Tags
deadEarth, deadOttawa, Goblinoid Games, Mutant Future, Post Apocalyptic, postaday2011, RPG, turducken of stupid
In the last post about deadOttawa, I rolled up a variety of wildlife to make deadOttawa feel unique. I used the animal tables from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness to determine the base stock for the two predators, one pack animal, one herd animal and one dogsled pulling animal that I will be using to make my setting feel unique.
This is something I recommend to anyone setting up a post-apocalyptic game in a system that uses lots of rampant mutations. Instead of using a full Monster Manual worth of mutants for your game, pick a few that fill specific niches and use them primarily during play. This gives your game environment a distinct feel – and allows the characters to learn about the local wildlife either through trial and error, or by asking around about the main local wildlife. Think about games like the Fallout series – part of the feel of the setting is the damn radscorpions and deathclaws that lurk in the ruins of tomorrow. By filling these niches in my own game, I’m hoping that the players will remember deadOttawa for more than the sheer horror of trying to play it using the deadEarth RPG system.
So, back to the animals. I rolled up a Crocodile, 2 Dogs, an Otter and a Mountain Lion. I immediately put the Crocodile into one of the two predator niches I had open (see my prior post regarding Inquisitor Crocodiles for more information on them). So that leaves me with one predator, one pack animal, one food/herd animal, and one dog sled animal.
First of all, I need to distinguish between the two dogs. So off to the Radiation Manipulation tables to see what I get.
Dog 1
- 858 – Deterioration of the Mind
- 259 – Sunburn
- 083 – Hercules
- 075 – Imprison
- 966 – Grotesque (gives Lesions, Pustules, Boils and Pocks)
- 972 – Restraint (can’t have more radiations than renown)
- 766 – No Regrets (can roll for a new radiation whenever he wants, gains 20 skill points per roll)
Ok, dog 2 loses Imprison and Restraint and becomes MutaPacks. Packs of hideous sickly mutated dogs that mutate rapidly and can fill any role I need as wasteland predators since I can throw any radiation I want on them. Awesome.
Dog 1 becomes a herd animal that has to be kept in barns or under some sort of shelter because they die if left out in the sun (fortunately there’s not that much sun in post-war Canada). Plus, by the time they are a year old, they can’t even remember how to do ANYTHING. I’ll call them Herculeans or Mighty Hounds. So a primary meat source is dog. Perfectly post-apocalyptic. Mmm…Herculean Dog Burgers!
Translating these two dogs into Mutant Future is quick and painless, mostly.
MutaPacks
No Enc: 1d10 (2d20)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 120′ (40′)
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 3
Attacks: 1 (Bite)
Damage: 1d8
Save: L2
Morale: 8
Hoard Class: None
These hideously mutated canines come from all forms of domestic dog breeds, interbred and mutated into sickly, grotesque creatures covered in lesions, boils and pustules. Cunning creatures aware of their own frailty compared to most wasteland creatures, they hunt in packs as much as possible. They mutate at an alarming rate, particularly when under stress, and seem to revel in it. A mutapack dog can roll on the following table whenever the Mutant Lord so wishes, and the mutapack dog gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls for the next turn after such a mutation. Any MutaPack with six or more members has an alpha leader with 4 HD and with 1d4 beneficial physical mutations already. MutaPacks also provide a vehicle for the Mutant Lord to introduce a creature with any particular mutation he wishes for an encounter, under the assumption that the MutaPack dog in question had mutated previously.
MutaPack Mutations (roll 1d6)
- Deadly Mutation – mutapack dog explodes, ruptures, or just keels over quite dead.
- Minor Physical Mutation – as Bizarre Appearance physical drawback.
- Minor Physical Mutation – as Bizarre Appearance physical drawback.
- Major Physical Mutation – as Aberrant Form physical mutation.
- Physical Mutation – roll on Physical Mutations table.
- Mental Mutation – roll on Mental Mutations table.
No Enc: 1d6 (2d12)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 150′ (50′)
Armor Class: 7
Hit Dice: 4
Attacks: 1 (Bite)
Damage: 2d8
Save: L2
Morale: 6
Hoard Class: None
These mutant huskies have become a standard food animal in the wastelands of the Great Lakes regions. When born, hercules dogs appear to be nothing more than large albino pre-war dogs. However, they rapidly grow in size while their brains atrophy. By the time they are a year old, the average hercules dog is 250 pounds, incredibly strong, and has lost most upper brain functions. By the age of 2, the brain damage is severe enough to prevent even most autonomic functions – typically killing the hercules dog when it “forgets” how to breathe. As such, hercules dogs have become a standard source of meat for wastelanders. They are well-adapted to the cold climate, but their albinism makes them require shelter during the day. If they weren’t so miserably stupid they would be a frightening nocturnal pack hunter, but instead they have become mostly docile food sources. The stats given above are for a typical year-old hercules dog – still young enough to be able to get angry and defend itself against predators or to flip out and try to kill it’s owners. Not only do they suffer the typical -2 penalty to hit in bright daylight from their albinism, but hercules dogs also suffer 1d3 damage per hour of exposure to direct sunlight.
I absolutely love them. Please keep this stuff coming.
I think fighting those mutapacks would be exciting. And food-dogs do really make for a post-apocalyptic flavour! 😀
I’ve been thinking this over. You are a bright person who seems relatively balanced aside from a profound madness when it comes to maps. As a person who collects a wide range of role playing games and is interested in the good ideas within them… why are you doing this with this game?
I mean, you’ve got some games that must seem “best” to you, and another whole tier of good games. For each game that is interesting, there are several campaign possibilities. I view my time at a game table with breathing players actually telling stories together to be premium, compared to my time strip-mining half-good game resources to enrich my focus games.
So… for a system that you have (in my mind) demonstrated is profoundly flawed, why invest in doing a campaign there when you could do a campaign in so much more awesome territory?
Why?
Because we were hoping beyond hope to have something astounding spring out at us in play.
Also, it is providing to be a great springboard for writing other post-apocalyptic stuff – like converting this crap into Mutant Future.
I get that it is neat to come up with ideas in various systems, but when it comes to running the game, to making characters you want to play, to investing in statting up interactions for the PCs, it seems to me it would be good to do the “convert” part to get wacky ideas into a good system, rather than using better game systems to generate content for a goofy system just to add that goofy spin to them.
I’d rather do some off the cuff rolling to generate ideas from a broken system that I could convert for a working system, than generate good ideas and saddle them with the baggage of a broken system.
Still, this is musing on my part, not any kind of attempt at persuasion and so on. People should do what they want to at their own game tables. I still don’t understand, but I do hope that it is a great time for all! Thank you for sharing with us.
You are an artist.
To those who do not understand the beauty of using deadEarth, you are the same as those who go into a museum of fine art and declare it boring. A radioactive pox upon you all!