I've got a couple months free and if I can convince my SO to let me have my friends over once every two weeks (how in the hell did it come to this, again?), I'm thinking of running a Mutant Future mini-campaign.

Here's my core idea, I'll use the Mutants & Mazes rule to design some pretty high level Labrynth Lord NPCs, fashioned on the classic D&D party.  They'll have crossed over some gate into this post-apocalyptic future and are wreaking havoc as only a good party can.  It will be up to the real PCs to find them and stop them.

I'm trying to figure out how they would manifest themselves.  I could see them coming into a peaceful mutant village, killing everyone, taking their stuff and then trying to set themselves up in some old technological installation.

I just want to figure out a rough 6-10 session story arc that will allow the PCs to get powerful enough to take on the "evil" party.

What do you think?  I'm open to all suggestions.

Sounds cool!  2 quick ideas:

1)  If disease is a major factor in your post-apoc setting, it wouldn't take too long for a cleric or paladin to acquire a sect of fanatical followers.  Whether they wanted them or no.

2) Have the adventurers be Lawful, but horrible.  Think Knights of the Dinner Table.

Quote from: jrientsSounds cool!  2 quick ideas:

1)  If disease is a major factor in your post-apoc setting, it wouldn't take too long for a cleric or paladin to acquire a sect of fanatical followers.  Whether they wanted them or no.

Oh that's a great idea.  It could be an excellent source of clues.  "We're going to find the Healer!"

Quote from: jrients2) Have the adventurers be Lawful, but horrible.  Think Knights of the Dinner Table.

Can you elaborate a bit?  While the Knights are near and dear to my heart, I'm not quite sure how Lawful Horrible would manifest itself in a Gamma World setting.  Would they see all mutations as some manifestation of chaos and thus try to destroy them?  Or would they try to impose order on an unruly village?

Yeah, they could easily see mutation as chaos taint, especially in a radiated area where the D&D'ers could "catch it".  Peaceful pigoids could be treated as vicious orcs, etc.  Basically anything that doesn't look like an elf, dwarf, or human is assumed to be hostile.

Here are my thoughts...

The Gate: Seeking help against the evil marauders of the apocalyptic world, a brilliant theoretical physicist creates a scientific gate to seek help from (escape into?) the pre-apocalyptic past.  However, fiddling about with timestreams is a messy business, and essentially requires that dipping back in time means that it isn't your own time stream you're dipping into.  So, instead of pleading for help from President-Elect Bill Clinton on inauguration night 1993, he winds up opening the gate onto a "fantasy" version of Earth where 1993 corresponds to The Year of Our Lord Kolgoroth 17,345.  The D&D party emerge into a high-tech scientific bunker occupied by the dodgy scientist (who may or may not suddenly die of a heart attack) and a small army of security killbots.  If they can survive, the science bunker can become their new base of operations.

There's Session #1, maybe #2 right there.

The Village: As you've suggested, there is a village of peaceful mutants living nearby.  Unlike the science bunker, which is off the scale for the D&D party, the village should make them feel right at home...technologically at least.  Leave it up in the air as to how the party will react to the village -- Are they monsters? Are they innocent villagers?  Maybe some of the mutants could simply be green- or blue-skinned hotties for added incentive. Maybe the mutant villagers see the un-mutated party of adventurers as pure, untainted saviors and express their feelings openly.

The Bad Guy: If the PCs start getting really ugly to the villagers, that's probably time to introduce the "evil" outsiders -- probably some local warlord bent on conquest and consolidation.  Even if the PCs don't feel protective sympathy for the villagers, they might feel protective of the science bunker, which is also one of the primary targets for the evil warlord.

Consolidation: After dealing with the Bad Guy, word gets out about these new heroes from the science bunker, and refugees begin to flock to the region.  Maybe the PCs begin a campaign of liberation and consolidation of their own, creating an army of free mutants to stand against the Bad Guy.

The Gate...Again!: Maybe the PCs forgot to turn the damned thing off.  Maybe the evil warlord succeeds in stealing it. Maybe there's a traitor in their midst with an irresistible urge to meddle with the unknown.  Whatever, just when things seem to be cooling down a little, the gate opens again, and through comes something much nastier than the PC party.  Maybe it's a terrible demon lord who's more than comfortable allying with/subjugating the evil mutant warlord.  Suddenly, a bad situation gets much worse, and ultimately comes to a head.  The most likely solution will be to force the demon lord (or whatever), and maybe the evil mutant warlord, through the gate (by some coincidence, right into Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993) and shut the damned thing off.

How does that work for you?

!i!

Quote from: jrientsIf disease is a major factor in your post-apoc setting, it wouldn't take too long for a cleric or paladin to acquire a sect of fanatical followers.

But would a cleric's or paladin's divinely granted powers still work in a science-future where the patron diety may not exist?  

Oh! And what if the cleric or paladin discovered that their healing powers do work in the absence of the patron diety?

!i!

Ian, those are great suggestions.  Perfect actually.  Despite (or because of ) that I may have miscommunicated.  The PCs from the fantasy world are the bad guys (even though they may not consider themselves as such).  The players are going to play characters from the apocalyptic period who have to go out and fight the fantasy PCs, ultimately.

But designing it from the perspective of the fantasy-world PCs is the best way to go as it gives me guidance for their behaviours.

Like the blue-skinned babes, btw.

The Labyrinth Lord adventure in the first issue of the Scribe of Orcus is kind of a crossover with Mutant Future, although it was written when we were still in the early phases of writing MF.