[Let's Look At] Mutants & Machine-Guns: A Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic RPG, Part 11: Sample Combat 2

Several weeks ago, I was delighted to find a couple friends of mine in my hometown have been up to something exciting, and I thought what better way than to launch a new series of posts to revive this long-dead blog. [Let's Look At] is where I try to read through and dissect every chapter and corner of a new RPG that I have yet to play, and explore it with all of my musings about its design, some notes, and experimental plays to better understand it. I don't really intend these examinations to be a review of the game, but rants and raves may seep through the seams at times.

In my last [Let's Look At] post, I pitted my sample characters against a group of Spike Mushrooms that were quite easily dispatched to demonstrate the Combat rules of Mutants & Machine-Guns.

While the sample scenario did an admirable job of showing how the basics of the Combat rules worked, there were a few concerns that I wasn't able to showcase in that scenario due to the fragility of the enemies. I wasn't even able to show how Psionics worked because the Spike Mushrooms were taken down so easily within 3 rounds.

So I decided to run another combat scenario, this time with much tougher enemies for my characters to see how the tactics and the dynamics of the combat would turn out differently with more challenging critters. This time I would set my characters against a group of Porkers, also found as one of the sample critters in Mutants & Machine-Guns.

Continuing where I last left off my characters...

Clearing the previous occupants of the wreckage site, our characters burned the bodies before conducting a thorough search with a better peace of mind. Though still cautious in case more critters showed up, our characters managed to find some much needed ammunition and food from the site. After they were done, the sky was slowly turning dark, and our characters decided that they would camp on the site for the night in a defensible position from any unwanted intruders in the night.

After having their meal of canned mushrooms which the previous occupants were more than glad to leave alone, the Pure Human and Mutant Human decided to turn in while the Evolved Animal would take the first watch. As the humans soundly went into sleep, the mutated tiger gazed upon the stars of the night sky and for a moment, forgot the troubles of surviving in the wasteland. That would not last forever, however, as his keen sense of smell picked up a whiff of danger in the wind; a smell of fur and feces that unmistakably belongs to a group of Porkers, who thought that they could ambush the sleepy crew. There were 3 of them, he could tell.

Quickly waking up his comrades while having his battle axe drawn, the Pure Human and Mutant Human were able to arm themselves with their firearms and close-ranged weapons while awaiting the approaching intruders. Sensing that their prey had long detected their presence and were ready for them, the Porkers emerged out of darkness and charged towards them...

Because the characters were attacked before the day had past, I would assume that my Mutant Human was not able to generate any new Detonating Pods, so she continues to only carry 1 that is with her. Also, I am considering that the characters had rested a full evening, so their Hitpoints are restored back to full after their last encounter. 

Combat Setup

Round 1

Like before, I would use the same initiative for the Porkers, while each character would have their own chance to roll for their own initiative. After rolling their Combat Rolls, this is the initiative order for combat after adding their respective Combat ability;

Mutant Human 10
Evolved Animal 8 
Pure Human 5 (simultaneous)
Porker 5 (simultaneous)

Making sure that her pistol is loaded, the Mutant Human takes the lead and steps forward to get into range of the Porkers and uses the Move action to get into plane B.

Up next, the Evolved Animal follows behind with a Move action to plane B carrying his battle axe as he notices that two of the Porkers are armed with Clubs, while the third has a Shotgun.

The Pure Human grows a little nervous but follows behind his comrades with his Shotgun and takes a Move action to join with his comrades.

All the Porkers grunt through their nostrils as they move to plane E with their Move action and end the round. 

At the end of Round 1

Round 2

Entering into Round 2, the Mutant Human takes another step with her Move action into plane C that puts her in range to fire her Pistol at the Porkers. Rolling 2 from 2d6 and adding her Combat ability gives her a total of 5, which misses the Porker with a Defense of 9. She rolls 2d6 to see if she has to reload her weapon and doesn't get a double.

The Evolved Animal stands next to her after using his Move action but doesn't have a ranged weapon to use on the Porker, so he ends his turn waiting for them to close in.

Stepping into range after using his Move action, the Pure Human fires his Shotgun at one of the Porkers. He also misses with his total roll of 6 after adding his Combat ability and the battle is off to a bad start for the characters. Rolling 2d6 at the end of his turn, he gets double 2s on his dice, which means that he has used up all his ammo in his Shotgun and would need to reload it before he can use it again.

The Porkers take one more step closer towards the characters with their Move action into plane D, except for the one armed with the Shotgun who fires it at the Mutant Human. Hitting a Defense of 9 with his Combat ability of 3, she takes a critical 9 Damage from the blast, knocking down her Hitpoints to 6. Rolling to see if it needs to reload, the dices tell him that there is more where that came from. Already the tide of the battle is swinging in favour of the Porkers.

At the end of Round 2

Round 3

Badly wounded from the single Shotgun blast of the Porker in the last round, the Mutant Human desperately needs to regain the lost Hitpoints if she wants to keep fighting. With the situation calling for it, she takes a Psionic action and decides to use Life Leech to drain some Hitpoints from a Porker in the adjacent plane. To use her Psionic Mutation she must lose 1 Hitpoint, taking it down to 5 and then make a Mental roll to see if she successfully uses it. She rolls a 7 out of 2d6 and adding her Mental ability of 3, she passes the Target Number of 9. Whipping the Porker with a psionic lash, the Porker takes 6 Damage out of a d6 but has 4 remaining Hitpoints, while she regains the same amount to her Hitpoint, bringing her up to 11. 

With his Move action to plane D, the Evolved Animal charges towards the unhurt Porker and swings his battle axe to draw first blood. Hitting a Defense of 11, with his roll and Combat ability, the axe deals 5 Damage, taking the Porker's Hitpoint down to 5.

Forced to use a Reload action, the Pure Human watches helplessly as the battle is joined.

The drained Porker tries to step towards the Mutant Human but according to the rules, combatants are not allowed to pass through enemies that are in the same plane. Since the Evolved Animal is in the same plane, he has effectively created a bottle neck that must be eliminated before it can move forward. With no other target it can attack, the Porkers of plane D goes for a flanking attack on the Evolved Animal to take it out. The first Porker gets a total of 11 for his Combat Roll over the Evolved Animal's Defense of 9, bludgeoning him with 3 damage out of 1d6 to reduce his Hitpoints down to 8. The next Porker attacks and hit a Defense of 9, just enough to deal an additional Damage of 3 to the Evolved Animal and pummeling his Hitpoints down to 5.

Seeing the Mutant Human using her Psionic Mutation, the Shotgun-wielding Porker decides to fire another shot at her. Hitting her Defense of 9 with a higher Combat Roll of 11, she barely survives with 3 Hitpoints after taking 8 devastating Damage from the Shotgun. Rolling a 2 and 1 indicates that the Porker doesn't need to reload on his next turn, as it is ready to finish off the Mutant Human once and for all.    

At the end of Round 3

Round 4

Although taking heavy fire, she plans to take a risk to put an end to the Porker she had used her Life Leech on. With her Use an Item action, the Mutant Human draws out her Detonating Pod from her stash and tosses it at the Porker. Here comes the tricky part. In the rules for Detonating Pod, it is unclear what is its range and whether she needs to make a Combat Roll to hit the enemy with it. So for the sake of following the default Combat rules, I would ask her to treat it as a normal attack that requires a Combat Roll.  With a roll of 9 and adding her Combat ability of 2, she hits at 11 which is more than the Porker's defense. The pod explodes on the Porker dealing 5 damage out of 1d6+2, killing it into a cloud of bacon.

Still joined in battle with the other Porker, the Evolved Animal continues his attack with a Combat Roll of 8, which is parried by the Porker's club.

Desperate to distract the ranged Porker from killing his mutant counterpart, the Pure Human aims with his Shotgun and fires with a Combat Roll of 9. His shot deals 6 Damage to the Porker, while he taunts it to get its attention. Meanwhile, he cocks his Shotgun to find there is still more shots to fire.

Not disheartened by the fall of his compatriot, the Porker on plane D continues to attack the Evolved Animal and hits it with a Combat Roll of 10, and dealing only a minor Damage of 2 to take its Hitpoint down to 3.

After taking a heavy hit from the Shotgun of the Pure Human, the ranged Porker realises the true threat that is on the battlefied. He swings his own weapon to fire at the Pure Human and hits him with a 9, dealing 9 Damage to him to reduce his Hitpoint down to 6. Pumping his weapon once more, the Porker intends to finish the job without needing to reload on his next turn.

At the end of Round 4

Round 5

Seeing the dire situation that they have fallen in, the Mutant Human tries to even the odds by trying to kill the most dangerous Porker with its Shotgun. Trusting in her Mental ability more than her Combat ability, she uses her Move action into plane D to get into range, and takes a Psionic action to use Life Leech on the ranged Porker, hoping to drain all of its life force to kill it. After cutting her Hitpoint by 1 down to 2, she makes her Mental roll and gets a total of 11 to successfully use her psionic mutation. With all her concentration, her pulls out a total of 5 Damage from the weaken Porker and kills it while she subsumes its life energy into her, bringing her Hitpoint up to 6, since the Porker only had 4 Hitpoints remaining.

Seeking to finish the battle, the Evolved Animal goes for another strike at the last Porker and barely strikes true with a Combat Roll of 9. The Porker tries to block the attack one more time with its club, but the Evolved Animal's attack was so ferociously that his battle axes cleaves through the weapon and rends a huge tear from shoulder to torso, killing it with 8 Damage.

At last, the battle is over as the characters take a few moments to breath a sigh of relief from the bloody encounter. They decided that it would be too dangerous to remain in the wreck site if more of the Porkers come poking around for their lost comrades and quickly pack up to leave. Of course, they didn't forget to take along that dangerous Shotgun the Porker was using, which would be very useful in future adventures.

Combat Ends

That was a really close call. I nearly lost a couple of my characters there but admittedly those Porkers are pretty dangerous with a high Combat ability of 3, which makes hitting a 9 Defense quite easy. It was a good scenario though because the toughness of the combat did allow me to see some of the quirks and gave me some some thoughts about combat.

Firstly, any combat-related Mutations should have proper combat-related explanations, especially if they need a Combat Roll to use and its Range, if any. It's hard to adjudicate sometimes because with unclear rules, there can be many interpretations of it.

Completely not allowing combatant to passed through an enemy on the same plane feels a little too restrictive and can be exploited. By restricting combatants from moving pass an enemy would just encourage 'bottlenecking' tactics that I demonstrated earlier. I suggest that combatants should be allowed to make a Combat Roll against the enemy with the highest Combat ability on the same plane. If they are higher, they may pass and failure means they have to stay (maybe incur an Attack of Opportunity kind of consequence). I'm basing this that is something similar to the Flee rules, which I didn't get to use in this scenario, but I think having a chance to do this means it could add another dimension to the tactics of combat, instead of 'charge-and-kill'.

Again I think there should be rules for firing into close combat, although I deliberately tried not to do that in this scenario. However, ranged weapons just feels a little overpowering as it is when compared to close combat, especially if they can be used in any kind of situations. I'm guessing that they shouldn't be allowed to be used when the character is in same plane with an enemy, but that hasn't been stated in the rules as well. Maybe having certain conditions to 'force' characters into close combat could balance this factor.

I liked how using Psionic Mutations are a risky gamble like how often my Mutant Human could have died if her attempts had failed. It's a good thing for players to weight the benefits and risks about this aspect of this mutations and the payoff after a success feels about right.

Another small suggestion that I might add is to allow characters to take their Move first or after they have taken their other action. This could add some tactical element for the player and makes combat feel less restrictive, if they want to be able to make every one of their actions count.

Until there is a new update for the rules, which I think could certainly benefit it, I think this concludes my [Let's Look At] series for Mutants & Machine-Guns. I believe the designers can further solidify some of the foundations of this otherwise really quick and fund game to play, and there is certainly more potential areas that it can expand to, though I think that would be the subject of many more supplements for this book.

So for now, see you in my next post when I find something new to write about.    

[Let's Look At] Mutants & Machine-Guns: A Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic RPG, Part 10: Sample Combat

Several weeks ago, I was delighted to find a couple friends of mine in my hometown have been up to something exciting, and I thought what better way than to launch a new series of posts to revive this long-dead blog. [Let's Look At] is where I try to read through and dissect every chapter and corner of a new RPG that I have yet to play, and explore it with all of my musings about its design, some notes, and experimental plays to better understand it. I don't really intend these examinations to be a review of the game, but rants and raves may seep through the seams at times.

For the past [Let's Look At] posts, I started going into the character creation process for Mutants & Machine-Guns. Now that I have a character for each of the Races (Pure Human, Mutant Human and Evolved Animal), I can move on to the next part of the rules that I wanted to test out with these characters.

To test out the Combat, I would be creating a simple scenario to test run the Combat rules and see if there are any deficiencies that would need to be addressed, but more importantly for me is to see how smooth and/or easy combat can be run by me as GM.

For the sample scenario, I would have my characters be attacked by a group of four Spike Mushrooms; the sample critters that were provided at the end of the rules, using the battle field that is provided.

So let's begin:

After traveling for days across the wasteland in search for anything they could salvage, our characters have stumbled upon a wreck site. Delighted that they may find something useful stashed underneath the wreckage, their joy was shortlived when they heard angry chattering surrounding them. Little do our characters know, they had walked into a temporary lair of a group of Spike Mushrooms, and the owners are not too happy in having guests.

To begin combat, all the combatants are placed at the ends of the battlefield with the characters on plane A, while the Spike Mushrooms are on plane F. For the sake of this combat, I would consider that my Mutant Human character had generated 1 Detonating Pod from her Mutation for the day, which she keeps as her equipment.

Combat Setup

As combat begins, we first decide who would go first. So each of my characters would roll their own separate Combat Rolls, while I decided that the Spike Mushrooms would share the same Combat Roll for their order.

Pure Human rolls 7 from 2d6 plus his Combat ability of 2 for a total of 9.
Mutant Human gets a 7 too and her Combat ability is also a 2 for a total of 9. 
Evolved Animal gets a 5 from his 2d6 roll, but add a 3 from his Combat ability for a total of 8.

The Spike Mushrooms all share a roll of 12 and with their Combat ability of 1, they go at 13.

While my Pure Human and Mutant Human share the same initiative count because of their same results, neither of them would need to re-roll or compare their Combat ability because in Mutants & Machine-Guns, it says that characters that get the same Combat Roll result would act simultaneously. 

So this would be the initiative order for this sample scenario.

Spiked Mushrooms 13
Pure Human 9 (simultaneous)
Mutant Human 9 (simultaneous)
Evolved Animal 8

Round 1
Armed with nothing but their spiked heads, all the Spike Mushrooms use the Move action to move up one plane as they angrily chatter amongst themselves on what they should do to these scavenging invaders.

Up next, unable to reach the Spike Mushrooms with their ranged weapons (both with a range of 2), the Pure Human and Mutant Human also take the Move action to move up a plane as well.

Lastly, the Evolved Animal gripping his Battle Axe and eager to have a bite at his enemies also charges forward with a Move action.

At the end of Round 1

Round 2
Seeing their enemy getting closer, the Spike Mushroom advance as they want to get closer to engage with their enemy and use the Move action once again to move up to plane D.

Finally within range of their weapons, Pure Human pumps his Shotgun and fires into one of the Spike Mushroom. He uses the Attack action and makes a Combat Roll against the DEF of the Spike Mushroom to see if he hits. Rolling a 6 out of 2d6 and adding his Combat ability of 2, he hits a DEF of 8, which exceeds the Spike Mushroom's Defense of 5. As the buckshot tears into the flimsy body of the Spike Mushroom, it deals 5 Damage out of 1d6+3, just enough to put the Spike Mushroom out of commission.

The Mutant Human seeing that a blast from the Shotgun is able to kill a Spike Mushroom, tries using her Pistol from the same range to get the same effect on another Spike Mushroom. She rolls a 5 for her Combat Roll, adding a 2 from her Combat ability which hits a DEF of 7; more than the DEF of the other Spike Mushroom. Not as effective as a powerful Shotgun though, her Pistol only deals 3 damage from 1d6 but badly hurts the Spike Mushroom by taking its Hitpoints down to 2.

After firing their weapons, both Pure Human and Mutant Human will have to roll 2d6s each to see if they need to reload. The Pure Human gets a 6 and 2, while the Mutant Human rolls a 4 and 3. So both of them are free to fire again in the next round. 

Not distracted by the bangs of his allies weapons, the Evolved Animal runs close towards the enemy, gripping his Battle Axe ever tighter and grinding his teeth to bite into some Spike Mushroom.

End of Round 2

  
Round 3
Seeing one of their own being taken out further enraged the unwounded Spike Mushrooms as they charge in and use a Move action to enter into plane C where the Evolved Animal had entered in the last round. But for the one that took a shot is starting to falter and decides to fall back into plane E to make towards the exit.

Charging headlong into the Evolved Animal, both the remaining Spike Mushroom rushed towards him head first with their spikes as they try to impale him. The first Spike Mushroom rolls a 9 out of 2d6 and adds 1 for their Combat ability for a total of 10, which is more than the Evolved Animal's unmodified DEF of 9. The Spike deals 4 Damage to the Evolved Animal.

For the second attacker, the Spike Mushroom gets a total of 9 for his Combat Roll, which is barely enough to rip into the Evolved Animal and deals another 3 Damage to the him. Taking both hits head-on, the Evolved Animal is weaken down to 4 Hitpoints from his original 11.

Seeing the ruthlessness of the enemy in close combat, the Pure Human decides that it would be best to support his wounded comrade if he could down one more Spike Mushroom with his Shotgun. Since there aren't any penalties for firing into close combat In Mutants & Machine-Guns, so without hesitation he fires another shot at one of the Spike Mushroom engaging with the Evolved Animal. Hitting at a DEF of 8 with his Combat Roll, the Pure Human's Shotgun blows a hole into the Spike Mushroom with 8 Damage, killing it.

Not willing to let her target get away, the Mutant Human pursues it and uses a Move action to move into plane C. Aiming down her sights, she rolls a total of 8 for her Combat Roll and hits the fleeing Spike Mushroom, putting a bullet through its spiked head and downing it with an additional 2 Damage that it had sustained earlier.

Both Pure Human and Mutant Human cock their firearms once again and still find another bullet loaded into their chambers (Pure Human: 1,3, Mutant Human: 5,6).

Taking a real good beating from the initial charge of the Spike Mushroom, the Evolved Animal smiles a sadistic grin from his bloodied maw as the rush of close combat fuels his primal instincts. With a predator's eyes, he swings his Battle Axe at the standing Spike Mushroom and hits it with a total Combat Roll of 8. With one mean swing, he cleaves his opponent into two and kills it with 5 Damage.

Combat Ends

Well, that scenario ended a little easier than expected but it did give a real good sense of how combat feels like. There weren't a lot of variables that could have happened in this combat, although I wanted to try out the Flee action but that would seem to require tougher opponents to outlast from being fired upon.

Some of my thoughts after this combat.

For the sake of speeding up combat, I think combatants should be allowed to use the Move action twice, so that enemies or characters that need to get into close combat won't have to waste their turn by just moving and not doing anything for their second action.

It's either that or there should be some form of penalty to firing into close combat because as witnessed from my Pure Human character, they are more than happy to stay behind and out of harms way while they keep using their ranged weapons until they have to reload.

Although I had initially thought of having only one sample combat scenario, but there were a few other concerns that were at the back of my mind while I was playing this one out, but the critters were not tough enough to let me see those concerns being played out. So to demonstrate some problems that I foresee in this combat rules, I'm going to be running another sample scenario with some tougher enemies then may be I be able to see what happens.

So I will see you again in the next post of [Let's Look At] as the adventure of our characters continue.        

[Let's Look At] Mutants & Machine-Guns: A Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic RPG, Part 9: Creating an Evolved Animal Character

Several weeks ago, I was delighted to find a couple friends of mine in my hometown have been up to something exciting, and I thought what better way than to launch a new series of posts to revive this long-dead blog. [Let's Look At] is where I try to read through and dissect every chapter and corner of a new RPG that I have yet to play, and explore it with all of my musings about its design, some notes, and experimental plays to better understand it. I don't really intend these examinations to be a review of the game, but rants and raves may seep through the seams at times.    

Last week I created a Mutant Human character and found that deciding whether to distribute your Ability points after rolling for your Mutations would have an effect on your decision. However, since the rules never clearly stated on whether doing so is allowable, I decided to demonstrate what would happen if I had created a mutant character by distributing my Ability points before rolling for the Mutations.

For this Evolved Animal character, I'm going to distribute my Ability points with a pre-defined concept first and then hope that my Mutations would complement my character's build afterwards so that it can maximise its potential in what I intend to do with the character.

So, for my Abilities, I'm going to distribute my points to be thus:

Physical 3 (max)
Mental 1 (min)
Combat 3 (max)
Social 1 (min)

The concept that I'm going for is this character to be a mean killing machine and a close combat specialist. So for my base animal I would go for a Tiger, which should give me the Natural Weapon mutation that would useful be in close-combat. After that, I would randomly roll for my two other Mutations.

My first mutations was a 36 (6,3) which gives me Psi-Charm, a psionic mutation which wouldn't be useful due to my low Mental ability that would make it too risky to use (I would need to roll a total of 8 from 2d6s).

The second mutation I rolled for was a 26 (2,6) which is for Life Leech, another psionic mutation the same as my previous character.

Wow, none of these mutations would help my character's close combat build in any way at all.

I was hoping to gain some DEF-related mutations, but looks like it would just stay at 9.

Now for Hitpoints, the Evolved Animal gets 8+1d6, which is the lowest amongst all the races, and I rolled a 3 for a total of 11.

Onto purchasing of equipment, my starting TU is 6 out of 2d6 (4+2), which isn't a lot to spend on. Since the best weapon that I could afford to buy with that is only a Battle Axe that does 1d6+2 damage, which is less than my Natural Weapon (1d6+Physical [3]), I opted to just improve my Defense by 1 with a Leather Jacket for 5 TU, and I'm keeping the remainder TU. 

Overall, the results turned out to be quite sad, but I think this perfectly demonstrates the effect of having random Mutations. While I would say getting them randomly is part of the fun in the character creation process, it is one of the major motivating factors for a player to decide what concept their character would be.

I hope the designers would give this some thought and address it, if they plan to make a revision of the rules in the future.

Well, that's all for the character creation process of Mutants & Machine-Gun. The next step would be to use the characters that I have created as examples when I look into how the Combat Rules works for the game in a combat scenario.

For my next [Let's Look At] post, I would be using the same three characters that I have created and run them through a Sample Combat.

[Let's Look At] Mutants & Machine-Guns: A Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic RPG, Part 8: Creating a Mutant Human Character

Several weeks ago, I was delighted to find a couple friends of mine in my hometown have been up to something exciting, and I thought what better way than to launch a new series of posts to revive this long-dead blog. [Let's Look At] is where I try to read through and dissect every chapter and corner of a new RPG that I have yet to play, and explore it with all of my musings about its design, some notes, and experimental plays to better understand it. I don't really intend these examinations to be a review of the game, but rants and raves may seep through the seams at times.    

In my last [Let's Look At], I started getting into the character creation process and created my first character as a Pure Human. It was a quick and easy process that didn't require much thinking since there aren't that many options available to them. So now I ready to take up the challenge of creating the more wacky characters in Mutants & Machine-Guns.

Just before I was going to distribute my 8 points for the Abilities, I came across my first bump. Since Mutant Humans and Evolved Animals can start with Mutations, should I be allowed to distribute my Ability points based on the mutations that I rolled or after? Although I think this is something that should be decided by the GM, but it's a consideration that is worth stating in the rules.

So I've decided to do it in two ways. I will roll my Mutations first for my Mutant Human character before distributing my Ability points, and then I will distribute the Ability points first then roll for Mutations when I'm creating the Evolved Animal character. I think this will demonstrate just how a small difference to the approach in character creation could have an impact to the end result.

For this post, I will start off by creating the Mutant Human character.

Mutant Humans start off with two Mutations. To see what I get for my first Mutation, I rolled 2d6 and my result was  2 & 6 which makes 26 (remember how the dice are read in my post on Mutations), that gives me Life Leech! A Psionic power! Now that would give me something to think about in how I would distribute my points to my Abilities later on.

For my second Mutation, I rolled a 15 (1,5) which gives me Detonating Pods. Again as I mentioned in my Mutations post a potentially unbalanced Mutation to have for sure, so I'm lucky to get this one.

Now that I have my Mutations, I should have a high score for my Mental ability to minimise the risk of using Life Leech, which has a TN of 9 whenever I use it. So I have distributed my points to be like this:

Physical 1 (min)
Mental 3 (max)
Combat 2
Social 2

Since I didn't get any DEF-boosting Mutations, it would remain as 9.

For my Hitpoints, Mutant Humans roll 10+1d6, which I got: 10 + (1d6=5) = 15.

Now unto my starting TU. Being a Mutant Human means I only roll 2d6 without the additional 2 from Pure Humans. So I got: (2d6=5,4=9).

With that I could only afford to get a Pistol (1d6 damage, Range 2) for 8 TU, which I intend to use as my primary weapon since there is a danger to using Psionic powers, and a dagger (1d6-2 damage) for 1 TU, just in case. However, I shouldn't be too worried because I do produce 1d3 Detonating Pods that deal 1d6+2 damage every day, so I'm going to keep a distance with this character.

Creating a Mutant Human felt a little more exciting since the Mutations that you get are random, but as I said earlier, I still think that deciding how you distribute your points to your Ability before or after rolling for them can make a difference to how I plan for the character. The difference from the lower starting TU than Pure Humans is felt and does make me feel that is character is less powerful in combat though, so it does serves up as a nice counterbalance to what they get in Mutations.

In my next [Let's Look At] post, I would be creating an Evolved Animal character with a pre-defined concept that I'm going for and see whether the Mutations would favour my build after I have distributed my Ability points.

[Let's Look At] Mutants & Machine-Guns: A Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic RPG, Part 7: Creating a Pure Human Character

Several weeks ago, I was delighted to find a couple friends of mine in my hometown have been up to something exciting, and I thought what better way than to launch a new series of posts to revive this long-dead blog. [Let's Look At] is where I try to read through and dissect every chapter and corner of a new RPG that I have yet to play, and explore it with all of my musings about its design, some notes, and experimental plays to better understand it. I don't really intend these examinations to be a review of the game, but rants and raves may seep through the seams at times.    

Now that I'm done looking through all the rules for the game, it's time to begin going hands-on with it to get a feel of how the rules and mechanics work together in tandem. Naturally, the first way to see the gears turning in this game is by creating a character.

Since there are the three Races in Mutans & Machine-Guns, I've decided that I create a character for each and then eventually compare them to each other to see what are the main strengths and weaknesses for each, whether in their statistical balance or design.

For starters, I would go for with a Pure Human character since they are the ones with the least complications to their creation. So let's go step-by-step as I go through the process.

First I would have to distribute 8 points to the four abilities of Combat, Social, Physical, and Mental. The lowest I can go for an ability is 1, so that's the minimum, but an ability cannot start more than 3. So I've decided to play it straight and distribute my points evenly to be like this:

Physical 2
Mental 2
Combat 2
Social 2

Since my Defense is fixed at 9, next I will have to roll for my character's Hitpoints.

Pure Human characters get a starting Hitpoint of 12+1D6, which again is the highest among all the races. So the Hitpoint I got was:

Hitpoint 12+(1d6=3) = 15

Up next is to see how much starting Gold/Trade Units I have before I starting buying my equipment. As a Pure Human, I do gain an additional +2 Gold/TU, so adding that to the 2d6 roll, I get:

Gold/TU (2d6=10)+2 = 12

With that amount, I started off by picking a ranged weapon first because it seemed more important and went with a Shotgun (1d6+3 damage, range 2) that cost me 10 Gold/TU. I could have spent all of my Gold/TU on Heavy Shotgun that deals an additional one damage than my weapon of choice, but I wanted to keep some TU for a melee weapon whenever any enemies get close. So with my remaining Gold/TU, I armed myself with a Hand Axe (1d6 damage).

I forfeited the idea of getting any armour because they were too expensive (5 TU for the cheapest Leather Jacket that only grants +1 DEF), and I'm not really sure how anyone could manage to afford one without getting a measly weapon even with maximum starting TU (14) for Pure Human.

And that's pretty much it. What I really liked about this character creation process is that it was very quick because there isn't much to consider about. I mostly reacted to what I rolled for my Gold/TU and that was probably the hardest part of this otherwise very easy process.

Though the process was fast, but it did feel a little stale that I'm not allowed to put more though into making my character. I can understand if it was meant to be a quick plug-and-play type of game, but I would like to have my players to be able to put some thought into creating what kind of characters they would like with the rules. Maybe if the Abilities had more influence in the character making thought process, then it would make it a little more fun for me. Then again, Pure Human characters do seem like the most straightforward and boring of the Races.

So for my next character (and post), I would be rolling up a Mutant Human.  

[Let's Look At] Mutants & Machine-Guns: A Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic RPG, Part 6: GM Rules

Several weeks ago, I was delighted to find a couple friends of mine in my hometown have been up to something exciting, and I thought what better way than to launch a new series of posts to revive this long-dead blog. [Let's Look At] is where I try to read through and dissect every chapter and corner of a new RPG that I have yet to play, and explore it with all of my musings about its design, some notes, and experimental plays to better understand it. I don't really intend these examinations to be a review of the game, but rants and raves may seep through the seams at times.

I've been looking at the player aspect of the rules for Mutants and Machine-Guns in the past few [Let's Look At] posts. I started out with an Overview of the game and its makeup, the Character Creation rules and options for players, the Mutations that are available, how Combat works, and at the Wasteland Economy for what the players can expect to do in the game. 

Now I've come to the final bit of the rules and it's one that I am most concerned about as a GM; the GM rules and what are the tools that we have to make sure that we can run a fun session of this game for the players. Unfortunately, there isn't much of that either. Granted that this is a very simple game, and I am not expecting it to have a few pages dedicated just to explain what an RPG and post-apocalyse is that you would find in Game Masters' books of other games, given it's already intended page limit. It is not difficult to imply what I can do as a GM from the player rules, so its simplicity has an advantage in making the life of a GM easier.

However, there are elements of an RPG that I believe should only be known to a GM, or at least kept away from player knowledge for the sake of maintaining the suspension of disbelief during the game. But let's look at what are the rules that has been presented in the rules that a GM should be aware of, or find useful.

Radiation
The first rule I found useful for the GM is for Radiation, which is something that you can expect to be very prevalent in the post-apocalyptic world. In Mutants and Machine-Guns, there are four levels of Radiation that can cause harm or be a boon to characters depending on their Race. But if a character is exposed to too much radiation, it will ultimately kill them. 

Radiation levels go up from Level 1 to 4, and whenever a character is exposed to them they must make a Physical check against the TN of the level. Level 1 radiation having the easiest TN to beat of 7 up to TN13 for Level 4 radiation.  If a character fails their Physical check against the radiation, they will soak up an amount of Radiation Point equal to its level (Level 1 radiation causes 1 Radiation Point, and so forth). 

Pure Humans are more susceptible to radiation and would die from it when they have soaked up to 10 Radiation Points. For Mutant Humans and Evolved Animals, for every 10 Radiation Point that they end up taking, they get one random Mutation. However, they also die from radiation if they take up to 40 Radiation Points.

The only way for a character to remove any Radiation Point they have endured is by injecting a rare substance known as AntiRad, which reduces their current Radiation Point by 1d6.

It's a flavorful rule to have since it has its place in a post-apocalyptic setting, but I feel like there are a few missing areas. For one, it would be helpful to have some examples of sources of Radiation and how GMs should decide whether a source should have Level 1 or Level 4 radiations. Just a simple guideline for this could be useful. Also what constitute as exposure to Radiation and when do they make the Physical check? Do the characters have to be holding an item that is radiated? Or just be within a radiated area? Is there any way that a character can protect themselves from radiation, if they take any proper precautionary measures? 

Also I'm worried there could be a mechanical balance issue with Pure Humans being so easily killed by Radiation, while Mutant Humans and Evolved Animals being able to sustain four times the amount of Radiation, with added Mutations to boot. This could motivate such characters to intentionally get radiated for the sake of gaining more mutations, and none of them so far has any negative side-effects to be considered a risk. It does make the choice of Pure Humans less appealing when players are thinking about the survival of their characters. It would be interesting if there is a chance for a Pure Human to gain a mutation through radiation, rather than fearing away from every radiated zone they encounter. 

Critters
This last section of the rules is the smallest, but what I think is one of the favorite section for most GMs; the Critters that will be the opponents of the characters. There isn't anything except for two sample critters (the Spike Mushroom and the Porker) that comes with their respective stats.

I think there could be a separate pocketmod dedicated for Critters in the future, or alternatively the designers could switch it with some critter creation rules so that GMs can design their own to challenge their players.


That's all the GM Rules there is, and I think there should be more. For one, there isn't an explanation of how XP is awarded to PCs. Even the stats in the Critters section did not give any indication how much they are worth when they are defeated. 

Another important element of GM rules that I also find lacking is to have encounter design rules. Maybe I'm too accustomed to 3.5 design philosophy, but there should be a guideline for GMs, especially when I am reading a new game, on how to balance risk and reward when players are facing a challenge in-game.

Speaking of rewards, a random loot table could have be an added benefit to include for GMs to use as a reference too.

Although this is the last piece of rules there is in the game, but this won't be the last [Let's Look At] post for Mutants and Machine-Guns. Next I'm planning to start my own playtesting sessions to gets some hands-on experience with the game. I'm going to start by creating my own characters.

So, see you in the next post!

[Let's Look At] Mutants & Machine-Guns: A Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic RPG, Part 5: Wasteland Economy

Several weeks ago, I was delighted to find a couple friends of mine in my hometown have been up to something exciting, and I thought what better way than to launch a new series of posts to revive this long-dead blog. [Let's Look At] is where I try to read through and dissect every chapter and corner of a new RPG that I have yet to play, and explore it with all of my musings about its design, some notes, and experimental plays to better understand it. I don't really intend these examinations to be a review of the game, but rants and raves may seep through the seams at times.

Besides Combat, another important aspect for a post-apocalyptic RPG I would think is its outside-of-combat rules such as explorations, and equipment. The thing that I would expect a post-apocalyptic RPG to be a little different from your regular fantasy RPGs is that improvisation and scavenging of equipment are one of the major activities for player characters as they travel across the wasteland left behind by the apocalyptic event.

Unfortunately, there aren't any rules for exploration, but there is a large space that is taken up for equipment. Before we get to that, however, let's look at how the Wasteland Economy works.

In Mutants and Machine-Guns, wealth is measured in Trade Units (TU) which characters use to 'purchase' items. Every starting character, regardless of Race, starts with 2d6 TUs (also referred to as Gold Pieces, although I think that's too medieval a term for this genre). Except for Pure Humans, who begin with 2d6+2 TUs instead (to make up for their lack of Mutations).

Looking at the Equipment Table, there are a total of 6 melee weapons and 9 ranged weapons. For Defense, there are 3 types of armour to choose from. The Melee Weapons are just a range of weapons that deal from 2 to 1d6+3 damage with a TU cost from 0 to 9. 

The obvious weapon of choice for most characters would be the Ranged Weapons, which deals at least 1d6 damage up to 4d6 damage, although it should be noted that the really powerful ones (Heavy Machinegun and Minigun) have no TU cost listed, which implies that they can only be scavenged or looted from enemies that possessed them. The range also varies from a minimum distance of 2 (planes) to the furthest at 4 (planes). Buying these Ranged Weapons is also the costliest, starting from a range of at least 6 TUs (just for a simple bow that must be Reloaded at every turn) up to 15 TUs (for a hefty Machine Gun that deals 1d6+4 damage). 

For Armour, there are only three choices that gives only a minor boost of 1 to 3 bonus to Defense respectively, although it should be noted that these benefits do stack with any Defense-boosting mutations. They don't come cheap though, costing from 5 TUs to 15 TUs for the best protection money can buy.

Out of all the 'chapters', this is where I find the rules for this current version of the Mutants & Machine-Guns to be at its weakest. There's too much emphasis on combat-related equipment, and due to its intended and limited page number, I think the game could benefit by having an abstract ruling for these weapons instead of listing each one of them out in order to save some space. That space could be used to add in some exploration rules, I might add. 

Plus, I think there should be some room for other types of equipment such as vehicles, food, and survival tools that would come in handy in a post-apocalyptic setting. I hope that the designers would put in more thought for these items, and flesh them out.

Also, I think the rules could benefit more by expanding on the Trade Units. For example, by giving some ideas on how characters could acquire them in the form of items. While the TU costs as stated in the Equipment Table could serve as a guideline when barter trading, but it would be great if there's some rules for valuation of items in terms of TU when a character finds something in the wasteland. That could add some value to the rules.

That's it for now. For my next [Let's Look At] post, I'll be looking at the the GM Rules. So stay tuned!

[Let's Look At] Mutants & Machine-Guns: A Gonzo Post-Apocalyptic RPG, Part 4: Combat

Several weeks ago, I was delighted to find a couple friends of mine in my hometown have been up to something exciting, and I thought what better way than to launch a new series of posts to revive this long-dead blog. [Let's Look At] is where I try to read through and dissect every chapter and corner of a new RPG that I have yet to play, and explore it with all of my musings about its design, some notes, and experimental plays to better understand it. I don't really intend these examinations to be a review of the game, but rants and raves may seep through the seams at times.

Combat Roll
Before getting into the nitty and gritty rules for actual combat, it's obviously better to lay down the basics of its ruling stats. The Combat ability, if it hasn't made itself obvious enough, is the main stat that governs the combat capabilities of each character. A Combat Roll of 2d6 (plus the Combat ability) is used to determine the initiative order for each combatant and whether or not they hit with an opponent with their weapon, against a fixed Defense score. Pretty straightforward stuff.

Battlefield
There is a battlegrid in this game, which usually aren't my favourite things to see in a RPG. But in Experimental Playgroud fashion, the battlegrid is kept simple. To describe it simply; there are 6 'planes' of combat that are ordered from A to F. Melee attacks takes place when two combatant are in the same 'plane', while combatants with firearms may make ranged attacks from a distant 'plane', depending on the range of their weapon. It's not overly complicated but it might be just enough to allow some tactical play, which I plan to explore in future [Let's Look At] posts.

Combat Phases
At every combatant's turn, they first move their characters in the Move phase, before acting in the Action phase. Combatants may move up to one plane for their Move phase to be in the same plane as an opponent, though they may not move past the opponent, or move backwards.

During the Action phase, the combatant has the choice to Attack, use their Psionic Mutations (if any), Use An Item within range, Equip Weapon if they need to change their weapon of choice during combat, Reload if they have to, or perform Other Action as they see fit with the GM's permission such as picking a lock or operating a computer.

The last phase of combat is if any of the combatants wants to Flee. In order to leave the battlefield, the combatant must be standing on either ends of the battlegrid (area A or F) and make a Combat Roll against the enemy with the highest Combat ability score +5, in order to succeed.

Reloading
For characters that are using ranged weapons, Mutants and Machine-Guns uses another clever method to determine when they need to reload. Every time when the character rolls a double, except for two 6s, they would have to reload. I think the rules can be worded a little better by explaining that this refers to the Combat roll, but it's an ingenious method without having the player to meticulously keep track how many ammo they have during combat.

Healing
At the end of combat, characters can recover any loss hitpoints from resting. They can take a few minutes (similar to D&D 4E's Short Rest) to regain 1d6 hitpoints or take a full day to regain all their hitpoints. The hitpoint amount recovered from a short rest should help to avoid the '15-minute day' conundrum, but I think there is potential for it to be expanded with the usage of special items.

On paper, the combat rules look pretty simple and easy to run, but I won't be delving into a sample encounter to demonstrate the combat rules in this post. Rest assured though that I intend to do just that in a future post of [Let's Look At].

For now, I'm moving on to look at the outside-of-combat rules of adventuring the apocalyptic wasteland in the next post about the Wasteland Economy.

See you in the next post!