Five Torches Deep - actual review

Have your heard about Five Torches Deep? It's the latest swing at bridging the gap between OSR and 5e. It benefited from the consultation of big name RPG celebrity Ben Milton, so that's helped it get some attention. It was written by Ben and Jessica Dutter, and several others worked on art and graphics.

Not bad, but the murkiness is a sign of things to come

I was pretty impressed and intrigued by its laser-like focus on bringing that OSR feeling to 5e, so I bought the physical copy. Part of this was motivated by the fact that the physical layout was touted as being very table-ready. A lot of people are focusing on the physical UX these days, and that's a good thing.

So what do I think? Well, it's pretty good. There are some solid mechanics and its very nicely laid-out. But it's not perfect. As for the primary mission of sneaking some OSR chocolate into your players' peanut butter, I think it's similarly a mixed bag with a lot of positives.

Most importantly: is this a good product for you? We're going to have to get into the weeds a bit to answer that question, so get your hedge-clippers and follow me over the fold.

(Metaphors aren't always my strong suit.)

Review - MÖRK BORG - Swedish fantasy metal, but what kind of metal?

We've been seeing scads of good RPGs coming out of Sweden in the last couple years, or so I am told. I'll be honest: my familiarity with Swedish role-playing consists of two vectors: Kult and games by Free League (or Fria Ligan if you prefer). Is that representative? Kult is great and Free League does great stuff, so I can't exactly argue with the rumors.

You know this is the shit, right?

Anyway, Free League's latest offering in this vein is this literal bad boy:

Whaaaaaaat?

So what's going on with this? Is this all style, or is there substance? And clearly this is METAL, but I ask you: what kind of metal is it? The marketing suggests its "Doom Metal," but I have my doubts.