Mutant Epoch

The Mutant Epoch is a science-fantasy role playing game coming out from Outland Arts in early 2010. The game takes place in the 27th century where bio engineering, and contamination has caused plant and animal life to evolve quickly and in “fantastic” ways.
Mutant Epoch uses the Outland System Game Mechanic and while the system may be unique to Outland Arts it is still a traditional role playing system. From what I have read it is meant to allow “fast paced adventure action “ and still have “as much character to character interaction and story narrative as desired.” Like most games it is advised that the game master be familiar with the rules (a GM’s work is never done), but the game is designed to allow even a new player to catch on quickly, without worrying about a lot of reading or complicated math.
The game uses character types in place of races, as all the characters are assumed to be of human ancestry. There seems to be quite a variety of player character types such as Clones, Bioreplicas, Cyborgs, Mutants and unmutated humans. The Beta copy I have also mentions that there will be other character types available through the Mutant Epoch electronic magazine and expansion rule books that will be released to support the game.
Character generation seems like it will be fairly similar to most rpg’s and relatively easy to understand. Mutant Epoch uses the percentile (d100) dice for combat and character generation but all the standard polyhedron dice gamers are familiar with are used in the game. PC’s will have 8 basic traits in place of ability scores and as your PC goes up in rank (similar to leveling up) they will gain bonuses to their traits. They can also acquire permanent penalties to their scores in the event of serious injures or illness.
The main objective of the game seems to be more focused on survival in this harsh futuristic world than the old standard of adventuring for treasure; although I am sure you can do that too.. While I have only had glimpses of the world and the creatures that the characters will encounter I have to say I am intrigued by this game. The setting and character types seem to be flexible and varied enough to satisfy any type of gamer. I will definitely be sharing more information about this Mutant Epoch as I find it. In the mean time go to the site and check it out for yourself.
There are several nice downloads so you can preview the game on the site.

Mazes & Minotaurs

I stumbled upon this game while looking up some info for my next campaign and thought I had found some lost treasure. All the information showed this game called Mazes and Minotaurs from 1972 ,very much like D&D except that it was based on Greek Mythology and not Tolkien fantasy. The site has links so that you can download the original 1972 game books as pdfs, or you can download the revised 1987 books, all for free.
I scanned the books and though they were pretty bare bones, the game did seem to be pretty good and I became even more curious about why I had never heard of it. So back to the internet I went.
You remember the Sentry hoax that Marvel pulled on us some years ago. The one where they claimed their version of Superman, Sentry, was created in the 60's and had been "lost", but it turned out to be a publicity stunt. That is what this is.
Mazes and Minotaurs was made a few years ago and apparently stemmed from an article about what if game designers had gotten their inspiration from Jason and the Argonauts instead of Lord of the Rings. The 1972 version was actually released in 2006. The revised 1987 version in 2007. Both versions are actually pretty good, though the books are pretty short running under 50 pages for the most part. It is basically a simple D&D based on Greek instead of European fantasy. There is even an ezine for the game called Minotaur Quarterly with 2 issues available for download, Fall 07 and Spring 08.
Thanks to the internet I wasn't fooled by this for long, but I still don't feel cheated. I may not have have discovered a long lost game, but I did find a pretty interesting little rpg. I think my group may be going Greek in the near future.

http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/

Gnomes are Evil!!!

I thought I would repost this one because I have seen several Gnome, UFO and Chupacabra articles over the past few monts.
I've never liked Gnomes and generally banned them from all of my games, until Pathfinder was released. I like that PfRPG Gnomes are more Fey and less tinkerer or illusionist than previous versions. So I ammend my comment, only pre-Pathfinder Gnomes are evil. ;-)

Have a Great Memorial Day!

Repost:
Click on the links below to see video and articles that prove once and for all that gnomes are evil little creatures. This only justifies my complete dislike of the little monsters and one of the many reasons why I don't let the creepy bastards in my games.

Evil Gnome Video
Evil Gnome News Article