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.  

The Monkey Militia

      It's been awhile, but long time followers of my blog will know that I am an AFOL (Adult Fan of Lego).  In particular I love the minifigs. Pictured above is the results of a rather long term project of picking up any of the Lego Chima Gorilla minifigures that I could find, while outfitting them with appropriate weapons and gear. Combat knives, Assault Rifles and Tactical Vests.  Not sure about the leader with the Katana and Owl, but we shall see.  Anyways, I present to you The Monkey Militia.  I should have waited till Saturday to post this, for a Simian Saturday post, but here it is early.  I'm hoping to work these into some Skirmish gaming soon. Maybe as a rival gang for Five Parsecs from Home, Space Weirdos, or something else?  Do any of you use lego Minifigs for your tabletop games? 

Love & Monsters

 

     Picked this up in the discounted DVD bin at the place that shall not be named "W".  I know the movie came out awhile ago, but I don't really go to the movies anymore and we purged majority of our pay TV Subscription channel stuff. The missus and I do more reading, gaming and yard stuff these days, TV just isn't our thing anymore. But to get back on topic, watched this one last night and really enjoyed it. The gamer in me found it to be loaded with usable gaming content, giant bugs and creepy crawlers!  Oh yeah! I can get behind that! Perfect inspiration for your Post Apocalyptic mutant bugs, or giant insect threats for your fantasy games! Plus the story-line in the movie was fun as well.  

Good Gaming! -B.B.

P.A./Sci-Fi Random Inspiration Generator

    I Love random generators. As a GM I have found over the years that making use of various generators can really take my imagination and my games into some fun directions that I wouldn't have otherwise gone in.  Over the holidays I was reading a a gaming blog post (sorry I honestly don't remember which one) about suggesting going through your Sci Fi book collection and randomly opening to a page, taking the first word that jumps out at you on that page and jot it down.  Then after you have a nice list to work with voila a Random Inspiration Generator is born!  

     So I did just that I grabbed a stack of my Sci-Fi (many P.A. related) books and the below list was created. Unfortunately in a cleaning binge, I put the books back up on the shelves before I wrote down which ones I used. * Doh*, I know I used Hiero's Journey, a random Deathlands book, Ensign Flandry and several others. I think it was 6-7 books in all.  Some of the words may initially seem bland, but don't be surprised they can spark some unexpected creativity when you are stuck for an adventure theme, or suggestion for an NPC or contents of a vault chamber!    

P.A./Sci-Fi Random Inspiration Generator

 1 Wrinkled

2 Other

3 Tangled

4 Monsters

5 Starless

6 Rust

7 Rustling

8 Run

9 Corroded

10 Survivors

11 Ruined

12 Howl

13 Cache

14 Map

15 Scorching'

16 Fury

17 Boss

18 Outpost

19 Empty

20 Family

21 Artifact

22 Engine

23 Dark

24 Underground

25 Vanish

26 Poison

27 Traitors

28 Cautious

29 Worn

30 Flicker

31 Sand

32 Abandoned

33 Attack

34 Shunted

35 Deep

36 Scent

37 Stolen

38 Strange

39 Watching

40 Violent

41 Power

42 Love

43 Blessing

44 Silent

45 Lured

46 Desert

47 Brute

48 Distant

49 Death

50 Harm

51 Shredded

52 Old

53 Bones

54 Acid

55 Attack

56 Resupply

57 Kick-Ass

58 Awesome

59 Road

60 Traders

61 Hollow

62 Repair

63 Ally

64 Tomorrow

65 Painful

66 Smoke

67 Beacon

68 Sun

69 Irradiated

70 Mutation

71 Secure

72 Claws

73 Teeth

74 Terrors

75 Blaze

76 Glass

77 Carnivores

78 Slime

79 Concealed

80 Feared

81 Books

82 Guards

83 Pipe

84 Wounded

85 Dissolve

86 Strike

87 Marauder

88 Frozen

89 Metal

90 Screech

91 Cover

92 Vanished

93 Masks

94 Territory

95 Profane

96 Stuck

97 Deathtrap

98 Rocks

99 Charts

100 Exterminate

     

 So lets see if this idea generator works...

Testing it out, I have no preconceived notions...  First question how many rolls on the table do I make?

I'll roll a d6 to determine that... I get a "6" ...so six rolls.

First I roll "84 - Wounded" - so someone or something is wounded...interesting..

Roll 2 is " 87 - Marauder" - seems we are dealing with a wounded marauder encounter...

Roll 3 is "8 - Run" - A wounded marauder on the run? wonder why they are on the run?  Are the local authorities after them??  Lets keep rolling...

Roll 4 is " 42- Love" - Ok now we are definitely getting a theme here, a wounded marauder on the run, and love is involved? They fall in love with the wrong person?...lets do our next roll...

Roll 5 is "27-Traitors" - So I'm starting to see a Romeo and Juliet type of scenario here. A Marauder falls in love with someone from outside their group, this person is maybe part of a group that the marauders prey upon or is their beloved part of the local Establishment/Authority?, are viewed as Traitors by both sides perhaps?  One last roll to go...

Roll 6 is "93 - Masks"- At this point I'm thinking we are dealing with a couple of lovers on the run, one is wounded, one is a Marauder and the other is not, they are considered traitors by both sides and while on the run are hiding out under some sort of covert/masked means.  Maybe pretending to be someone other than who they really are...

     Lets take these ideas just a bit further... Starting with the Marauder....who are they?  

For me a great resource for additional ideas is Pinterest.. I have several collections of different images I have saved over the years, filed under different boards.   Looking around I quickly find one that jumps out at me!

I know this is a cosplay image of Jack from Mass Effect (image by Sabi Noir) but it really inspires me with some ideas.. So I'm thinking the Marauder is a female.  Now I need a name.... how about Jax or Jaxs? I like the sound of that...My google fu finds a few more cosplay images of this character..

This is the cosplay actress Anna Moleva

     Great I like this, so what about her beloved?  I think this person will be a member of the "Authorities" Going through my Pinterest boards, I find the below image.  He looks like he has been through some rough times, ragged uniform, some possible injuries and a cornered look in his eyes. So lets tweak the above narrative a bit, the Marauder isn't the one that is injured, instead it is this guy. Maybe he is some sort of scout or pilot? He could have crashed on the planet and/or been captured by the Marauders. Jaxs and he are on the run and he is injured. Maybe she helped him escape? Due to his injuries, he can't travel far without frequents rests?

     I could keep going with this, work on his background some more, he needs a good name, but I think the list has proved it can work with some imagination.  When used with a campaign, I'd plug in my campaign factions and regions to flesh things out more.  This took a bit more of a Sci Fi direction than gritty P.A., but with some tweaks the above could readily work in P.A. Campaign. For a Gamma World Type Campaign Jaxs could be a member of the Knights of Genetic Purity or Red Death, her lover could be from a Hi Tech Enclave of Restorationists or Maybe he is a member of the KGP and she is a member of the Friends of Entropy. Lots of options.  

     Working this into a campaign the party could stumble upon these two hiding out in some ruin or under disguise in a village or town, or the party could be hired by rival factions/Cryptic Alliances to hunt down and kill/capture these two...lots of possibilities. Maybe he has valuable information on secret vaults or tech? I may have to revisit these concepts again in another post.

Have a great weekend!

Good Gaming-B.B.

 

Vaults of Vaarn

     For me personally the roots of RPG gaming are firmly in the realm of Post Apocalyptic (P.A.) RPGs.  Specifically Gamma World, my online handle "Brutorz Bill" is named after my first Gamma World character.  I've been a fan of P.A. Gaming ever since I found first edition Gamma World at the Mall (remember those?) back in 1979! While we played a ton of D&D, we always came back to Gamma World. Always enjoyed GMing Gamma World and many of the P.A. RPGs that followed.  The early days of this blog were heavily focused on the OSR game Mutant Future, had a blast running that one, with friends and even at a few local Cons. I have a stack of P.A. RPG's.  Gamma World (many editions), Mutant Future, The Mutant Epoch, Rifts (Original Rifts was more P.A. than in later supplements), Other Dust and a whole hoard of independent P.A. RPG's.  Even my recent Hyperborea RPG interests have a bit of P.A. in them.  Whew, I'm rambling...so what's the point of this blog post?

I want to talk about a fun RPG that I have discovered called Vaults of Vaarn!

Here is a blurb about it,

"The sun is dying and the wreckage of countless eons litters the parched wastes of Vaarn, the desolate country that common folk call the blue ruin. It is said that these sky-coloured sands hide the graves of the Autarchs; have swallowed the buried arcologies in which the true seed of humankind was preserved through the Great Collapse; conceal forgotten crypts of memory, decaying crystalline lattices of ancient ego-engines upon which the dusk-blue dunes encroach without pity. From the New Hegemony to the south come drifters and dreamers, desecraters of the tech-tombs that lie sunken beneath the azure wastes. Light-years overhead, aurum-hulled craft ply their tender routes between the spheres, and miles below a pilgrim’s feet, strange wombs are kindled once more with life undreamed of.

These are the hinterlands, where humanity’s great works have fallen to everlasting decay, where machine and animal and fungus think to crown themselves our equal. The phthalo-sands, where newbeasts hunt proudly with boots upon their hind paws and chromepriests chant unending binary devotions to their nameless synthetic god. Only the desperate or the mad would seek to make a life here, to roam the blue desert in search of the secret VAULTS OF VAARN."

Very cool setting, that evokes Dune (we just got the new movie on DVD, but still love the 80's film), Gamma World, a bit of Numenera with a Mobius vibe to tie it all up in an amazing package. 

Currently Vaults of Vaarn consists of three zine sized books.  More are in the works per the author.

Issue #1 Includes: 

• Full rules for play, based on the light, easy-to-learn Knave system.
• Five player ancestries with detailed character generation tables. Play as a haughty true-kin, a mutated cacogen, a mechanical synth, a feral newbeast, or a fungal mycomorph.
• Twisted mutations, psychic gifts, and cybernetic implants to further augment your character.
• 120 Exotica, the strange and valuable far-future relics that can be discovered in the vaults beneath Vaarn.
• A bestiary of 28 ferocious science-fantasy monsters that lurk in the blue wastes.
• Nine pages of content generation tables that allow a referee to spark ideas for their own vision of Vaarn. Generate desert ruins, NPCs, trading caravans, nomadic clans, arcology domes, esoteric drugs, forgotten gods, and more.
  

You can get the PDF for free HERE and it is pay what you want!!! What a deal!

The creator's blog is HERE with more about the setting, game and session logs from his home games. 

I'll be posting more about this one!

More Minis for the Collection!

 Of late I find myself getting back into miniatures, ok, to be honest I never really left. I have a good sized collection of painted fantasy minis (and a TON of unpainted). However, my Sci Fi and P.A. mini collection could use some work.  That's the rationale I'm going with anyways.  A buddy of mine recently told me about Arcane Scenery & Models out of the UK. In particular there is a line of minis by Trent Miniatures, that have some cool looking 28mm Sci Fi Desert Raiderish figures (Synguree Desert Fighters).  Even though the minis are from the U.K. shipping was FREE!  and the overall price for them was very reasonable. They arrived after just a few weeks and look great. Pictured below.  

 

The dice were a separate purchase from a local shop, gotta have more dice right?

I will need to get these painted up (painted example above is from their website). I can see them being used for a variety of games, Sci Fi, P.A., tabletop skirmish etc...   Looks like I will be placing another order sooner rather than later!

Red Shirt Rangers a group for Gamma World 4th Edition

The Crimson Cadre (Red Shirt Rangers)

     Travel across the wastelands is a dangerous endeavor. Isolated enclaves and communities struggle to survive on their own, which is why what little trade exists between them is so vital for their ongoing survival. A few brave caravans and merchants brave the wastes to bring trade goods, supplies and information to these separated communities.  Good coin can be made for those willing to take up the job of caravan guard, although few are willing to do it, given the short life span such work brings. That's where the Crimson Cadre, more commonly known by others as the Red Shirt Rangers come in.  Everyone knows they are clones, everyone except perhaps the Red Shirts themselves. They all look alike, sound alike, act alike and for the most part die alike. 

Equipped with dark red leather tunics (+2 to AC),  Daggers (1d4 damage) and single-shot bolt pistols (2d8 damage). They can be "rented" for guard duty across the wastes. Payment is made up front to a mysterious entity/organization known as "The Network".  Payment is nonrefundable, and killed cadre member's weapons and gear are to be returned to The Network, in order to get your gear deposit back.

  

Red Shirt Ranger

Number: Varies depending on the job (1d8 average)

Percept: 10

Stealth/R.U.: 0

AC: 12 (10)

MD: 10 

Health: 10 

Speed:12 

Level: 1 

Hit Dice:  4 (14) 

THAC: +1 

Attacks: 1 (pistol 2d8 or dagger 1d4) 

Int: Average  

Morale: 12 

Size: M 

XP: 20 

 *above stats are for Gamma World 4th edition, but could be used with Mutant Future, or adjusted for Other Dust or other games.