Do you like zombies? This book is for you! You have a big variety of zombies, from slow ones to runners, many of them with mutantions, and special capacities that reflect them.

Do you want more variety? You have rules to mix these zombies with numerous demihumans and monsters. The text is simple and it lacks flavour, but it is really clear and easy to use in your game. Art is mostly good and would help to create the right atmosphere during an adventure.

My big complain here are the rules to simulate contagion. They are light, but they can obliterate a party during an encounter if your players are unlucky with their dices! They don't explain if magic can protect or restore you, either.

So, you have a lot of cool zombies and options, but the rules would need some work.

Great set rules, with really easy explanation to attract new gamers. If you want to introduce RPG to new players, this system is elegant, simple, and functional (but remember, you'll need to rule sometimes, because it has not a rule for every situation). In my opinion, just one problem -- the interior cover. You have and index, but the scan quality is bad, and if you print it, it shows. But the cover and the interior art are great.

Blood & Bullets 2nd Ed. (B&B) is a 40-page retroclone set in the Old West. Its rules will be familiar to any fan of OSR, with minor modifications to include firearms, settlements, encounters, and typical Western obstacles. At the same time, the system avoids any supernatural elements, so it doesn't include rules for magic.

Its main design achievement is its four character classes, which avoid racial and gender stereotypes, opting for very general archetypes that allow for great adaptability to your players' preferences.

However, although it offers some ideas about Western conventions and basic ideas for adventures, there are no specific mechanics to introduce them into your game. It doesn't even include a selection of recommended readings or movies to better understand the genre.

In terms of images and layout, the edition is extremely simple, one might even say amateurish. Certainly, they don't help immerse you in the setting.

In conclusion, if you already have an OSR game, B&B will only offer you four character classes, a list of firearms, and six pages of tables and ideas for your games. However, its low price makes it interesting for those who are well-versed in the Old West and only need a few rules to play.

This is one of the first books that Ed Greenwood wrote for TSR, and it is a shame that it be a poor scan. My print copy have a page repited, so that is the quality you can expect.

About the manual (or manuals, because you have a part for players and another one for the DM), Greenwood had a hard job here. He had to show halflings in a different light that Tolkien's hobbits, but he could not go too far away. He did a good job creating a soceity with traditions, magic and some interesting twists (backfire powers and pirate halflings!) that make halflings very good and playable characters.

But if the ideas are great, the way to explain them are not so good. The explanations are a bit plain and boring, repiting the same idea with different wording; the history part is tedious, a succesion of foreign conquerors and guerrilla warfare that gets old fast. Description of places are concise, but not very interesting, and perhaps it would had been better to give less key places but do them more diverse and special.

Finally, the rules. Oh, the rules! You have many rules that you can consider superfluous today, but that possible they were not so great 25 years ago. The Prestige rules are an example of boring bookkeeping, the blackflame rules are so precise that it's hard to use this ppwer in a right way without study them (and they are not really so common).

In conclussion, you have a handful of good ideas for a young Ed Greedwood, but the rules and exexcution make it hard to read. You have a lot of detail, but it is no very useful in a campaign.

Buy it if you like Mystara a lot. Don't buy it if you want a good reading that inspires you to create interesting halfling characters.

In this small (but very economical) supplement, you will find 5 Golden Age characters ready to use in your Triumphant! sessions. The characters are relatively unknown (nobody will be excited because Ace the Amazing Boy appears) and are not particularly interesting, as the brief descriptions are basic and flat. Both hooks for game sessions and suggestions for introducing characters are sorely missed. Worse still is that some characters are connected to other heroes who are never mentioned again and have not been adapted either.

About the graphic part, the layout is extremely simple, and the drawings are quite basic, giving the impression of being created hastily rather than with a desire to emulate classic comics.

Is it worth buying? If you want 5 characters with minimal Golden Age background, yes, undoubtedly, as the price is very reasonable. However, if you have some time, you can easily visit any public domain character website and create your own heroes in a few minutes. After all, one of the advantages of Triumphant! is the ease and speed with which you can create your own PCs and NPCs.

Sovereign City is the first official supplement for Triumphant!, and it introduces us to a fictional city that we can use to build our own campaigns. The first thing we encounter is a brief history of superheroes through eras (i.e. Golden Age, Silver Age…) from the campaign's perspective, providing the pillars on which to build the storyline. Any fan of this genre will enjoy this part, as it masterfully combines pulp and superhero elements, creating a story that feels familiar yet original at the same time. Next, the main locations and characters of Sovereign City are presented (by the way, the action takes place in the ‘80s, but you can easily adapt it to the time period you prefer). The descriptions are clear and concise, planting hooks that we can pick up and develop, but leaving enough space for us to create our own content if preferred; in that sense, the city is quite modular. There are also tips on how to run campaigns with different power levels, how to focus them on a specific theme (such as mutations, martial arts, etc.), and how to create interesting crossovers. The supplement introduces five different power levels (the core rulebook only had four), providing more variety. As a finale, there are twenty characters representing different historical moments of the city, which can be used as player characters, allies, or antagonists. The less interesting aspects of this supplement are the layout and illustrations. The layout is simple and functional, facilitating reading both on paper and on a screen. The images are of varied quality and origin, giving the work a somewhat peculiar appearance. However, it is important to consider that we have a fairly comprehensive manual at a very economical price, so it's understandable that the graphic aspect may not compete with that of a major publishing house. I appreciate the quality of the content and the numerous ideas and advice it offers for creating your own campaign.

The idea here is so cool: a physical copy of one classic that is really expensive in the second-hand market.

BUT what you have for you money is a poor scan print. Words can be read, but are a bit blurry. The pages show were the scan ends and the white paper continues. Of course, is a cheap way to obtain a copy of this book, but a poor one that is hard to read for extended periods.

And the rules? You have a lot of them, that is for sure -- all the BECMI books information is here, except for the Immortals. But the result is far from great. Every book offered a progressive level of difficult that you could learn easily. However, in this book you have all the rules together, resulting in an overcomplexed game, with tendency to create rules for everything. Some of them, like the warfare rules, could be considered a different game in itself.

Buy this book if you want a lot of monsters, tons of spells, or you feel nostalgia, of course. Don't buy it if you are an OSR fan who wants a simple and easy to read game.

The idea here is so cool: a physical copy of one classic that is really expensive in the second-hand market.

BUT what you have for you money is a poor scan print. Words can be read, but are a bit blurry. The pages show were the scan ends and the white paper continues. Of course, is a cheap way to obtain a copy of this book, but a poor one that is hard to read for extended periods.

And the rules? You have a lot of them, that is for sure -- all the BECMI books information is here, except for the Immortals. But the result is far from great. Every book offered a progressive level of difficult that you could learn easily. However, in this book you have all the rules together, resulting in an overcomplexed game, with tendency to create rules for everything. Some of them, like the warfare rules, could be considered a different game in itself.

Buy this book if you want a lot of monsters, tons of spells, or you feel nostalgia, of course. Don't buy it if you are an OSR fan who wants a simple and easy to read game.

Triumphant is one of the best super hero games that you can play. The system is easy to play, but with many options: you can choose your abilities and powers, modify them with limitations and improvements, create a background, etc. Combats are fast and intuitive, powers give you the upperhand when you get creative, and you have rules for minions, natural disasters, secret bases, etc. For me, the worst part is the art and design. Many illustrations are generic and the desig is a bit amateur, but they don't get in the way to enjoy the game. If you need a good super hero game, but don't have time to learn complicate rules, you'll have to try Triumphant!