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USAGI YOJIMBO ROLE-PLAYING GAME 2nd Edition
by A customer [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/24/2023 23:41:06

This is a review for the print version from the kickstarter. Received mid-2020 but haven't had a chance to review it until now. Spelling and grammer errors everywhere. Paragraphs cut off mid sentence. Poor organization of text. Few gameplay examples. Was hoping to get some errata or a pdf of a corrected version, but support for this was dropped almost immediately after release. Will never support this group (publishers, authors, etc) ever again



Rating:
[1 of 5 Stars!]
USAGI YOJIMBO ROLE-PLAYING GAME 2nd Edition
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IRONCLAW Omnibus: Squaring the Circle
by Martin P. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 05/15/2023 20:29:35

amazing! this books got my creativity flowing! love all the different species and creatures. im curious to whats next for them.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
IRONCLAW Omnibus: Squaring the Circle
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BOOK OF CORALS - Maritime Adventure for Ironclaw
by Shawntae H. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 02/09/2023 22:18:38

Great book for Roleplay fantasy of a different type. The level of creativity increases with anthropomorphic characters and the art in the book is great and professionally done. Definitely recommend.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
BOOK OF CORALS - Maritime Adventure for Ironclaw
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IRONCLAW: Book of Monsters
by Catherine F. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 12/04/2022 10:11:42

as stated by other reviewers, the monsters are all plant-based. however, i don't think this is a bad thing; it makes sense when you consider that the characters in this world are all anthropomorphic animals. it would be weird for them to fight against animal-like beasts, you know? the monsters were also surprisingly creepy; i was expecting them to be super campy, but some of them, like the shambling mandrake and tomb tree, were downright terrifying.

the book of monsters isn't just a beastiary, either; you also get new info on the world of ironclaw, namely the bazaar and the various medicinal plants that can be found. there's also a mini-campaign at the end of the book, for people who are unsure how to incorporate the monsters into their stories.

my only "complaint", if you can even call it that, is that the print copy is numbered a little weirdly. it's very obvious that this pdf was originally part of a bigger pdf, because it starts at page "823". since it's a very short book, the page count disparity is somewhat jarring, but not enough for me to dock any points.

all in all, i think this was a worthy addition to the ironclaw lore, and well worth the money spent!



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
IRONCLAW: Book of Monsters
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Ironclaw Book of Fools
by Jason S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/29/2022 07:31:55

OK So the Book of Fools. This is a six page addition to the game (and does continue the page count after the Omnibus, thus is part of the set) that focuses on classes and jobs of fools, jesters and clowns. For the purpose of the court fool, this pamphlet is a wonderful addition to the game books, and the joke of it costing over $1000 back when it first came out outside of april fools was a funny one. Glad it's free now for the PDF. Wonder what the quality of the print edition is like. Oh well the contents are fun.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
Ironclaw Book of Fools
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IRONCLAW: Book of Monsters
by Dean S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/17/2022 12:59:02

All of the monsters are plant based and there are a bunch of pun based ones. It's a bit too kitschy for me. I was expecting something more like the DnD monster manual. If the book blurb had been clear on what this book was about I probably would have avoided it



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
IRONCLAW: Book of Monsters
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FARFLUNG: Sci-Fi Role-Play After Dark
by Timothy K. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 10/16/2022 03:15:19

Farflung is for me, one of the most imaginative science fictions games I've seen in a long while. It allows so many different styles of play while using the same consistant base PbtA core mechanics. It has details (and sometimes rules) to cover so many different thing if you want to use them. I play with a group that likes to try different games and this one turned out to be one of our longest played and for me, most interesting campaigns that I've managed as a GM. The breadth of character options and the depth they're capable of create a lot of different potential ways to play without a need for a lot of sub-systems (although every character has moves that differ somewhat the rules for them are stable.)

I highly recommend this game, and I hope to cycle it back into our play time for a new (or even continued) campaign.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
FARFLUNG: Sci-Fi Role-Play After Dark
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FARFLUNG: Sci-Fi Role-Play After Dark
by Scott R. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 06/28/2022 06:15:01

I purchased this in physical form and I did not know prior to this Drive thru did physical copies of books, and was sceptical as I read some reviews sayign the print was not all that great.

I cannot speak for the system yet but I am very impressed witht he quality of the book and there are a few purchases of OOp books that I am now likely to purchase based on this, so if like me, you hate PDF rulebooks, I am very happy with the print quality.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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USAGI YOJIMBO ROLE-PLAYING GAME 2nd Edition
by Wayne P. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/02/2022 13:54:07

A ¾ complete project abandoned to the internet

I bought the PDF of this game shortly after its release in March 2020. This review is based on the PDF as it was when I downloaded it on 8th April 2021. It’s roughly a year old and has had several updates since release.

When I first heard that Sanguine had got the rights to do a Usagi Yojimbo RPG I had mixed feelings. On the plus side, Sanguine are the go-to publisher for furry RPGs and despite being quite cumbersome and horribly complex, I actually really liked the original Jadeclaw, so it seemed like a really good fit. On the downside, however, they announced that it would use Powered by the Apocalypse, a game which I’ve bounced off in the past because it felt like it was trying way too hard to be cool and edgy and different for the sake of being different, which is a shame because from what I could see it seemed like quite a neat narrative system. I hoped that, with Usagi as its focus it might drop some of that pretentious nonsense and as a consequence be substantially more palatable, and it does to some degree, to be fair.

So, where to begin? Well, let’s start with the positives. The art is gorgeous, but let’s face it, Stan Sakai’s art is the lion’s share of the reason we’re here, right? The two column layout and black text on a white background is simple and clean and the square shape is quite pleasing, aesthetically.

Powered by the Apocalypse is, as I suspected, quite neat. It’s a simple, narrative system that collaboratively tells stories in broad strokes rather than granular, blow-by-blow detail and that’s definitely my bag.

The downside is that, having read the book from start to finish now, I’m not sure I really understand how to play the game and I don’t think that’s PbtA’s fault. Some of the rules are explained in the Rules chapter at the beginning of the book, some in the Playbook and some in the Master of Ceremonies chapter toward the end but I can’t really connect the disparate elements in my head. I think having the rules gathered together and explained with play examples might have helped connect the dots. This is not, however, a game for people new to roleplaying. I think folk not familiar with the concept will really struggle to understand what the hell is going on. It’s worth mentioning here that the GM (Master of Ceremonies) doesn’t roll any dice. Outcomes are decided by how well or how poorly the players roll and whilst I really like that, and I guessed as much from the Rules chapter, it’s bafflingly not explicitly stated in the book until page 205 (of 244) where it is a throwaway line in parenthesis in the middle of the second of three adventure plot hooks! This should have been stated in bold in Chapter 1: Rules. It is kind of an important and noteworthy feature of the system.

This particular version of Powered by the Apocalypse does, as I said, eschew much of the pretentious nonsense that has put me off the system before now but still has some irritating ticks. First to annoy me was the ‘Moods’. Moods are different styles of play. 'Casual' is when PCs are just wandering about exploring or chatting to NPCs via the GM, 'Dicey' is when dice are rolled to determine an outcome (skill checks and such) and 'Combat' is, well, combat. You know, like in absolutely every other RPG where ‘moods’ are a sort of intuitive given, but PbtA feels the need to formalise it, therefore making it feel much more complex than it actually is. We have the Playbooks with a couple of actions that your character has, called ‘Moves’. Moves in any other system are just the actions that your player can take on their turn but PbtA feels the need to also formalise it and give it a fancy name. The biggest offender though, is the name of the GM, the Master of Ceremonies or MC. No need. I’m fine with GM. It feels too much like it’s trying to be different for the sake of being different and I just want to cuff it about the head and tell it to grow up. PbtA also suffers from one of Fate’s problems in that it expects you to be able to use adjectives as scores. A ‘weak’ hit, a ‘Grand’ strike. All very admirable and narrative but I still need to convert them into numbers to be able to use them which is inefficient and I wish they’d just use the numbers instead. These bellyaches aside, the various 'Moves' that the PCs have, are quite neat and if you use the optional ‘Upgrade’ system, then characters have the potential to become quite varied and interesting mechanically as well as narratively.

However, I think for me, the biggest negative of all is the incredibly poor quality control on the book. It is absolutely riddled with typos, spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and layout issues. The worst offenders being two paragraphs that end mid-sentence. It seems that the book wasn’t proof read before they hit the publish button, or if it was, it was done very poorly. This could be forgiven if it were caught and fixed almost immediately after publishing but twelve months after release I still count over 70 errors, that Sanguine have apparently never made any attempt to fix despite updating the PDF several times. I’ve catalogued them all in the comments page (if they’ve not been deleted) in the hope that it helps Sanguine correct them. (Reading reviews for several other of their products, however, this seems to be a common complaint with Sanguine!) My other gripe is that the covers of the book are supplied as JPG files separate to the PDF file. I don’t understand why. A friend suggested it might be because it made it easier to print but you can just choose to not print the covers. Another reason might be that the cover would throw the page numbering out but I’ve seen PDFs that list the cover as page 0 or i so that page 1 is still page 1. The shame of it is that without the front cover, viewed in double-page mode, the pages are out of order with the right hand page on the left and the next page over on the right. The page numbers are then on the inside which looks wrong and each playbook has the wrong accompanying comic strip image alongside it.

This last is admittedly a minor thing but combined with everything else it gives the whole product the feeling of a project three quarters completed and then just abandoned to the internet, which wouldn’t be so bad if people weren’t paying over £14 a time for it. Indeed people are ordering printed hardbacks of the book for over £43 in the above described condition! It’s absolutely shocking.

It’s so frustrating. I wanted to love it but I am, on the whole, very disappointed with Usagi Yojimbo 2nd ed as it could have been something quite special. As it is, I think if I ever run a Usagi Yojimbo game, it’d be less taxing on my nerves to just use the old Gold Rush Games’ Fuzion system rules.



Rating:
[2 of 5 Stars!]
USAGI YOJIMBO ROLE-PLAYING GAME 2nd Edition
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ASTOUNDING SCIENCE - Retro-Futuristic Options for Urban Jungle
by Jeremy M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/27/2021 19:37:12

Take of this book what you will. I picked this up as a pdf. The base book and first expasion I got a physical coply and pdf. This one not so much of a need for the hard cover. The first expansion gave you powers and interesting jobs. This one saying more playable species did not lie, but they are all alien. Only new thing in this book I liked was the mixed species. Is your dad a alien and mom and Earthling now you know how to cross breed if that is something you wanted. I would rather play Albedo for space furry fun. This is okay, but not what I hoped for urban jungle. I wanted other time periods to play in with more modern jobs and other animal species. I am not going to say don't buy it but for me it was the weak link of the three books. Okay for generic science fiction fun, but was a miss for me.



Rating:
[3 of 5 Stars!]
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE - Retro-Futuristic Options for Urban Jungle
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URBAN JUNGLE - Anthropomorphic Noir Role-Play
by Jeremy M. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 09/03/2021 22:53:55

This review will be short. The game takes place around the 1930's with a renaming of cities. The walkthrough the rules are fine. If you have played Ironclaw the rules are similar, but a bit more streamlined. If you are a furry this is a nice game. It is not overly sexual, but one of the careers is hooker.

I picked up the book and pdf. The pdf is clear and I have no issues. That being said I don't use quicklinks to search the pdf. The book is well made and the ink is easy to read.

I have just started with my regular RPG group playing this. My sister is the host. This is only the second system she has run. She wanted to give this forever DM a chance to play seeing how I am a furry. We only have one game under our belt and my character only got to use 2 dice roles because my sister got confused. I still think it is a good starting RPG for new DMs the rules are not over complicated. It did however take forever to set up two of the players characters. Both being new to RPGing. This groip started with Vampire 5ed then this.

I would recommend picking up the horror book to mix it up. The science book adds alien races not more basic races and I was not as impressed with it as the horror book.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
URBAN JUNGLE - Anthropomorphic Noir Role-Play
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ASTOUNDING SCIENCE - Retro-Futuristic Options for Urban Jungle
by Sapphire C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 07/11/2021 13:31:33

What never fails to amaze me is how Sanguine manages to really make some darling books. If you're familiar with D&D or PF, forget it. This isnt' some dry, dusty tome that spits rules and settings at you, it's charming and made with love. And unlike those books, the setting has a theme, a point, and bearhugs it, instead of throwing out a wide net of ideas.

It's never shy to give some pro-tips on how to use its systems, or have some fun with what it does. Even if you don't plan to run Urban Jungle, Astounding Science, Occult Horr, and the Ironclaw books are just filled with good, fun ideas. Some of the new Soaks are quite delightful, doing that thing where it marries a narrative fluff with a mechanical quirk for a gestalt whopper of a moment.

Seriously, it really breathes in that goofy idea of the early sci-fi era. Every page does lifting. Just Pluto alone features an exciting mystery with a strange localle and curious natives to meet and greet. Like the Mindjammer books, it's not afraid to hint at adventure and campaign ideas without feelign the need to spit it out, trusting you to figure it out and have fun in your own way.

If you want character, bite, a book that actually makes your brain rev and roar with ideas and excitement, you can't go wrong.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
ASTOUNDING SCIENCE - Retro-Futuristic Options for Urban Jungle
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IRONCLAW: Book of Jade
by Jason S. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 01/31/2021 09:38:03

I'll keep my review short and sweet here. As a fan of the Ironclaw game system, I greatly welcome any book that adds to the pool of usable lore, items, races and creatures. The Book of Jade specifically is a really wonderful addon, as I'm also a fan of Eastern inspired lore, archetecture, mythology and designs. The book itself in terms of construction looks great, and feels great in the hands. Props to the artists who contributed as once again the beautiful artwork makes a print copy worthy of owning alone, beyond the additions to the Ironclaw system provided within the pages.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
IRONCLAW: Book of Jade
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USAGI YOJIMBO ROLE-PLAYING GAME 2nd Edition
by Angelo P. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 12/28/2020 08:18:15

This is one of my favorite implementations of a Powered by the Apocalypse system. It uses the Weak / Strong / Grand scale of challenge and success that I first encountered in Far Flung. I enjoy this because it enables storytelling in an intuitive way, one that fits the rising arc of escalating danger so common in stories of heroism. The "classes" feel authentic, and when I use the system I strip out the animal-aspects and just let folks assign a combination of +2 / -2 as they see fit. You could play out any number of stories and movies, from Seven Samurai to 13 Assassins to Shogun. It would be easy to file off the serial numbers and play a game of The Lord of the Rings with this; once you understand the system it lends itself to telling those kinds of stories.

Like any new system, it takes a hot minute to understand how the roles fit together. At the begining, the character abilities feel a ittle mechanically indistinct. At first I worried this would be a little boring, but it actually helped me see how the different core abilities interacted, gave the opportunity to see how Setbacks and Story Points work, etc. After a few games the special abilitis start to crystalize and the game really hums.

That said, you need to bring your own story and play this with people who want to tell a story. The mechanics will facilitate it but the narrative has to be brought to the game and all the players work together to tell that story (e.g. it wouldn't be easy to just drop them in a dungeon). If you want to tell an exciting, sincere story in the Warring States periods this is a fantastic choice.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
USAGI YOJIMBO ROLE-PLAYING GAME 2nd Edition
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MADCAP: Screwball Cartoon Role-Play
by Tamshu B. D. C. [Verified Purchaser] Date Added: 11/26/2020 20:06:46

I truly want to love this system, but the sheer number of errors in the document are infuriating. Especially for a game that is 3 years old. I get that your proofreader may be a hippopatmus with rose colored glasses, but sentences like "Nefarious forces try to steal the item leading to a chase them across the." happen too many times. Explanations of rules, end in

There, see how freaking annoying that is? And the grammatical errors outnumber the incomplete thoughts! (check the example above...it suffers from both).

FIX THE ERRORS!!!!

That said, once you make it through the rules, the system has a lot of entertainment value. I was looking for something to run with a wacky zany twist with a little less "adult content" than Big MutherF'ing Crab Truckers. While my players love the game, and it can be fun....sometimes I want funny not filthy funny. This looks like it may fit the bill. The rules allow for development of a personalized cartoon character, and a good mechanic for keeping things flowing with a slant toward success, but possible failures. This included a method to "force" a failure and still reward the player. I love that.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
MADCAP: Screwball Cartoon Role-Play
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