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.
