Agon is a gorgeous presentation of a high concept wrapped over mechanics that are decidedly average. You're a crew of heroes in weird mythic Greece (think Xena: Warrior Princess) on a journey to islands each troubled by strife. You'll interpret the signs of the gods and engage in challenges and battles to save the people of the island.

Players roll dice including their Name, Epithet if it applies, one of four Domains (Arts & Oration, Blood & Valor, Craft & Reason, Resolve & Spirit) as well as divine favor, bonds, and other bonus dice. Keep the two highest dice, plus divine favor d4s. The GM rolls for strife, taking the highest dice from his pool + a static number. If you succeed, you get glory, a big XP track, and if you fail you take Pathos and the GM narrates the outcome against you.

The system is serviceable, a simple dice pool is hard to break, but I also feel like it doesn't do much to guide the fiction in appropriately mythic dimensions. And while there are plenty of cool islands to adventure on at the end of the book, I wanted a little more heft.