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Mutants In The Now Brings A Fresh Look At Other Strangeness
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<blockquote data-quote="Julian Kay" data-source="post: 8508321" data-attributes="member: 7029704"><p>Thanks so much for the review, Rob! It's appreciated to see this pop up.</p><p></p><p>In regards to the setting, it's meant to be rather loose, and offer inspiration rather than dictation. I didn't have a really detailed setting because much of is just the modern world, so I focused on a few things that make it different. I'm working on expanding it soon, though.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>As a designer, my goal is to recreate a lot of the <em>feel</em> of the older games while having more functional mechanics. Which isn't necessarily a knock against Wujcik; the original game was designed in five weeks, so any game would have issues being written in that timeframe! It's really remarkable that it turned out so well, considering that. But a lot of elements will be familiar; percentage skills, d20+modifier rolls in combat, character generation as a complex "mini-game" combining random generation and constructed mutation, etc.</p><p></p><p>I call it "retro-modern", where a lot of it stylistically is a nod to the older games, but has more modern mechanics running under the hood. It can be thought of this way: if Palladium's base assumptions on how to design a system were rooted in AD&D, this is more rooted in the assumptions born of d20 and its more progressive descendants. (Fragged Empire and 13th Age were two of my main inspirations for that, but there's a lot of my own notions in there.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>The layout style is inspired by <em>very</em> early TTRPGs, which includes the earliest Palladium books, back when a lot of their books looked like they were pasted up from an IBM Selectric. Obviously it's intended as more evocative of that era than replicating it; detailed layouts were very rare in that era. But I wanted that mimeographed, dirty feel to it. Apologies about the lack of a preview, but it should be up. I was having issues getting DTRPG to generate a preview previously, but it seems to be generating it properly now. You can also find different previews over at <a href="https://arbco.itch.io/mutants-in-the-now" target="_blank">itch.io</a>.</p><p></p><p>Beyond the obvious scope expansion, I ended up dealing with some tragedies in my family over the summer and fall with unavoidably delayed things, leaving me effectively working two jobs between helping my family get through and Kickstarter fulfillment (right down to running playtests, handling layout, etc.).</p><p></p><p>But I think the expanded format has helped me build a better core I can build on in the future, so ultimately it's turning out for the best. All the feedback I've gotten has been remarkably positive, and I haven't had a single refund request. I overestimated how quickly I could handle it all, and wasn't ready for the series of curve balls life had for me over 2021, but I'm busy bagging books for shipment this very evening. So all's well that ends well.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Julian Kay, post: 8508321, member: 7029704"] Thanks so much for the review, Rob! It's appreciated to see this pop up. In regards to the setting, it's meant to be rather loose, and offer inspiration rather than dictation. I didn't have a really detailed setting because much of is just the modern world, so I focused on a few things that make it different. I'm working on expanding it soon, though. As a designer, my goal is to recreate a lot of the [I]feel[/I] of the older games while having more functional mechanics. Which isn't necessarily a knock against Wujcik; the original game was designed in five weeks, so any game would have issues being written in that timeframe! It's really remarkable that it turned out so well, considering that. But a lot of elements will be familiar; percentage skills, d20+modifier rolls in combat, character generation as a complex "mini-game" combining random generation and constructed mutation, etc. I call it "retro-modern", where a lot of it stylistically is a nod to the older games, but has more modern mechanics running under the hood. It can be thought of this way: if Palladium's base assumptions on how to design a system were rooted in AD&D, this is more rooted in the assumptions born of d20 and its more progressive descendants. (Fragged Empire and 13th Age were two of my main inspirations for that, but there's a lot of my own notions in there.) The layout style is inspired by [I]very[/I] early TTRPGs, which includes the earliest Palladium books, back when a lot of their books looked like they were pasted up from an IBM Selectric. Obviously it's intended as more evocative of that era than replicating it; detailed layouts were very rare in that era. But I wanted that mimeographed, dirty feel to it. Apologies about the lack of a preview, but it should be up. I was having issues getting DTRPG to generate a preview previously, but it seems to be generating it properly now. You can also find different previews over at [URL='https://arbco.itch.io/mutants-in-the-now']itch.io[/URL]. Beyond the obvious scope expansion, I ended up dealing with some tragedies in my family over the summer and fall with unavoidably delayed things, leaving me effectively working two jobs between helping my family get through and Kickstarter fulfillment (right down to running playtests, handling layout, etc.). But I think the expanded format has helped me build a better core I can build on in the future, so ultimately it's turning out for the best. All the feedback I've gotten has been remarkably positive, and I haven't had a single refund request. I overestimated how quickly I could handle it all, and wasn't ready for the series of curve balls life had for me over 2021, but I'm busy bagging books for shipment this very evening. So all's well that ends well. [/QUOTE]
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