Mutant Crawl Classics plus Mutant Future

My first game from Goodman Games was Mutant Crawl Classics (MCC), as we were big fans of Gamma World. I discovered DCC later, dismissed it as being "too much," and then spent a little more time understanding the game, falling in love with the system.

Once you understand that everything in the DCC book is optional, including the tables, the game plays like a rules-light 3.5E, functioning as a streamlined, generic, and quick system that handles a wide range of scenarios and genres.

Once I understood why the spells had so many tables and how spell-burn and spell duels worked, the floodgates were opened. Then, lay Rule Zero over the game, and all of a sudden, you have a fantastic toolbox for rules-light 3.5E.

I came to MCC looking for more of my other favorite post-apocalyptic fantasy game, Mutant Future (MF). This is another classic Gamma World-inspired retro-clone, and it still holds up well today. This game is also cross-compatible with Labyrinth Lord, providing you with even more options for reskinning and use in your game.

Mutant Future is one of the best "stuff books" for MCC, offering an impressive selection of equipment, weapons, vehicles, robots, monsters, and other items to utilize in your MCC game. As a resource and a game in its own right, Mutant Future is indispensable for the realism and grit of the setting. The MF game assumes a feudal, long-gone postapocalyptic world, but has that classic Thundarr and Gamma World vibe, where the ruins of the old world are still recognizable. MCC is more fantastical and alien, with the lost world being even farther back in time and relegated to myth and twisted legends.

MF is an excellent, B/X-style science fiction game. It is compatible with Gamma World (1st and 2nd editions) and Labyrinth Lord. By itself, it is a fantastic game.

As an expansion for MCC, it significantly enhances the game. You receive all the low-level details that MCC overlooks, including gear lists, prices, treasures, weapons, primitive water travel, and all the necessary components to support a feudal society, as well as an explanation of how "all the civilization" works. If you want to barter for an oil lamp and a mutant beast of burden, you can find them here.

These two are my "peanut butter and chocolate" post-apocalyptic games, which pair perfectly together and blend seamlessly, or are wonderful on their own.

Gamma World Melee Damage

I love Gamma World, but...

The game using a 1d6 per point of constitution scale for hit points and keeping the original B/X level damages is a mess. With a laser pistol doing 5d6 damage, standard B/X style melee weapons were feeble. The STR adjustment to injury in the first and second editions was STR-15, or STR-6, for a negative modifier.

Vibro-daggers (10 hp damage) and vibro-blades (25) leveled the playing field, but still, there was very little threat from the primitive weapons. This pushes the "loot economy," where the first few rooms need a supply of high-tech armaments just to keep combat balance in check.

Part of me feels they did this to keep high-level AD&D parties viable. By the time an AD&D party is visiting Gamma World, you will need creatures with the 8-12 HD range to challenge the party. The artifacts feel suitable for that level of play too.

Mutant Future kept this hit-point scale for compatibility. It is still my favorite version of the Gamma World style game because of its interoperability with Labyrinth Lord. This game has that perfect mix of the low-tech world and the lost ruins of old that I love, and it is directly compatible with Gamma World, so all your favorites can return. It also has a strong encumbrance and gear system, and you get that low-level "feel" of adventure.

But still, the low-end damage problems with primitive melee weapons remain here as a legacy compatibility "feature" of the main game. You could argue that the world is so dangerous, "only the toughest survive," but I would still want melee weapons to do more damage. A dagger takes 14 successful hits to take out a CON 10 character with 35 hit points; with misses factored in, that is long combat. With 30-second combat turns and a 50% miss rate, that is a 15-minute battle and kind of boring.

There is a 10% chance per level of gaining one attack per round (Mutant Future), so that is a factor, but it still does not really fix the issue. Many D&D-style games try to balance high hit points and low weapon damage at high levels with multiple attacks, power moves, or other damage scaling tricks.

I would be sorely tempted to add a die of damage per +1 damage modifier and introduce a breakage rule on the low end of the 1+ damage modifier (modified by construction materials, which could be lowered to zero). So an 18 STR character is doing 4d8 damage with a longsword and has a breakage chance of 1-4 for a weapon made of ordinary materials. Now my Ookla the Brute character will pick up stop signs and break them over people's heads. With DEX, I would modify missile weapons that rolled dice for damage and leave fixed damage to high-tech guns alone.

Alternatively, I could award those extra hit dice on a per-adventure basis, start everyone off at 1 HD, and increase these up to CON HD at a rate of 1-3 HD per adventure as the characters get in fights, train, and "toughen up." Without messing with the base B/X damages the "bonus HD progression" seems like the best solution. keeps the original damage scaling, and would start most characters and noncombatants off at 1d6 hp.

Though instead of a hack, I wish the weapons and monsters were balanced for a more traditional zero-to-hero experience, where everyone started at 1 HD and leveled up normally. Then again...

Mutant Crawl Classics (MCC) gets the zero-to-hero right regarding damage and monster scaling. This is the standard B/X style progression, though the game does many of the Dungeon Crawl Classics standards, such as mutations being like DCC "spells" with charts and shamans who can access the ancient power of AI Patrons (like gods). This is much like Gamma World in terms of a high-tech destroyed world.

MCC's sister game Umerica also has the same B/X style damage scaling and exists on a lower-tech scale than MCC. Umerica also has a better gear section of weapons, armor, and other gear, so it feels like a more survivalist-oriented game, almost like an Aftermath or post-20th-Century ruin game, but still with the gonzo attitude.

All of these are great games, I would just like a few tweaks on the hit points and damage to the ones on the Gamma World side to get them in line with B/X and not have them make normal melee weapons so weak.

Gamma World Plus

If I had to replay Gamma World, and I know what you are thinking, just replay Gamma World - you got it! I am more thinking if I had to replay it with the rules I want to play it with, I would likely go with Mutant Future as the go-to game rules, and use the original Gamma World rules as a "stuff and monster book" for the game.

Primitive Tone

Well, for one, Mutant Future has the tone I want for the game. It begins with a feudal, medieval society. All the parts to make my idea work are there: retainers, sea travel, wilderness adventures, fully-stocked gear lists, and a monster list that would add a lot to the game. But that base level feeling of the medieval, feudal life the game captures is key - I want that contrast between the world that sank back into a more primitive time and the blasted hellscape of a high-tech society that no one goes to and the dangers of this insane wasteland are too great to comprehend.

Gamma World kind of lives on top of the ruins a bit too closely I feel, with groups seeking artifacts, rebuilding, destroying, and the ruins of the world very much a part of life. I want those ruins to be the mythical "forbidden zone" one-shall-not-go full of monsters, radiation, mutants, killer robots, hazards, storms, broken terrain, the spires of ancient buildings, flesh-eating plants, and all sorts of nasty encounters that keeps the primitive societies out. These places should be myths, locked in superstition and fear for good reason.

B/X Resources

Also, Mutant Future keeps the same hit point scale and relative balance, while still being a more modern B/X ruleset one can pull in all sorts of extras into the game with. All of Labyrinth Lord is there waiting to be mutated, changed, and recast as extras in your apocalyptic epic story. Take a demon or two, mutate them as rad-demons that live under an ancient reactor tower, and give them a thinking computer to spy on the area with. Use a giant beetle as a base monster, add mutations and color it purple, and go.

Gamma World (editions 1-4) is there for some of the things you can't get outside Gamma World. Death Machines. The iconic monsters. Micromissile launchers. Bubble cars. Some of those cool grenades. The gear. The borgs and robots. Maybe a mutation or two. I would probably convert these over as I go and enhance the list to be my own, but there are some things I remember about this game that I love that I want to see in the mutant Gamma Future game.

One exception are the more fantasy-inspired monsters introduced in the 2nd edition such as the lil and kodo dragon. These are currently in print with only the 3rd and 4th editions, and 4th looks easier to convert in from since the game is more AD&D 2nd than it is Marvel Superheroes, plus the art is there so it would be a handy resource. But the cover looks like Judge Dredd on Tatooine fighting a mutated vampire bat as he helps his anthro-dog friend out of a hole. But wow, those clouds are pretty.

It is a really 90's comic book style cover. I would have went more Heavy Metal with the fantasy elements; primitive warrior on a purple lizard holding a laser lance meets Thundarr broken future cityscapes with wild colors approach. Also, if I were in a hobby shop and this was on the shelf next to Vampire: The Masquerade? Yeah, this would be a little harder to pick up. Especially with Magic: The Gathering sucking the oxygen out of roleplaying sections during that era.

But it is your game, so change it up! Pull in other fantasy monsters and mutate away if you like those! Besides, nothing has to be as-is or was-written in a game like this. Things change. There are different models of bubble cars out there, and multiple types of Death Machines. If they are a little different, no one is going to know or well, maybe these were different models made for different reasons.

Unified Terminology

One thing I like about B/X is the terminology is unified. Gamma World was prone to shifting mechanics over the years to superhero color charts, to masses of code abbreviations, to card game mechanics, to Alernity, and to systems that were not B/X because the designers were chasing the cool factor through rules instead of the Gamma World experience. Rules alone never make something cool, and I can thing of dozens of games with great rules that are still relatively unknown - or worse, have been replaced by another clone of the original rules with a couple things changed to force you to upgrade.

If I go with a B/X sourced game, as all my base definitions and rules are on a single solid foundation. And theoretically you could use any B/X rules set (B/X Elements, DCC, and many others) to do this with the source material, I just like starting with Mutant Future because a lot of the work is done for most of what I need, and the Labyrinth Lord tie ins are strong and give me a lot to work with.

B/X = Best of Today with Yesterday

Having that base game that is compatible with today's B/X world is the key for me, plus that primitive, medieval feudal feeling. I won't have to expand Mutant Future too much outside of the rules in that book.

But for those iconic parts of Gamma World I love - I have them right over here now.

I love you B/X. You are the HTML 5 and Linux of gaming. A universal language or OS that allows everything to work together, and one that will never really go away or fade into history.

Mutant RPGs

So I was contrasting these two games the other day when I was talking about Gamma World style games, and there are two more to talk about now. I may be late to this party, but it is great to see these two (with the exception of 2nd edition, which is MIA) out and about:

Wow, welcome back, it has been a while. Of all the modern ones, Mutant Future is the most "like first edition" in this bunch. The Gamma World 3rd edition is kind of a strange outlier, sort of a mix of B/X with the original Marvel Superheros color action chart sort of thing going on, as well as a LOT of fantasy themed influences not present in the Gamma World 1e game.

It is just great to be able to get printed copies again and see people enjoy these. What a happy day to see some old friends back. Now if only Gangbusters and the original Top Secret would show up to the party we could relive the early 1980's with style.

And as a postscript, the more AD&D 2nd Edition Gamma World 4 is here too. This one I never got into, but it is an interesting mention when you are talking old-school, even though it is a product of the 90s and it feels a little heavier. The game also overuses abbreviations to the point of creating a new assembly programming language: MD, THAC, CH, PS, DX, CN, RU, MP, DM, AC...what is wrong with you 1990s??? And here I thought the "Use Artifacts" diagram where you could kill yourself trying to figure out a toaster was just used for things in the game.

Mail Room: Starships and Spacemen 2e

If there is one thing I love about the old-school revolution it is projects like this. A B/X style throwback game covering a "classic Federation inspired" sort of roleplaying game using the well-known "old school dungeon" style rules? Yep, we got it in Starships and Spacemen.

This is something I honestly would expect to find in some small-town hobby shop in the 1970's where a group of local game writers get together and print something "inspired by" but ultimately totally different and cool. In fact, I do have a game like that lying around here just like this, a Trek inspired Basic D&D clone from the 70's much like this printed and distributed from what I know from somewhere from a group of fans in Texas.

This one comes from Goblinoid Games, the creators of Labyrinth Lord, and the S&S system is fully compatible with the LL rules and monsters. There is a larger Goblinoid Universe lurking here between Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, Starships and Spacemen, and other games in the series and if you collect them all you get this "more is better" thing going on in terms of content and system support.

But it Ain't Trek!

Well, D&D isn't the Lord of the Rings either. Nor does it have to be, because different is cool. Honestly, I don't really care, and as D&D proves the best games in the genre aren't the official ones either, they are inspired by, create new ideas from, and combine a bunch of influences together to create something entirely new. Space Opera, Star Frontiers, and a bunch of other classic sci-fi games come to mind.

S&S does a bunch of new things, it uses a typical Asimov-style star-federation as its base, introduces a bunch of crazy aliens to the mix like talking frogs and others, re-thinks gear and abilities in terms of adventures, and focuses the action on a sort of lower-level mission structure that I find really quite cool. The ships are just UFO-shaped without the extra flange and structure, and I find that a cool divergence. There is also a greater focus on classic psionics in characters, which I find is a cool new thing the game brings to "space navy sci-fi" sorts of games.

S&S is Trek as Firefly is Star Wars, in a way. A lot of this is really older-school sci-fi in my feeling, sort of a hearkening back to the original sources where Trek drew inspiration from as well, the HG Wells or Asimov-style Foundation series of "space navy" generic sci-fi. There are some items from other sci-fi stories in the mix, such as laser swords, AI controlled tanks, flame guns, force fields, androids, and robotic animals, so it is not trying to be a carbon copy. I wish it had more of these classic sci-fi items but the door has been opened for my imagination to include whatever I want - especially if I include other books from the Goblinoid Universe.

There is enough here to make me comfortable playing this as something new and not a carbon copy, and in my feelings this is really more of a 1970's sci-fi TV Show retro throwback game than it is anything else. I could include tips of the hat and inspired by things like Buck Rogers, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Dune, Foundation, Federation, Logan's Run, Alien, The Thing, Six-Million Dollar Man, Body Snatchers, Planet of the Apes, and feel right at home as the giant UFO-like space navy ship sets down and characters go on all sorts of zany and semi-serious 70's sci-fi adventures.

Actually, the Better Traveller Setup

A part of my brain tell me this is the Traveller I always wanted. Small ships with limited-size crews going out on blank hex-maps, mapping star systems, meeting the crazy-alien locals, getting into all sorts of trouble, having spaceship combats, landing on planets and exploring dangerous "dungeons" of lost civilizations, and really giving the player characters a lot of agency to set star-federation policy in the sector without having to worry about "command" back home dictating what they should do and say.

The players are free to setup alliances with whoever they find, to establish star-federation bases on the planets of races they meet, figure out dangerous space anomalies, shoot up space pirates, embark on mysteries that span multiple star systems, and have that sort of free-roaming plus "settling the wild west' sort of campaign that I always dreamed about with Traveller. But I never got to run.

If the players need backup? Head on back to the star-federation base on the edge of the map and get some other star-federation ships to come along for an epic fleet battle. After the evil space mongol fleet is pushed back from that corner of the map, it is back to the single ship adventures we love without escalating the entire campaign into a World War II naval simulator.

There is an enthusiasm here and an innocence that I feel just makes it work. You get serious games and serious properties, like Lord of the Rings, and all of a sudden doing the small and random things in that universe doesn't seem to fit. You just can't go out in LotR or Star Wars and say, "let's find a dungeon!" and be taken seriously. In D&D and "inspired by" B/X games like S&S? You can do that stuff because these games are in-fact derivative and inspired-by and there is a playful level of fun there that invites exploration and pushing the boundaries of what came before.

Simple Old-School Rules

The game works really well with the simple OSR dungeon-game style rules, like in some alternate universe gaming decided to stick with the Basic D&D paradigm and everything was developed for and compatible with that style of gameplay. You get more hit points and become a tougher hero, but so what? Only really that last shot that takes you down matters anyways, so everything else is a graze or a minor wound - and failing a saving throw versus a terrible effect is always the big threat.

Another note, the pre D&D 3 lower-scale damage and hit-point range is wonderful here. Newer editions of D&D always seem to ramp up the hit points and damage past level one, and this scaling I feel ruins the higher level game in most D&D games past 3rd edition. With a ramp-up in hit points comes multi-attacks or scaled damage that you see in modern games, and they never seem to get that original feeling right.

Yes, if my 5th level fighter or space adventurer has 30 hit points he will be able to take quite a few blows and crossbow hits - he is a hero after all! Early OSR games still get this right, and they don't need to scale damage or introduce multiple attacks just to balance things, and inevitably newer games introduce more difficult death and more abundant healing and I feel what was special about tabletop gaming is lost.

Choices matter. Character death isn't a video game respawn. You don't have 'healing surges' to get your MMO character back to 100% health for the next fight. You don't need a level 10 laser pistol that does 8d8 damage just to balance the out of control hit points. You don't need three 1d8 sword attacks per turn to keep your DPS rating on keel with the mages. High-level monsters don't need 300 to 1200 hit points to be terrifying. What's terrifying is all that math and repetitive multi-attack dice rolls over a four-hour combat with pages of rules reference to whittle that tangled-yarn junk-drawer rules mass of hit-points down to zero.

What's worse, if your hit point scaling past level one is out of control, the original polyhedral dice don't really matter that much any more. A 1d8 versus a 1d6 weapon against a 12 hit point monster? That means something. The same two weapons versus a 120 hit point monster? Not that much of a difference anymore since in scaled systems damage modifiers over multi-attacks primarily determine DPS. Getting a +5 damage and four attacks a turn? My DPS is about the same with a 1d8 sword as it is a 1d4 dagger, since the average roll difference is only 2 points per attack (30 vs. 38 per turn, with most of the damage coming from the fixed portion).

I feel OSR and B/X systems with one attack per turn, limited spells, limited healing, harsh death, risky saving throws, and the original hit-point scale do away with more of the problems of modern high-level games being unfun and taking forever to play, because the original hit-point range and balance is left intact. The original designers of D&D found a balance there that I feel we have forgotten with today's games, especially post D&D 3 games that have been going back and forth with new revisions to make high level "scaled" play fun again ever since the concept was introduced. In my feeling, there is no beating the B/X style originals that Gary G and company designed that way on purpose.

Innocence

If there was one thing I can say attracts me to this game is the feeling of simplistic innocence to it all. It is like if a bunch of kids got together in a basement and home-brewed their own Trek-plus whatever style adventures using the basic dungeon game rules they knew and loved, and had adventures all across the galaxy with something they came up with all by themselves. Maybe they had an android from Blade Runner join the crew at one point, or met a Wookie like creature in another adventure. Maybe they fought a race of space-orcs on another planet, or dealt with a a creature from The Blob movie attacking a space colony on another. What holds them together is a common feeling that this is "space navy adventures" but everything else is make it up as you go along, borrow it from other games and movies, and just have fun.

It Needs a No-Art PDF

The only flaw here is there is no no-art PDF for free download. There is a $7 PDF with artwork on the RPGNow/DrivethruRPG stores, so that is an option, but I would like a no-art PDF option as well.

The Goblinoid Universe

What gives this game value is the larger Goblinoid Universe, and then also the large scope of compatible pre D&D 3 products out there in the wild. I can pull in characters, gear, and monsters from Labyrinth Lord, Mutant Future, Realms of Crawling Chaos, and even Apes Victorious and have everything work together. I could take a party of Starships and Spacemen characters and run them through the old module B1 Keep on the Borderlands if I wished and have then have the players use their universal translator to work up a deal with the goblins to fight the orcs on level two. Everything will work with very little to no conversion.

Does that sound fun? You bet it does. And I don't have to learn a new rules set to do any of this, nor do I have to work out painful conversions or scale difficulty to a new rules system and number scale.

What I had works. What I have works. What I know is what I need to know. B/X compatible all the way.

Is it flashy or video game cool? No, and it doesn't need to be. It just needs to work, and then get out of the way for roleplaying and problem solving to take over. I want players to be focused on world and story challenges, not rules and character-build challenges. That to me is B/X OSR and why I love it.

Design Room: Mutant Future

You can't really talk about Mutant Future without being familiar the early 1980's post-apocalyptic games such as Gamma World and Aftermath. Even TV shows such as Thundarr the Barbarian and movies such as Planet of the Apes or The Road Warrior apply here, and one could throw in the original Westworld, The Omega Man, THX 1138 and even Rollerball or Sleeper in this category.

And then there is the Fallout universe, a lot of which applies here, but I am careful about saying "this is like Fallout" because Fallout is almost too familiar to everybody. Fallout is also a lot less gonzo and wacky as the Mutant Future game, so there is a bit of superhero gaming mixed in with this genre, along with concepts familiar to readers of comic books like the old X-Men comics of the 1970's.

The premise is, "Let us think about that the future could be like, and then let's destroy it and create a new world out of that." We are two steps removed from "today" in these games, one in that we have little idea of the alternate future that was destroyed, and we have even less of an idea of the world that comes after that.

I love this genre because it is totally mind twisting, and you are constantly asking yourself if a place you are encountering is part of the unknown future-past or the maniacally twisted now. I get the "now" part a little better, since survival and the medieval-like state most of the world has devolved into you know from traditional fantasy gaming. A sword is a sword and a village is a village, people ride horses and the blacksmith bangs out horseshoes and other metal objects.

Then things get different. Bits of old technology are passed around, books, magazines, and small household items re-purposed in novel and different ways. You see a mix of the familiar in the everyday use, a record turntable used as a potting wheel, forks and knives, a necklace made of bottle caps, an old wind-up watch, horse carts with automotive tires, and bits of today and a possible tomorrow in everyday medieval life.

And instead of elves and dwarves; we have mutants, talking animals and plants, and even androids and robots living in these places. They live simply off the land, and the society is your typical fantasy medieval world - but the inhabitants are all over the place. A talking lion with bat wings and telepathy. A half-human cyborg. A six-foot dandelion man. And while there are normal humans to ground things, the weird and wacky live here, but yet the "high fantasy" world model mostly applies. Different kingdoms rules the land. Savage tribes live like primitives in forgotten places. Wars and conflicts between feudal kingdoms go on when resources are scarce. Bandits raid settlements. Treaties are made and primitive life, colored a little by strange changes, goes on.

The fun twist is the magic isn't magic, it is the remains of super-technology we do not understand. Also, the forces which destroyed the world mutate and change creatures and even the fabric of reality itself in strange and deadly ways. Swarms of man-eating ladybugs can plague the land. A giant mutated potato plant can lurk under the ground and feast on unwary travelers. A bat with radioactive eyes that eats metal can terrorize travelers. A psychic badger can sit by the side of the road and force people to leave their food on the ground and walk away. A crazed building-sized farming robot could treat all life as pests to be eradicated. Anti-gravity warbots, still fighting the war that destroyed the world, could be flying around out there, somewhere.

And the ruins of civilization are dangerous places that should not be traveled to. The weathered, radiation-blasted, overgrown, nature-reclaimed wastes of giant cities stretch on for hundreds of miles of destroyed land, with mountains of rubble overgrown by forests, giant fissures and canyons blasted through the earth, and changes so drastic they turn the familiar into something that was once organized and civil into a hellish and broken wasteland of civilization tossed in a garbage dump, turned over on itself by terra-forming bulldozers, and turned into a deadly jungle of the broken remains of civilization where deadly creatures live, radiation storms blast, and machines wander the wastes in varying states of disrepair. You should not be wandering around on a map of New York City with a couple spacy looking buildings, this place underwent a tectonic upheaval a couple thousand years into an alternate future from today - you wouldn't recognize the place before it got destroyed, and afterwards you should be worrying about the tectonic plate that created a mountain range, jungle, and ocean through the heart of the city.

Welcome to Mutant Future

This is Mutant Future, and this is also the same gaming genre as (to an extent) Gamma World. The one thing I like about Mutant Future is that it keeps the original WTF feeling of crazy science fantasy, where the later editions of Gamma World were more high-fantasy influenced with mutant replacements for dragons, fairies, elves, gnolls, and other fantasy tropes. If I want fantasy elements in Mutant Future I can always put them in, but if I want to keep things less D&D I can without having to say "kodo dragons and the fairy-like lils do not exist." Even for players familiar with Gamma World, Mutant Future is a lot more unfamiliar and unpredictable, and I feel that is actually a strength when playing in the genre.

Though this game is 100% compatible with Labyrinth Lord and the Advanced Edition Companion, so if you want extra fantasy based creatures - there they are. Roll some mutations on them and you are good to go. Or just take a normal animal or plant, give it an AC and hit dice, and roll some mutations and you are good to go.

Need an example? Let's take a giant green jellyfish, give it 5 HD and an AC of 7, make it float through the air, and let's roll some mutations - density alteration (self), psionic flight, poison susceptibility, and temperature control (freezing). So these things float through the air in large forms, freeze their food with psionic powers, and they can shrink down and become dense rocks when threatened - and they are also susceptible to different toxins. There, a new monster nobody has ever encountered before, and something completely unique and original.

The same thing goes for robots, technology, hazards, monsters, and everything else in the world. Remember this point, since this will come up later.

Sometimes I feel the unique and iconic D&D monsters (mind flayers, beholders, drow, etc) have gotten so tired and overused the appeal of having them wears off (sometimes, I still think they are classics, but there are other times I want something new). The familiarity may attract players since it is always preferable to play a game you are familiar with, and against monsters you know how to deal with. But those strange floating jellyfish that freeze-dry their food? If I saw those as a character I would have no idea what they can do until the temperature started dropping around my character and they started shrinking down into dense, tiny rocks that sat on the ground like a psionic refrigerator turret. And I wouldn't know what else they could do, or even what their weaknesses were.

I love these moments at the gaming table, where the group of players is sitting there slack-jawed and wondering if a floating green jellyfish is something completely innocent or the beginning of a total party kill. The smart players will find a way far away, while the not so smart ones will start poking and prodding the floating abnormality.

Anything is Right

The fantasy-game compatibility is a huge strength here, since it gives you more to pull from. Mix fantasy and magic in there and enjoy a strange Rifts like mix of everything. Maybe a sci-fi world collided with a fantasy world and all hell broke loose. Replace magic with technology and mutations, or re-color the existing fantasy creatures with mutations and technology. A medusa with robotic, laser-eyed and stunner-eyed snake tentacles for hair? Fine, do it. It is your game.

The only way I feel you can go wrong is by basing this more on grim and gritty realism, and move more towards The Road Warrior and The Walking Dead sort of realistic worlds. I feel when you de-emphasize the strange and fantastical, you lose a lot of the wonder and charm of the game. When you take out the "whatever goes" feeling, it becomes something any modern rules system can do, and you lose that wonder and danger of the unknown. You don't want to make this predictable. You want the ruined world to come alive through that "anything can happen" feeling.

I would avoid traditional high-fantasy magic though when mixing (unless this is a collision of worlds type game), and keep the fantastical powers more mutation and technology based. You want one source of power, and I feel you don't want to all of a sudden throw "magic powers" into the mix as an extra power source that makes everything easy. You want the source to "fantastic power" to be the same for everyone (mutant powers and tech), and avoid giving players the traditional "high fantasy easy out" where fireball, teleport, and magic missile take over the game.

Two Worlds in One

Save the "normal" feeling for the settlements though, since you still want that fantasy medieval model to apply to the character's home bases and the feudal civilization around them. I find this game's focus on medieval construction, travel, and commerce a perfect fit for this genre, since I can create a miniature "feudal world" that coexists alongside the "places of ancient ruin" and have those two worlds collide and compete. I love having little "kingdoms" and "tribes" fight for scarce resources and farming land while the dangerous ruins of ancient cities loom over them. I love having players worry about "that is the red eye kingdom's soldiers, stay away from them" sorts of things. I love having the drama of the survivors play out and influence the adventures of the players - and even have these dramas become adventures themselves.

For example, if you have a blue kingdom run by a benevolent robot king, you could make his battery running out and the kingdom going to hell a constant worry for them. You could have a totalitarian red kingdom run by a mutated houseplant who thinks he is Napoleon that is well-run but brutal and confiscates any form of technology from subjects or travelers. The conflicts between these kingdoms becomes the backstory and focus of the game, and the "strange world around it" becomes the source of power for the characters (and also unexpected new sources of conflict).

I like the "two world" setup for these games, and I have had many post-apocalyptic games break down because the entire focus of the game was on "go into the city and get loot." There was no other story there, and when the characters found the ultimate weapon and armor upgrade and could beat all the enemies, the game was over. With another story happening that players can invest in, there is a reason to gain character power to influence the outcome of the world's stories and factions.

Keep the cities dangerous though, so dangerous the kingdoms have given up on these places as hellish, forbidden, ancient places where no one should go. I feel you don't really want organized bands of scavengers in these areas, since you want the focus of the conflicts between the factions to center on the scarce resources outside of the cities and the competition for them. Those areas should be so dangerous if a large group moved in to strip it clean, the monsters, hazards, and robots that are there should wipe them all out. You want to keep that "forbidden place" myth strong in both the character's minds and also the inhabitants of the world.

The Shadow of Gamma World

One thing that keeps this game difficult for me is we were big Gamma World fans, so the shadow of that game always looms large over our thoughts. One of the easiest ways to deal with this, I feel, is to say, "Gamma World is dead." If you want to pull in elements from that world into your games that cross the dimensional barrier, do so, and keep it strictly to mystery and lore of 'another world that may have been.' Maybe survivors from that world crossed the dimensional barrier. Maybe their spirits float in the nether and all of a sudden, some of the familiar pops up in the new world.

But celebrate the new like this was a new game. Everything you loved about that world, sans some of the pieces of gear and monsters, is here in one form or another - plus more. In fact, I think this game is better because it is more "anything goes" than Gamma World, which was moving towards a D&D like "iconic monsters and items" sort of marketed and pre-made high fantasy experience.

But in another way, I feel it is a bit unfair to just compare this to Gamma World, since this game is more than that. Where Gamma World was more of a set experience with a defined list of iconic monsters and technology, this is more of an old-school science fantasy post-apocalyptic toolbox where your ideas are more important and celebrated than what the game's designers give you. I feel that is the difference here. Gamma World was more of a World of Warcraft type experience where you played for the lore and iconic features - and I say was because the game has spanned multiple incompatible versions and it is out of print (to the best of my knowledge). It is tough for us to let the game go, but let it go we must.

Your games need to be more than what's in the old books. You need to take what you loved about the old game, and expand and improve on those elements. Love the old Gamma World death machines? Make a better one in the new game. Make two. Call it something else. Don't copy - improve. Make something new. Do something different. Put your creativity into the game. Into this game.

This is more of a game where your creations should shine, your creativity is the reason to play, and your imagination is more important than all the pre-made stuff. This game is in print. This game has a free no-art version available for download. If we support this game, it supports a game in print plus all the future players who may discover it. I feel it is more socially responsible plus forward thinking to support the new and in-print games.

It is tough letting a piece of your gaming history go, but I feel it is ultimately for the better. The original spirit of our first gonzo post-apoc adventures can live on in our games (along with some of the things we love, pick and choose), but this just feels like a better place to be.

A Brand New End of the World

I like Mutant Future. I feel this is one of those new-era old-school forgotten classics. It is an open sandbox you can drop infinite ideas into. It pulls in the fantasy elements directly from Labyrinth Lord, and is 100% compatible with that game. Also, this game starts with a more based and low-level fantasy world than does other games - this game starts in medieval fantasy and then goes into science fantasy. The rules here start with that 'medieval world' assumption with castles, horses, carts, rafts, primitive commerce, and men-at-arms fighting battles. The default world and how it works (in my mind) is the same as Labyrinth Lord, with a couple differences. A feudal society living in the ruins of a more advanced ancient world - and be it magic or technology, this is the same story told by fantasy authors a million times before.

That is the strength of this game, but with the added bonus of being able to put your own imagination in the game through the strange and wonderful creatures, robots, technology, hazards, and places you create. It starts in a familiar place, and then it goes anywhere your imagination can take you.