Thursday, August 29, 2013

Nine questions in the mutant future - part 1

Since I read JF's post of the 9Qs PDF, I have been wanting to try it. Well, over an year has passed, he released an updated 2013 edition back in March and I still had not played anything with it.

I like post-apocalyptic games and I have a number of RPGs with that theme to try... the problem is that trying two things for the first time at once increases the risk of something going wrong. So I decided go with Mutant Future, which at the same time satisfies my need for some post-apocalyptic role-playing and is based on a very familiar game system.

The PC Party
Characters were randomly rolled using the "roll four dice, drop lowest, for each ability in order" method. I just decided beforehand that I would have a party with a mutant human, an android and a mutant animal. For the character names, I googled "post apocalyptic character name generator" with little hope of finding something so specific... this led me to the Badass Mad Max Style Post Apocalyptic Nickname Generator. Some generated results are bizarre but a few clicks gave me more than enough inspiration. I also used the Universal NPC Emulator to generate some traits for each of them. Here is the party:

James 'Equalizer' O'Neal, Mutated Human (Neutral)
AC 5, HP 73, STR 18 (+3 to hit, damage, force doors), DEX 16 (-2 AC, +2 to hit with missiles), CON 17, INT 13 (+5% on tech rolls), WIL 14, CHA 11.
Damage turning, spiny growth (medium spines, 1d6 damage), ultraviolet vision.
Heavy crossbow, leather armor, long sword, 50 heavy quarrels, backpack with basic items.

Equalizer is a 6' tall bald man with tanned, dry skin. Thick black spines jut out of his forearms and legs.  Despite the scary looks, and the fame gained defending his village, his real passion is in restoring ancient technology. That puts him at odds with scavengers and junk traders, and draws him to the city states of the pure humans. [UNE description and motivations: dignified artisan, overthrow resources, associate with the wealthy, conceive pleasure.]

Artiface, Basic Android (Lawful)
AC 2, HP 50, STR 17 (+2 to hit, damage, force doors), DEX 13 (-1 AC, +1 to hit with missiles), CON 7 (-1 radiation saves), INT 7 (-5% on tech rolls), WIL 13, CHA 14 (-1 reaction adjustment.)
Control light waves, dwarfism (1' tall, -2 damage, -2 AC, +1 to hit), increased hearing.
Chain mail, short sword, backpack with basic items.

Artiface is a very short android, a product of the ancient world. Found and repaired by Equalizer, he has become his loyal companion. He enjoys aiding villagers in improving their living; at times the android will start rambling about "reconstructing the glory of civilization," which is source for amusement, and sometimes trouble. [UNE description and motivations: habitual adept, obtain the world, relate disbelief, produce expertise.]

Bandit Missle, Mutant Donkey (Neutral)
AC 4, HP 36, STR 10, DEX 14 (-1 AC, +1 to hit with missiles), CON 14, INT 5 (-10% on tech rolls), WIL 15, CHA 16 (-1 reaction adjustment.)
Body adjustment (4 times a week), capable of speech, chameleon epidermis, dual cerebellum (+10% on tech rolls), killing sphere.
No weapons, bite attack does 1d4 damage. Beast barding, also carrying provisions (rations, waterskins, rope etc.)

Artiface and Equalizer freed Bandit Missle, or BM for short, from a group of mutants that used him as a beast of burden. Since then, they take the simple-minded, two-headed stealthy donkey along with them to protect him from raiders and slavers. No one is sure why he took that name but he speaks it proudly and spells it that way. BM is fond of roaming the wasteland to learn of stories about the animals of the ancient civilization. [UNE description and motivations: unseemly gypsy, oppress pride, obtain myths, indulge enemies.]

Heroic Motivation
The characters are tied together by their interest in the ancient civilizations and their willingness to travel the wasteland to look for information and relics. Their home base is Crevace, a small village of mutants hidden in the mountains. Therefore, their main motivation is to recover ancient relics, and the opposition are scavengers and whoever might be guarding those relics. A secondary motivation is to protect Crevace from raiders and slavers.

That is all for now. Hopefully I will be able to post at least part of a session this week.

1 comment:

Sean said...

Glad you are giving the 9Q's a run. I also have been sitting on them for quite some time. I never played Mutant future so I'll be interested to see what it's like. Thanks for the link on the name generator as well, you can never have too many of those.