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Chaosmeister
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Mutant as a con game

Thu 05 Feb 2015, 01:04

Hello everyone, not sure where to put this here, but I guess this is good enough :-) I am in the middle of reading the rulebook and I really like it. There is a convention coming up in march where I an slotted for a four hour game I have not decided the system for. And I am pondering Mutant of course. However I struggle a bit because a lot of its uniqueness comes from creating characters together and the links they have. Most of the cool bits wont happen unless you play a few sessions so you can have a project finished etc. Anyone has experience running mutant during a con? How did you do it while transporting the unique stuff of MYT? Any tips ? Thanks!
 
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Tomas
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Thu 05 Feb 2015, 15:43

Hi and welcome to the forum!

I've run Mutant: Year Zero on a number of cons, including Dragonmeet in London last December. That was a 2-hour slot - so in 4 hours, you should be good. :)

I would certainly advise you to make PCs at the table - at Dragonmeet that only took 30-40 minutes for the whole group of players - who were all completely new to the game. Making PCs is fun, fast and brings out quite a bit of flavor and setting.

I have set the con games I've run out in the Zone, rather than in the Ark. You are right in that the fun of Projects etc takes a few sessions to really kick in, so I've opted to set the entire con sessions in the Zone instead. Specifically I have played the Zone Sector "For a Mouthful of Water" (Chapter 15), which works well as an introductory scenario.
Fria Ligan
 
ajevans
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Thu 05 Feb 2015, 16:59

I ran for a mouthful of water as a one-shot for some old friends last Saturday, which was a success.

I started the session based 1 zone sector away from the water plant, led there by a skittish stalker who knew the way. In the zone sector it starts on centres around a ruined church which has a tower from which the PCs can see the water plant from a distance so they themselves know where it is.

However in that zone was zone-dogs, whom the skittish stalker is scared of so runs away leaving the PCs to fend for themselves. I found it a good introduction to rules and setting, and avoided the need for reliance on a NPC.

If they've finished at the water plant and there's still time, they can find their way back to the Ark. The stalker who led them there knew a convoluted path which is hard to trace so they'll need to rely on their skills. If times running short - they find the path back.
 
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Chaosmeister
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Fri 06 Feb 2015, 16:03

Hi all,

thank you for your tips. I just saw the scenario in the book. I will give it a read, thank you for the suggestion! By limiting it to the zone for a starter I can at least demonstrate how the mechanics work and what the characters can do. I am not sure about character creation at teh con yet. The players are often non English speakers in germany sadly. I need to translate big parts of it for them then. Not sure I will be able to do that beforehand.

Do any of you have a shorter "Cheat sheet" already in english? That might make it easy to translate for the table.
 
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Phalck
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Wed 18 Feb 2015, 09:37

I made a few "one-pagers" as rules summaries in Swedish that are available on the forums.... Ill make a stab at translating a few of them to english. I cant give any promises on the time frame however...

http://frialigan.se/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1176
------------------------------------
Mattias Falck
www.phalck.com
 
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Chaosmeister
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Sat 21 Feb 2015, 14:07

They look really nice. Thanks for considering translating them!
 
brethon
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Sat 02 Jan 2016, 01:57

Yeah that is also my opinion, they are not only nice but great I suppose in which makes me more impressed.

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JESUS
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Sun 22 Jul 2018, 07:07

I played MYZ twice last year in a convention and it worked really well. 

Our Game-master gave us some pre generated Mutants, and during the first session started a project (if i remember properly, it was reinforce our Ark's protection; we used bones corpes on my idea) and explored the Zone almost bonding with foes (i do think now that she (the GM) change a bit the lore of the game for what the foe, we initially fought, were).

The second session was a bit different, first it was a multi-table, and secondly it was a cross over with Call Of Cthulhu. For the most part it worked as much as the first session above. For the crossover itself, what merged the game together was an artifact actually if someone touched it, she•he was bodyswaped with a PC from Cthulhu. The body remains the same in both game but his•her soul/personality is from the other game. It was quite funny, really good idea and worked really good. Specially with me, as i also played a Cthulhu game during the con with the same GM, and  the game we played was actually the prequel of that multi-table, so i knew exactly we were more or less screwed during the 2nd session of Mutant when we discovered a room in a building during our exploration. So basically some meta-game in it ^^. 

The GM was so bored (in a funny way) seeing me each time, but each time i played with her, she use some wonderful ideas how to resist ? (Like on another Cthulhu game in a previous year of that con, we were member of a "circus" (think AHS Freakshow), and in the end we discovered the circus was not a real one but a environment designed for us as we were in fact test subject for some Lovecraftian god and it was not in the '20 but in our current period of time).

So yeah, in short the game work really well in convention. In the end, rules are only rules, what matters are the stories.
 
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MidnightBlue
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Sun 22 Jul 2018, 10:39

Shoot.  When "Mutant as a con game" popped up in my email, I figured it was tips so I could finally make "Mutants: Ocean 11" or "Mutants: Leverage" games.

Oh well...guess I'll keep waiting.

=)

Glad folks are getting the chance to try these at cons though!
 
JESUS
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Re: Mutant as a con game

Sun 22 Jul 2018, 12:54

Shoot.  When "Mutant as a con game" popped up in my email, I figured it was tips so I could finally make "Mutants: Ocean 11" or "Mutants: Leverage" games.

Oh well...guess I'll keep waiting.

=)

Glad folks are getting the chance to try these at cons though!
I don't see why you can't do that in the game ? If your session is set in The Ark, it can be a Boss that seek more power so he wants to blackmail another boss or another one (or any other NPC) that wants artifacts from the Vault.

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