The Mutant Epoch table top RPG (hereafter referred to as ME) is a 246 page post-apocalyptic game by Outland Arts, and specifically by William McAusland. And it’s surprisingly good for being the result of one lone person’s post gonzo atomic gaming output. It’s also a dense tome of game and art, so strap yourself in while I try to do it all justice.

I’m going to do things a bit different from a lot of reviews, and start with Who Should Not Get This. Why? Mainly because just like I wouldn’t want to waste a vegetarian’s time trying to sell them a veal/lamb burger topped with suckling pig bacon, I’d rather people who aren’t interested in what this game offers not waste their time reading my review. And what does this game offer? An “Old School” RPG experience the likes of which I haven’t seen in a while. Life in ME is brutal and unfair, and the game mechanics reflect this with highly randomized character creation, mutation generation, gear, occupation, and even race (if the players want). Furthermore this isn’t a game with a lot of setting info or fluff to mine for use in other games. There is a setting, but it’s pretty sparse and most of it is more implied than actually spelled out. Finally this game deals with prostitution, slavery, and the like in a manner that will likely offend some (and leave others chuckling perhaps). You know how some players talk about spending their silver on ale and whores? This game has ale and whores. So does this mean I think the game is bad? Far from it. But you’ll have to read on to learn why….

Introduction 3 pages – Besides a page devoted to “what are RPGs”, we have two pages devoted to the setting of the game. In a nutshell, the year is 2346, nearly two hundred years or so after the world was destroyed. In this setting “relics” of advanced science still exist, perhaps whole hidden enclaves even, but such things are not common anymore and seem to be becoming rare as time passes. The demise of the world is believed to have been caused by humans warring with AIs, and greatly reduced groups of both still pick at each other. Other possibilities are suggested for GMs to explore, but nothing (not even the default setting) is given a lot of depth. Oh yeah, one other thing is the game uses d4s, d6s, d8s, d10s, d12s, d20s, and d100s (and the occasional d1000). You don’t need buckets of dice though; one of each should be enough (although it won’t hurt to have a few more).

Part One Character Generation 94 pages – Characters can be pure stock humans (no mutations, no cybernetics), clones (manufactured humans with some genetic improvement), bioreplicas (superior clones), transhumans (superior humans), cyborgs (humans with cybernetic parts), ghost mutants (mutants that look like normal humans, but have hidden mutations like telepathy or telekinesis), mutants (humans with various degrees of mutations that have left them visibly altered), and bestial humans (over 30 different animal types in humanoid form, ranging from mammals to insects to birds to amphibians and reptiles, all with the potential for further mutations). Players can either pick, or randomly roll their character type. And here we see the first example of how life in ME can be “unfair”, since one player could roll a Comfort Clone while another rolls a Battle Bioreplica. And that will have further impact down the line.

Attributes (called Traits in ME) are fairly standard on the surface. Endurance, Strength, Agility (overall body dexterity), Accuracy (hand-eye coordination), Intelligence, Perception, Willpower, and Appearance. Players roll d100, and look up their result on a chart to find the actual value (an option to buy attributes is given as well, but rolling will almost certainly give much, much better results). The chart values give a further range of d10, a numerical value, or more (higher) rolls up to to 100+d20. A human average score is 25, but I didn’t notice it on a first read. Through reading the rest of the book, none of the attributes end up feeling like a “dump stat”. The fluff (if not the mechanics) is pretty clear that if you’re a hideous freak, people will react poorly to you, and that may get you killed. I do like how Endurance measures both your stamina and your hit points though. Get hurt and you’re less resistant to radiation; get radiation poisoning and you’re easier to hurt. It’s brutal, but fitting for this type of game.

Next up you roll your pre-game caste, as determined by your character type. The caste then determines your starting gear, skills, and attribute modifiers. That Comfort Clone from earlier? He’s almost certain to be a runaway whore slave with skills in the Erotic Arts, a bonus to Appearance, penalties to everything else, and an 82% chance of a bounty on his head. The Battle Bioreplica? Her caste is much more up in the air, but certain to offer a more impressive starting package. GMs could allow their players to pick their starting castes, but even then things like that 82% chance of a bounty for the slave whore caste add some random elements to the character.

Rank Advancement is also covered. Instead of gaining Experience Points by killing monsters and gathering treasure to go up in Levels, you gain Experience Factors by killing monsters and gathering treasure to go up in Rank. Going up in Rank gains you more Endurance, a random number of more skill points, a random bonus based on your character type, increased ability to hit targets, and eventually an extra attack. Higher Ranked characters tend to get smaller rewards than lower Ranked characters get when leveling, and it take more experience to gain a Rank the higher your character gets.

Skills are next, and they tend to work differently from skill to skill, but all skills are pooled in small numbers (eight points in a single skill is a huge amount). One skill modifies your strike value based on how many levels of it you have. Another modifies the difficulty you roll an attribute against. Another may simply unlock an ability (like Erotic Arts) for one skill point, and nothing gained from other points. While some skills strike me as less useful than others, there aren’t any single skills that scream “buy me!” Instead there are multiple skills that a player would likely want to buy with their scarce skill points. All of which helps greatly to avoid the “Palladium Wrestling” trap of everybody taking the same skill for a cheap edge. There’s more to say about skills, but I’ll come back to that later.

Mutations are next. There’s a Prime Mutation table (for generating random benevolent mutations), a Creature Mutations table (for making mutant animal monsters), and a Ghost & Latent Mutant table (for hidden mutations), as well as tables for those Minor and Flaw mutations. All total, there’s 145 mutations, many with variations (like different types of poison) or a random number of things (like a number of tentacles). The mutations themselves range from quasi-plausible (like Amphibious or Poison Bite) to the gonzo (like Eye Beams or Peeling Radius) to the occasionally silly (like Increased Flatulence or Extreme Halitosis, both of which are Flaws). Cybernetic Implants follow after the mutations. There are fewer Implants, and many of them remind me of the Mutations I just read about. But I did enjoy the tables (in the plural) for random Implants animals might have, and the idea of a “multi-socket” for cybernetic arms was rather neat. And you can have tank track legs, so I’m happy.

Finishing off the chapter are small sections on languages and names, and a lot of stuff on the silver piece currency and stats and prices for gear. Remember your caste? Gear is randomized, but based on your caste. The slave whore gets stuck with a 30% chance of being flea infested, while the Battle Bioreplica is more likely to have, if lucky, relic weapons, support staff, trained animals, and more.

Part Two Game Play 14 pages – Here we get the basic rules of the game as it relates to combat. In a nutshell, combat is percentile based with a successful attack being made when a character rolls their Strike Value or less. A natural 1 is always a critical success, natural 2-5 is always a regular success, natural 96-99 is always a miss, and a natural 100 is always a critical failure or failure. There are also some optional rules for people who, after modifiers and such, have a total Strike Value above 100 or below 0 to give them either a sure hit or a bare chance of hitting. The selection of combat options and modifiers are pretty broad, sometimes downright clever, and full of insanely violent art. The picture of the heavily armored warrior holding a mutant to illustrate the “Meat Shield” maneuver is delicious. We also have text like “if the damage inflicted is 8 or more points, the subject is 78% likely to suffer genital damage” as part of the description of results for a Called Shot to “Shoot, stab, or slash the groin”. Rules for NPC morale, healing, and a rather flavorful and comprehensive section on chases are included. And by flavorful and comprehensive, I mean 4 pages of events based on the terrain and action of the chase; I’ll at least be looking these over more closely to idea mine in other games to be sure.

As for death and dying of characters…. Back in the section on healing, we discover that it’s not as simple as “you have 0 hit points and are dead”. A combination of Willpower and Endurance scores determines how much damage a character can take before becoming incapacitated, unconscious, dying, or dead. Hitting 0 Endurance points is bad and at least leaving you “unable to act physically”, but it’s not the instant death it would be in some other Old School games.

Part Three Hazards 10 pages – Okay, so something I didn’t mention before is that earlier in the book we hear about “Hazard Checks” or HC. This mutation’s poisonous bites cause a HC type D. That attempt to make a new life form is a HC type C. And the closer the letter is to A, the easier it is to make that check. There are lots of references to these Hazard Checks throughout the book. What they’re referring to is to taking your character’s value (often, but not always a trait) and cross referencing it with the letter code of a Hazard Check for a percentage total. Then you have to roll that total or less. HCs are used for all sorts of things, like holding your breath, or resisting radiation poisoning, or just using skills. Remember when I said I’d come back to skills? Well, in many cases having higher more points in a skill decreases the difficulty of the Hazard Check. Whereas a Computer Technician with 1 skill point needs to make a type H check, a character with 4 points in Computer Technician only needs to make a type A check. And according to the book (back in the skill section) the skill is based on Intelligence, so you cross reference that relevant trait with the HC letter code to get a percentile. Assuming both characters have an average Intelligence of 25, that means the character with 1 skill point needs to roll a 10% or less, while the character with 4 skill points needs to roll 60% or less.

Now, I won’t pretend to think this system is elegant or intuitive. The Hazard Check table is the sort of thing people will end up constantly referring to in game. But I want people to also understand that it’s functional and not that complex, despite what my review may make it sound like. It’s ugly, but it works.

Filling up the rest of the chapter are a bit over two pages of rules on different traps, around three pages on environmental hazards like falling and radiation and dehydration, insanity rules, rules on alcohol and drugs (only two drugs are listed though), and 7 different diseases ranging from the mundane to the slightly more original (and even an STD for those who like to spend their money on all those ales and whores). I wish there were a few more examples of drugs and diseases (too many games overlook them I think, and this is the kind of game that seems perfect for lots of drugs and diseases), but what’s here is a good start.

Part Four Encounters 18 pages – You want random encounter tables? You want random motivations for the random robots and humans and androids you meet? How about random events like tornados or discovering buried loot? I’ll be honest in that I don’t care much for random encounters these days, but even still there’s some good idea mining to be had here. There’s also 5 pages of descriptions of random types of people in the ME world that don’t really do much in my opinion, but people new to the post-apocalyptic genre would likely benefit from the information.

Part Five Creatures 29 pages – Normally I wouldn’t like a chapter like this. At first glance it’s a collection of everyday animals with nothing going for them beyond being large or mutated. A generic “no brainer” bestiary riffing off the old AD&D Monster Manual it would seem. At first glance. Then I actually sit down and read the entries, and find there’s some real flavor going on. For example, there’s a page devoted to dogs. Farm dogs, war dogs, riding dogs (as in dogs big enough for adults to ride as mounts), and mutant dogs, are all given stats and a specific “Dog Mutation List” to randomize things a bit. Lots of animals get a similar treatment, with generic flavors, multiple common mutant strains, and a further randomizing mutation table specific to their species. And there are also several creatures more unique to ME, like the Moaners (ghoulish mutant cannibal rapists), Horrify (escaped cyborged bio-weapons living in the wild), and Green Walkers (plant zombies). Add in the mutations (and sometimes implants) from earlier, and you’ve got the makings for a lot of different creatures.

Part Six Robots & Androids 7 pages – Whereas the last chapter was pretty chaotic and surprisingly full of options, this one is more sparse and focused. We have 9 different types of robots which PCs might either want to use or end up fighting, along with 3 pages on androids (i.e. robots disguised as humans). There’s not really a lot of depth here I guess. No murderous hoverbots or options for playing androids for example. What’s here is good, and I’ve got multiple options to play with, I just think there could’ve been a few more.

Part Seven Relics 19 pages – Gear, weapons, armor, vehicles, and that sort of stuff. Lots of common sense entries to be had here, like “shotgun” or “sedan”, along with some more exotic ones like “laser sword” or “proximity alert spike”. Of special note though are the “shells”, suits of personal power armor not as big that offer increased protection from the environment and hostiles alike.

Part Eight Tables 11 pages – Eleven pages of tables to randomly generate gear or treasure as needed. Nothing really all that spectacular or awful here at first glance, but the “Religious ‘Treasure’” table made me grin a bit. There is some repetition of how much items weigh here, and other items have their weight listed here and nowhere else in the book. Likewise some gear prices are repeated while others are listed for the first time. And on a spot check I noticed a discrepancy on one of the prices that was repeated, but no such discrepancy on another item with a repeated price, so there may be some inconsistencies going on in the stuff that is repeated.

Appendixes 26 pages – Metric to imperial conversion formulas, more stuff on ground and water and air vehicles, barding for your mutant mounts, siege engines and artillery (archaic stuff like archer screens and siege towers), and guidance for actually running the game. And while the guidance is fairly introductory stuff (and mainly meant for people new to RPGs), it does do one thing I should point out. Namely ME encourages players to make and play multiple characters at the same time. The reason being that between the high lethality of the game (and it is pretty brutal really) and the intentionally poor balance between character types due to all the randomization, it’s simply easier (and more fun) for a player to roll up a bunch of characters at once and see who lives to the next rank. There’s also recognition of the imbalance in character creation, and GMs are encouraged to assign some “freebie” gear or skill points. Included in the appendix are some assorted ideas and suggestion to help GMs come up with their own story ideas that “old hands” might find useful.

I should also point out that one of the appendixes mentions membership in the Society of Excavators, or SOE. See, in each book or PDF is a password in the credits section. Send an email to Outland Arts with that password and you get access to web-based extra content. Now, as of the time of this writing I promptly got my access and found there to be quite a bit of stuff. More monsters, gear, pregenerated characters, a sample setting with maps, a fan zone, a “Mature” section, and more. There’s probably a supplement’s worth of material there, for free. None of it is essential (although the sample setting and adventure probably should have been included in the book if at all possible), and since it’s for paying customers I don’t blame Outland Studios for making unavailable to the general public.

Wrapping up the book are a few pages devoted to character sheets, a so-so index, blank hex- and square-gridded map paper, and printable origami dice. Seriously, you just copy the sheets of paper, cut along the lines, fold and glue, and you have all the dice you want. As a way to help poor kids get started playing the game immediately, I’ve gotta’ commend ME for a touch like this (and it helps that by this point, between the book feeling saturated with other content and the overall “newbie friendly” vibe to ME, this feels as much like an intended aid as “page filler”).

Style: I hate objectively quantifying my subjective opinions, I really do, especially with something as subjective as style. But here goes…. First of all the book is filled with violent, brutal art. There are limbs flying through the air, people dying, people using other people (monsters actually) as living shields, and so on. And it all reinforces the feel of the game perfectly. Even when there isn’t gore and death involved (and a lot of the time there isn’t), the art is still evocative and relevant to the game at hand. The text is clean and functional, and the layout is attractive enough. Editing is overall pretty good; for a book as number and table heavy as this I actually had to hunt to find errors. A lot of larger productions have much worse editing. Organization should have been better, with some information being hard to find (like the average human Trait score for starters). The organization of information on gear being scattered between three chapters being the worst example I could find. But still, the overall presentation of the book works. More to the point, considering this game is the work of one person (with an editor), I’m doubly impressed. I’m going to give it a just over the line 5, partially for the art and partially for being one guy’s work (plus an editor).

Substance: This game isn’t a love letter to Old School style gaming, but a framed marriage license that’s been notarized by 2+d6 randomly generated people. It doesn’t have a setting in the traditional sense of factions and NPCs (the three factions included being so paper thin and generic as to not count), but it does imply that there are space ships and other dimensional technologies out there (with rules referring to them in places). The book hints that there are more rules coming for mutant cyborgs and further setting books, but the book is so densely packed already that I don’t feel right blaming it for leaving stuff out. Even the Hazard Chart mechanic, which I don’t care for, is functional and fitting for Old School style play. So I don’t feel like I can be too harsh with that. I do think it needed an introductory setting and adventure included, but the website has those for free to members. There is one rather glaring oversight in the book. See, there are rules for running, for making bio-weapons, for surviving the radiation leak from a starship, for developing cancer, and all sorts of other things. And while the book is really good about telling you how much something weighs, I never could find where it tells me how much my character can carry.

To be honest, the author could’ve told me this was intentional and I’d almost have believed it. Because what Old School game is complete without missing rules that groups have to house rule? And ME is such a good example of that style of play that it would be plausible. And to be further honest, it’s possible the rules for determining encumbrance loads are in the book somewhere, but I looked and looked and looked and couldn’t find them. Ultimately though I’m making a mountain out of a foothill; encumbrance totals are a big part of the style of play this game is going for, and it seems to me like they were intended as a part of this one but forgotten, but otherwise the game is pretty much perfect for what it is. It’s a densely packed, great “all in one book” option for those wanting to try RPGs or gonzo post-apocalyptic gaming, and a really well done Old School game. I’m giving it a rounded up to a 5 simply because despite its flaws I think a 4 might be unfair punishment for all the stuff it gets right.

Conclusion: So what do I make of ME? It’s ugly and unfair mechanically, but that’s by design and that design works to reinforce the setting. I do think the core Hazard mechanics and possibly the Trait mechanics are a bit unwieldy-if-functional, but nothing that couldn’t be house ruled. I find it an excellent example of Old School post-apocalyptic gaming that works somewhat well as an introductory game for people new to gaming or that style of play. With some more setting support in the book itself it would be close to perfect. It’s most certainly not for everyone’s tastes, but it should make the people it targets quite happy.

Thanks for the review, I think many aspects of this sound awesome, especially the chase & loot tables.

I have a feeling running this as a funnel to start would work spectactuarly well

Playing this in an online (rpol) game at the moment, and have done one-shots on tabletop of it before.
Largely I'm enjoying it despite not really being a huge fan of super-random chargen. I got away with rolling up a few characters until I got something that worked (...kicks away tiny poisonous-fanged midget). So yeah, you could use a funnel if you don't mind rolling a lot. I think the excavator's guide has some more nonrandom options, though.

A few things worth noting about it:

*severe mutants - are what it says on the tin. Even if you are a rabid Gamma World fan and like mutations, you might rather be mild or standard. I rolled up a guy once who was ambidextrous and could use 2 pickaxes, only to go nooooooo when he rolled crab claws. There's lots of freakish deformities going on even in the minor mutation tables, let alone Flaws. You can sometimes end up with overall a fairly attractive mutant though, if you have a high base APP [my online mutant has a 42 App, despite being bright green and the chronic acne, but as I said is the best of a crop of about six I rolled up, and relatively lucky for a severe mutant).

*I wouldn't worry about balance between skills - they're randomly generated like everything else

*the game system is a little bit clunky in places but seems to work OK. Hazard checks need the tables for instance, but combat at least is just d100.

Great review, san dee jota! I'm going to have to give this game a try sometime.

I loved pretty much everything about The Mutant Epoch, except for the system... mostly regarding combat.  Too much math.  I wrote a review a couple years ago on my blog.  If it had different game mechanics, I'd probably still be running it!

VS

Nice job. This is something I'd have liked to flip through in a store, and this review is a nice replacement for that.

It sounds like it has an abundance of things that I don't need, and is light on the things I would want. But, the descriptions are intriguing.

One thing worth pointing out: the supplements and adventures are actually pretty freaking good, and fill in the setting.  They're very much of a certain "grim and ugly Gamma World" vibe; the kind of setting where things like famines and droughts and natural hardships would be more of a problem than any edition of Gamma World tended to dwell on.  

But even if you don't care for the setting, it's all pretty easy to port to your gonzo-esque apocalypse of choice (i.e. it'd all work fine enough to idea mine for Deadlands, but not so much for Tribe .