The OSP plays Mutant Future

Yes, my game group has a name. We call ourselves the Old School Pastafari. We adopted the term Pastafari because in the first adventure we played the cleric chose to be a Pastafarian, a follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Some may insist that the plural form of Pastafarian is “Pastafarians” but I like Pastafari, as in octopi and cacti. We’re the “old school” Pastafari because we are old, when this group started in March or April of this year, the average age of the group was forty. We’ve lost a few members and picked up a twenty-something so now I imagine the average of the group is 35. (Three of the five members are over forty.)

We’re between adventures in our usual 1st edition AD&D game and played a session of Mutant Future this past Tuesday night. I had intended to play an android but found some inspiration when driving home from my Thanksgiving trip. I saw a deer stand, or hunting stand, out in a field along side of I-65. I knew two of the guys were going to play animal mutants and thought I’d join the herd and play an anamorphic whitetail buck.

Our game meets at 7 p.m. on Tuesday evenings but I hadn’t made the character by game time. I got to the game early and began rolling dice. The Mutant Master had suggested we roll 18d6 and combine the results however we like. I found this was a very quick method of character creation. We planned to roll our mutations at the table, the other guys arrived soon and the fun ensued. The dice predicted that Buckie McLeroy would have two physical mutations and two mental mutations. I got two very useful but ultimately boring physical mutations; natural armor and thermal vision. My mental mutations were nearly as useless and boring; dual cerebellum defect and acute hyper healing. I’m sure all the mutations will come in handy at some point, except for the dual cerebellum defect, I’m certain it will prove to be a royal main in the buttocks.

Speaking of buttocks, did I mention that one of the other players is playing a mutated pack animal? He, Bottom by PC name, won the award for Character Most Likely to Break the Rule Book. I’ll describe our other mutant animals and get back to Bottom in a bit.

The third mutant animal is a wolf-man and he got some pretty good mutations. The first great mutation he rolled was the spiny growth which makes him a porcupine-wolf-man hybrid. Apparently the spiky spiny growths can be pulled out and used as a dagger too! The player of the porcupine-wolf-man rolled obesity as his second physical mutation and for a mental mutation he gets something called “negative empathy.” Now he’s an overweight porcupine wolf-man with a fifteen percent chance to piss-off everyone he meets.

The fourth player chose to play a pure strain human proselyte. This may sound like a rather worthless player character but with his charisma of 22 he was able to attract three npc followers who live to serve him. The followers proved to be very helpful in a fight against a hand full of spider goats. The guy playing this priest, we’ll call the player Nod to protect the innocent, did a great job staying in character all night. The main philosophy of his faith seemed to be, “Give me money and all is forgiven.”

As I’ve mentioned, the player with the mutant donkey was the winner of the Most Likely to Break the Game Award. He started with your basic mutant donkey, named Bottom of course, and rolled his way into a mutations chart jackpot. He got a duel cerebellum as a mental mutation and density alteration. I don’t recall the exact name of this mutation but it allows the player character the mental ability to reduce the density and, or size of other beings in the game. (This may include the reduction of any mater in the game but I don’t recall.) To top off his killer mutant pie, his physical mutation is gigantism. Who wouldn’t want to play a giant of any race? But the rules, as we interpreted them, indicate that a 3d6 roll determines the additional size of the giant, in feet. The player rolled a fourteen and now the party has a mutant donkey that’s roughly eighteen feet long!

This is the very reason that we rolled our mutations at the table. To Mr. Proctor and Denison and all involved in the creation of Mutant Future; this is fun, fun stuff!

Our adventure began on the road to Junkopolis, a settlement centered on and around an old trash pile. (A former junkyard or landfill.)The three mutants met the preacher, who I preceded to call Brother Pompous Ass all game, at a crossroad on the edge of the settlement. Brother P was just converting his three followers and the porcupine-wolf-man (PWM) became offended by, what he believed was, an anti-mutant attitude. Brother P assured us, “All are equal in the eyes of the Great Auditor.” The giant psi-donkey (GPD) also made a fuss with his many questions about Junkopolis and the many he-haws this involved. This mild argument attracted the attention of a vaguely uniformed group of gun totters. These gentlemen informed us that they were the Junkyard Dogs, the personal security force of the king of Junkopolis. Our MM never used this term, but knowing him, I get the impression that the king of J-opolis is known as the King of the Hill. These “dogs” just wanted us to stay out of trouble and understand that, “we have guns.” I later suggested that the GPD should have sat on the Junkyard Dogs but the MM said, “It was a whole troop.” Apparently a troop is too large for a GPD too squish?

Our group was also advised to seek Manny the Meat Man for employment. Following the directions to the meat man we encountered a group of anti-mutant thugs. Brother P had all three of his followers attack one of the thugs and the others were dispatched with ease. Once at the stall of Manny the Meat Man we noted that the bodies of these same thugs where being carried to the back of the meat stall. The PWM asked if Manny was a dealer of human meat and he replied, “No, no. If you’re interested in that sort of trade you need to see my brother, Meat man Manny.” It turned out that the two Mannys are Siamese twins who operate adjoining meat stalls with a curtain between the two brothers and stalls.

Our group reached a verbal agreement with Manny to supply him with fresh Spider Goat meat. We arranged to supply the Meat Man with “human flesh with no entanglements.” Buckie McLeroy asked, “Do spider goat legs taste like giant lobster,” and, “Does no entanglement mean that the humans are not trapped in any spider goat webbing?” We ended the game session by collecting our first haul of spider goat and witnessing a cave in of the junk pile which seemed to lead to some larger sub-terrain complex.

I have written this article quickly share the events of our Mutant Future game. I don’t believe I could successfully recreate the level of fun and humor we experienced during this game session. I even commented to Nod’s wife that, “Sally will never know that we all giggled like little girls.” Only to add, “She’d be glad to know we giggled like little girls.” I told Sally about this conversation and she replied, “Yes, I’m glad you all giggled like that.” (Now I have introduced the rpg blog world to my wife, Mrs. Consumer's Opinion, better known as Sally.)

In an unrelated note; I was cleaning my bookshelves and found my old copy of Tom Robbins' Another Roadside Attraction. I really love this book but have now chosen not to keep it in my collection. The book is in pretty poor shape and I wouldn't want to trade it with anyone so Another Roadside Attraction will be the first book I send out into the big bad world in Book Crossing style.