I was quite disappointed with this title. It has a decent collection of systems and tables, and feels like a more concrete iteration of WhiteHack, as the author notes in the introduction.

The system itself is unusable on its own, however, as Crown uses a blood magic (cast from hit points) magic system, but provides no spells, nor any guidance on setting costs for spells.

To actually play the game as intended, you either need to purchase additional material or write it yourself, which I consider unacceptable in a paid product advertised as a full game. It baffles me that the author did not simply include their existing magic rules with the game and instead made them a nominally "optional" supplement.

I would LOVE to get into a game of Whitehack. It seems to me that Crown adds in many of the rules that were intentionally left out of Whitehack because they are more simulationist and far less narrative. Which, I can understand some folks thinking Whitehack is too narrative forward but I'd rather stick with Whitehack 3e/4e

This is what OSR should be. Simple, straightforward and consistent. Crown lets you craft a customized character and makes the DM's job easy with clear rules and sensible mechanics. Another hit for Mason Waaler who is miles ahead of all other OSR conversion creators. I recommend checking out Grim Castle, as well but, Crown is the simpler and easier to run of the two and I'm telling you that is not saying much in comparison when they are both incredibly streamlined. Waaler has taken the 5E and brought it back down to earth twice, now.

The direction of the book is good. The formating is good but the editing could have used a bit more of a proof read. The art is sparse and reused throughout. It's an inexpensive title from one person.

I really liked it! A lot of great tables and cool mechanics!

Ran my party through this recently, it took us 2.5 sessions. Excellant dungeon. Some highlights:

• Party found the secret door behind the first mural and went through the entire dungeon that way, so they came back to the magic square puzzle much later, having already pryed open the secret door which the puzzle opens from behind. They then agonized over the puzzle for half an hour, finally solved it, and the only effect was that the secret door opened the rest of the way. I thought they were going to kill me, lol. I was told to inform Mason Waaler that he should be afraid for his life if they ever met him, it was fantastic.
• They noticed Albrecht admonishing them for robbing the tomb, so they took their looted goods and threatened to destroy them if he didn't give them information. And then they actually followed through.
• Deciding the glowing red tome was probably evil, they decided to destroy it by throwing it into the forcefield. I decided the resulting magical explosion disabled the field, and vaporized the nearest PC. Good times.
• They also freed Sorn from his tomb. That will be fun down the road. Having him play dead was a great idea, they never suspected a thing.

Only thing I would change if you're running is to revamp the random encounter table; if you go through the dungeon like we did there was an entire session with no combat, and most of the random encounters are just visions or noncombatants. The pacing kind of dragged without the threat of violence to stir things up. Add some skeletal guards or the Red Wraith actually showing up. Also, because they came from behind, I didn't realize a couple of the doors were supposed to be locked, but that's a minor point.

Overall 5/5, has everything you could want in a barrow adventure.

This is based in the Whitehack, probably the best adjacent OSR there is, at least numerically (Black hack is more random, Into the Odd may too simple for some people).

But I recommend using this one because it is much better defined and explained and it has a pdf, unlike the current versions of Whitehack (2e).

This is a highly customizable, pointbuy, mana system D&D clonesque RPG that I am here for. I will stan this system til the day I die. If you are interested in getting out of the boxes that cause all sorts of inane design decisions related to class ownership of weapons, abilities and character development; if you are sick of vancian magic systems requiring you to consider spell-slots; if you sigh everytime you consider that one class isn't smart enough to know how to stab with martial weapons but can figure out the mysteries of the universe; then this book and this system is for you. Mason Waaler has retained the classic D&D feel but elevated the execution to the standard that helped wake up from the fanboy fog back when other systems started to take the spotlight from D&D back in the 80's and 90's. Take control of your character and their advancement. Get this inexpensive, easy to learn masterpiece for your DM and shatter their preconceptions of what a fantasy game should be.

Pick up this superb book for your grim castle game or if you just want to see a mana system done well.

Really fun and compact system, wholeheartedly recommended! I hope to see more for this in the future.

This is a completely useless product. I suspect it is meant to be a gateway product to introduce people to the author's other game, WARP, but it is so lazily done it will drive people away.

This product is so incomplete it is worthless. Essentially, what you get is the d20 check system, the d20 ability rules (using different number ranges, a list of unexplained trait names, and no rules for creating your starting scores), the d20 initiative rules (where you can do three actions on your turn), and a couple of other very basic subsystems. You have seen it all before and it was done better there. For a GM to use the system it would require them do to so much work that they might as well replace these systems as well.

The problem with this type of product is that it is something that anyone could do in an afternoon if they are familiar with D&D and it was uploaded without any realistic expectation of how it would be received. This product has no value to its audience.

My advice to the author would be to discontinue this product, and rewrite "The Adventuring Company" to include its contents, and add an example adventure with pre-generated characters and antagonists. Doing the adventure will require real creativity and work, but only that will get you anywhere.