The Horror of the Hum

The Hum has been heard for weeks now, a near-constant source of pain that has been affecting the tribe’s hearing-sensitive mutants and manimals and impeding their ability to invoke their divine gifts. The leaders of the tribe sent out parties of its young Seekers to locate the source and whilst they failed to find it, what one Seeker learned revealed an even bigger threat to the tribe. Her party was ambushed by a gang of Ascended Ones—a violent sect of three-eyed mutants who believe that Pure strain humans were responsible for the destruction of the planet and bringing about Terra A.D. She learned from them that the Ascended Ones were on a quest of their own, to find The Temple of Mutant Alpha: the first known mutant on Terra A.D. or ‘Terra After Disaster’. Does The Temple of Mutant Alpha really exist? If so, if the Ascended Ones find it, there can be no doubt that they will turn it into a site of holy pilgrimage that will further their aims. In response, a stronger and more experienced party of Seekers is to follow up on the information. This is the set-up for Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47, the fifteenth release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. It is designed for Third Level Player Characters and will take deep into the history of Terra A.D. to reveal some of its secrets with a big dose of Area 51-style ufology thrown in.

Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 begins with Player Characters near the source of the Hum in the glow desert, an oasis of the Ancients. After some exploration of what are nearby tourist facilities a la Rachel, Nevada (the nearest settlement to Area 51), the Player Characters can break into the facility, which reveals itself through notices and announcements to be the Trevino Research Base. There is some knowing fun to be had here, since the adventure assumes that any Player Characters of the Shaman Class or of sufficient Intelligence will know the Ancient Tongue. This means that the players will quickly grasp what is going on at the facility, but their characters will not, effectively adding an element of metaplay as the players have their characters explore the facility in search of conformation of what they know and their characters can understand. The adventure also emphasises classic Gamma World-style play in which obtaining the correctly collared com-badges will allow the Player Characters access to different areas of the facility. Alternatively, the Player Characters can use brute force or Security Systems checks of various difficulties, but the simplest and easiest method of exploring the facilities is to find and use the com-badges.

What the Player Characters find in the Trevino Research Base are clear signs that the Ancients obtained—from a place called ‘Glossop’—alien technology and survivors that scientists were conducting research on, including gene research. Plus, the results of the research may well indeed, have led to the creation of the first Mutant. This research was kept well hidden from the outside world, although of course, conspiracy theorists and UFOlogists thought otherwise, hence the UFO-themed tourist facilities outside of the base. The Player Characters do have plenty of opportunity to learn about this research and even conduct a little of it themselves, but perhaps the most entertaining part of the scenario is the fact that they discover living results of that research begun long ago that will trigger their parental instincts. Consequently, the latter half of the scenario is likely to consist of the Player Characters exploring the rest of the Trevino Research Base whilst caring for squalling, wailing, defecating babies! Although their players will have been alerted much earlier in the scenario, eventually their characters will discover that the base’s self-destruct system has been triggered and they will need to find a way to deactivate it. The scenario ends in a genre classic showdown t the bottom of a missile silo!

In addition, Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 suggests some possible sequels if the Player Characters survive the scenario and three appendices. One details the various artefacts that the Player Characters can find in the scenario and make use of, such as the Biomesh Com-Badge Jumpsuit—colour-coded, of course, Illuma-Drones for lighting, and NuEarz, jaunty, animal-shaped hearing devices with various modes, some of them useful. The others describe the new monsters in the scenario and the new Mutation, ‘Binary Voice’, similar to Achroma’s Artificial Intelligence Hack, but without the need to bond with the A.I.

Physically, behind a very suggestive cover, complete with a metallic logo, Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 is cleanly and tidily laid out, clearly written, and decently illustrated. The maps are decent too, although a little scratchy towards the end.

Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 is a short adventure with an emphasis on exploration and combat. As with other scenarios for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, it is self-contained, but with plot strands to develop, and so is easy to add to a Judge’s campaign. Overall, Mutant Crawl Classics #15: The Mutant Menace of Lab 47 is solid and entertaining.

—oOo—

Goodman Games will be at UK Games Expo

from Friday 30th May to Sunday June 1st, 2025.

[Fanzine Focus XXXVII] Gamma Zine #3

On the tail of the Old School Renaissance has come another movement—the rise of the fanzine. Although the fanzine—a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon, got its start in Science Fiction fandom, in the gaming hobby it first started with Chess and Diplomacy fanzines before finding fertile ground in the roleplaying hobby in the 1970s. Here these amateurish publications allowed the hobby a public space for two things. First, they were somewhere that the hobby could voice opinions and ideas that lay outside those of a game’s publisher. Second, in the Golden Age of roleplaying when the Dungeon Masters were expected to create their own settings and adventures, they also provided a rough and ready source of support for the game of your choice. Many also served as vehicles for the fanzine editor’s house campaign and thus they showed how another Dungeon Master and her group played said game. This would often change over time if a fanzine accepted submissions. Initially, fanzines were primarily dedicated to the big three RPGs of the 1970s—Dungeons & Dragons, RuneQuest, and Traveller—but fanzines have appeared dedicated to other RPGs since, some of which helped keep a game popular in the face of no official support.

Since 2008 with the publication of Fight On #1, the Old School Renaissance has had its own fanzines. The advantage of the Old School Renaissance is that the various Retroclones draw from the same source and thus one Dungeons & Dragons-style RPG is compatible with another. This means that the contents of one fanzine will compatible with the Retroclone that you already run and play even if not specifically written for it. Labyrinth Lord and Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplay have proved to be popular choices to base fanzines around, as has Swords & Wizardry. As popular in the Old School Renaissance as the genre is, not all fanzines are devoted to fantasy.

Gamma Zine carries the subtitle, ‘A Fanzine supporting early post-apocalyptic, science-fantasy RPGs – specifically First Edition Gamma World by TSR.’ This then, is a fanzine dedicated to the very first post-apocalyptic roleplaying game, Gamma World, First Edition, published by TSR, Inc. in 1978. Gamma Zine #1 was published in April, 2019, following a successful Kickstarter campaign as part of Zine Quest 1, whilst Gamma Zine #2 was published in February, 2020, following its own successful Kickstarter campaign as part of ZineQuest #2. Published by ThrowiGames!, it came as a black and white booklet, packed with content, including adventures, equipment, monsters, and more. Published as part of ZineQuest #3, Gamma Zine #3 was published in February, 2021 and promised more of the same—adventures, equipment, monsters, fiction, and so on.

Like the previous two issues, Gamma Zine #3 begins with an interview. In Gamma Zine #1, the interview was with the late James M. Ward, the designer of both Gamma World and its predecessor, Metamorphosis Alpha, whereas the interview in Gamma Zine #2 was with Luke Gygax. This was not just because his father is E. Gary Gygax, but also because he is listed as the co-author of GW1 Legion of Gold, the very first scenario for Gamma World. The interview in Gamma Zine #3 is with Bill Barsh, the owner of Pacesetter Games & Simulations. In the interview, he discusses publishing content for the Old School Renaissance, but the main subject was the then forthcoming Gamma X—Gamma World 8thEdition, a retroclone based on the first and second editions of Gamma World, but using the mechanics of the ‘B/X’ version of Basic Dungeons & Dragons. The interview is interesting when discussing what was planned at the time, but since then, sadly, the only title to appear is the playtest adventure, GX0.5 Warrendome.

Otherwise, there is a good mix of content with the issue. This starts with the three monsters in ‘Horrors of the Wasteland’. They include the ‘Bicat’, more akin to a Tyrannosaurus Rex than a cat, bipedal with its arms ending taloned fingers and a preference for attacking the weakest targets; the ‘Chemslime’, a sentient pool of slime combining organic matter, chemical spills, and radiation, and capable of assuming partial humanoid form; and the ‘Lizscorpion’, its back half Komodo Dragon with a stinger tail, its front half scorpion all with pincers and mandibles. These are all nasty creatures, some of them quite big threats. Pleasingly, these are not just monster entries, but they actually appear in the issue’s three scenarios.

Gamma World, First Edition and other early post-apocalyptic roleplaying games did not do Classes in the sense of Dungeons & Dragons. Gamma Zine offers them as an option. In Gamma Zine #1, it was the Artificer and in Gamma Zine #2, it was the Wasteland Blacksmith, but here it is the Wasteland Ghoul, a mutated humanoid which survives and thrives in areas of radiation and other poisons and chemicals. This has come at a cost though, as the radiation and chemicals have destroyed parts their brain and one or more internal organs. In game terms they are impervious to radiation or poison of Intensity 17 or lower and take minimum damage from higher Intensities. Even though a mutant, the Wasteland Ghoul cannot have any mental mutations and is limited in choice, such as ‘Physical Reflection (radiation)’, ‘Radiated Eyes’, and ‘Radioactive Healing’. They have limited Intelligence, but are hardier and stronger. Their primarily role is as a scout for entering high intensity radiation areas that the other Player Characters cannot. The Class feels heavily influenced by the Fallout series of computer games, but that is no bad thing. Like the creatures of ‘Horrors of the Wasteland’, the Class also appears in one the issue’s scenarios.

Similarly, the three weapons of ‘Artifacts of the Ancients’ all appear in the scenarios. Written by Jarred Wray Wallace, they include the Vibro Sword, the Sonic Pistol, and the Stasis Ray Rifle, all nice classic additions to the genre. The issue also continues the fiction begun in the first issue with another two chapters of ‘The Hunted’. ‘The Hunted, Chapter Three’ picks up where the story left off, with Whyla and her faithful cybernetic hound, Arnold, having defeated the bandits who ambushed them, but with Arnold damaged and deactivated. The two chapters track her attempt to get Arnold to a cybernetic doctor. Unfortunately, her efforts do not go as well as she hopes and she finds herself in more danger and separated from her faithful companion. Again, it ends on a cliffhanger, hopefully to be resolved in Gamma Zine #4. Nevertheless, the story is engaging and it nicely depicts the dangerous world of its future.

As with previous issues, Gamma Zine #3 comes with three adventures. The first adventure is ‘The Chemaxis Refinery’ and is designed for starting Player Characters. This details a chemical manufacturing facility which the Player Characters have heard is a ready source of biochemical weaponry and energy cells. They will also have heard about the numerous failed attempts to get into the facility due to the high radiation. What is odd is that the radiation does not extend beyond the fence surrounding the compound. When they do manage to sneak in, the Player Characters discover that it is being operated by a band of Wasteland Ghouls who are siphoning off the contents of the tanks of chemical waste to create the bioweaponry and more. The description of the facility is nicely detailed and there is quite lot going on in terms of the Wasteland Ghouls trying to access and use the chemicals and toxins stored there, but they do come off as a faceless workers to be killed rather than interacted with. There is plenty of loot to be found in the facility and it would make a good potential base for the Player Characters, if cleaned up.

The second adventure, ‘The Petrified Fortress’, is intended for Player Characters with slightly more experience. When travelling in a petrified forest, the Player Characters come across one that towers far above the others. It turns out that this tree was converted into a secret military base and once they have found their way inside, the Player Characters get caught up in a war inside between machine and nature. The robot units are under siege by sentient plants spreading from the facility’s biodome. The robots will not attack the Player Characters and the suggestion in the scenario is that the Player Characters come to their aid and again, that this is potentially a good base for them.

‘Palace of the Bandit King’ is the third adventure and is suited for experienced and well-equipped Player Characters. This has more of a plot right from the start with the Player Characters hired by several settlements who are sick of the predations of a local bandit king and have scraped together enough funds to pay them. Bandit King Prentas Smythe’s palace is sealed in a desert ravine where he and his bandit horde host pit-fighting tournaments! It has only the one known entrance, so either the Player Characters are going to try to find another one or they are going in the front, the suggestion being that they disguise themselves as merchants or would be pit fighters. The bandits’ reputation for being evil is well founded and their base is effectively a slaughterhouse. Their base is very reminiscent of Jabba the Hutt’s palace in Return of the Jedi and as with the previous two adventures, would make for a very good base for the Player Characters. It is also the most straightforward of the adventures in the fanzine and the most familiar in terms of its plot. After all, bandits, pit fighting, and cannibalism in a post-apocalyptic setting? That certainly has a ring of familiarity to it. The inclusion of the plot means that it is the best of the three with ‘The Chemaxis Refinery’ being more of a techno-dungeon than a scenario.

Physically, Gamma Zine #3 is neat and tidy. It is decently written and nicely illustrated with good art throughout. Each of the scenarios is accompanied by excellent maps.

There is much here that the Game Master can use in her campaign, whether that is for Gamma World or another post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. The content is easily adapted, but better suited for post-apocalyptic roleplaying games with a drier, slightly less fantastic tone, such as Free League Publishing’s Mutant: Year Zero – Roleplaying at the End of Days. With three adventures, all nicely detailed, though varying in terms of how much plot they have, Gamma Zine #3 provides a good amount of playable content.

1983: Gamma World, Second Edition

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

Published in 1978 in TSR, Inc., Gamma World introduced the roleplaying hobby to the post-apocalypse genre of surviving after the bomb and the fall of civilisation, although its progenitor, Metamorphosis Alpha had explored similar ideas, but set on a giant generation starship rather than the Earth. Gamma World, Second Edition was published five years later in 1983 and shifted the setting to a different part of the USA, inheriting and developing some of the mechanics, embracing the gonzo aspects of the setting even further, and presenting a new scenario. Gamma World, Second Edition is also a boxed set, containing the sixty-four-page ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ and the thirty-two-page ‘Adventure Booklet’, as well as dice and a large poster map. Gamma World, Second Edition was designed to be accessible and serve as an introduction to roleplaying taking as its model, Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules, the famous ‘red box’ edition designed by Frank Mentzer which began what is known as the ‘BECMI’ line. This consisted of Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 2: Expert Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 3: Companion Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 4: Master Rules, and Dungeons & Dragons Set 5: Immortals Rules. Yet Gamma World, Second Edition would not fully achieve its intended accessibility and introductory aims, primarily because of an organisation that although better than Gamma World, First Edition, was still not perfect, and because its rules, also inspired by Gamma World, First Edition, are not as easy and as easily presented as they should have been.

Gamma World, Second Edition, as described in the ‘Adventure Booklet’ takes place in a savage wasteland ravaged by radiation, biological agents, and chemical agents used in the ‘Social Wars’ of the early twenty-fourth century. The conflict bent and broke the very land itself, shattering parts of it and sending it into seas as less than one in five thousand of Humanity’s teeming billions survived and the mutagenic cocktail left behind twisted the genetics of every form of life on the planet—including man. Mutated men, animals, and plants twisted into new forms and gained wondrous new powers, both mental and physical. So now humanoid raccoons capable of generating illusions and repulsion fields and of telekinesis and telepathy scavenge for the advanced technology and weapons left behind by the Ancients, three-metre-high jack rabbits with chameleon powers and antlers serve as herd animals or mounts, and land sharks literately swim under the ground of deserts or deep snow using telekinesis, hunting prey. In the century-and-a-half since the conflict, societies have organised into tribal clans and feudal states, varying in their technology use, with highly technological enclaves rare. Found across these blasted landscapes, there are those that seek to forge a better world, though not always for the better… For example, the Knights of the Genetic Purity want to preserve the ‘purity’ of Humanity by wiping out Humanoids, The Iron Society wants to destroy all Pure Strain Humans, the Zoopremisists would stamp out all Humanoids and Pure Strain Humans in favour of Mutated Animals, and the Friends of Entropy would smash all life and mechanical activity! Others, like the Brotherhood of Thought, which fosters a sense of benevolence in all and the semi-monastic Healers who tend to the sick and the injured, seek a more positive future…

A Player Character in Gamma World, Second Edition can either be a Pure Strain Human, a Humanoid with mutant powers, or a Mutated Animal. He cannot be a Mutated Plant—unless allowed by the Game Master. He has six attributes—Mental Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma, Constitution, and Physical Strength—which range in value between three and eighteen. A Pure Strain Human does not suffer mutations of any kind, will find it easier to work out how artefacts operate, and be recognised by robots, security systems, and A.I.s as such, which sometimes means the Pure Strain Human will not be attacked by them or can even give them orders. He also has better stats and more Hit Points. A Humanoid can look like a Pure Strain Human, but if he has any physical Mutations that make him look different, he will not be recognised as a Pure Strain Human by robots, security systems, or A.I.s, which will thus not obey his orders and may even attack him. A Mutated Animal can never pass a security check and be recognised by robots, security systems, or A.I.s. He will probably have claws or a similar feature meaning he is better in unarmed combat, and like the Humanoid, will have a number of Mutations and may gain more if exposed to anything mutagentic.

To create a character, the player rolls four six-sided dice and discards the lowest for all six attributes. If the Player Character is a Pure Strain Human, the lowest die is not discarded for Intelligence, Charisma, or Constitution. However, the maximum that a Pure Strain Human can have for Intelligence and Charisma is a twenty-one, and eighteen for his Constitution. To determine the number of Hit Points for a Humanoid or Mutated Animal, the player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the character’s Constitution, whereas eight-sided dice are rolled for the Pure Strain Human. A four-sided die is rolled to determine the number of Physical Mutations a Humanoid or Mutated Animal has, and then again for Mental Mutations, both types of mutation being rolled for randomly.

Name: Gronson
Type: Pure Strain Human
Mental Strength 14 Intelligence 14 Dexterity 08
Charisma 18 Constitution 18 Physical Strength 16
Hit Points: 78

Name: Neek
Type: Humanoid
Mental Strength 17 Intelligence 13 Dexterity 11
Charisma 10 Constitution 10 Physical Strength 15
Hit Points: 32

Mental Mutations: Dual Brain – Brain #1: Fear Generation, Heightened Intelligence, Will Force; Brain #2: Genius Capability (Mechanical), Telekinetic Arm, Teleportation
Physical Mutations: Regeneration, Vision Defect (Tunnel Vision)

It is clear that going from Gamma World, First Edition to Gamma World, Second Edition, the designers have not entirely solved the problem of a Pure Strain Human not actually being very interesting to play. It is a problem which besets post-apocalypse roleplaying games. Although Pure Strain Human has higher stats, more Hit Points, and can better interact with technology, both the Humanoid and the Mutated Animal receive mutations which make them different, sometimes difficult to play, but obviously more powerful and more fun. Some powers are limited by the number of times a day they can be used, but others are permanent, but they can be very powerful. It is also possible to roll for defect mutations, both physical and mental. Consequently, it is possible to create a Player Character with more defect mutations useful ones. In the long term though, the Pure Strain Human can find, identify, and use the artefacts of the Ancients. Gaining access to and using technology is not an intrinsic power though, and a Player Character Pure Strain Human has to go adventure to find that technology and the likelihood is that the technology will use a power cell and run out and… Plus this is exactly what the other character types will be doing, although not as handily as the Pure Strain Human. So, until such times as a Pure Strain Human can gain access to advanced technology, he is the ‘weakest’ character type.

The mutations can be what you expect and weird and wacky. So, a defect could be Attraction Odour, meaning the Mutated Animal or Humanoid exudes a fragrance that attracts carnivores, but he could have Death Field Generation which means he drains every living being within range of all but a single Hit Point, before dropping unconscious, antlers or horns that inflict damage, or Radiation Eyes that emit blasts of deadly radiation. In general, the more powerful a mutation, the more the roleplaying game places a limit on its use. Some do require further explanation or are super powerful, like Time Manipulation, which has the possibility of sending either the user or a target decades into the past or future, or Planar Travel, which opens a temporal portal to another plane. Its use is never fully explained.

Mechanically, Gamma World, Second Edition is quite simple. To have his character undertake an action, a player multiplies the appropriate attribute for the action by the difficulty factor, typically between one and five, set by the Game Master, and attempts to roll equal to or under it on percentile dice. That essentially is it and the rules do not go into any more detail than that. Combat is different though and works much like it did in Gamma World, First Edition and Metamorphosis Alpha. It uses three ‘Attack Matrixes’, one for physical combat, one for ranged combat, and one for mental combat. Each weapon has a Weapon Class, such as nine for a blowgun and fifteen for a Black Ray Pistol. The Weapon Class—the higher the better—is cross-referenced against the target’s Armour Class—the lower the better—and this gives a target to roll equal to or greater on a twenty-sided die. Armour Class represents the armour worn only as there is no Dexterity bonus to Armour Class. There are, however, modifiers from high and low Dexterity to attack a target, and from high and low Strength when determining damage for physical attacks. Many advanced weapons can be deadly. The Black Ray Pistol instantly kills an organic target!

The rules also cover Tech Level—either Tech Level I, Tech Level II, or Tech Level III, indicating a tribal, feudal/pre-industrial, or industrial society, respectively; movement and time; encounters and searching—the Player Characters will likely end up doing this a lot; and interacting with NPCs and recruiting NPCs. In general, the rules are straightforward, though they do feel influenced by Basic Dungeons & Dragons in places. The rules also cover the discover and use of artefacts.

As with Metamorphosis Alpha, the setting for Gamma World includes lots and lots of artefacts. These range from stun rays and laser pistols to energy maces and fusion rifles, from photon grenades and concussion bombs to mutation bombs and negation missiles, from plastic armour and powered attack armour to turbine cars and bubble cars, from energy cloaks and anti-grav sleds to atomic energy cells to pain reducer drugs and life rays, from light cargo lifter and ecology bots to security robotoids to warbots. Robots, bots, and borgs get their own section, and there are even some useful descriptions and details given of fixed machinery like broadcast power stations, rejuv chambers, and think tanks. There is, though, a distinct emphasis on weapons and armour to the equipment, all of which the player characters can find in various conditions and use—if they can work out how each device operates. Where Metamorphosis Alpha had the players describe and roleplay what their characters were doing to work out what a device does, in Gamma World, First Edition there were ‘flow’ charts. In Gamma World, Second Edition, there is a simple matrix for this. Each artefact has a complexity number and for every ten minutes a Player Character spends examining an artefact, both he and the Game Master roll a die. The Game Master adds her result to the complexity number, whilst the player’s result reduces the complexity number. Essentially, the player and Game Master are attempting to out roll each other, but the result is time consuming both in and out of the game.

Gamma World, Second Edition describes some sixty monsters of the post-apocalyptic future. From Androids (Thinkers, Workers, and Warriors), Arks (Hound Folk), and Arns (Dragon Bugs) to Yexils (Orange Scarfers), Zarns (Borer Beetles), and Zeeth (Gamma Grass), there are some entertaining creations and some favourites of the genre. For example, Badders or Digger Folk are anthropomorphic badgers with an evil disposition, the power of Empathy, and a penchant for raiding; Hoops or Floppsies are mutant rabbitoids who have the Mass Mind and Telepathy Mutations and the ability to change metal into rubber; and Perths or Gamma Bushes, whose flowers can emit deadly blasts of light or radiation. Plus, some thirteen Cryptic Alliances are detailed, including their Tech Levels, membership, numbers encountered, and secret sign along with their descriptions. These provide a ready source of potential allies and enemies for a campaign.

One thing missing from the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ are the roleplaying game’s tables. It turns out that these are given at the end of the ‘Adventure Booklet’. So, the table for rolling for Mutations, matrixes for attacks, poison, and radiation, encounters, weapons, and more, are all in the ‘Adventure Booklet’. These are designed to be separated from the booklet, but it is odd to have the rules necessary for character creation in a separate book well away from where they are actually needed.

The primary content in the ‘Adventure Booklet’ is the adventure ‘Rite of Passage’. It sets up the Player Characters as inhabitants of the small village of Grover, a Tech Level I settlement part of Clan Cambol in the remains of western Pennsylvania. To become adults, they must undergo a rite of passage in which they travel to the dead city of Pitz Burke and return with an item which will become their personal totem. In addition to the rite of passage, the Player Characters are assigned a special mission. This is to rescue three fellow clan members held hostage by a band of Carrin and Bloodbird brigands in the city. The Player Characters must cross part of Allegheny—which is nicely detailed in the descriptions of the region—and have encounters and make contacts along the way, including with the Lil, small, graceful humanoids with fairy wings. The Lil actually want the help of the Player Characters as they have a similar situation with their own also being held hostage. The Lil hideout—or Bramble—feels not dissimilar to that of James M. Ward’s ‘Paths of the Lil’, which originally appeared in White Dwarf Issue No. 16 and was then reprinted in The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios. The ruins of Pitz Burke are nicely detailed with particular attention paid to the locations that feature in the hostage plot ‘Rite of Passage’. It is a fairly tough adventure overall, and the Player Characters will want to find and determine how to use some arms and armour above the very basic they begin with to give themselves more of an edge. The Lil will help with this, which will go some way to addressing the initial powerlessness of the Pure Strain Human versus the Humanoid and Mutated Animal Player Characters.

The ‘Adventure Booklet’ also includes advice on running and creating Gamma World campaigns, which emphasises the need to have the Player Characters act with both societies and the Cryptic Alliances. The standing of a Player Character with a particular society or Cryptic Alliance is measured by his Rank with it. Rank affects a Player Character’s Charisma when interacting with the society or Cryptic Alliance and his chancing of obtaining or borrowing an artefact from the society or Cryptic Alliance. In order to increase a Player Character’s Rank with any one society or Cryptic Alliance, he must spend Status Points. These are earned for defeating NPCs, donating artefacts, successfully completing missions, and so on. Basically, what a Player Character would do on an adventure. They are the equivalent of Experience Points in another roleplaying game, but spent to acquire Ranks with a society or Cryptic Alliance. Indeed, Gamma World, Second Edition does not actually have Experience Points, it is not a Class and Level roleplaying game, and there is no way for a player to improve his character except through discovering better and better equipment and potentially, improving the equivalent of his social standing.

Physically, Gamma World, Second Edition is well presented, but not necessarily well organised. Everything feels just a little bit too crammed in, especially in the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’, so that finding particular rules is not easy and that is not helped by having the rules for the roleplaying game and explanations of how its tables are intended to work and the tables needed to run the game in a separate book. The artwork is all very good and the cartography, whether of the locations in Pitz Burke, or Pitz Burke itself, the Allegheny region, and the remains of North America on the roleplaying game’s double-sided poster map, are excellent and colourful.

—oOo—

Chris Baylis reviewed Gamma World, Second Edition in ‘Game Reviews’ in Imagine No. 7 (October 1983) and was positive throughout. “For a post nuclear holocaust role-playing game, GAMMA WORLD game has just about all the right ingredients, in the correct proportions. It is a very good introduction into the fantasy world of role-playing, and should seriously rival all other RPGs.”

Dana Lombardy reviewed Gamma World, Second Edition in ‘Gaming’ in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 8, No. 8. (August 1984), describing its redesign as being, “[S]o extensive it should be considered a new game ... Gamma World offers one of the more bizarre and hostile environments to role-play in.” and highlighted how, “[T]he technology is disjointed. You can have a dog-man with a spear fighting alongside a robot with a laser, allied against humanoids with pistols and swords.” Her conclusion was measured, stating that, “If you prefer more straightforward science fiction with known and approximately equal abilities and weapons, then Gamma World may not be for you. It’s a topsy-turvy world, where the average pure-strain human is hard-pressed to exist among plants and animals mutated by humanity’s wars. But if you like a challenge, and want to role-play something really different — Gamma World could be it.”

—oOo—

What stands out with Gamma World, Second Edition in comparison with Gamma World, First Edition is the effort to reorganise, codify, and clarify the rules and the setting and bring its presentation more in line with Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Star Frontiers. For the most part, the designers succeeded, although the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ is just a bit too busy to be fully successful. Nevertheless, it is a far more accessible and easier to understand edition of the roleplaying game than its predecessor, all done with an eye by TSR, Inc. to make it appeal to a wider and more commercial audience. However, with that eye to commercialism, there is a corresponding reining in of the setting’s weirder, wackier elements, that though still there, are kept very much in the background. They would only creep forward and be embraced by later editions, most notably in the D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game (or Gamma World, Seventh Edition) and arguably in what is its spiritual successor, Goodman Games’ Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic.

Often regarded as the definitive version of the roleplaying game, Gamma World, Second Edition is definitely the classic version and the version that introduced its post-apocalyptic setting and the post-apocalyptic genre to a wider audience.

Best of... White Dwarf Scenarios

Before the advent of the internet, the magazine was the focus of the hobby’s attention, a platform in whose pages could be news, reviews, and content for the roleplaying game of each reader’s choice, as well as a classified section and a letters page where the issues of day—or at least month—could be raised and discussed in chronically lengthy manner. In this way, such magazines as White Dwarf, Imagine, Dragon, and many others since, came to be our community’s focal point and sounding board, especially a magazine that was long running. Yet depending upon when you entered the hobby and picked up your first issue of a roleplaying magazine, you could have missed a mere handful of issues or many. Which would have left you wondering what was in those prior issues. Today, tracking down back issues to find out and complete a magazine’s run is much easier than it was then, but many publishers offered another solution—the ‘Best of…’ magazine. This was a compilation of curated articles and support, containing the best content to have appeared in the magazine’s pages.

1980 got the format off to a good start with both The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios and The Best of White Dwarf Articles from Games Workshop as well as the Best of Dragon from TSR, Inc. Both publishers would release further volumes of all three series, and TSR, Inc. would also reprint its volumes. Other publishers have published similar volumes and in more recent times, creators in the Old School Renaissance have begun to collate and collect content despite the relative youth of that movement. This includes The Gongfarmer’s Almanac which has collected community content for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game since 2015 and Populated Hexes Monthly Year One which collected the content from the Populated Hexes Monthly fanzine. The ‘Best of…’ series of reviews will look at these and many of the curated and compiled titles from the last four decades of roleplaying.

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The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios was published in 1980. Unlike its counterpart, The Best of White Dwarf Articles, it did not have the benefit of containing “Selected material from the first 3 years of White Dwarf”. Where The Best of White Dwarf Articles could draw from White Dwarf Issue No. 1 to White Dwarf Issue No. 20, the first scenario its pages only appeared in White Dwarf Issue No. 9 with ‘The Lichway’. Prior to that, the dungeon encounter, ‘Lair of the Demon Queen’ whish appeared in White Dwarf Issue No. 7 and ‘A Place in the Wilderness’ in White Dwarf Issue No. 11, and although both are included in this anthology, neither are scenarios in the strict roleplaying definition. However, within a few issues of ‘The Lichway’ being published, scenarios would become a regular feature of White Dwarf and grow in both detail and sophistication. Further, unlike The Best of White Dwarf Articles, the range of roleplaying games supported by The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios is not limited to just Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller. There are scenarios for RuneQuest, Gamma World, and Chivalry & Socerery, and like Ian Livingstone pointed out in his editorial, “Readers should also bear in mind that with a little thought, these adventures can be used in games systems other than the others for they were designed; the Pool of the Standing Stones, for example has been successfully converted to C&S.” Indeed, many of the scenarios in The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios are not just playable to today, they can still be converted and updated to more modern roleplaying games or updated iterations of older roleplaying games. Consequently, the contents of The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios are far more applicable and useable today than the contents of The Best of White Dwarf Articles.

The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios opens with the magnificent ‘The Halls of Tizun Thane’ for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, from White Dwarf Issue No. 18. Written by Albie Fiore, its title is inspired by Robert E. Howard’s ‘The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune’ and there are references too to other stories by Howard throughout the scenario. Yet, the Swords & Sorcery influences are trumped by the Vancian tone, this scenario feeling as if comes from the pages of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth novels. There are nods too, to other content from White Dwarf, such as the lamented Houri Class from White Dwarf Issue No. 13 (republished in The Best of White Dwarf Articles) and the Necromancer Class, which would not be published until White Dwarf Issue No. 35! The adventure itself sees a village in peril from strange shadowy figures that hunt and kill at night and the villagers are sure come from the nearby mansion of Tizun Thane, a wizard who lives with his two brothers. The mansion itself is located in the middle of a lake in the caldera of a volcano, a palace of exotic delights full of secret doors and mysteries alongside the mundane areas where his servants worked. However, the Player Characters will quickly learn that he is dead and consequently, the household has descended into rivalry and factionalism as the brothers feud with each other, whilst the murderer lurks, lamenting his actions. There are new monsters, like the chimpanzee-like Nandie-Bear, run riot over the mansion’s rooftops; Carbuncle, an armadillo-like creature which will foretell the future of the Player Characters again and again for the fun of it and the chaos it will cause; the death-worm-like Necrophidius; the brain-eating, Wendigo-like, Gu’en-deeko.

However, it is the map of the mansion that so clearly stands out, richly detailed and interesting. Combine it with the description and what the Dungeon Master has, is a building which before it began to go to seed, was lived and worked in, so lacks the artifice that a dungeon adventure would have by comparison. It is a tough adventure for First and Second Level Player Characters, especially given that the threat endangering the villagers are not ones that the Player Characters can really affect. Even if they do manage to find magic weapons capable of inflicting damage, they are incredibly tough. ‘The Halls of Tizun Thane’ is a great scenario, a superb mix of rich detail, lovely cartography, and roleplaying potential with its factionalism and decent NPCs. There is even scope to expand the scenario via the previous owner’s set of magic mirrors which the Player Characters could learn to use and travel back and forth on various adventures. They would, of course, have to claim the house and make it their own. To effectively run the scenario, the Dungeon Master will need to unpack it as part of her preparation, but ‘The Halls of Tizun Thane’ is almost worth the price of admission in The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios.

Unfortunately, John Bethell’s ‘Lair of the White Wyrm’ is not. Originally published in White Dwarf Issue No. 14 for use with RuneQuest, it details a former two-level Dragonewt colony which is rumoured to have harboured a young Wyrm. The problem is that the dungeon is zoo-like in its design, with a mixture of traps and differing creatures present without making any real sense. There are Dwarves, Dark Trolls and Trollkin, Scorpionmen (oddly chained up in a five-foot wide corridor, whilst still leaving for the Player Characters to get past), Broo, and a Duck played for silliness. It is mishmash of elements which really do not fit the setting and really lack motivation.

First published in White Dwarf Issue No. 16, ‘Paths of the Lil’ is the sole entry for use with Gamma World. Written by James M. Ward, designer of Metamorphosis Alpha and co-designer of Gamma World, this details the lair of diminutive Lil, an almost fae-like species known for their beauty, the toughness of their wings, and their willingness to defend their lairs, which consist of dense thickets of brambles covered in surprisingly sharp thorns. Assaulting the ‘Paths of the Lil’ would be a tough challenge and the Player Characters would really need a good reason to do so. The encounter is decently detailed though and could easily be added to a Game Master’s Gamma World campaign, perhaps adding the ‘Paths of the Lil’ and its occupants as a faction rather than an enemy straight off.

The second of the scenarios in the anthology for RuneQuest is also the first of two scenarios taken from the pages of White Dwarf Issue No. 19. ‘Jorthan’s Rescue’ by John T. Sapienza Jr. and Stephen R. Marsh is a raid or rescue style scenario in which the Player Characters are hired by a merchant to rescue her noble husband, who has been kidnapped by a gang of Trollkin and is holding him to ransom. The Player Characters simply have to sneak up on the abandoned hunting lodge where the Trollkin are holding Jorthan and bust him out. The gang consists in the main of Trollkin, but they are led by a Dark Troll bruiser and secretly, his mate of choice. The emphasis is upon combat as the Player Characters fight their way through the lodge, and whilst the Trollkin are not dangerous individually, there are quite a few of them. The scenario packs not just a lot of stats—this being a scenario for RuneQuest 2 and so every monster gets full stats—into its pages, but quite a bit of detail and humour too. For example, the Trollkin guarding the front door is called Sleepy and he will be woken up when the spear he has leaning against the door is knocked over. The scenario also comes with an alternative layout for a different set-up. Overall, the scenario feels slightly too compact for all of the information it has to present, but again, it is easy to use and easy to adapt, especially for the RuneQuest Game Master who wants to move it from the suggested location of between Boldhome and the Pavis Rubble. (Indeed, this is exactly what I did with the version updated for use with RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha). Overall, a very playable and exciting little scenario.

Lew Pulsipher—a regular contributor to White Dwarf who already had articles published in The Best of White Dwarf Articles—contributes two scenarios to The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios. The first is ‘A Bar-Room Brawl: D&D Style’ from White Dwarf Issue No. 11. This opens with a nice bit of background to the scenario ion that it was originally run at DragonMeet 1 all the way back in August 1978, as a convention scenario. Combine the map with some miniatures for both the brawlers and the fixtures and fittings of the tavern, and this would, indeed, look like quite impressive on the table at a convention. Stated for use with Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition, it packs everything that the Dungeon Master needs into three pages. This includes—in the centrespread of The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios—the open floorplan of the tavern, furniture and fixtures to cut out and use on the floorplan, and details and tokens for some fifteen would-be brawlers. This includes a wererat, a Female Assassin, Gnoll bouncer, Anticleric, and Bar-Keeper, as well as a mix of adventurer types, plus the rest of the NPC staff. All of the Player Characters have motivations, such as the Wererat wanting to kill all clerics, the Ranger on the track of a Wererat, a Female Fighter with a hatred of non-humans, the Gnoll is a bouncer—only armed with a two-handed sword, and so on. The scenario also incudes some play results, but unfortunately it is also let down by the motivation for the Anticleric. This is, “You want a woman, either voluntarily or by rape. (Time required for the act is at least two rounds, not including time necessary to remove your armour.)” This reprehensibly unpleasant, more so than the inclusion of the Houri Class in The Best of White Dwarf Articles. These days such a thing would not be allowed and rightly so, but its inclusion here and in White Dwarf Issue No. 11 was a sign that the editors did not get everything right at the time.

Fortunately, the second entry from Lew Pulsipher is not as unpleasant, but is not really a scenario. ‘A Place in the Wilderness’ appeared in White Dwarf Issue No. 6 and what it details are the species of Dragons from the Jack Vance novel, The Dragon Masters, and a very little of the setting. It does not include the full Science Fiction elements of the setting, such as spaceships or beam or pellet weapons, but just the Dragons. Even at a page long, it feels out of place in the anthology, more article than scenario.

There is a certain sense of loss to Don Turnbull’s contribution to The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios, of what would be, had we had had access to his Greenlands dungeon. ‘Lair of the Demon Queen’ from White Dwarf Issue No. 7 details a single encounter for use with Dungeons & Dragons and Player Characters of roughly Seventh Level—a rare occurrence of a scenario not designed for low-level Player Characters. It is a puzzle encounter with the Player Characters trapped in a room with a number of puzzles the clues to which are given out by a series of magic mouths in verse form. It only does this three times, so that players had better pay attention. By deciphering the verse, the Player Characters can solve the puzzle, or at least set off the various traps without suffering any damage, revealing a number of hidden areas as they progress. Most of these contain a mix of treasure and undead—often quite nasty undead, ultimately leading to the release of the ‘Demon Queen’ herself. Turnbull does give as so much suggest monsters and populate the encounter, and for the ‘Demon Queen’ he suggests a Banshee and a much nastier one than would appear in Dungeons & Dragons. This one cannot die unless someone dies first, that is, one of the Player Characters. The rewards he suggests are rich indeed, but are they worth the loss of a Player Character (or if the players are amoral, of a hireling)? The encounter is written in an engaging and chatty style and provides a big challenge for both characters and players.

The only scenario for Traveller in The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios is ‘The Sable Rose Affair’. Bob McWilliams’ scenario originally appeared in White Dwarf Issue No. 17 and primarily takes place on the Alell, a high-law world in the Regina subsector of the Spinward Marches. There has been an outbreak of piracy across the subsector and the Imperial Galactic Survey’s Planetary Rescue Systems Inspectorate (or PRSI) have identified a man on Alell who is a front for the local government, which is a communist-style impersonal bureaucracy, which is ultimately behind the piracy. He owns a club, the Sable Rose, in the Journeyman’s Quarter of the planetary capital, Naness. The Player Characters, as members of a PRSI Task Force—several pre-generated Player Characters, all ex-army or ex-marine, are given—are tasked with infiltrating the club, locating the target, and extracting him from both club and off-world without arousing local suspicion. Besides the pre-generated Player Characters, the scenario includes a good set of maps and floorplans, and is notably, broken up into a series of short modules, graphically presented as a series of files strewn over a table. These are literally designed to be modular, so that there are some for the players’ eyes and some only for the Game Master. There are suggestions on how the scenario can be played out with two sets of Player Characters, one the PRSI Task Force and one the staff and head of the club. Either way, this a very nicely detailed one-shot, but also easy to fit into a more-military-focused campaign, a type which Traveller readily supported with Book 4: Mercenary.

‘Grakt’s Crag’ by Will Stephenson appeared in appeared in White Dwarf Issue No. 20 and is a scenario for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition for Third Level Player Characters. It details the tomb of a long dead king and his queen, and until recently, no one had managed to break into it. The Player Characters will discover as they explore the tomb, either through the original entrance or the entrances dug by the intruder. He has also hired guards to keep others, like the Player Characters, out. As a tomb, the scenario is linear and filled with traps—many of which are deadly—and puzzles, including a series weighted and unweighted elevator plates, different each time, that the Player Characters must overcome. Overall, it is a serviceable enough dungeon that will test the players and their characters.

‘Ogre Hunt’ by Tom Keenes is the single scenario for Chivalry & Sorcery. The second scenario to appear in White Dwarf Issue No. 19, this is designed for four to seven low-level Player Characters and is set in the forest and valley near of the quiet village of Harlow, on the southern border of Arden in the Southmarch region. Conflict between the Empire of Archaeron and Arden means that the local lord and his men are away, leaving the village defenceless and open to the predations of an ogre. The Player Characters are hired to track the threat down and deal with it. ‘Ogre Hunt’ is short and simple, a one-session affair that essentially points the Player Characters in the right direction after encounters with a couple of NPCs. Here there are opportunities for roleplaying before the confrontation with the ogre, but the overall simplicity, along with the scenario being just two pages, makes it easy to run and easy to adapt to the setting or system of the Game Master’s choice. The only issue is that the maps are too dark in places to be able to find certain locations, but otherwise, ‘Ogre Hunt’ is still very playable and very adaptable.

If ‘The Halls of Tizun Thane’ is almost worth the price of admission in The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios, then ‘The Lichway’ caps that and together, both are worth the price of admission alone. Originally appearing in White Dwarf Issue No. 9, this is another scenario by Albie Fiore and again it is another classic. Designed for a party of First level Player Characters for Dungeons & Dragons, it describes a large burial complex where an ancient people entombed their dead. The complex has long since been abandoned and its builders long since disappeared, but it contains promise of treasure and bounty on a wizard of ill repute. At its heart is one big trap. Set the trap off and the Player Characters will unleash a problem not just for themselves, but the surrounding area, much like Death Frost Doom did for Lamentations of the Flame Princess Weird Fantasy Roleplaying in 2009. Surrounding this central trap, which the Player Characters really have to be proactive in order to set off, are the halls of the Lichway and its surrounding rooms. Here the Player Characters will find a variety of dangers, including several NPCs, all simply and easily presented and very easy for the Dungeon Master to bring into play. A favourite NPC is a would-be wizard who is absolutely useless at everything, but still under the effects of a Charm spell. So, he will be incredibly helpful, just not any good at it! However, there is the strong inference that one of the NPCs has been raping another whom he is holding prisoner. Now this is not quite as bad having to roleplay a character who is prepared to commit rape as in the earlier ‘A Bar-Room Brawl: D&D Style’, but that in no way makes it any good as a story element. Again, it is proof that times and attitudes have changed, ‘The Lichway’ originally having been published forty-five years ago, and that the editors of White Dwarf did not always get it right. That said, adjust or change this aspect of the interaction between the NPCs, and ‘The Lichway’ is still a very good adventure. In fact, like ‘The Halls of Tizun Thane’, it is a great adventure with an eerie feel to it as sound whistles around the halls of the complex and NPCs plot and plan from its side rooms.

Lastly, ‘Pool of the Standing Stones’ is an adventure for Dungeons & Dragons for Player Characters of Fifth and Sixth Level. Written by Bill Howard and published in White Dwarf Issue No. 12., it begins in odd fashion, with the Player Characters coming to the aid of a law-abiding village who had several of its young women abducted by a druid. This is because he believed the village to be too Lawful, so introduced some balancing Chaos with the abduction. Deal with him and potentially, they will find something else, a complex dedicated to evil. The resulting dungeon is a nicely detailed complex, home to some vile characters and elements. However, one of the NPCs does wear armour adapted for the molestation of women. Again, not as bad having to roleplay a character who is prepared to commit rape as in the earlier ‘A Bar-Room Brawl: D&D Style’, but that in no way makes it any good as a story element, even though in this case, it is not quite as explicit.

As with The Best of White Dwarf Articles, there is one last aspect of The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios to enjoy and that is the adverts. There is a sense of nostalgia and wonder in examining these adverts from the past, for shops that have long since closed down such as Dungeons & Starships or Forever People and for products long out of print, Ral Patha’s board games—Witch’s Cauldron, Final Frontier, Galactic Grenadiers, and Caverns Deep, and then Metagaming’s The Fantasy Trip.

Physically, The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios is cleanly, tidily presented. The Conan-esque, Frazetta-style cover by Steve Brown is great and whilst there is less artwork in the anthology than in The Best of White Dwarf Articles, there is more cartography and this is almost all uniformly great.

The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios is undoubtedly a great anthology of scenarios. It is not perfect, some entries are not really scenarios and some are merely fine, but the best, ‘The Halls of Tizun Thane’ and ‘The Lichway’ standout as great pieces of both scenario and adventure design. Together, they are worth the price of a copy of The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios—both in 1980 at time of publication and now. What spoils the adventures slightly are the prurient, unfortunate, and unnecessary references to the poor treatment of women in even some of the great scenarios in the anthology. And only ‘slightly’ because such references can be removed and something else placed in their stead with only minor adjustments when it comes to updating the scenarios, and because times and attitudes do change. Of course, there is also the element of nostalgia in returning to these scenarios and reading and playing through them again, but in so many cases, that nostalgia is warranted. The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios was an excellent anthology of scenarios in 1980, showcasing how quickly White Dwarf had matured and developed in terms of adventure design and sophistication within just fifteen issues, and even putting nostalgia aside, it is still a great anthology of scenarios. For the British roleplayer of a certain age, there can be no doubt that The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios was and remains the definitive anthology of the best content from either White Dwarf or any roleplaying magazine compilation. 

Maglev Mutant Mystery

Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is the fourteenth release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. Designed for Second Level player characters, what this means is that—just like Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths before it—Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is not a Character Funnel, one of the signature features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. By the time the Player Characters in Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain have reached Second Level, they will have had numerous adventures, should have understanding as to how both their mutant powers and how at least some of the various weapons, devices, and artefacts of the Ancients they have found work and can use on their future adventures.

Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain takes the Player Characters in a totally unexpected direction, quite literally, but not an unprecedented one. The scenario opens with the village elders summoning the Player Characters before the tribal council. A fellow tribe member, agitatedly reports that she and her hut-mate were attacked by several Sk’wik, the notoriously violent worm-folk which turn everything into a charnel heap that they constantly stir. (It is notable that the Sk’wik are very much like the mysterious worm-like race known as the Sathar from Star Frontiers.) The Player Characters are tasked with returning to the site of the attack and burn out the nest before the Sk’wik spread and threaten the village. The Player Characters quickly locate the nest and after killing the horrid worm-things, find themselves in a cavern of the Ancients. Investigating further, they discover a metal door and beyond that a metal tube of the Ancients, and if the Player Characters have played through the scenario, ‘Assault on the Sky-High Tower’, the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic core rule book, then they will have been here before! That scenario involves a journey by tube train, not too dissimilar to the journey they are about to make. The scenario is also just a little like that of Mutant Crawl Classics #6: The Apocalypse Ark being set aboard a moving vehicle.

All of the action of the scenario—and the scenario is very action orientated—takes place aboard a runaway Maglev train, still intent on completing its timetable and reaching its next destination at its best possible speed. Or rather, as it turns out, the worst speed possible! At first, the journey seems to going well, but the virtual Conductor becomes increasingly jittery and uncertain until she explains the other A.I. aboard the Maglev train, the Engineer is following its programming to the letter and refusing all attempts at communication. As the Maglev speeds up, it begins to buck and rock as the repulsor on one of its forward carriages begins to fail. As the Maglev hurtles towards its next destination, the Conductor asks the Player Characters to help save the train and go forward to the ‘bridge’ and deal with the Engineer.

Cue all of the classic train shenanigans—only on a Maglev! Do the Player Characters have to climb onto the roof of the train? Are they shot at whilst atop the train? Do they have to inch their way along the undercarriage of the train? Do they have a fight with the Rail Marshal-Bot? The answer is yes to all of questions and more!

Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is a short adventure. Action-packed, but short. It is designed to provide a means to getting the Player Characters a long way away from their village to somewhere possibly more interesting. In the standard Mutant Crawl Classics set-up, the Player Characters rarely get that far from their base village, going out and back again to deal with issues and threats the tribe faces. Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain gets the Player Characters far away and hopefully somewhere interesting.

In addition to the floorplans of the Maglev, the scenario includes several new artefacts. The most fun of these is ‘Ocean Apes Insta-Pet’, an entertaining update of sea monkeys!

Physically, behind a suitably action-packed cover, complete with a metallic logo, Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is cleanly and tidily laid out, clearly written, and decently illustrated. As already mentioned, the maps are really nicely done.

Mutant Crawl Classics #14: Mayhem on the Magtrain is an action movie of a scenario. It is fun, fast, and furiously thrilling, and both the players and the Judge will enjoy playing this in between longer, more involving scenarios.

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Goodman Games will be at UK Games Expo

from Friday 2nd to Sunday 4th, 2023.

Maritime Mutant Mystery

Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is the thirteenth release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. Designed for Second Level player characters, what this means is that Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is not a Character Funnel, one of the signature features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. By the time the Player Characters in Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths have reached Second Level, they will have had numerous adventures, should have understanding as to how both their mutant powers and how at least some of the various weapons, devices, and artefacts of the Ancients they have found work and can use on their future adventures.

Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths takes the Player Characters in a totally unexpected direction—under the sea—but begins in assuming fashion with the party travelling somewhere. The where is not important, but it means that the scenario is easy to set up or add to a campaign, because essentially, it is a side trek adventure. An interesting and engaging side trek adventure, but a side trek adventure nevertheless. On the journey, the Player Characters come across a small tubular building in a clearing which is clearly built by the Ancients and is being ransacked for artefacts by a band of the mutated humanoids known as Tri-eyes. After persuading the Tri-eyes to leave, whether through force or bribery, the Player Characters have  the opportunity to investigate themselves and hopefully find some useful devices left over from the Great Disaster which befell the Ancients. Unfortunately, their curiosity and their greed first gets them trapped, and then flings them into great danger.

Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths will pull the Player Characters out of their comfort zone, because it takes place entirely under the sea and on the ocean floor. This is an environment which the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game has not yet explored, so no one has any idea idea of what the undersea world of Terra A.D. is like—both in-game and out of game—until now. What is revealed is the undersea world was only beginning to be explored and inhabited before the Great Disaster, and much like the world above, the seas of Terra were affected by the nuclear, biological, chemical, nanotech, and other weapons of mass destruction used in the Great Disaster. However, it took a lot longer, being protected initially by the oceans. Like the world above though, there remains pockets and outposts of civilisation from before the Great Disaster, and it is to one of these that the Player Characters find themselves in what should be an epic opening scene.

Many of the adventures for the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game combine a mix of exploration and combat, often in what are the isolated remains of buildings, facilities, outposts, stations, bunkers, museums, and the like of the future, now long in the past of Terra A.D. Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths does this too, but it differs because it involves a plot and a number of tasks which the Player Characters must complete in order to finish the scenario, survive, and save the world. Consequently, the scenario feels more proactive, providing the Player Character with objectives and things to do, rather than just exploration and extermination.

The Player Characters find themselves  in an undersea outpost, partially flooded and only partially operational. They will find themselves sloshing through half-lit and darkened rooms, in a series of mini-quests. The first of which is restoring power, the second holding off an attack against invading forces, and the third preventing a further invasion—not just of the undersea outpost, but the whole of the surface world of Terra A.D.! Throughout, the Player Characters are guided by the A.I. which runs the outpost, a surprisingly benign presence in comparison to other computer intelligences found in the world of Terra A.D. (Or Science Fiction in general, especially post apocalyptic Science Fiction.) She—and it is a a she—impresses upon the Player Characters that time is short and invasion from the depths below is imminent.

Thus Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is played out in several steps, beginning with what is effecting the abduction of the Player Characters by the A.I. of the outpost. Then following an explanation, exploration of the outpost’s various levels to find the means to restore power—the latter involving an excursion along the seabed, followed by the defence of the outpost and then the attack on the invaders. Consequently, the scenario is really written in two halves. The first details the outpost itself, whilst the second the events which propel the scenario’s plot forward, culminating hopefully in the successful defeat of the invasion and saving of both outpost and life on Terra A.D. itself!

Both the outpost and the A.I. itself are described in some detail, the latter important because she is a major NPC in the scenario. The outpost is mapped out in pleasing detail, including wavy grid lines rather than straight to indicate locations which are under several feet of water. It is a lovely touch. If perhaps there is an issue with the scenario, it is that the outpost A.I. advises the Player Characters on much of what works and how, aboard the outpost, replacing the usual artifact checks of the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. In some ways, this unavoidable, since there is so much in the outpost that the Player Characters have to know how to work in order to complete the scenario and if the players have to roll, there is a chance of failure.  Another issue of course, is that the scenario opens a whole new world in the form of the subsea environment, but never goes beyond the outpost. Hopefully this world will further detailed in a future supplement or sequel scenario.

Physically, behind a suitably briny cover, Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is cleanly and tidily laid out, clearly written, and decently illustrated. As already mentioned, the maps are really nicely done.

Mutant Crawl Classics #13: Into The Glowing Depths is a real change of pace and environment for the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game. As a side trek scenario, it is really easy to add to a campaign, but it is also a thoroughly engaging scenario for both player and Judge, opening up a whole new world in Terra A.D., one which will hopefully be revisited again in Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, as there really is a lot to explore.

Manimal Madness

Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack is the eleventh release for Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic, the spiritual successor to Gamma World published by Goodman Games. Designed for Second Level player characters, what this means is that Mutant Crawl Classics 12: When Manimals Attack is not a Character Funnel, one of the signature features of both the Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game and the Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game it is mechanically based upon—in which initially, a player is expected to roll up three or four Level Zero characters and have them play through a generally nasty, deadly adventure, which surviving will prove a challenge. Those that do survive receive enough Experience Points to advance to First Level and gain all of the advantages of their Class. In terms of the setting, known as Terra A.D., or ‘Terra After Disaster’, this is a ‘Rite of Passage’ and in Mutants, Manimals, and Plantients, the stress of it will trigger ‘Metagenesis’, their DNA expressing itself and their mutations blossoming forth. By the time the Player Characters in Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack have reached Second Level, they will have had numerous adventures, should have understanding as to how their mutant powers and how at least some of the various weapons, devices, and artefacts of the Ancients they have found work and can use on their future adventures.

Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack begins with the Player Characters coming to the rescue of a young Manimal, who has been chased up a tree by some ravenous preyor beasts. They will learn that although she cannot talk very much, her name is ‘Anji’. She is friendly, seems fascinated by the village’s sole pure Strain Human, and despite her Mustelid appearance, claims she comes she is ‘ooman’ and that she comes from the fabled lands of ‘tsoo’. She seems to settle into the Player Characters’ village, but in the middle of the night attackers loom out of the darkness, setting hut after hut alight. In the morning, the tracks are easy to find—with signs of something apelike, something feline, and something unknown—and lead out into the jungle. Barring an encounter or two, the Player Characters are able to follow the tracks back to a large domed structure. On the side can be seen the word, ‘ZUU’.

The scenario assumes that the most likely approach the Player Characters will take is stealth, following Anji’s escape route out of the ‘tsoo’ back to within its confines. There they find themselves not in a building as such but a stretch of open grasslands, the sky a different colour… Once they have dealt with the robots informing visitors that park is a closed and they are trespassing and that any Manimals are in the wrong zone, interacting with the Manimals will reveal the situation. They are trapped in a habitant, ruled over by the Savage One and his brutal guards, but it was the Savage One who made them stronger and better than they were. Finding out further information means breaking out of this one habitant and into the others, and there is some fun to be had seeing the Player Characters exploring some radically different climes than the ones they are used to. It is interesting to see the Player Characters challenged in this. Ultimately, they will be able to determine what is going on at the ‘ZUU’, and either rescue or free the numerous Manimals in its various habitats.

Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack is a short scenario, emphasising stealth and investigation in preparation for a confrontation with the Savage One and his brutal guards. The strangely bestial creature has plans for more than just the ‘ZUU’, wanting to convert Terrans of all types into the Manimals they were meant to be. He certainly has the means to do so. The scenario is reminiscent of H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau as well as two Cryptic Alliances from Gamma World—the ‘Zoopremisists’ and ‘The Ranks of the Fit’. They are not the same of course, but there are similarities. The scenario is, though, about confronting and fighting the supremacy of one species type over another in the world of Terra A.D. It should be no surprise that the Savage One is portrayed as a supremacist monster and certainly as a monster by the artist, Kelly Jones, on the front cover of the module.

Physically, Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack is cleanly and tidily laid out. As you would expect for a book from Goodman Games, the scenario—especially its locations—is highly detailed and is given a decent piece of cartography. However, the Savage One is illustrated not once, but three times if the cover is included, and it is too much. Ideally, an illustration and even a map—after all, it would have had a visitors’ map before the Great Disaster—of the ‘ZUU’ could have been included as handouts, both of them helping to enhance and improve game play.

Mutant Crawl Classics #12: When Manimals Attack is decent scenario which should provide two good sessions worth of play or so. Full of detail, it which presents an interesting confrontation for Manimal Player Characters in particular.