I played it during one of the later playtests, as a player (homebrew adventure) and GM (Bay of Blackbottom oneshot). Note this was level 1, but level 1 in DS is higher powered than in other games in its cohort.

If you’re looking for a game for “crunchy combat-focused fantasy superhero adventure”, a la mid/high-level D&D5e, I thought it was an improvement in that combat is actually fun albeit long (whereas combat in 5e tends toward just being “long”, without an unreasonable amount of effort, system mastery, and planning from the GM). Out of combat abilities felt a bit weird to me, but I’ll chalk that up to my genre preference for lower-powered more grounded fantasy.

For me, as this was during a “what do I actually want out of a TTRPG” phase, it helped solidify that the answer is: none of that! I’ll take my XCOM and my improv roleplay separately, please. Unfortunately this means my fancy $200 backerkit books now sit unopened on my shelf :x

When it comes to the greens you really have to bear in mind the circumstances in which they exist. A green party majority government is simply not on the table and not what you should be voting for. Instead, bear in mind that the green party does not enforce any kind of “party whip” – it’s in essence a party of ideologically-aligned independent candidates, and should very much be approached on a candidate-by-candidate/riding-by-riding basis, rather than something like a low profile backbencher CPC/LPC MP where you’re essentially just voting for the party itself. You vote for them if you think that they can be a vocal advocate for your community and your causes in parliament, not because you think they’ll perform well or poorly if they hypothetically formed government – they’d have a long road to get there, and if they were approaching that they would pick up more funding, consultants, etc. to help that transition.

One thing that has always stood out to me when hearing from or speaking to green representatives (including my own green MPP) is the level of passion, compassion, and candidness which I have found lacking from many politicians, which resonates greatly with me. But it’s something that really should be approached at the individual riding level for the reasons I outlined above.

An Alternative Vote system does not solve the major issues of First-Past-The-Post, and can still have wildly distorted outcomes relative to vote preferences. Unless combined with multi-member districts (aka Single Transferable Vote) it’s barely/not an improvement for Canada – it’s a convenient option for the largest parties because it rarely makes a difference to the outcome and the votes all trickle back to them anyway, so they can make a change without making a change.

Here’s an article worth reading. https://www.fairvote.ca/expert-dennis-pilon-sets-the-record-straight-about-the-alternative-vote/

The only desirable outcome of electoral reform is one which introduces at least a degree of proportionality – Single Transferable Vote if you’re really itching for a ranked ballot, or Mixed-Member Proportional Representation otherwise (my preference - but either would be a great improvement).