OSR Review & Commentary Barrows & Borderlands - Men & Mutants Rpg From Matthew Tapp

"Well in simple terms Barrows & Borderlands or B&B is a table top Fantasy Adventure Game in the lines of countless others. It was made to capture the early style of play from the days of those old guys in the Midwest. It is a Weird Science Fantasy Old-School Style Ropeplaying Game set in a Dark Radioactive Wasteland of Magic, Black-Powder, and Dragons!"

Imagine two nations one based on magic and the other black powder weaponry. These nations are locked in a cold war surrounded by a hellish wasteland of radioactive ruins and strange dungeons. Welcome to Mathew Tapp's Barrows & Borderland rpg a love letter to old school games. 

Even though it looks like original Dungeons & Dragons, Barrows & Borderlands stands upon it's own merits. B&B came my way via Lord Matteus unboxing video here.  Then I looked deeply into the PC creation video by the author and it goes right into the heart of character creation. The B&B game dives itself into four booklets that reflect the original world's most popular role playing game. Volume 1 of 4 - Men & Mutants which covers character creation, combat, and the basic rules of the game. 2 - Psychics & Sorcerers: Covers the Spellcraft, Casting, & Psionics of the Borderlands. 3 - Horrors & Treasures: Covers the Monsters, Treasure Tables, and Magic Items of the Borderlands.4 - The Underworld & Borderlands Adventures: Covers dungeon crawling and wilderness procedures throughout the Borderlands, and give you tools needed to make the world your own. You can play a Fighting Man, Cleric, Magic User, Thief, Gamma (Mutant Scavenger), & Psychic plus a handful of Weird Races like the radioactive Green Skulls (irradiated skeletons immune to radiation). 

Barrows & Borderlands does an excellent job of balancing the OSR rpg systems & it's setting material. Radiation is deadly, the monsters are old school, and dungeons or ruins have their own deadly weirdness. This game oozes flavor from it's pores and the PC's have to balance their choices or die in horror. 

Barrows & Borderlands leans heavily on its old school & OSR roots with a simple combat system, psionics, and much more. It comes with everything to really get the borderlands setting into your player's minds & hearts. The idea is that the Borderlands were the former world's civilization & society. We're already planning a a Borrow & Borderlands rpg campaign so more coming up.