The Gaming Den

This is coming next year:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11 ... al-fantasy

Looks like the fantasy version of Mutant Year Zero. Interesting.

The exploration and stronghold rules might be worth looking into, but everything else seems like neckbeard trash. "Dangerous magic" is almost always a pseudonym for "fuck the players," and waxing on about how great RPGs were in the fucking 70s is usually the result of not understanding what good rules are and indulging in high school nostalgia. Might be worth a read if the prose is entertaining.

The fact that the book covers are designed to look like the various splatbooks for 2e/AD&D screams neckbeard overload.

It's also claiming that its mechanics come from Tales from the Loop, as well as Mutant: Year Zero; I'm not really sure which, but I'm not holding my breath that they're great rulesets.

[edit] Apparently the above use d6 based dicepools; but this systems editors have decided that "artifacts" might allow d8s, d10s & d12's to be added to pools. Which makes me more unsure than sure.

spongeknight wrote:The exploration and stronghold rules might be worth looking into, but everything else seems like neckbeard trash. "Dangerous magic" is almost always a pseudonym for "fuck the players," and waxing on about how great RPGs were in the fucking 70s is usually the result of not understanding what good rules are and indulging in high school nostalgia. Might be worth a read if the prose is entertaining.

DCC's "dangerous magic" is the most tolerable version I've played with to date. I've been in a DCC campaign since around the start of this year. It's not bad enough that our players don't ever use magic, but it does bite them in the ass sometimes in thematically appropriate manners. Before DCC though, definitely every dangerous magic system was shit.

So mayyyyyybe these guys could have pulled it off too. It's not that hard, but usually the people writing dangerous magic systems fall into categories where nobody ever uses spells, or players take pains to make sure spells are 100% safe and only use it in that manner.

I actually am a Fan of Mutant: Year Zero, and Coriolis, so I might be interested in least backing and reading this. However yeah, I do kinda wonder if they truly understand how deadly their system is, and stories it can promote.

It's a Dicepool system, where only 6 = Success, but isn't any Thresholds of success, one being all you need, and combat usually being straightforward. Coriolis, revamped the base system a little for combat, where Melee-rs can counter-stab another guy, or free defense against it (although GM has to spend narrative currency that's generated by PC's, to be allowed to do this for their NPC's), and has a minor Action Point system during such conflicts. Health is measured by Str Stat goes 1-5 (Str+Agi in Coriolis, weapon typically deals 1-2 dam (most is 4 base of fully upgraded Fireax, 2-3ish Coriolis), and roll to soak with Armor....which typtically isn't that high, and isn't high enough In Coriolis, which has Exo-Suit like power armor.


Mutant: Year Zero has a cool idea with a settlement system, but one of the tracks is mechanically pointless (doesn't do much of anything despite a typo? indicates otherwise), and I feel like didn't go far enough with the Random Generation of content, and providing of set content that a DM could just run this without some prep of locations beforehand.


I would say part of the problem with their line, is they have these cool ideas, but lack of total, absolute follow through on these ideas at times.

Aryxbez, there is an expansion for Mutant coming out called Mutant: Elysium that's about pure humans on an underground bunker-society on the brink of fall and opening up to the outside. The players are agents working for the dominating families with different agendas. Inter player conflicts and backstabs expected. As someone over at Rpgnet put it, sound like a mix of Papers, Please and Dogs in the Vineyard. The KS is up:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/11 ... s-sista-da

Ah yes, I've been aware of that quite a few months back, as I understood it's also the "Enclave Wars" going on deep underground in the Mutant: Year Zero setting. Though I'm not aware of any new information of it coming out in English yet, I've already read bits of it that I could Google Translate.

Though the selling point of it being like "Dogs in the Vineyard" doesn't sound very compelling since I've heard that game is kinda bad (though the idea of playing zealous kats converting people is fine).


I'm not really sure why they are continuing to use this Game's Engine, since it would probably be much easier to simply use a typical Dice Pool of 5-6 as success, Set hit roll, and then a Soak roll (likely with 3e SR's HP system to better rep bigger creatures and vehicles & stuff).

Also yeah, if anyone else has questions about the system Mutant: Year Zero uses, I'd be up for shedding some light on its flaws where I can.

EDIT: Interestingly, the D8-D10-D12, will be used to expand the range of success as expected, but max value also give double success: http://forum.frialigan.se/viewtopic.php ... 282#p26861

I think the part about Dogs is a reference to it's themes, which seem apt.

On the Mutant rules, I also don't find them great, but they seem to convey the themes of the game reasonably well, which is good enough for me. One thing I like in Mutant is how each class plays a role in the exploration aspect, instead of combat which is common in most games. The Stalker finds dangers in a sector, the Gearhead maintains the group's ( constantly degrading) gear, the Chronicler inspires the group spirits during journey, the Negotiator is the spokesperson, etc. I like this.

Guts wrote: On the Mutant rules, I also don't find them great, but they seem to convey the themes of the game reasonably well, which is good enough for me. One thing I like in Mutant is how each class plays a role in the exploration aspect, instead of combat which is common in most games. The Stalker finds dangers in a sector, the Gearhead maintains the group's ( constantly degrading) gear, the Chronicler inspires the group spirits during journey, the Negotiator is the spokesperson, etc. I like this.

This is in part the appeal of M:YO for me, the Settlement aspect, player driven and exploration style of play (with Metaplot) which seemed quite novel conceptually. Though I've yet to run a game, given it's a Shadowrun-style lethality, how does overall pacing of the game fair? It seems like Combat can grind exploration to a halt, though food = Full Heal +X Hours, causing PC's to rest often?

Though Class-wise, there are exceptions like with Enforcer who can cause the party to fail a Negotiation, Dog-Handler does little, and the Slave who does nothing (but has Soak Roll skill, making them a very important Combat Monster to have in the Party). Meanwhile Boss is completely broken, with extreme logistics, I'm surprised they didn't go with their first draft idea for Boss's ability, which would've been a better design after it was polished. My hot-fix for Boss Class is to give 2 stat/1 skill class-less Minions, whose combined dice may equal a combat-focused Slave. Though can instead get Enforcer/Dog-Handler/Fixer/Slave for that skill rank, opposed to 3-4 No Role Minions (ex: 3 Ranks= 1 Enforcer & 8 dudes, or 2 Enforcers & 4 dudes etc.)

In Relevant News, we got a public post about Combat kinda. As was pointed out even, seems like Hidden Combo system will favor PC's who use Bows or probably even spells as not having to interact with that minigame. How weird non-REALIZARM aspect of weapons will create a situation where a proverbial Bohemian Earspoon will be the best weapon due to having the most attack types you can do with it (Polearm where can chop/slash/Stab, and probably give some bonus for reach).