Mutants In The Now

Adolescent Radioactive Black Belt Hamsters!

Geriatric Gangrene Jujitstu Gerbils!

Pre-Pubescent Kung Fu Gophers!

Those Were All Real Comics, By The Way

Samurai Trash Panda?

So, back from GenCon, and with my latest book finally in digital print, and work on the sequel starting soon, figured it was a good time to review at least one of my GenCon purchases, and this is it! I’d heard good things about this, and as it turns out, they were seemingly correct – I say ‘seemingly’ because while I’ve done a flip-through of the rules, I haven’t tried creating a character with them yet. So, here we are!

This is a good example of what I’d call “Old School Revival” done right. Rather than basically reprint OD&D with a few minor rules tweaks and an overly-fanatical devotion to ‘simplicity’ (i.e., missing and broken rules) for its own sake (rather than being a product of limited budgets and limited understanding of game design), it creates new rules, with a coherent framework, and goes ‘old school’ in terms of embracing gonzo weirdness and making stylistic choices to create the feel of a book that could have been produced in the mid-80s, especially by a small press. (It also seems, based on my skimming, to dive wholeheartedly into another key design trope of the era: Hyper-detail on some aspects of the system, hand-waving on others. ‘Variable Detail Focus’ is a huge part of the Old School Aesthetic, if you ask me, which no one ever does.)

So what is it? As implied by my headings, it’s a paean to the genre of mutant animals, often on the younger side, who wield weapons or use fighting styles associated with Asia, and the RPGs made to capitalize on that genre’s popularity. In other words, it’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, drawing from the original black-and-white comics and the Palladium RPG based on them, not on the later cartoony version a lot of a “80s kids” know as the only version. However, it’s very much not just a “serial numbers filed down” game, either in its scope or mechanics. The mechanics, in particular, do not look like Generic Palladium (aka Generic D&D); this is definitely its own system, of the kind which could have been designed in the 1980s, but which happened not to be.

Form And Function

Let’s discuss aesthetics, which is a fancy word for “how it looks”. As opposed to a very unfortunate modern trend, started by a game about playing a cybernetic Robin Williams (think about it, you’ll get it eventually….), where you have about 20 words per page, each word in a different font set at a different angle, this book is dense! Monospaced font in two columns, with thin margins, and just enough art to keep it lively.

A word on the art: Perhaps the least old-school aspect of the design is that they, sadly, were unable to acquire the services of the great artist of the late 70s/early 80s, This Guy I Know¹. The art is really nice: Clean and comprehensible, conveying what RPG art should convey:”This is what the game should look like in your head.”

(It also features “Lack Of Index”, so, props for getting the vibe right, I guess.)

Diving Into the Goop… and G-OOP

In the game’s loosely-defined (that’s a compliment) setting, ‘goop’ is the name of the mysterious glowing mutagenic substance that causes everything to happen. And in the mechanics ‘G-OOP’ stands for ‘laboriously crafted backronym’, or ‘Genetic-Organic Optimization Points’. The system, based on my flipping through it, is a mix of randomness and choice, so you may not be guaranteed to get the character you want, but you can nudge your rolls in that direction… or just go with the flow, I guess.

Anyway, enough yacking — or yakking, if I roll ‘yak’ on the charts somewhere — and let’s get to it!

Step 1: Getting together. Well, I’m here! No, wait it means “How do all your characters know each other?” (The WEG Star Wars game was the first system I encountered where each character needed a connection to one other character, and it couldn’t be mutual. This was a surprisingly effective mechanic to avoid the ‘you all meet in an inn’ or ‘I see your party has no mage!’ ‘Well, you look trustworthy!’. Since it’s just me here, I’m going for ‘diverse group’, where each character is rolled separately.

Step 2: Cursing Your Dice: That’s sort of ongoing… but in this case, it gives you ‘takebacks’, opportunities to reroll. As a ‘diverse group’, I get 4; Connected or Family would give 3 to each participant and 3 as a pool to share. If I don’t use them all, they are transformed… or mutated, if you will…  into hit points and SHT, which is “Superficial Harm Threshold” not “What Kind of Creek You’re Up Sans Paddle”. In other words, Body and Stun.

Step 3: “You’re Good At…”…is not on the next page, instead, we have some quick rules stuff. Old School! And, hey, there’s a d% mechanic for some resolutions, and a d20 mechanic for other resolutions! Again: OLD SCHOOL! On the other hand, there’s Advantage and Disadvantage, which seems to have crept into every game of the last decade, much like ‘Armor Class’ and ‘Hit Points’ did in the Olden Dayse. Eventually, we get to Step 3 and it’s “Roll 4d6 8 times in order”, so, back to Old School! Here’s a point where I can choose to spend takebacks.

• Cognition: 10 (+10 G-OOP)
• Determination: 15 (+6 G-OOP)
• Affinity: 13 (+7 G-OOP)
• Perception:10 (And this is why I prefer point buy… 4 rolls, only 1 is above average… barely.) Reroll 17! (+3 G-OOP)
• Strength:10 (Oh, FFS!) (+10 G-OOP)
• Prowess: 18 (finally!) (+2 G-OOP)
• Endurance: 13 (+7 G-OOP)
• Speed: 13 (+7 G-OOP)

A perfectly average character would have 14s in all attributes, I am at 12.75. So, about those takebacks… I can either reroll an attribute, or, add +1d6 to an attribute, ‘mark’ it, and then subtract the same amount from another. Hmm. I think I will reroll Perception… wish me luck… 17! W00t! 3 takebacks left.

Hmm. I also get G-OOP from my attributes. I have added that to the chart above. Note that you get more G-OOP if you have lower stats, an interesting balance mechanism. A lot of games of the emulated era would ‘double dip’ on your bad rolls, giving you fewer whatever points the lower your score was. (Systems like ‘add your attributes to determine your skill points’, for example.)

Secret Origins

Musical Accompaniment Here.

We start with “Source of Mutation”. This is a percentile roll. 42. “Transportation Accident”. I roll on “B-2 Rural Background” and “C-2 Rural Species”.

Rural Background, then: 52 “Back To The Lander”. This does not mean the same as “Back To The Chopper”, it means I was adopted by some dirty hippies. Or possibly fringe cultists. I gain “two basic skill packages, one military or professional skill package, five hobbies, a basic or survivor equipment package, +1 CTCT, +1 WILL, and Value: Community.” (CTCT is “Contact”). Will is a calculated stat, gotta note I get a +1 to it.

Lastly, and possibly most importantly, my species. I can spend 2 takebacks to pick one if I don’t like it (actually, no, I reread it, I can only do that if I backed the Kickstarter), but let’s see what we get first. A roll of 33 on C-3 means “Farm Species”, so I roll on table D-3, and, wow, there’s a lot of species!

There’s Even More In The Supplement!

A 54 is “Donkey”. I can spend a takeback to “flip” it to 45, which is “Cow, Holstein”. Hm. OK, let’s do that. I have 2 takebacks left.

I can now roll on “optional, non-binding” tables. Why not?

Before Mutation: Average Existence. So, despite being a typical cow, I wasn’t outstanding in my field? (Think about it…) 
Mutation Peers: I mutated alone.
How I Learned To Fight: Rival Instruction. Apparently, I had a rival whom I fought so often, I learned from imitating them. Interesting.

Delving into the rest looks complicated — which is not a criticism! But it does make this a good breaking point. I’m in a weird mood, might get the next section done tomorrow! If not… probably in a few months. That’s kind of my thing. I do things right away, or very late.

Just realized, I should have stuck with ‘Donkey’, so I could have named the next section ‘Making an Ass of Myself’. Oh well. Too late now.

1: Full name, “This Guy I Know, He Did This Bitchin’ Wizard On My Cousin’s Van, He’ll Work For Beer”.