 Goto [ Index ] |
Blurb from the publisher: 'The solar system is a roaring maelstrom of death and war.
The inner planets have been swept clean by the violent onslaught of the dark legion�s monstrous hordes and undead soldiers.
In the enormous cities of the distant future, heretics devoted to the destruction of mankind stalk the dark backstreets and gloomy alleys, spreading their teachings of greed, jealousy, and war.
Mutant Chronicles takes you on a full-throttle diesel-punk ride through a solar system beset by corporate intrigue and the invasion of the Dark Legion. With technology failing due to the insidious effects of the Dark Symmetry, mankind must fight back against the Dark Legion hordes whilst dealing with in-fighting and conspiracy.
Now, in this 3rd Edition of the definitive techno-fantasy roleplaying game, you can play during the early days of the Dark Symmetry, through to the brutal Corporate Wars. Investigate foul cults as technology turns against mankind, or fight the armies of the Dark Legion as they pour forth from citadels across the colonies in the battle for humanity�s future.
Complete 2d20 game system, including detailed character creation and cinematic roleplaying, plus full rules for spaceships and vehicles.
The present book contains:
Never-before-seen secrets of the Mutant Chronicles universe, and maps of the solar system and Luna City.
Insight in to the Dark Legion Apostles and their unique forces, tactics and plots, along with full stats for new and old monstrosities.
Briefings on the major corporations, Imperial, Bauhaus, Capitol, Mishima, and Cybertronic, as well as the Cartel, the Brotherhood, and Whitestar.
Guide to running adventures during the rise of the Dark Symmetry and first wars through to the return of the Dark Legion.'
What you get: Your EUR 59,99 or USD 61,99 buys you the luxurious, full-colour 496-page hardcover of Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game (henceforth: Mutant Chronicles), a rulebook and world book in one, that comes with a bound fabric bookmark and kicks off the Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition game line.
The pdf version alone costs EUR 17,99 or less than one third of that price. The electronic version is comprised of five different pdf files: a character sheet in high resolution and its printer-friendly brother, as well as a 496-page rulebook which includes all outer and inner covers of the print edition in one single file. This file however is repeated thrice: once for the full-throttle high resolution, once for the low resolution and once for the printer-friendly version whose pages lack background.
Contents: The third edition of Mutant Chronicles is an action-oriented, diesel-punk RPG based on the franchise of the same name which we have visited numerous times already in the reviews of the Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection miniatures game. The RPG was published in its first iteration in 1993 by Target Games, a Swedish company, spawning a franchise of collectible card games, miniature wargames, video games, novels, comic books, and a (b-)movie loosely based on the game world.
For those that do not care to read the miniatures reviews, the timeline of Mutant Chronicles is set in the 39th century. The storyline uses Year of the Cardinal as means of measurement after the 25th century. Mankind has colonised parts of the solar system and had started exploring its outermost reaches, namely Pluto and beyond. It is divided into five factions or megacorporations. Bauhaus is strongly reminiscent of Germany, knighthood and royal bloodlines based on heritage. Its look is utilitarian with minor references to German armies of both world wars, and unit names like Hussars, Etoiles Mortant, Vorreiters and Vulkan battlesuits. Capitol is strongly based on the USA. The corporation is about individualism, pride and profit, seeing how all its citizens are effectively its shareholders. Its units might or might not look like John Rambo, Starship Troopers, Ghosts from Starcraft with an attitude, or modern day shock troops with sci-fi toys. Imperial is a take on British and imperialist colonial forces, with some of the imagery evoking British uniforms and apparel from WWI. Titles like Brigadier, Trencher, Blood Berets and Golden Lions, along with emblems using the Union Jack and other Commonwealth imagery like the shamrock or the silver fern are the norm, while some inventive imagery reminiscent of Judge Dredd when it comes to the attire adds to the quirkiness of the smallest of megacorporations. Mishima is about Japan or Asia overall, and puts death before dishonour. Its names are taken straight from Japanese culture and history, while its suits are reminiscent of ninjas and samurais (with Iron Man nods in some cases). It is no coincidence that the members include dragon riders. Cybertronic is the youngest and the most audacious of the megacorps. It is not linked to a particular human culture, but instead plays on the stereotypes of enhanced bionics and transhumanity. It includes cybernetically enhanced humans like the Chasseurs, hybrid man-machine units like the Everassur, humans with prosthetics, as well as droids and robots which sometimes bear an uncanny resemblance to the Terminator sans flesh.
Additional factions of a smaller stature also exist. Whitestar is a take on Russian aristocracy which holds old Earth and adopts an isolationist stance. The Cartel is the UN of the megacorporations, fielding its own forces when necessary, while Luna PD is a true intercorporate organisation in the planet that is currently humanity�s heart and is controlled by no megacorp: the moon. Or, more precisely, Luna.
Following expansion into space and corporate greed, humanity unleashed the Dark Legion, the old paradigm of an otherworldly power which can be found in countless other games, movies and literature under many guises and which here is presented as the Dark Symmetry. It is a malevolent corrupting force towards both live tissue and technology, with never-ending forces of reanimated corpses, alien monstrosities, biomechanical hybrids and demonic blasphemies. The divided humanity was hit hard and was forced to regress. That was when the Brotherhood, the Inquisition in space, came in. Their imagery relates to Christianity but only as a token. Crusifiers, Inquisitors and Sacred Warriors proudly wear the merged cross/arrow emblem of the Brotherhood, which appears to be humanity's unifying force against the Dark Legion. Artificial Intelligence was abolished and the megacorporations opted for lower, incorruptible tech, fighting in tandem against the Dark Legion under the instructions of the Brotherhood. Of course, this does not mean that the human factions are all cute and friendly with one another.
There are three major timeframes in which a game can be set. The traditional one is the Dark Legion Era. This is the 39th century, taking the totality of the game�s background into account. That includes all the infighting between the human factions, the Corporate Wars, the formation of the Brotherhood and Cybertronic etc. An alternative to this timeframe is the Dark Symmetry era, the apex of human technology when AIs were abundant and humanity appeared to be the undisputed master of the universe (somewhere around the 26th century). That is when the Artefact was discovered in Pluto, when technology and flesh were irrevocably tainted by the Dark Symmetry. Depending on the actual year the GM will place his campaign at, some or all of the horrors might be unleashed, the tainted Dark Legion citadels might be a horrifying revelation or maddening recurrence, the Brotherhood might or might have not been created and established its foothold in the world, the First Corporate War might or might not have happened and so on and so forth. A third timeframe, Dark Eden, is not revealed in this product, it is however hinted that it is the final time period and the height of the conflict.
With such an incredible backstory, Mutant Chronicles can accommodate a wide range of adventures and campaigns. Military campaigns not dissimilar to its Warzone Resurrection wargaming brother? PI investigations in the biggest city mankind has ever seen? Conspiracy and politics intertwined with demonic ass-kicking? It�s all here. The book alone counts nine themes, from megacorp vs megacorp to employee vs megacorp to freelancer vs brotherhood and so on and so forth.
The 496-page hardcover is comprised of 41 chapters and eight appendices. Expect at least ten focused, specialised pages per megacorp and faction in its own chapter, as well as general information about it dispersed in other areas covering the history of the setting.
Mutant Chronicles uses Modiphius� proprietary 2d20 system, also to be seen in other games like the Infinity RPG and the Conan RPG. It is a roll-under mechanic utilising 2d20s as well as six-siders (where things happen only in rolls of 1, 2 and 6).
Each character has eight attributes: agility, awareness, coordination, intelligence, mental strength, personality, physique and strength. They range from 6 to 12 in the case of human characters (high number = good), and can be set either via dice or through a point-buy system. Character creation is called a Lifepath and involves eight decisions, so that the end result is a rounded character. The first is about setting the starting attributes. The second about the faction of birth and issues related to it like free languages, skills and talent. The third decision is about your status and any bonuses it might give you. Decision four covers the environment you grew up in and any additional skills you picked from there. Five is about your education, from growing on the streets, joining the clergy or being a manager. Six covers your primary career or careers; from unemployed to ship-crew to corporate personnel, it all gets useful one way or another. Seven is about iconic careers, representative of the great institutions across the solar system, which have particular prerequisites; that is how you can become a Heretic, a Blood Beret or a Venusian Marshal. Finally, on your eighth decision you can further customize your character. Mutant Chronicles has suggestions on how to have a more or less cinematic character creation as well as how to start a group cohesively from the very beginning.
Characters also possess general and advanced skills, expertise, focus, signature skills and talents. General skills come in trees, with clear prerequisites. Attributes and skills are added for tests, forming the Target Number (TN), which is the number that the player must roll equal to or lower than in one of the two d20s rolled. If the player has ranks of focus training in the skill, he generates additional success if he rolls equal to or less than the focus rank (usually a very low number). Rolling two dice allows for successful tests (seeing how only one success is needed in principle) with more varied results. The GM from his side can require more than one successes for a roll, depending on the difficulty of the situation. Repercussions are what happens in case of critical failures (unmodified 20 or within a range), when the GM can impose complications. The test still succeeds if the other roll was under the TN, yet something went partially wrong.
Players can pay in Dark Symmetry Points (DSP) to obtain additional d20s for checks that really matter. This is something that they will later find in front of them: the GM can use these points to spread corruption, summon reinforcements in fights, or inspire Dread to the characters. On the other hand, Chronicle Points (CP) can be used by the characters for an automatic success in a skill, extra actions, faster recovery, temporarily ignoring weaknesses or even story declarations that normally the GM would have done. Each player gets three at the beginning of each session, as well as a reward by the GM for role-playing, motivation etc. If a player has more successes than needed, he generates Momentum which can be used either immediately on the situation or saved up as Group Momentum for use in the very near future. Is starts dissipating dissipating if not used.
The setting is one of holding back the waves of corruption; equipment, locations and even people can (and will) be corrupted. Depending on the entity behind the corruption, devices might become cruel, locations become haunted while people gain supernatural gifts... ...at terrible costs.
Combat is abstracted. In each ten to twenty second round a player can do any number of free actions (like talking or dropping an item) and one standard action (like shooting or assembling a weapon), or a free, a restricted (like unjamming a weapon, moving within close range etc) and a standard action. During enemy actions a player can use response actions like dodging, parrying, guarding etc. Combat uses six hit locations (head, torso and the arms and legs) and wound levels (light, serious and critical). Mental health is as important as the physical one; the situations that characters are likely to find themselves into will strain their minds. Dread accumulates, and if left unchecked it will start translating into mental wounds and diminished performance.
MC also contains information on a swathe of subjects. Those studying the Art get supernatural spells in their fight against corruption and darkness. Vehicles, spacecrafts, weapons and armour, equipment and gear, as well as assets and belongings, it�s all here in either dry-list as well as narrative form where needed.
The book closes with appendices on pretty much everything, including a large number of tables clustered together for ease of use, condensed information on the mechanics of the game, character sheets, a rules and setting glossary and an extremely detailed index (very useful in the print edition). In an unparalleled act of class, the book closes with the list of names of all its kickstarter backers.
The strong points: I have never played the previous iterations of the Mutant Chronicles RPG, even though, as is apparent from my reviews, I have played (and continue to play) my fair share of the Mutant Chronicles Warzone Resurrection miniatures game.
Frankly, I can�t imagine how an RPG on this setting could have been made better.
Modiphius nailed and expanded the fluff that Prodos first worked on in the miniatures game. There are many, and I mean many, new pieces of information, revelations of how the world works in the 39th century (and before that), as well as twists and surprises. Easy examples: what the megacorps think of the other in quite the detail; factions that are not mentioned in the miniatures game like the White Star or the Luna PD; how everyday life might appear for those outside the military, and many more. In an approach that I have never encountered before, the book devotes two pages in setting info that is referred to in other parts of the book (namely: the history of the setting), and into which only the GM must have access. If you intend to play, there�s no looking at pages 26 and 27! That is a very clever and easy way to hand out cleared information while withholding some of the setting�s secrets.
You do not need to have any previous exposure to the setting to approach this book, be it through the minis game or through the upcoming Assault On The Citadel boardgame. Yes, there will be a boardgame within 2016 too, along with more than twenty RPG products that Modiphius plans for the line. Prodos Games from its side has some eleven packs of miniatures already out for the RPG alone, which are also compatible with the minis game as well. Talk about a combined attack on our wallets; support for the game is guaranteed for years to come. Needless to say, those that are involved in more than one games of the setting will find themselves at an advantage. My miniatures from Warzone Resurrection are fantastic visuals that can be used for instant immersion, while I will always have the possibility of transposing a big fight from the RPG to the minis game. Does this however make them indispensable? Not by a long shot.
This is an RPG, not another version of the minis game. Just look at the amount of narrative control the players and the GM have over the setting. DSPs and CPs are serious luck mitigators and can provide very entertaining narrative results when used cleverly. Idem for the Momentum mechanic. The dice are there, but only to facilitate for a story to be told. Even more so, the idea behind 2d20 helps narration to better blend into task resolution. The game does not hide some of its crunchiness (which I enjoy), like having multiple hit locations. On the other hand the setting demands that the game is played in two levels, the physical and the mental. Corruption loses its scare (and appeal) if it�s just numbers. Clever GMs will try to also scare the players, not only the characters, by what they will face. This is about descriptions, about plots, about narration, in a ludite, diesel-punk world. The goofy attires and gonzo attitude are optional.
Opposition can be as broad or as focused as you would like it to be. A noir campaign in Luna will have a fantastically different tone to a heavy-duty military campaign in the fringes of the solar system. Your group can zoom in or zoom out as much as you want. The megacorps might be something not very involved in your everyday life when the darkness starts creeping in, or you might be thick into the conspiracies and power brockerage not only of the megacorps but also the individuals that steer them. The levels of immersion are many and diverse, and all that without even factoring the sides you wish to take. Even more impornantly, you can do that whenever you want. When your faction waxes or when it wanes, at a time of hardship, or at its time of glory. There is no before or after; there is a timeline spanning thousands of years, and you can play whenever you wish. How many games can do that?
Mechanics-wise I admit I was partially unconvinced when learning 2d20, but lost any doubt when I saw it implemented. For someone that enjoys both crunchiness and narrative, the game has it all. The Dark Symmetry Dice are also a welcome addition, enhancing rolls and bringing uncertainty into situations that could have otherwise been dryer. The game is by no means slow; resolution is easy in both combat and non-combat situations.
Physically speaking, the book is a premium beauty, straight out of a role-player�s wettest dreams. I am not surprised; these are the guys behind Mutant: Year Zero after all. Even though the art does not come from the same artist or in a single style only, it is as fitting as it is convincing. You already get hints about Mutant Chronicles� style from the zombie head-kick in its cover, a tribute to equally entertaining (and cringe-worthy!) covers from past editions. The fonts are rather small and the amount of text in the book substantially more than you would have expected. The margins are small, much smaller than the competition; the price to content ratio goes through the roof, seeing how there is no wasted space. As importantly however, the rulebook is not a boring read. There are no blocks of text. The chapters and subchapters give a nice, smooth flow to the whole thing, while the bookmark is class distilled. I would have never though I�d use it as much as I did, and how indispensable it actually becomes once you get accustomed to it. If Modiphius can afford it, it should put one in every single physical book it produces; its customers will rave about it for ages.
The pdf is exactly how I would like a pdf to be, and in line with Modiphius� releases in other RPGs like Dust Adventures. Bonus points for providing three versions of the rulebook, depending on your printer�s capabilities; that gains good faith in spades. Everything is right where you expect it to be, including bookmarks for all the chapters and sub-chapters. The art is kind of brighter; I presume the excellent quality of the printed version�s gloss paper has something to do with it.
The weak points: Some standard caveats first: if you are not into the �resistance to the otherworldly corruption� theme or into weird-looking shoulder pads and outrageous hairstyles, you might find many things goofy about the premise and some of the art. I had discussed in detail in the review of the miniature game how this sci-fi setting incorporates practically everything but the kitchen sink, and how it does this unapologetically and with style. The Mutant Chronicles rulebook does it with even more style, partially masking the different origins of many ideas and concepts. By concentrating on a number of aspects that you wish to explore in each campaign (e.g. espionage and Brotherhood and Megacorps with only a touch of darkness), you are almost guaranteed to have fun. The more you mix, the more careful you might need to be for the players to feel that their actions matter. On the other hand, that�s just me; you can be as over the top as you like. The system supports both solemn and gung ho approaches.
Due to the diversity of the subject matter, the GM has to ensure that everybody on the table has the same expectations. If I wish a half-civilian, corporate campaign while others come for hack-fests against the undead, some might get quite disappointed. Prepare well for your campaign and make sure where you wish to go. Useful as the book�s suggestions are for the creation of the group, I would actually go a few steps further to ensure compatibility. That is, unless you want party in-fighting. This is a corruption game after all, remember? In any event, if you go full-out on militaristic campaigns, I would recommend tightly knit units from the beginning. Think of it like the Colonial Marines at the beginning of Aliens. Even more so, here you will be facing something that does a lot more than kill you; you have to trust the person next to you.
Seeing how big the book is (40 chapters!), I would have particularly appreciated some colour coding in the margins in order to find things faster without opening the book. The title number and mention in the bottom of each page is simply not enough. It�s quaint; Modiphius used this sort of colour coding in Dust Adventures, and it works. Why not use it here too?
Conclusion: Mutant Chronicles is a brilliant RPG, no matter how I see it. Its variety, mechanics and theme will inspire different things to different people. No matter if you go for the desperate, dystopic campaign or the campy hack fiesta; Mutant Chronicles does both stories justice.
For more info on Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game visit the Modiphius Entertainment website at http://www.modiphius.com.
Shameless plug: for more gaming news and content (including, for example, pictures of Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition Techno Fantasy Roleplaying Game that I am unfortunately not able to upload on RPG.net for the time being) and to better keep track of my reviews, subscribe to my Antonios S facebook and twitter page.
Help support RPGnet by purchasing this item through DriveThruRPG.
