Classic Game Review: The Mutant Epoch

 I don’t know how the rest of you are, but I have shelves full of game books, most of which I will never use. I’ll discover a game, get excited about it, and start buying supplements. Sometimes just a few. Sometimes my collector’s urge takes over and I try to get all of them. Then I will forget about that game for a while, unless something reminds me.

 The Mutant Epoch, by Outland Games.Outland Games recently released The Mutant Epoch Expansion Rules, which reminded me of the game. So I bought it. But today I am going to talk about the core game.

 The Mutant Epoch. I’ve never had the joy of actually playing it, sadly, so I don’t know how it feels on the road, so to speak. But from reading it, I will say that it is Old School Fun. It’s a relatively recent game but feels like it could have come out in the 90s. And by that I mean charts, tables, die rolls, skill lists, lists of cool powers and flaws, equipment lists, lists of monsters, random loot tables. Your dice will get a workout. Some tables require you to use three 10 siders for a d1000 roll. It’s awesome.

 If you like that sort of thing. Some people don’t. Some people like slick, streamlined systems where everything is reduced down to a core rule or single die roll. And I see the appeal of that. I like a lot of those games, too. But this type of game is just fun to read. All those power lists and is like Gamer Shopping. It’s like wandering around a printed shopping mall looking at all the cool things you want to take home. 

 So what is The Mutant Epoch? For older gamers, it’s Gamma World. For younger gamers, it’s Apocalypse World. It’s basically your standard setting where the world has become a hellscape of mutants, robots, death machines, clones, androids, human/animal hybrids, and of course regular humans who have formed communities based around being massive d**ks to all the others. Add in the new Expansion rules and you can get Plant Creatures, Half-breeds with monster races, and Brains in Jars. This is a game that provides a rules system for having more than one head.

 The system. Start with basic stats. It’s your basic run down of normal stats for this type of game, Strength, Intelligence, and so forth. It has an Appearance stat, which can be odd if you are playing a heavily mutated character. It even says your face might have a different Appearance stat than the rest of the body. I am singling out Appearance, because it’s one of my nitpicks. It doesn’t seem to do anything. It has a slight influence on the Negotiate skill, and it can be rolled in Hazard Checks which are kind of like saving throws, but beyond that it just lets you say that your guy is the Prettiest Princess and not much else.

 Then you have Caste, which is basically telling what your character did before adventuring. It determines a lot of your skills, including whether you can read and write, or do math.

 But overall Character Type is the most important aspect. Are you a Pure Stock Human? It means you have the most boring character sheet, but also more control, since you won’t have random powers of flaws. Are you a Mutant? There are different types of Mutants. There are Ghost Mutants, which means you have Kewl Powerz but can pass for human. Or you can roll to see if you are mildly mutated, or a Freakish Horror, which is a thing you can roll. 

 Then there are skills. You get them mostly from your caste. From there you can raise certain skills just by using them, and others you need training. There is not a standard for how skills operate. Some are one and done, you either have them or you don’t. Others you can continue to improve, either to a maximum level or just as far as you want. 

 The game has lots of randomness. It’s like old school Gamma World where if you have a very specific concept in mind for a combination of favorite mutations, you will have to smarm the Game Master into bending the rules. 

 The players are assumed to be explorers and delvers looking for old technology, or just doing what they have to do to survive. Like most games of the type, it assumes a “party of PCs” will meet, start hanging out, and go on adventures together. The game is assumed to be fairly lethal, especially at low levels, so it lets you rise up in level quickly at first, then advancement slows down.

 The setting? It’s pretty loose and open. There is a lot of mutant monsters in a Mad Max setting, but you can do what you want with it. There is a default history but it encourages you to throw that out and add your own stuff. There are supplements giving detailed descriptions of locations and towns, which again is fun to read, but you can change what you want. 

There are supplements. They are mostly setting descriptions and monster lists. The new Expansion Rules book is twice the size of the core book, and is basically a giant stack of character options, which means the cool powers shopping mall just added a couple of extra floors.

 My overall review: A really fun read. This is an odd one, since a lot of games I have I imagine myself GMing. I don’t know if I want to GM this one. But I would definitely want to play in it.