For those of you who may have missed it originally, Brennan Taylor of Galileo Games pushed out Bulldogs! earlier this year through Kickstarter. Bulldogs! (yes, the exclamation point is part of the name) is self-described as “Sci-Fi that Kicks Ass,” and I’m happy to report that boy howdy does it pay off.

The book is a gorgeous hardcover that clocks in at about 120 pages that are crammed full of great information and beautiful illustrations by Jaime Posadas and Kurt Komoda, and I want to give a big hand to the editing crew Amanda Valentine and Ryan Macklin who very much succeeded at making sure that every piece of text contributes to the “Sci-Fi that Kicks Ass” tagline.

Let me start the review of the actual content with an anecdote. I used to run Star Wars, as it was one of the few RPGs I could get my wife to play (sucker!), and after experiencing how troublesome Jedi are to run in the context of a full party, I opted to run mine as an all-scoundrels game (Scoundrels being the DnD Rogue-like character class). Sure, some folks still had some Force-powers in play, but having a crew that was  largely free from the otherwise overriding Jedi vs. Sith / Rebellion vs. Empire constraints was very freeing and we were able to rock some awesome stories of my players being largely on the run, cashing in when they could, and in all ways running a story of “Sci-Fi that Kicks Ass.” In terms of the game mechanics though, it took a metric ton of extra Star Wars sourcebooks and system hacking to push the d20 revised rules set to customize relatively basic things like races, equipment, ships, et al.

I wish to hell that I’d had Bulldogs! for that game. This one single book contains information on how to work the Fate-based system to create entirely customized races / equipment / ships / skills / stunts without any overhead. It seriously blows my mind at how sleek this writing is, compared to how many books I used to have to look through to puzzle out how to morph one of the NPC races into a PC race or how to cost a +1 damage upgrade to someone’s blaster pistol.

The only tricky thing I ran into during my read-through of the book is that Bulldogs! uses a single stress track, which I hadn’t expected; but then I also have relatively limited experience running Fate system games – and looking into it, all of the individual games seem to have evolved their own specifically tailored versions of how Stress is applied.

I’ve grown to really appreciate the way the Fate system helps drive games in terms of the play style, and how much depth it adds to the game for the relatively small amount of actual work you have to put into it. And I think that this is part of what makes Bulldogs! great. Fate’s Aspects versus d20’s neutrality-of-character are something that I find inspiring.

I’m going to be running Bulldogs! for a home campaign in the near future (when I can get people over here), and I’m really looking forward to it. Thanks a ton to Brennan, Brian Engard, and everyone else involved in putting this great game out! Get it at http://galileogames.com/bulldogs-fate/

The summary of the Hero System Bestiary (6th Ed.) for the TLDR crowd: This book is the epitome of it’s form, and you should own it. The longer version goes something like this:

I love monsters. Not just in a gaming sense, but in a wholistic fascination and obsessive way. I keep books on monsters, make studies of the “other” and watch plenty of B-movies. So when I say that the Hero System Bestiary is a magnificent example of what might be done with the book form, you know where I’m coming from.

First, this book opens with basically all of the tips and tricks I’ve devised over time as a GM, to use the bestiary to it’s best effect. How all of the creatures can be generalized to fit any scenario you can envision, and then how to implement them into your game to utilize them all for the best effect. And this doesn’t even begin to get into the actual monsters!

This book breaks down nearly 500 pages of monsters by genre, type, and literary source. An impressive amount of research goes into this more-than-complete book that focuses on giving the GM the tools to populate his world appropriately. It includes precisely what you need to know about the animals/monsters without drowning you in excessive detail.

This book focuses on GM usability, and is probably the best I’ve ever seen. There are some minor misses in the bookmarks of the electronic edition; but if you go directly by the table of contents you’ll be fine. I’ve also mentioned this to the folks at Hero Games, and they are looking into it and will probably release an update.

Five Stars.
Purchase the Hero System Bestiary on DriveThruRPG.com

Fair Disclosure: I love, Love, LOVE giant monsters. And Return to Monster Island is itself a love note to Kaiju movies, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Ray Harryhausen’s movies, and more. Add this to the fascinating Day after Ragnarok setting and you’ve got a product that scratches nearly all my itches.

Now, before I get into it… maybe it’s me — I’m definitely more accustomed to full-book setpieces that are either complete adventures, complete settings, or complete environments that tend to run upwards of $20. This book isn’t trying to do that, and in some ways it confuses me. Now, I admit that I run a little bit grognard, so take my confusion with a grain of salt.

In many ways, Return to Monster Island (and for that matter, all of the Serpent Scales product line) is the tabletop equivalent of video game downloadable content that adds on to DAR: affordable bits and pieces that game masters can use to enhance their game. Most other similar products I’ve seen are geared towards players, i.e. the Wimps Guide to Complete Badassery*; The Tome Arcanos of Mighty Power*, and other such books that I roll my eyes at when a player produces their new idea for character powers or gear.

The only apparent downside to Return to Monster Island is that it ends up feeling a little bit disconnected. In much the same way a book full of character options often feels like it has no specific relation to the game at hand, Return to Monster Island can feel a little bit messy (see my grognardism two paragraphs back). That said, it’s not meant to be an adventure; it’s not meant to be a complete setting. It’s an add-on, and it fully succeeds at that.

If you’re looking to bring a little bit of Kaiju to your Day After Ragnarok game, it’s a very solid entry; but I still wanted a little bit more cohesion overall. Four Stars.

* These are meant to be made-up products to support a point. I’m fairly certain they don’t actually exist.

Purchase Return to Monster Island (Savage Worlds Edition) on DriveThruRPG.com