War of the worlds, what more can you say. A great game for the Action!, d20 system. Bring lots of firepower and germs to beat the Martians! <br><br> <b>LIKED</b>: All.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: None.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

War of the Worlds is back in vogue, thanks to two folks you might have heard of: Spielberg and Cruise. Thanks to their efforts, the threat of aliens blowing us up for no good reason at all is once again on our minds. Instead of an attack from above, the movie switched gears to put the killing machines right in our midst. Despite that change, the concept is the same: big fish eat little fish and space is a huge pond.

This sourcebook is meant to bring the setting to life by drawing straight from the source material. This means that it requires a bit of updating for some campaigns unless they are set in the Victorian-era (ooh, maybe D20 Adventure!). It?s also a dual-statted book for both the Action! System and the D20 system. Besides the story itself (available for free here http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/world/readfile?fk_files=98461), there?s information on how to play the setting of War of the Worlds as well as rules on weapons, equipment, alien war machines, and of course the Martians themselves. <br><br><b>LIKED</b>: There?s nothing quite like getting a blow-by-blow of H.G. Well's original novel. The authors are obviously passionate about the novel and closely adhere to the events in the tale. They also provide information for branching off from the main storyline to create an entire campaign. Throughout, the entire book is illustrated with appropriate black-and-white artwork. It?s a handsome book.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Unfortunately, this is one of those books that gives dual-statted books a bad name. It?s not really ?dual? at all. Sure, there are D20 stats listed?in Chapter Three: The Martians. Prior to that point, all the rules for new skills, the military, weapons of the era, and the war machines themselves are ONLY for the Action! system. This is a heresy in the publishing world. Want to tick off D20 gamers and ensure they don?t buy anything else that?s dual-statted? Give D20 short shrift in the book. I wanted stats for the Martian war machines dammit!

A pity. It?s a professional book that?s tightly focused on the Action! system. In that regard, it?s much more useful. But they should have offered the D20 rules as a free supplement as opposed to touting it as a dual-statted book. Bad form. <br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Disappointed<br>

This was rather disappointing, pedestrian and dull. Sure, you get an illustrated version of the novel, but anyone who's interested in this supplement will already have the book, and even if they don't it is easy and cheap to buy. The actual gaming content is remarkably thin on the ground, confining itself to simple stats and presentations of Victorian military equipment. There's almost no expansion on the Martians, their technology, plans or capabilities. There's no speculation on what might have been, no alternative campaigns, material for later invasions or even ideas on what might have happened in the rest of the world. Much as I applaud the idea of doing a supplement on the War of the Worlds, this was an entirely wasted opportunity. Better material can be found online for free, if you do a search for "War of the Worlds RPG"

I think this was a good product. I don?t believe there was enough d20 system material concerning the Martians, but overall it was done real well. I recommend it to anyone who likes HG Wells or the genre represented in War of the Worlds. It?s also useful to play games set in the time frame of the WotW TV series.

An interesting product, which includes the complete H.G. Wells story. It has some good ideas on altering the setting for extended game play, and some evocative illustrations. However, there is not a lot of system "crunch", so if you are looking for that type of thing it may not suit your needs.

This is a neat product, and I'll tell you why I think so.

First of all, "The War of the Worlds" is a classic story. Hard to resist on that basis. If you haven't read it, the H. G. Wells novel is included, in its entirety, in the beginning of this sourcebook.

Second, the world of the Martian Invasion is a great time and location for a game. It has plenty of the stuff that makes role-playing great: evil--really evil--bad guys who just keep coming and coming and coming, and whose threat continues to change and evolve over the course of time; a simpler age with lots of flavor and plenty of background material; a quest with a fairly clearly defined goal just out of reach on the horizon (sometimes WAY over the horizon); and a bunch of NPCs to help and hinder you along the way. Action! is a pretty well-thought out game system, too, but you could easily use this as a sourcebook for other systems.

Third, the original reason I really got this book: there is a small but significant section which ties this work into one of the best games of the last few years: the "Monster Island" game system from Firefly Games. "Monster Island," the original game, lets you create and fight various giant monsters (like Godzilla or King Kong), and "Escape from Monster Island," the sequel, lets you create a human fighting force to combat the monsters you learned to create in the first game. Now this sourcebook allows you to create Martian forces and turn-of-the-century human forces and fight them against each other or against giant monsters. Pretty cool, huh? Let me tell you, Kajiro, Tigan and Honu had their hands full when the Martian fighting machines came through the trees with their black smoke and heat rays.

In short, it's cool, and the price is right. For whatever reason you might think it's cool, I would recommend this.

Okay background on how to run a "War of the Worlds" kind of game, but mainly you are paying for a copy of the story, which is already in the public domain and available at places like Project Gutenburg for free.

This is everything a PDF RPG supplement should be - thorough, helpful, well-laid-out and well-priced. And about a terrific piece of public domain fiction. I approve thoroughly.

Even if you don't use the Action system this book is worth the price of admission as a sourcebook for your system of choice - it also includes the complete text of the "War of the Worlds" by HG Wells, which retails in bookstores for $4.95! Highly recommended to anyone interested in gaming this genre.

Pages 6 to 71 are the full text of the novel. It's well laid out and nicely illustrated. I'm not sure if I'd like to read it in this format (either on screen or printed) but it's handy having the main text included in the sourcebook.

The rest of the PDF is forty pages of actual game content, parts of which are very good. But first the bad part: I bought this on the strength of the D20 content, unfortunately the only D20 content are stats for the main characters in the novel, and a racial package for Martians. No weapon or vehicle stats, no "crunchy bits". What there is appears to have been bolted on at the last minute in order to get that d20 logo on the cover. Very, very disappointing.

So chucking out all the Action! system crunchy bits, what's left? There's a very sketchy two-page setting chapter on Edwardian England. The Action! crunchy bits chapters have some good descriptions of the various weapons and vehicles, as well as some nice illustrations. There are NPC stats for all the major characters in the novel, dual statted for Action and D20. Then there's chapter 5 - ten pages of GM advice and ideas for running a War Of The Worlds game, including changing the period, alternate endings and possible sequels. This section is superb, and almost worth the cost of the PDF alone. There then follows one page of unit stats for using the Monster Island game to fight out the war... nice but..

In summary, if I'd been an Action! system GM wanting to run a War Of The Worlds game, I'd rate this a 5. If I'd bought it just for the background and descriptions, knowing the game material was for a game I didn't play, then I'd give it at least a 4, as it's well written and attractively set out. But I bought this to do the game in D20 which the blurb claims this book will let you do, but there just isn't enough D20 content to allow that. So this gets a 3 purely for Chapter 5.