So towards the end of 2025 I was notified about another Kickstarter campaign from Third Kingdom Games for the Bree-YARC Quckstart Guide. YARC stands for “Yet Another Retro Clone” and combines elements of BECMI and 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons together with some additional houserules. I’ve backed several Kickstarter campaigns from Third Kingdom Games in the past including the BX Advanced Bestiary Volume 1 and BX Advanced Bestiary Volume 2 (links to my reviews).
Some of you may be wondering why there was a kickstarter for a quickstart? The goal was to provide the internal art for the book and pay the artists for their work. Third Kingdom Games has made the pledge to not use AI generated graphics in their publications. And since that’s a subject very close to my heart, I had to back them. Besides the PDF, I received a print-on-demand from DriveThruRPG. I’ve reviewed some POD publications previously.
Now if Bree-YARC sounds familiar, I’d recommend reviewing the Rumor Table in the Dungeons and Dragons Adventure Module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. Having read and broken down that module for many years, I recognized it immediately. A tip of the hat for the reference.
So the softcover book that I received in the mail has a full color cover and interior black and white art. Probably in a callback to the older RPG books that we use to collect. The ISBN number is 2370022620158 and the book has 50 pages. It was written by Todd Leback. The cover art is by Juan Ochoa with Perplexing Ruins and Dyson Logos providing some of the interior art. There are two sections for Players and GMs. Six short chapters for the players (The Basics, Character Classes, Gear and Gold, Magic, Adventuring and What Comes Next) and three for the GMs (Intro Adventure, Monsters and Treasure). One interesting note, the book measurements are slightly taller than other books. I took a photo of the Quickstart rules with the Basic Fantasy core rulebook which is standard sized.
As a retro-clone, it might be easier to say what the differences are to the other publications that we are all well aware of. Bree-YARC uses Ancestry (aka race) as a Class just as it would back in the B/X days. In this quickstart there is only Humans, but they do have classes like Thief, Fighter, Cleric and Magic User. On DriveThruRPG, the publisher has been releasing PDFs of other Ancestries and Classes for free. These include the Dwarf, Goblin, Owlfolk and Tiefling. For the new Human classes they have Ranger, Bard, Berserker, Hexblade and Sorcerer. It is mentioned that more classes and ancestries will be presented in the Core Rulebook when it is released.
All characters have their 0-level HP that they roll before they obtain the 1st level HP+CON adjustment roll. Savings Throws use the older terminology (Wands, Breath Attack, etc.) but are calculated differently. There are skill checks that require meeting/beating a DC rating. Lawful, Neutral and Chaotic is the alignment system presented. XP bonuses are given for playing characters with lower ability scores instead of higher ability scores. Each class has their own special abilities and each character gets a Knack or special ability. It appears that this game is using Ascending Armor Class (thank you). There is Advantage/Disadvantage. Experience points for treasure is only earned when the party returns with it to a safe place. There are also opportunities to earn XP through exploring. Before a character moves up a level, they have to complete a certain amount of Downtime in a safe location. This could include item crafting, research, carousing, hiring, etc. And finally each character will have a Renown rating that represents their reputation in the game world. Whew.
The room descriptions in the intro adventure looked interesting. At a glance the GM knows what’s in the room with additional details described below the chart. This can include lighting, secrets, sounds, exits, etc. The monster stats are found in the adventure with the monster section mostly describing the stat description breakdown, morale conversion table, XP chart for creating monsters, etc. The treasure section describes the types of treasure and the value of a treasure horde.
Conclusion: When I first got the physical book, I wondered if I’d be happy backing this Kickstart campaign when I saw how thin it was. I had forgotten that it was just the quickstart book. But I wasn’t too worried because the support levels were very reasonable for a publication of this size. I really dislike the Kickstart campaigns where they want a bunch of money for an unverified product. The smaller prices usually entice me to pull the trigger. However, once I started reading this book for this review, it reminded me why I had backed their earlier Kickstart campaigns. I can tell that the effort put into the Bree-YARC Quickstart Guide had a lot of thought behind it. They were providing an interesting twist to the OSR game instead of a bunch of fluff. When the core rulebook comes out, I’ll be very tempted to purchase it (or back it if it’s a Kickstart campaign). Even if the core rulebook isn’t available by the time the 2027 Character Creation Challenge rolls around, I can still use this quickstart book to make a Human character. Usually RPG quickstarts don’t include character creation steps.
Do you have any questions about the Bree-YARC Quickstart Guide? Have you backed any Kickstarters lately? Tell me about it. This article is open for discussion on the TardisCaptain dot Com Discord server. You can also email me at Carl (at) TardisCaptain.com with any comments.