This game came out of nowhere. I first learned of it from a Questing Beast review, and I was hesitant to click because my interest in Peter Pan (and Neverland in general) is nonexistent. I saw the number of views on the video and thought it must be worth watching.
After watching the review, I immediately bought the book. Here's why.
Neverland is an RPG setting based on the more than 100-year-old source material by J.M. Barrie, adapted by Andrew Kolb, who wrote, designed and illustratred this whole damned thing. A very impressive feat considering the writing, design and illustrations are excellent.
What really drew me in was the island hexcrawl. I've always been fascinated by maps, especially fantasy ones, and one of the first maps I ever drew was Neverland as it appeared in the end papers of a heavily-illustrated novelization of the Disney film. Mr. Kolb has taken that (seemingly very small) island and expanded it into something that is both more realistic and considerably more interesting.
He's created an entire bestiary full of strange and entirely new people and creatures, most of them having a heavy fairytale vibe without the heavy-handed horrors that often grace the pages of OSR books. Note that this doesn't claim to be an OSR book, despite its sensibilities. Rather, it says it's 5e compatible on the cover, which is essentially true; basically every RPG setting and adventure is broadly compatible with 5e in the same way. As I was saying, the author easily could have made a dark and modern retelling of the setting (ala American McGee's Alice) but has instead played it straight here: The adventure setting, if you should choose to utilize it, maintains much of the whimsy and tone of the source material, with enough new and creepy stuff to keep the purists and the Hot Topic shoppers happy. You can always make it more creepy if you want, and there are plenty of ways to do it.
Much like Hot Springs Island (one of the greatest RPG products of all time), the book is a toolbox of adventure more than a straightforward romp through a jungle. It has clear procedure for running adventurers through its many areas, but it might be confusing to DMs who have never run a hex crawl before. There are a lot of steps that include rolling random encounters and making things come alive, but without experience, I suspect a GM would run it more like a board game. This is especially likely due to the fact this book is designed to be sold in mass-market book stores, and will likely attract the traditional RPG crowd.
Neverland offers several dungeons, usually of the one-page variety, but always dripping with imagination. There's a haunted mine that rearranges itself, an endless nightmare megadungeon, and you can even crawl inside the belly of a massive crocodile (yes, that one). This means the setting has a surprising amount of depth, considering it's only 171 pages long.
Speaking of depth, there's a chapter here on a secret elf-land, a kind of demi-plane that sits right up against Neverland, that surprised me with its succinct storytelling and design. It offers an explanation as to where fairies come from (and where the Lost Boys are able to pull invisible food, ala that scene from Hook). The idea was so good that I found myself wondering if this was the original explanation behind J.M. Barrie's work. Here's its presented so clearly and naturally that it pulls double duty for both making a more expansive campaign setting, and improving the Neverland concept as a whole. Great work. What's more is that traveling through the elfland requires a procedure I've never seen, a kind of push-your-luck exploration with dice that has you venturing into spaces that will likely be different every time to visit, although all roads lead to the fairy queen's castle. Apparently it's based on a concept from the Gardens of Ynn, but I'm not familiar with that product beyond a review from Fear of a Black Dragon.
Much like Neverland itself, anyone running this game can make the game what they want it to be. If you want more heavy adult themes, they can easily be added by slightly turning the knob on a few monsters and situations. If you want to run it for kids, it works perfectly as a whimsical and sometimes (but not often) nonsensical fairy adventure. For me, as a lover of logical world-building and verisimilitude, I was shocked in my satisfaction of the setting: Although I don't know exactly how the Mermaids trade with the Pirates considering the Pirates never leave the island, there are probably interesting answers to these questions. What's more is that I don't feel a particular need to force realism on this setting due to its mysterious and fantastical source material. If (and when) I run this for kids, they'll understand that Neverland exists in a bubble, and you don't need to sketch out an entire continent to fit it in: It works just fine out of the box. Once again, a huge departure from WOTC products.
For the price (a startlingly low $25) I can't believe the quality and value of this book. The layout, information design, writing, use of color and illustrations are some of the best I've seen in an RPG product. This is even compared to Hot Springs Island, which I love. Just holding the printed copy of Neverland makes me want to flip through it, and flipping through it makes me want to run it. I still think that Gradient Descent for Mothership gets the edge for the best use of space and usability, and Hot Springs Island is a more robust toolkit (plus 3d6 encounter tables are superior for verisimilitude compared to the d12 tables here), but dang it, Neverland has my heart.
2020 has been a grotesque misadventure, but at least it gave us this book. I recommend it, even if, like me, you have zero interest in Neverland and Peter Pan in general. It's a quality hex crawl, bestiary and GM tool kit, plus the Skull Island megadungeon generator is unlike anything I've seen. I believe that good art should be supported as much as possible, so probably just buy the book once you watch the review.
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