Don't pay the Ferryman

Don't Pay The Ferryman is a big fantasy heartbreaker core system---and I don't mean that in a bad way---about wizards and explorers and ninja fighting vikings on the flooded moons of neptune.

Ferryman's setting is probably its core draw, and it just commits to its kitchen sink approach.  There's little bits of thousands of extremely specific things sprinkled all throughout it, and the overwhelming feeling that comes through in every page is the creator's enthusiasm for the project. It feels easy to get caught up in that energy, to suspend your disbelief, and to just have fun.

The PDF is 184 pages with a nice density of art---although the pieces are in lots of different styles, and the differences can feel a little jarring.

Mechanically, Ferryman is built on a PbtA foundation, but there's a lot added on top of that. Character creation is rich and deep, with nine core choices (playbook, species, attributes, contacts, magic style, familiar or sanctuary, virtue and vice, fate weave, and gear,) all of which have branching choices and plenty of room for variety inside of them.

The mechanics are fairly straightforward PbtA, but PbtA lives and dies based on its Moves, and Ferryman gives each player a unique bucketload of Moves. Every choice you make during creation feeds back into shaping your unique pile of Moves---and thankfully this feels flavorful, not overwhelming.

Combat has some good crunch to it, and it includes wound and fatigue tracks, armor and means of bypassing armor, group fights, support, and a whole host of other granular things that open up the option for asymmetrical fights and counterplay.

There's also a reasonably crunchy resolution system for espionage and investigation, and Ferryman could pretty easily be run in a way that's high on drama but low on violence.

Ferryman's magic system is designed to be flexible and easy to reflavor, but it optionally scales up in complexity as well, allowing the players to perform rituals with multiple types of magic at the same time.

For GMs, information about the setting is seeded all throughout the book, and there's lots of it. Like, lunar orbital charts and architectural diagrams grade lots. Be ready to do some detailed reading and just lean into the book's setting, because modifying something so sprawling is a considerable task. Also be ready to explain that setting to your players as you go, as having every player read the book cover to cover might be a large ask.

For new GMs, there's a robust GMing section, and it covers everything from safety to handling player absences. The advice is tailored to Ferryman, but a lot of it is portable too.

Overall, if you're looking for something big to read, you enjoy games the most when the designer is enthusiastic about making them, and you're looking for a *big* sandbox kitchen sink sword and sorcery that gives players a lot of creative freedom, roleplaying hooks, and plot hooks without making the core dice too complicated, I'd say give Ferryman a try.

Minor Issues:

-Page 4, "Nations" is in a different color

-Page 80, this overview could benefit from being moved up to the start of the book.  It's very good, and it works great as a primer, but at 80 pages deep it's not really doing that.