I started a Mutant: Year Zero campaign. I want to go through the book and discuss the game. I will pull from my experiences but this will not be a campaign log.

First, Mutant: Year Zero (MY0) is a Swedish game that gets translated into English as well. It uses the same system (d6 pool with attribute damage) as MY0 Genlab Alpha (humanoid animals) and MY0 Mechatron (sentient robots). It shares a similar system with Coriolis (Arabian space opera) and Tales from the Loop (80s kid mysteries).

MY0 is hardcover and full color with the words Roleplaying at the End of Days at the bottom. The MY0 logo has ruins inside the orange letters. The wrap around cover art shows three mutants walking through ruins. One has the mutation Insect Wings and a rifle, one has a pistol and slung gas mask, and the last is wearing an old-style diver's helmet and has a pistol.

The back has a vignette of play from the front cover art, an explanation of the game, and a list of contents. You are playing a mutated human after the great Apocalypse. You explore Zones, develop your home called the Ark, and search for the mysterious Eden bunker.

MY0 is made by Free League and distributed in English by Modipius Entertainment (although you can order directly from the Free League now as well). It came out in 2014, is still in print, and is still receiving new supplements.

From actual play, everything in the art and description matches the world and rules inside and actual game play.

Inside the front cover is a two page color map of the ruins of London with square grids. The inside back cover is the ruins of New York with square grids.

At the front is quote from The Poetic Edda. Playtesters are listed. There is a table of contents which shows the player section has a brown border and the GM section has a blue border.

In the back is an index, a gear and services table, and a scrap table. Also in both color and black and white are a character sheet an Ark sheet. It ends with a quote from T.S. Elliot.

Free PDF forms can be found online along with a free quickstarter with rules, an adventure, and four characters that can be customized. I like the character sheet because the one in the quickstart has the colors for the dice pool on the sheet (more on that later).

The chapter opens with a short history. The Red Plague hits in a time not too distant from now. A billion die. Then comes war. Then nukes. The rich and powerful create projects to escape underground (MY0 Elysium currently only in Swedish covers these humans and cybernetics), underwater, and into space. Everyone else is screwed and most die.

Yet life remains. In the Ark in the ruins live the People. Human but mutated. Powerful but unstable and fragile. No one is over 30.

Except the Elder. He's a leader, but not a mutant but one of the Ancients. For decades he kept everyone safe in the Ark.

But he's sick now, food is running low, and factions are forming with bosses on top and slaves on the bottom.

It is time to venture out looking for food and supplies and other people. Also, the People can't have children which means they are doomed without a solution. They also need to look for Eden, the Ancient's refuge from the hellscape.

A Roleplaying Game
While this section has the usual, it also warns players not to read section II (blue border) 'cause spoilers.  And is also explains that the players will sometimes play the Assembly, all the mutants in the Ark deciding what Projects to work on to improve their home.

So What Do You Do?
-fight for grub, water, bullets (supplies)
-protect the Ark (the home)
-protect your own (the PCs)
-explore the Zone (the ruins)
-search for Eden (the Ancient's bunker which might shed light on the no kids problem)

Again, all of this information, especially so what do you do fits in exactly with actual game play. The bleakness is actually a bit disconcerting for some players, even though their mutants have some advantages such as mostly controlling how the Ark grows and their own alliance of PCs. As the GM, I love the player driven aspect of the game.

Tools of the Game

MY0 has character sheets for download as well as optional color coded dice and a pack of cards that put rulebook information in portable form.

Charts in the game use a d6 and d66 and d666. MY0 uses a d6 dice pool.  Three different colors would work instead of the special die. One set for attributes, one for skills, and one for gear. The optional game dice have special symbols in place of the 1 and 6.

The card deck paraphrases the rulebook rules for Mutations, Artifacts, and Threats. You can just roll on charts in the book without getting the deck.

There are maps of the Zone which are a bigger version of those on the front and back inside covers.

In addition to all that, there are chits available to track supplies and Mutation Points if you don't want to use scratch paper and even bigger maps, with two extras with one of Virginia near the Pentagon and another which I think is Seattle.

There is boxed text about using the d6 and d66 and d666.

Out of all these extras, I find the dice, cards, and maps the most useful. The chits take more time to exchange than just using scratch paper in my opinion. Half my players just use three sets of regular d6s and that works fine too.

Fast Forwarding, Team Play vs Individual Play, Him & Her, Roleplaying? and What's That?
These sections cover basic GMing advice and lists what happens in a typical session. There is boxed text about Getting Started including a suggested starting adventure from the back.

This info indicated what the author thought was useful reminders. I used the starting adventure (which starts in the Zone not the Ark) for a one shot. I started our campaign though in the Ark and liked that better than starting in the Zone with a pre-made adventure. I still use the list of what happens in a typical session but note it doesn't include reducing the population of the Ark and that step is easy to forget.

Role
You pick one of eight roles. I go over those in a following post.

Boxed text indicates that other roles can be found in other books.

In fact, Genlab Alpha has a whole new set of roles as it is a stand alone game as well as a supplement. Mechatron should be the same I'd think.

Age and Name
You don't know when you were born and you can't have kids. The People will go extinct if you don't figure it out.

Each of the eight roles has five male and five female suggested names.

Attributes
You spend 14 points across Strength, Agility, Wits, and Empathy. Values must range from 2-4 except the role lists a key attribute that go to 5. This is also the number of dice you roll for that attribute.

Injury reduces attributes. If Strength goes to 0 you suffer a critical injury. So be careful with Strength and get armor.

Skills
You have 10 points to spend on the 12 skills with a range of 0 to 3. There is a 13th special skill for each role and you have to have at least a 1 in that. The number matches the number of skill dice you roll and you can roll for any of the 12 skills even if you have a 0 in it (you have to have a 1 to use a specialist skill).

A chart on page 47 converts the dice pool in percent chance of success. This chart can help with skill points if you are math inclined.

If you want a second specialist skill you have to wait until you can the Talent Jack of All Trades.

Talents
You pick one talent from the three role talents you have. Later, you can pick another of your role talents or a general talent.

MY0 Genlab Alpha has more Talents. I don't think all of them fit perfectly into MY0 as some tread on role specific abilities. All are easily ported however.

Mutations
You roll or draw one randomly.  You get a number of Mutation Points equal to your number of Mutations at the start of the game. You can also get more by pushing a roll (more on that when skills are discussed).

You can also get a second random mutation but you have to permanently reduce an attribute to do so. This can also happen in game randomly (more on that when mutations are discussed).

Some players took an extra mutation. Some saved an attribute point. Both seemed like solid choices.

The supplement Dead Blue Sea has two new mutations and the Genlab Alpha deck has those 2 mutations plus 2 other new ones.

A filled out character sheet follows across two pages.

Relationships and Dreams
You describe your relationship to the other PCs and pick one as a buddy. You pick one NPC to hate and one you want to keep safe.

You pick a big dream you are trying to achieve. You can change any of these decisions at the end of any adventure.

You can earn Experience Points by sacrificing or risking something for your buddy, for the NPC you want to keep safe, and/or for reaching your big dream. You can get XP for messing with the NPC you hate.

These relationships worked better than I would have thought. A PC's love for an NPC drove our entire first adventure.

Your Gear
Everything is barter based. Each role lists starting gear for grub, water, bullets, and a starting weapon. A Gearhead gets a random Artifact as well (more on Artifacts later).

You need to eat 1 grub and 1 water a day or suffer loss of attributes.

Genlab Alpah and its card deck has extra Artifacts. Some of these are highly advanced from human enclaves after the fall. I pulled things like maser pistols out of the extra Artifacts since other artifacts are more like our current tech.Eden does have some of this high tech gear.

Encumbrance is simple. Each item takes a line on the character sheet. Heavy items take 2 lines and light count as half. Other encumbrance slots are listed.

A boxed test describes what grub is being eaten.

Your Den
You pick a place to live in the Ark.

Develop Your Mutant
You gain new mutation in game randomly (description to follow). In addition to how to gain XP above you also gain XP for showing up to game, working on a Project, and exploring a new sector in the Zone.

5 XP pays a new level in a skill or a new Talent.

Finally, the Ark needs to be developed and an entire later chapter is devoted to it.

I fucking love MY0!

I'd like to GM it for an actual group, but so far I have only GMed it to my son. It has balance problems. I allowed the Boss class for my son only because he was playing solo. If I were to GM it for a whole group, I'd only allow Enforcer, Gearhead, Stalker and Fixer.

Quote from: Moracai;950863I fucking love MY0!

I'd like to GM it for an actual group, but so far I have only GMed it to my son. It has balance problems. I allowed the Boss class for my son only because he was playing solo. If I were to GM it for a whole group, I'd only allow Enforcer, Gearhead, Stalker and Fixer.

What's so great about it? What makes you oove it so much? Details, man!

Quote from: Alderaan Crumbs;951065What's so great about it? What makes you oove it so much? Details, man!

Mutant: Year Zero is my current favorite system for a lot of reasons. It is fun, easy to prep, easy to run, and feels intuitive.

Combat is deadly; one shot might cause a critical. The answer is like real life: try to avoid getting shot at when possible and otherwise find cover and shoot back.

The players are in charge. As GM, I can generate a random event each game or come up with one. But the players decide how to act, how to build the Ark (their settlement), what sector of the Zone (ruins) to explore, whether to keep Artifacts (lost tech) or turn it in to help build the Ark, and they decide who to ally with and who to make an enemy.

Everything decays. The characters can push rolls but risk hurting themselves. Gear breaks. Mutations go haywire and further mutation permanently hurts a mutant.

The PCs have an edge. They decide how the vote at the Ark goes for improvements if they are home. Their powerful mutations can swing the tide of battle. They have their alliance to keep going.

There are secrets. Other societies. Lost Artifacts. Mysterious Eden. The agendas of the various Bosses.

The game can be added to and expanded. Or not. Three extra books have adventures and a few new rules in them. Two PDFs of one adventure each are out there. Genlab Alpha can add humanoid animals and their own part of the Zone. The forthcoming MY0 Mechatron adds robot PCs and their own setting.