need to play while skipping over the bloated bits you rarely use anyway. You need not worry about alignments, bloated equipment lists or encumbrance systems. You will, however, find plenty of information for weapons, armor, magic and all the things characters are likely to get into.

And while Eldritch does not come with a fully detailed campaign world it does supply enough information about the base setting to allow you to easily run games.

The one thing which Eldritch lacks is even a small list of sample monsters. However, it makes up for this by giving you all the information you need to create your own versions of popular fantasy critters or something totally new.

All in all I gave Eldritch a 4 rating as, despite the absent monsters, the game is packed with all the information you need to easily run story rich fantasy games. Everything from character creation to slinging spells is covered in a slick easy to use game mechanic that will have your players really enjoying the characters they create.

Lastly, make sure to visit the Eldritch forum at Goodman Games as it is a wonderful resource for the game.

Believe it or not, there IS a good game in here. You just have to wade through a layout that isn't as clear as it should be and some acronyms that might make the game seem more complicated than it really is. The Ability Tree system for defining a characters skills and traits is infinitely customizable and will generally allow you to design any character you want. The combat system is different from what most people are used to, but it's fairly easy to use. A "you design the spell" magic system is provided that does a pretty good job of simulating the arcane arts.

What you're basically getting with Eldritch Roleplaying is a toolkit. You'll need to put some work in to fully realize the game's potential, but I think much of the criticism leveled at ERP isn't 100% accurate, either. ERP doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it does give you a different wheel to play roll around. For a generic fantasy RPG, it's pretty good.

Good: Very flexible character creation system, interesting approach to combat with Defense Pools, good toolkit for GMs who want to create their own fantasy worlds

Bad: The layout and organization is sometimes quite confusing, the various acronyms take a while to learn, a full-color version would've been nice.

I bought Eldritch soon after it was released, as I am generally drawn to non-d20 RPGs of any sort. I was also interested to see what Dan Cross et. al. had done with the system. I knew Dan's work from some of the Troll Lord Ganes products and so he was at least a solid and known quantity. Also I thought it was a good sign that Goodman Games was publishing Eldritch as GG has a good reputation numerous thriving game lines.

Overview: The cover by Peter Bradley is fantastic. He continues to impress and I hope we see more of his work as time goes on. I did not particularly care for some of the interior art but that is a matter of personal taste, you may feel otherwise. The art was functional and didn't distract. The layout was nice, utilizing sidebars and examples where needed. Though it was on the plain side. Now this isn't a big deal for me, I don't need or really want a load of spiff in my RPG rulebooks, but it will doubtless seem drab to some of you. It is focused more on function and readability than eye-candy. The editing suffers a bit as there are page reference errors, which are annoying, but not fatal in my opinion. No text will ever be perfect, particularly from a small press. There are several assumptions made in Eldritch, principally that those reading the book are not novice RPGers. The text is clear on this score from the outset but it would have been nice to see it be just a tad more user-friendly in this regard. Some have groused that the book is not a complete game, this is not the case. It is a complete game in every aspect. It just doesn't spoon-feed you. It lays out the structures and allows you to fill in the rest, the text has sections on spell. magic item and monster creation. But I suppose most folks do not want to put in the mental elbow-grease needed to gen up a magic system, etc. Well, I am sure that those aspects may be forth coming. Though, you do not need more than the corebook/.pdf to play the game. There are additional materials avaialbe on the website that I found useful, particularly the GM screen. All free for download. The screen made running my first game a lot easier.

The System: I have read the other reviews and many seem to fault the system for noe bieng a "rules-lite" system. Well, from my reading Eldritch never purports to be such, in fact it states plainly that it is rules-transparent rather than rules-light. The meaning here is that the rules, all the rules for play, are presented clearly for use by player and GM alike. As a result it is not difficult in know what is "going on" in the course of a game session or how certain things might be expressed in game terms. That is not to say that there isn't a mild learning curve due to the alphabet soup of terms used. To some this may detract but in my opinion it makes no greater demand on the would-be player/GM than any other system out there, and far less than most. The system presents the "standard tropes" in the way of playable races and classes/professions. but that is more for familiarity as much as anything. You are certainly NOT limited to such pidgeon-holing and the system encourages further devlopment. In my view have the standards presented is more of an aide in learning the system, at least it was for me. To that end Eldritch is highly tweakable, want to play with the classic races/professions go fo it...want different advantages/disadvantages, create them...want to add skill trees, delete them or modify...do that too, don't like your magic with a Vancian dash, create your own! Don't like the level based system (which feels a bit odd I must admit) drop it. Do any of these things and more, the game does not suffer one bit. I found the defense pools, variable difficulty/target numbers and potential Harm to be interesting concepts that play well (more below). The magic system is open-ended and largely free form. I also like the use of skill-clusters/trees. This allows for great flexibility and creativity at the game table.

Game Play: This is where Eldritch really shines. Shakespeare said that the game's the thing and here it is just so. Character gen was a snap, but I have an experienced group, less experienced players my take a while the first time out. We ran through several short encounters and scenarios. The system played very well. It did take a combat or two to get used to which defense pool to use when, but once the dice start rolling it becomes intuitive. The variable difficulty system was a gas, it injects a big element of the unknown into the ebb and flow of the game. Eldritch is not a combat simulator, leaning more toward the cinematic, but with enough crunch to satisfy. Magic was potent and easy to adjudicate. Though there is at time a burden placed on the GM in such resolutions, it is no more so than most games. Aill in all we had a great time and will be adding Eldritch to our rotation of systems.

The Bottom Line: Don't let the minor editing glitches and bland-ish layout put you off. Eldritch is a worthy system for anyone looking for somethign different, open and flexible. It feels like the start of something. A great idea that is slowly catching on. It is easily worth the price of the .pdf. Very reasonable by modern standards.

As a long time role player, I enjoy “new” rpgs. And the one thing I love about RPGNOW is the ability to buy a “discounted “ PDF of new games that interest me, before I buy a hard copy at full price.

Eldritch Fantasy appealed to me as it is a non d20 system, and, well, right about now the world needs more of this, if you ask me.

Eldritch has a default bog standard fantasy setting, with all the usual suspects, Humans, dwarfs, elves, etc. Nothing out of the “norm” here, and nothing that felt even slightly inspired.

The mechanics remind me a lot of Savage Worlds. Attributes are ranked by die type. D4 through d12, with d4 being the default human “norm”.

Character generation consists of point a buy, where players can either pick and choose or purchase racial packages,. There are in addition to attributes, assorted advantages and disadvantages and occupations to be picked from. All are what you except in a largely generic fantasy world.

The mechanics are, also largely unoriginal or uninspired, and in general consist of rolling the appropriate die plus assigned bonuses and comparing it against either a static or randomly generated target number. Even the slighty more interesting "Open" magic rules, for createing your own spells, seems like yesterdays news.

Again, this all felt remarkably similar to Savage Worlds, with one distinctive and unattractive difference. Where savage world made efforts to keep it simple, Eldritch piles on the additional rules, and assigns each an annoying series of abbreviations :ADP, PDP, ADC, MRV, ETC, gahhhhh enough!. There is nothing that breaks immersion, like when the GM asks a player “Whats yer series of random letters” and the Player answer is “HuH?” .

In addition to the games love of abbreviations and acronym are flow charts, specialized rules, and a multi paged character sheet (I don’t know about you, but if a game requires more the 2 sides of the same sheet to keep track of my character, it is asking me to record and remember way to much information) all of which seems to fly in the face of it’s claim that the rules are “Transparent”. Even in a slim book such as Eldritch, having to stop and flip through in search of an obscure caveat, is a game breaker, for a “Quick and easy” system.

Eldritch also gets negative points for being way to generic, the sample world description is less then three pages long . It includes sample spells, I assume these are suitable to this default paragraph, er, ah, “world” and no where even a hint at what sort of beasties trouble the world, just rules for inventing your own (in all honesty it looks like rules for converting them from “that other game”).

In short I found Eldritch to be unoriginal, uninspired, overly complex and incomplete, to be worth even the price of the PDF. You are not really getting anything more then the barebones minimum of an FRP system , and that in and of it's self should be a deal breaker for a system that claims to be an all in one book.If you are looking for a simple, transparent, original, and all inclusive sysem, there are plenty of better options to had (BRP, D6, and T&T come to mind).

For thoses planning on making a go of it, you have your work cut out for you (I wouldn't even recomend using Eldritch as an alternate rule set). If you are lucky, the future no doubt holds a metric ton of additional books to flesh out the world of Eldritch.

Okay, let's see if I can lay this out in a fair way.

I was excited to see Goodman Games come out with their own RPG, since I have been a huge fan of their products for a couple years now. So, when Eldritch came out, I bought it right away.

The cover art of Peter Bradley got me from the getgo, since I have been a fan of his for some time and love his work in Troll Lord Games (Castles and Crusades,etc). The interior is clean and seems well polished.

The mechanics: Ah the meat and drink of it. Wellllllll, how do I say this? It is different to say the least. Characters have Die Ranks in skills, starting with, lets say, a 1d4 in general melee, upgrading to a 1d6, then a 1d8, and so on. Interesting mechanic in that you also gain additional die by specializing in a field of study, for example, getting an additional 1d6 in swords, and then a mastery rank of, say, 1d4 in a rapier. Soooo, if using a rapier, you get to roll your 1d4 for melee, 1d6 for swords, and 1d4 for rapier and add them all together for Potential Harm. Your opponent has similar die added up to form a defense pool, which has Hit Points, and you must batter through this abstract barrier to harm your opponent. Different but just as viable as other systems I suppose.

Overall Impression: Well, I just don't like it much. The author states it is a Rules Transparent system, not rules light, to facilitate the story, but I don't get that part. It is just as complex as other systems but combat ends up being far more abstract than I care for. It could be fun for some, I am sure, but it's definitely not for me. I was actually a little disappointed in my purchase, and for the price, it was not worth it.

I feel it was professionally done, and may be fun for some people, therefore I won't slam the rating based on my personal bias.

Eldritch Rpoleplaying Game by Dan Cross and Randall Petras for Goodman Games

Cost: $13 USD Size: 98 pages

Overview: Rules assume a basic understanding of what an RPG is and how they work. Game style is cinematic/fast-paced and focused more on storytelling than rules. Character creation is accomplished by means of a point-buy system with the standard fantasy races.

Dislikes: 1) The character sheet is seven pages long. 2) There are a few minor mis-spellings in the text. 3) The whole "skill trees" system seems like it was borrowed from Rolemaster Standard System. 4) The text of the book uses a lot of abbreviations and may require multiple readings to comprehend. 5) No monsters mentioned in this book. (This book was listed in the "all-in-one" section of RPG now) 6) The campaign setting was covered in less than 3 pages. (This book was listed in the "all-in-one" section of RPG now)

Likes: 1) The challenge rating for skill checks is random. Just like in real life, sometimes you have unbelievably good days, and other times the deck is stacked against you. 2) Some interesting ideas regarding the types and sources of magical abilities. 3) Default campaign setting has a celtic flair to it, which is a welcome change from the standard generic fantasy setting. I am assuming that at some point in the future, a more detailed treatment of the setting will be released as a separate book.

The bottom line: A lot of people think that a 3 of 5 is a non-review, but in this case it is my honest opinion. Eldritch has good points and bad points. I think the game could have used a little more time in playtesting.