When I ran my 4E D&D playtest campaign, I decided to make it larger than life. That meant going planer. The churning unpredictability of the planes, the potential for exotic locations, the alienness of its inhabitants calls to my imagination. The Plane Below: Secrets of the Elemental Chaos, which details 4E's churning elemental wastes, is just my cup of tea. Or it would be if it had retained more of the 3E cosmology. As is it's more like a cup of chia; worth a sip, but not as satisfying as I'd hoped.

Arthur Dent beverage metaphors aside, The Plane Below is a 159-page source book that builds on the foundation laid down by last year's The Manual of the Planes. The Elemental Chaos is 4th Edition's catch-all planar setting for D&D's traditional elemental planes, as well as the Nine Hells, the Abyss, and the rest of the rest of the D&D cosmology that isn't the Astral Plane or Ravenloft.

In November I had the chance to do something I’ve never done before: play Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Technically that’s not true – I’ve played D&D 4E plenty of times as a Dungeon Master, including my gaming group’s playtest campaign. But I’ve never sat at the table as a D&D 4E player.

The last time the Blackrazor Guild played D&D 4E, it was a paragon level playtest. I was the GM, and I found it incredibly frustrating. Our initial run had been at the heroic tier; paragon seemed to only add to the complexity of the game. Coupled with Player’s Handbook 2 classes like the wild mage, I felt like the game was getting bogged down in an endless stream of if/then statements. It was like spaghetti code turned into an RPG, and by the end of the session, I was done. If we played again, I wanted to be on the other side of the screen.

My review of the Rebellion Era Campaign Guide for Star Wars: Saga Edition is live at GameCryer.com. The book deviates from the standard content of recent campaign guides -- there are no new Force powers or techniques and no new species -- but it makes up for those with a new Background system and dozens of species feats.

It was a hard book to review: on the one hand, it has a lot of nitty gritty detail about the era, but as I said in the review, a lot of this the Rebellion Era information was already covered in the core rule book and other releases. So if you're really into the Star Wars Expanded Universe, then you'll probably love this book. If the EU makes your head hurt, then you can easily get by without picking up this book.

Arcane Power resurrects the illusionist, brings back summoning spells and familiars, and introduces a host of new arcane options for Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. Among these new options are new class features offering bards the gift of foresight, sorcerers the chance to wield cosmic magic, warlocks the opportunity to commune with the vestiges of ancient powers, and much more. Read my full review at GameCryer.com.