I had some interest in this product since I saw a couple of good reviews at UncleBear (http://unclebear.com/?p=3773) and RPG.net (http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/14/14296.phtml). And being a fan of random charts and seeds for ideas, I decided to buy it.

Discarded the physical edition for having too little space for books right now, and thinking it would be more useful to have all that information in electronic format, easy to search and to reach, I bought it here, in RPGNow.

All in all, I have exactly what I was told I would find in this product. But it's pretty surprising that for 20 euros, the price of a normal book out there in RL, the only "plus" is the capability of using the search engine that every PDF reader has. No markers, no hyperlinked text, no adaptated version for reading it on a computer screen... No using all the possibilities an electronic format has. In my opinion, now that I have paid for it, 20 euros is pretty high when you have plenty of other products of random charts out there for less than 5 €.

So please, AEG and every other RPG publisher: if you are going to sell PDF version of your products, please use all the advantages the electronic format offers. Selling the PDF you sent to the printer's should be a lot more cheaper than this.

This is an amazing book, the classes are well designed (though not necessarilly well balanced) and the races are departures from the stereotypical norms. Class / Race abilities are amazing. For someone who likes D&D 3.0 or 3.5 this book is a blast.

The other reviewer says that this is an almost unreadable scan, I disagree, I haven't had any problem with reading it. Some of the pages were at a bit of an angle when it was scanned in, however it is readable without any difficulty.

This adventure is an urban interlude, which should be run when the characters are in a large town about other business. The town needs to be big enough to have organised government and a sewer system... because the former wants the latter cleaned up!

It appears that recently some sewer workers were slain while cleaning up after a recent earthquake, and the 'city fathers' want to hire some adventurers to deal with the problem. If the characters don't take heed, it is suggested that some of the undead who are actually causing the problems pop up out of the sewers and attack passers-by or even the characters themselves until they do do something about it!

The adventure itself is a fairly straightforward 'dungeon bash' with a few twists - being a sewer it is very cramped - a 5-foot diameter circular tube, which will cause problems for both tall characters and anyone using a weapon that needs to be swung for full effect. The place is heaving with undead too, as the earthquake opened a way to a long-lost evil temple hidden in the bowels of the earth. The undead are enthusiastically coming out to infest the sewers and the city above. Worse, the temple is resistant to the usual magic that adventurers tend to employ - turning undead doesn't work as well as normal, and healing spells are also diminished in potency.

Although there's occasional mention of 'filth' and 'foulness' the fact that sewers are dirty, disease-ridden places is by and large ignored. You might wish to add a few choice diseases, and get characters to make Fortitude saves to avoid retching at the stench! The descriptions do not really bring over the feeling of claustrophobia that a small, dark tunnel ought to either - but perhaps adventurers are made of sterner stuff and don't mind such enclosed spaces...

Possibly worth dropping in as an interlude if your characters are wandering around a suitable town without much to do, especially if they enjoy dungeon-crawl fighting adventures.

A great buy due to the GM Day (horray for us, guys!), this is a nice d20 (DnD 3.0 players handbook required, mind you) take on the well-loved if short-lived series. The only problem I see with it is that it's a scan of the actual book, so that means it is a bit on the heavy side (95 or so Mb), and that the text is not that clear. There's also the issue about the layout using an unconventional two colum format that gets a bit hard to get used to, or for some other it might get a wee bit hard to read after a while.

All in all, the spirit of the series is captured and there's no need to buy anything to flesh out your campaign as all the relevant information is in there, presented in concise, organized and useful manner.

It would definitely be a five-star product if only the quality of the file could be improved, but if you had any interest in the series or like Space-Opera settings, this is a really good buy and almost as steal at the sales price.

LIKED: The quality of the informations.

DISLIKED: The overall quality of the scans. To a lesser degree, the unconventional page layout.

OVERALL: Satisfied with the product.

This review applies to the recently updated version of the PDF.

The First Steps book contains a wealth of original material for the SG-1 game, ten new worlds to explore each described in detail. There are new alien and near-human races, new skills and new feats to go with these worlds.

The PDF is a scanned image of the book, rather than a publication created from the original typesetting material. The image format results in a large file size.

The tracking lines, evident in the previous version available here, have now gone. The image quality is much better than the previous version as well. The missing pages, pages 77 and 80, have made it in to the new scan.

A much better version of the PDF making this a good purchase for the SG-1 game.

The premise and general structure of this adventure is nice and fun. But now that I've run most of it for my gaming group, I see that there are several fairly serious plot flaws that weren't caught.

For example, there's pretty much only one way to really fully complete the main quest and that is - according to the module - to use Speak with Animals to talk to a key creature the adventuring party encounters. But the creature the PCs have to talk to isn't an animal, so the spell wouldn't actually work.

There are several cases like this, where the module contradicts what's written in the basic D&D books. But for the most part, you can improvise your way around these problems, and the story itself is good and fun. My players were surprised by one particular plot twist, which is always a good sign. And the price can't be beat!

Having enjoyed the TV series, I was excited when I noticed this product on the shelves of DriveThruRPG and was quick to purchase. I'm not disappointed by the content. The d20 implementation is well done, with the Wounds/Vitality game mechanic used for combat. There is also a wealth of background material for the SG-1 setting. The review of the game residing at RPGnet is excellent and covers the game content well: http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/10/10809.phtml

Specifically to this PDF version, I'm afraid it's not to the quality I've come to expect from DriveThruRPG. The PDF is a scanned image rather than a publication created from the original typesetting material. The image format results in a large file size, a whopping 88Mb. There are clearly visible track marks from the scanner down the pages. These are especially noticeable on pages including images where the darker background highlights the lines. The image quality is also not as crisp as a PDF published from the original material, some of the text being slightly out of focus and fuzzy. Again, this is more noticeable where there is a background to the text. Several pages are not quite square to the page sides, where the page has slipped as it has gone through the scanner. This is especially evident on pages 436 and 448 of the PDF.

All in all, an excellent d20 product let down by quality issues in the PDF version.

A good little adventure that can be adapted easily to almost any setting and dropped into an existing campaign or used as a sidequest - I was able to drop it into a Forgotten Realms campaign after about 15 minutes work. A few minor problems with incomplete stat blocks and the odd spelling error, but nothing that can't be tweaked easily.

Thanks Kelly for the review, it convinced me to buy. This was quick,and easy to run. It was also easily adaptable. Players enjoyed it and were able to finish it easily in one session. Of course that can vary. For the money this is more than worth it

For someone looking to build convincing detail in their urban setting, GUILDS is a marvelous tool. Historical background, fundamental guild types, new NPC classes to enhance specialization, as well as the one-three page descriptions of various guilds stimulate the imagination. Would not recommend for PC consumption, unless playing a high-level urban campaign. As with any good support document GUILDS provides a few new magic items, a few new prestige classes and a couple of unexpected monsters.

Having a module that can be dropped into an existing campaign without much work is always helpful to a busy DM. I have only read it through at this point, but I will definitely use it in future campaigns<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Short, but with a good story that can be expanded on or used as is.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Nothing<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

Great adventure. I used this as the basis for an Eberron adventure scenario for first-time players in that setting and it worked quite well. Mystery, intrigue, and the supernatural - it's all there.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: Good plot. Gave me the basics I needed.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Written in a very linear fashion without any thought into other possible alternatives for players to choose along the way.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

A nice little design for a caravan city to stick in your existing city to add some mystery and intrigue.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: A great add on feature for a city. Cheap<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: There is an annoying fade out line that runs through the whole product. It doesn't actually hide any information, it's just distracting. So I guess that would be a poor "photocopy." Again, the pages are not quite in order due to it being a pamphlet, but I guess if you print it out and fold it properly it would be good. Will need to update to 3.5<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

A good mini adventure to stick in between adventures while the players are in a city.<br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: A good short, one night adventure that can be scary. Cheap.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Will need to update to 3.5 rules. Since it is like a pamphlet, the pages aren't necessarily in proper order. (IE: pages 1 and 16 are on the same overall page and so forth.) <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Acceptable<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

An RPG Resource Review:

Blood on White Petals is a short scenario - designed for an evening's play - in AEG's Adventure Keep series. With a decidedly oriental feel, it is best run in an oriental setting - else the 'traditions' that the characters are being asked to uphold would be decidedly bizarre if not baffling to them, and much of the dramatic tension would be lost.

The scenario opens with a succinct background for the DM, explaining about the silk-rich Caotang province and the politics that have been going on, and the black arts practiced by the current magistrate of Caotang villiage... and the results when the local peasants discovered what he was up to. This is why you need to be using an oriental setting: peasants revolting against an unjust lord would not raise many eyebrows in a conventional mediaeval/fantasy setting.

The adventure itself opens with the characters arriving in the vicinity of Caotang village. Why they are there is left to the DM to decide - perhaps the scenario is to be dropped in as a 'side adventure' while the characters think they are about something else entirely.

Once the characters have encountered the devastated peasants - who quite naturally expect only death for having slain their magistrate - it will be up to them to figure out what has been going on. As the magistrate was killed while in the process of summoning and binding a demon, the demon is now attempting to break free - it needs to kill the remaining children of the villiage to be able to manifest permanently; so the characters will have to search a nearby monastery where the ritual had been taking place, fight off any number of animated corpses and items set upon them by a very wily, not to say desperate demon, figure out where the remaining children are hidden and slay the demon when it manifests briefly to devour one...

A simple and straightforward adventure, but with sufficient investigation to keep the characters thinking as well as fighting. Presentation is good, including a nice map of the monastery, but more attention should have been paid to proofreading as several spelling and grammatical errors have slipped through. It would be a good adventure for low-level characters to establish a minor reputation in this particular area.