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Green Ronin is, well, a little green. I'm taking a wait and see approach.

Green Ronin does have a good stable of talent they tend to use who are former TSR/WOTC employees. Like most of the non-WOTC companies doing D&D or D20 books, Green Ronin is mostly freelancers with a small core of 'real' employees. The best small company I have found so far is Swords and Sorcery Studios; they act as a cover brand to several smaller game design houses, with Monte Cook being one of the better contributors (he was one of the PRIME writers of the new D&D version).

I did get to see a pre-publication review copy of Testament. What I saw was not complete, but it did treat Christianity is a very good light (no pun intended). Yes, there are options to play for 'the opposition', but honestly the way the character classes and background I saw were presented, the opposition is a lot less interesting for play possibilities.

I too am currently runnnig a weekly game, which shifts monthly between a D&D/d20 game and a Traveller game. In all of my years of playing, I cannot think of any Satan worshippers or the like that have shown up; just a big influx of young Goth types a few years back, and the inevitable hordes of Pokemon/Magic: The Gathering/Heroclix/Warhammer/Warhammer40K fanboys. And even those kids seem to be a cut above the average in terms of intelligence. Not in personality, mind you, but at least they can read! ;-)

I'm glad to hear that they're treating Christianity in a decent light (I'm a conservative Lutheran, who also plays D&D - won't that make the fundamentalist crazies yowl). I did find out that Ryan Dancy, one of the original 3rd Ed. team and the genius behind the d20/Open Gaming license, is a strong Christian. I'll try to look up his website, he's got some good commentary

I agree - in my long years of gaming (23, to be exact), I also have never met any satan worshippers, - just us geeks. Whenever I was made fun of/called a sinner/etc. for gaming, I just reminded the critics that they're getting all hot and bothered over some geeks sitting around a table. At least we weren't out there getting drunk or wasted or getting knocked up or gangbanging or the zillion other REAL bad things that people can do...

BTW, Monte Cook IS probably the best designer out there...check out MonteCook.com for info on his current work, pretty cool stuff.

I did get to see a pre-publication review copy of Testament. What I saw was not complete, but it did treat Christianity is a very good light (no pun intended). Yes, there are options to play for 'the opposition', but honestly the way the character classes and background I saw were presented, the opposition is a lot less interesting for play possibilities.

Ok, spill the beans. What're the new classes in it, and what classes are being carried over from teh PHB? ;)

Pretty cool, though. Thanks for the info. As for playing "the opposition", I view it as nothing more than giving people options. Maybe there're folks who want to play in the time period, but in another part of the Middle East? Why not give them the option? The focus is clearly on Israel and Israeli heroes, though.