Star Frontiers

 

     I recently stopped in a local Hobby Shop (more a toy shop with a few comics) and found these two gems in the used RPG bin for a great price. I may lose my gamer Grognard credentials but I've never GM'd Star Frontiers. I played it as a player one time if my memory serves. It was basically a couple of sessions my cousin started me out on the hijacked ship in the Volturnus adventure, but somehow my yazirian ended up crashed on a planet with giant haunted black pyramid ruins that I swear was holding Cthulhu!?! (he had also grabbed my copy of Dieties & Demigods with the Cthulhu Mythos) But no actual campaign, I think my yazirian went blind, insane and became psychotic, no doubt killed by a Star Law rescue party. Needless to say I tended to DM/GM all games moving forward after that. 

     I have always loved the Yazirians! Does anyone have memories of their Star Frontiers games/sessions? How was it? session recaps?  Love that art!! 

The Mutant Epoch Expansion Rules

      Long time followers of this blog will know that I am a big fan of William McAusland's RPG The Mutant Epoch.  He recently released the long-awaited Expansion Rules for this amazing Post-Apocalyptic RPG.  To be transparent, I do have a few entries in this book, but this in no way influences my opinion of this product.  First and foremost, it is filled, did I say filled? I mean JAM PACKED!! with William's fantastic artwork (over 1,200 illustrations!!!). Second, this tome will take your TME campaigns to a whole new level. I'm not sure simply calling it Expansion Rules does this product justice.  

  With over 12 new character types, The Expansion Rules allows you to play horrific mutant Abominations, Androids (something I've been wanting for a while) Grafter, Halfie, Mutorg, Nanoborg, Parasite (creepily cool), Plantoids (the mutant plant character section is massive!! worth the price of admission alone), Rebuilt, Robot (another class I've been wanting), Vat-Brain (this is one I didn't know I needed until I saw it!), plus 35 more Bestial Humans (yes 35!!! Woo Hoo, and yes Gorillas and Monkeys are in there!!!).

 But wait there is more! So much more!

21 Pre-game castes

• 34 Skills

• 186 mutations

• 91 Plant mutations

• 42 Cybernetic implants 

and 260 new relics

     If you can't tell I love this book. At over 500 pages it is even more massive than The Mutant Epoch Core rules.  Some expansion rules muddy the waters of their core games (I'm looking at you AD&D 2nd ed Splat Books), but that is not the case with TME Expansion rules, the Expansion Rules mesh perfectly with the core rules, and take the game to whole new levels. While I hope Mr. McAusland continues to put out TME products, with the Expansion Rules and core TME book you have a complete system that can last you for decades of play and it will stay fresh and interesting. Part of that stems from the way the rules are set up to allow players to randomly roll up so many aspects of their characters. Some players may want more control during character creation, and you can do that as well, but as an old school Gamma World player, I like the random aspects of the system. Mutants and mutations should have a chaos factor to them.   

     My only issue is I want to PLAY this game right now!!! I want to GM and be a player in a TME Campaign, oh well will have to see what I can do. So what are you waiting for? if you are into Post-Apocalyptic gaming at all, go pick this one up!!

Good Gaming! -B.B.  

Sci Fi Sunday!

      I backed a couple of Sci Fi RPG Kickstarters recently, the PDF's for them arrived in my inbox just a few days ago. While they are different systems (Rag-Tag is a rules lite take on the Fragged Empire RPG, and Thirteen Parsecs is an OSResque system), I find myself wanting to combine elements of the two together...we shall see. So far, I've been too busy with work and family stuff to dive into them, but soon! Very soon!  

Happy Simian Saturday!

 Happy Simian Saturday Everyone!

Just some AI generated Lego Fun for your Saturday morning!