BC2010:Mutants and Death Ray Guns - minis skirmish

[pygmaelion]

Humans, Androids, Robots, Mutants,Mutanimals, Mutaveggies, and Wretched Undead stalk the crater pocked wastes of earth, battling for survival, dominance, and a clean pair of pants!

I will be bringing along "Mutants and Death Ray Guns" with me this year

Via an offhand recommendation, I've recently discovered this gem from Ganesha Games. There is a .pdf version for sale for $8 from the writer, but for the purposes of the con, you'll be able to borrow my hard copy rulebook.

A review is available here.

A party of 5 to 10 characters takes 25 minutes, buckets of figures are available for lend, as is ultra low rent terrain. Your first game will probably take an hour, with subsequent games taking 30 to 45 minutes.

The game accomodates "more than two" players and moves pretty quick.

The combat and campaign systems use very few dice, and do a great job of showcasing the dangers faced by ragtag survivors in the age after the bomb/collapse of civilization/zombpocalypse.

This is yet another game where you can go from zero rules knowledge at the start of the weekend to a bona fide expert with a customized party of wastelanders by the end of a day.

[Brennor]

Sounds ...interesting... mutaveggies... better watch out for that squash!

[pygmaelion]

My pal Kershaw is currently writing up a little javascript that auto generates units for the game.

Since the armies are 5 to 10 units, and they're all random at the start, this is a big time saver.

I'm posting the link here. It is still a work in progress, so don't be shocked if certain stuff looks weird (right now, at the time of this post, Androids, Robots, and Animals don't work)

http://durandal.kismetwireless.net/~dragorn/mdrg-jq/

[Brennor]

Hmm, definitely could be useful, especially with the printer on site.

Question though (I haven't read the rules yet though): It seems that only some of the links work sometimes (ie: unable to add an android after adding a plant). Are there some arcane rules dictating which units could be used together?

Also, is there a way to reset the units? Or just reload the page?

[pygmaelion]

There are no rules directly preventing you from having a plant and then an android, but I do know that when humans were being tested, certain common equipment combinations would cause the generated unit to not display.

If you got d6+3 foods and a gun and another food, it would just chuck the whole guy out. It could be that Kershaw has rediscovered his original error and is still working on it.

Additionally, if the generator is only 75% complete, 15 minutes of dice chucking can generate you an equalling thrilling squad of wasteland miscreants.

[Brennor]

15 mins of dice chucking isn't too bad, but if the generator can save that time, means that many more wasteland games!

[rudedd]

Hello all,

I'm a local rpg/mini gamer here in the Southern Tier and just found out about BrenCon over at the Jupiter site. I actually have a copy of the rules for M&DRG and would be interested in trying them out (they have been on my shelf for a long time).

I'm going to try to free up my Saturday to come down and join in, but may not be able to stay the whole day. Do you know when you are thinking of running the game? Looking forward to meeting you all.

Regards,
rudedd

[Vardaen]

Hey glad to hear from another local in the Bingotown area. We will be ther Sat and Sunday all day, not sure when pyg is going to run this he can answer to that but well have plenty of other stuff happening too! Welcome aboard.

[rudedd]

Thanks, good to see there is an active group with varied interests so close by. Me, I run the gamut from minis to rpgs although more the smaller indie types. Mini wise I mostly do skirmish games like Blood Bowl or Savage Worlds Showdown, but recently Malifaux is looking rather intriguing. RPG wise I play Savage Worlds, FATE, and Ubiquity among others that are a bit more obscure. I'm looking forward to seeing what's up on Saturday.

[pygmaelion]

I'm very much hoping to be able to have someone walk up and say "MDRG?" at any time when I'm not actively helping someone or rolling dice myself. Aside from a few BrenCrawl events on saturday, my free time for pickup games should be "most of the time".

At that point I will bust out the terrain, we can generate some forces, and commence the wasteland antics.

Since games take about an hour the first time through, and I've got a trough of ~whatever~clix, your force can take to the field nigh-instantly.

If you like Savage Worlds Showdown, you're going to find MDRG very easy. It's certainly more random, but carries the same storytelling verve. I bought some Malifaux figures before stat cards were printed (and well before the book came out), but they never got enough paint on them to field (Ah, the curse of the immortal painter).