If you like baseball, you will love this book. It's a "coffee table" type book that every true baseball fan needs in his/her sports library.

It comes with a Homerun Derby CD. For me, the game was a little hard to figure out because the directions are a little unclear. I'm working on it and will master it one day.

Enjoyed the book. Easy reading with great photos.

This book should have been called, the "Elders Salon," or something to that effect. This book is designed for Elders and STs wanting to run Elders in their Chronicle.

Of Interest to STs and PC Elders: 1) The re-write-ups on Higher Level Disciplines (a new level for each Gen below 9th). EXCELLENT 2) A re-write of the Influences level 6+, irrlevant if you have LoE, excellent otherwise. 3) A re-write of the "What it is to be an Elder" from Laws of Elysium, excellent 4) How to run an Elder Chronicle, or insert them into your game, mediocre 5) How to design a city, mediocre

Of Interest to General PCs: 1) Gagoyles re-written with Visceratika, Excellent 2) Bunch 'o' Paths for Tremere, Excellent (now they are even MORE powerful, great. 3) Decent description on what each of the Camarilla positions are, and expect, including Scourge. EXCELLENT 4) Presenting to the Prince. EXCELLENT

Chapter Four is worth the price of the book, in and of itself. Regardless of Generation or Flavour of your, (unless you are Sabatt) Chronicle.

What is TERRIBLE about this book. NO INDEX!

I would recommend this book, and would love to play in a LARP that approximates the level of Role Playing required to fulfill the very high expectations of Chapter Four.

Enjoy!

If you're interested in the "orphan lifestyle" the book is fantastic. Great info on a true street-level game. However, it doesn't make the orphans more interesting or complex. No new character enhancements. Don't buy it if you're looking for a way to make orphans more appealing as a character option. Buy it if your looking for the harsh reality of orphan life.

Amidst the plethora of truly unimpressive books White Wolf has been putting out over the past couple years, there are actually a few worth purchasing. If your interests lie in running a "street level" Mage game, this is one of them.

Picking up where Outcasts left off, this book takes an in-depth look at the lives, attitudes, and spirituality of the Orphans and manages to present material that's both new and useful. The lessons from characters at the beginning, and the more analytical look at Orphans near the end, can be good inspiration in your own game as well.

Unfortunately, as with most WW books, the vast majority of the pregenerated characters, templates, settings, and rotes in the book are dull and smack of a 'look how original I am!' attitude. Worse, there are far too many sections in this book where the authors feel the need to talk down to the reader. In fact, this tiresome trend has become increasingly prevalent in all WW books lately.

Lastly, well, it's the art. It's not bad, as such, just mediocre. Another trend in WW books in recent days.

Overall, my complaints with the book are largely aesthetic and don't nearly outweigh the valuable information and inspiration you can find. As long as you can put up with a little snottiness and the other typical WW garbage, you'll probably enjoy this book. In short, I highly recommend it.

Well, okay, you might get turned off by some of the content, thats okay, its the WoD, your supposed to be uncomfortable, anyways, it is very, very good, and may give you a brand new prespective on mage, like it did to me, buy it, read it, and you will begin to see Mage through Orphan eyes...

What is the point of this book? Gods from past and present real life religions are written up with combat stats. Why?

The purpose of writing up religions for role playing games is so that players can use those religions for their characters. Gods should not be "monsters" to fight with, so their combat stats are totally unnecessary.

When you discuss religions, even relgions that are essentially dead, you are discussing people's cultural heritage, and mythology that shapes their world view. It is insulting to write up these religions in a ignorant and wildly inaccurate way. It is even worse when you do this with religions such as Hinduism that millions of people believe in. If they had of written up Yaweh as having 400 hit points and the powers of a 20th level mage, and Jesus as a "Lesser god," with some kind of write up about how he is the god of healing, it would be obvious how strange and offensive this is.

If you want to use historical religions in your campaign, then go to the library and learn about them. If you want to use fictional ones, then make them up. Either way, this book is not useful.

While this book doesn't serve much purpose in most campaigns, it's still a good book to get. The reason I say it doesn't serve much purpose is because most campaigns don't use our world's mythology as a basis for the gods.

On the other hand, it's a good book, because it let's a DM see exactly how he/she should write up gods he/she creates. It also is a good referance for learning who the gods are throughout mythology.

While some might insist that it is somewhat insulting to faiths of the world, one should look at it not for the statistics that it gives, but what the D&D world/campaign was trying to do. The people at TSR, when they were fun and enjoyable under the guidance of Gary Gygax one of the best writers in the world of gaming...wanted...IMO...to show what deities were like in this world and how they might interact with the fantasy world of gaming, giving examples of how war gods, love goddesses, and those like can mean for the player characters. THIS IS NOT suppose to be a tell all on all the cultures and religions of the world. Hardly. If you want that, I would suggest you read the works of Joseph Campbell. If you want to look for something real quick to see how it might fit in to your campaign, this is for you. I love it myself.

I've played mage for a few years now, before third edition graced the shelves, and I found that this book was not terribly helpful. While it had several high points, the extra skills included on a whole could be gained by taking a specialty in an already listed skill. The merit and flaw section was interesting, with the publication of revised and third edition, it's no longer needed. The expanded tradition sections, were helpful, but sense the publication of third edition, they are no longer up to date and to be honest, if you want to know about traditions The Traditions Gathered set of books is a far better resource. While The Book of shadows is an interesting read, it's definitely not a required resource for mage.

This is a good book which has a lot of information to make your character richer (merits and flaws, extra skills, more detailed information on each Tradition, the Technocracy and others, etc.). However, most of the sections in this book are beginning to show their age, as the information presented here has been revised and updated to much more practical information in several other Mage books. The section with the parables, though, is still one of my favorite Mage reads.

The book of shadows, which was written between the publishing of the 1st and second editions of Mage, is at this point slightly "behind the times," especially what with the release of Mage 3rd edition. Somewhere between irrelevant and necessary. Has some good basic material on the various Mage fringes, as well as a lot of expanded stuff for character creation.

In the section titled "A Word on the Construction and Format of this Book" the first sentence reads as follows:

"This book contains 70 charts, 36 of which are in color."

Well, none of the charts in the book are in color. A big disappointment giving the high price of the book.

If the reviews I read are accurate do not buy the republished version [Amazon should love this]; find an older one when it was published by Lyle Stuart. Then you have the benefit of the color charts. Be aware that the man who published under the name Lawrence Revere died of cancer in the late 1970s. But he did write the best tutorial ever on how to beat the twenty-one game by card counting. Revere was a fanatic who believed in study and practice. He first published in 1968, and didn't bother to copyright his writing till the following year. It was, I believe, John Luckman, former dealer at the Dunes and founder of the Gambler's Book Club, who urged him to protect his work. Careful reading of Revere's _Playing Blackjack as a Business_ and of Thorp's _Beat the Dealer_ (both the 1962 and 1966 editions) will teach more about the game than all the other writings combined. For anyone planning to make serious money at blackjack, it would be a mistake not to own and study these three books. The only worthwhile active contributor to blackjack literature writes under the name Stanford Wong. I recommend his software for generating decision tables. Other works I can recommend are the late Peter Griffin's _Theory of Blackjack_ and the late Ken Uston's _Million Dollar Blackjack_. And if you can find a copy (you almost certainly can't) read Dr. Alan Wilson's long out-of-print _Casino Gamblers Guide_ to learn the history of the game and the digital and empirical pioneers who first analysed it. All other writing on twenty-one is eyewash.

I found this book to be a wonderful challenge. It covers every possible hand to your strategic advantage, and proves the game can be won if you are willing to put in the work needed to learn and practice. This book is still a present day authority on how to beat the game! My soft cover is in color! My condolences to the last reviewer. I have read many books and this is one of the best, no doubt.

If you already have the sourcebooks for Vampire: The Masquerade or The Guide to the Camarilla, you may not want this book. It provides some information about each of the clans in the Camarilla (Pre Gangrel departure, vampric vernacular, explanations of some terms, the Traditions of the Camarilla as well as the Book of Nod. You may like to buy the book for the stories it contains or for allowing a beginner to read it and get a feel for the World of Darkness rather than throwing the game books at them. I believe that would be the most useful part of this book, for loaning to someone who has not played Vampire: The Masquerade before to learn about what they may have to expect in the games as well as observing current gaming sessions. The stories may give an insight to the new player of the adult horror and themes of Vampire.

Based on interviews with companies (mostly in the UK and USA), this is a capable overview of the forces driving change in business practice and attitudes. The findings largely confirm issues that have been around for some time. The text covers the development of chronic overcapacity, the blurring of traditional industry boundaries, the rise of consumer knowledge, sophistication (and satiation) and competitive consequences and responses. It also covers the change in relationship between employer and employee. There are sections on 'denominator management' (e.g. downsizing) and its consequences, on mergers and acquisitions, alliances and supply chain management.

Being based on survey results, it is useful for indicating where practical business people are now. This provides a useful comparison with the many books that focus on where the author thinks they should be.

Lawrence Treat presents 23 (not 24 as the book's cover claims) pictures of crime scenes and invites the reader to solve the crimes. To aid the reader, Treat presents lists of questions that more often than not make the solution obvious. Still, the book represents an hour or two worth of mental exercise, and the reader is of course under no obligation to read the questions that may telegraph the solutions. For an inquisitive and mentally-active teenager, this book might be a great deal of fun. The most significant criticism of the book is that in a few cases, Treat relies on probabilities that are not close enough to certainties. In other words, at times the solution depends upon one or two educated guesses that could very well be wrong. However, as an exercise in deductive thinking, reading the book should provide a young adult with an afternoon well spent. (The twenty-fourth puzzle is not a crime to be solved but instead a pair of pictures in which the reader is to find the differences between the two.)

Of all possible money wasters, This takes the cake. The manual tells you literally everything there is in the book, with an exeption of maybe 1 or 2 details per tech. This book is not worth buying, and is what i'd call a waste of time. The stragetys are not good, the 'highly detailed tactics' are VERY predictiable, by any gamer's standards, and you could learn just as much, and more by slipping into a gamer's forum, or a gamers chat room. i would like to give this book 0 stars, but it dosen't let me... Please... dont waste your time on this book.

Please I'm telling you don't waste your time on a book that dosent help you with anything just read the manual that it comes with and you will know just as much.

this book tells u nothing more then what u can find out from the manu