The latest supplement for the Firefly RP dropped this morning as a PDF; the print book is a few weeks away (my guess.) I had a chance to skim the book well enough to do a quick review of the product. Smuggler’s Guide to the Rim is primarily a GM resource and pre-generated adventure supplement. At 291 pages, almost half of it is a pair of adventure campaigns, maps, appendices with Chinese comments for players to throw off for verisimilitude. The rest of the book is primarily a new reputation mechanic, new templates using these rules for character and spacecraft creation, and the “Good Shepherd Run” — a cargo/passenger run that provides locations, GMCs (GameMaster Characters), and ships for your campaign.

Style: 4 out of 5 — it’s the usual high quality MWP has had since the Cortex Plus lines started rolling out. It’s well written and edited, the art is mostly screencaps from the show, photos of characters in appropriate dress, and some good quality “game art.” The whole thing is nicely hypertext linked so you can bounce around the book as you need. The print version, I suspect, will be softcover and should be a nicely done as the Things Don’t Go Smooth supplement.

Substance: 3 out of 5 — For me, this wasn’t the best supplement I’ve bought, but it wasn’t the worst. If you like to run pre-generated campaigns, bump the Substance up to 4 out of 5. The reputation mechanic is nicely done, the templates for character creation is very useful, and the settings of the Good Shepherd Run is good material to use in a pinch.

Is it worth it? The PDFs on Drive Thru are usually marked down to $17ish bucks. For that, yes, it’s worth it; the print book/pdf combo was $30 for me. Is it worth it? If you use the adventure material, it’s a definite buy; if you don’t….meh….

However, the Firefly line is definitely a labor of love for the people at MWP, and it shows. I haven’t done more than run a few adventures, but I haven’t felt bad supporting the line, thus far. Since it’s pretty easy to tweak the material for the original Cortex rules, if you prefer, I’d say buy it.