Thursday, June 05, 2008

Tracking the Spidergoat to its Lair

James Maliszewski has posted a more in-depth review of Mutant Future:

One of the characteristics of old school gaming is its willingness to blur the boundaries between genres. Mutant Future, like Gamma World before it, labels itself as a science fantasy RPG, not a science fiction one. In part, that's because its fanciful treatment of radiation and mutation wouldn't stand up to scientific scrutiny, but it's also because both games arise out of a long pulp tradition that treated fantasy as inherently post-apocalyptic. Howard's Hyborian Age, after all, exists in the wake of the fall of Atlantis. While Conan fights no mutants, the world he trod under his sandaled feet is thematically a close cousin to that of many post-apocalyptic settings. And of course the AD&D Dungeon Masters Guide famously included conversion rules for Gamma World, so there is plenty of precedent for mixing and matching between the two genres. With Mutant Future, conversions will be almost seamless, as there are far fewer differences between it and Labyrinth Lord than between Gamma World and D&D.

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