I've been watching my bookshelf fill back up the last few weeks, and it makes me smile. I'm in one of those phases, I suppose, where I'm happy to see old friends again - whether friends in the flesh or friends on the shelf, it doesn't matter.
Not everything I'm doing right now is revisiting older books and games, I'm also getting some new things to help me sort of shake myself out of any kind of rut I might be in as a gamemaster.
I've been reading The Ultimate RPG Gameplay Guide by James D'Amato. I'm not one to read blogs much (I know, don't say it), and this book is an edited collection of his blog from what I understand. It is giving me some perspective on running games that I'm appreciating. Also, it's a book and I'm reading it, so that's good, too.
I'm also slowly building up my collection of Mutant Chronicles game books.
I posted a little about the Mutant Chronicles before, specifically about the Apostle of Insanity trilogy of novels from the 1990's. Sadly, those were the only books to come out in the Mutant Chronicles universe proper.
Anyone who looks at the Mutant Chronicles will immediately think (especially if they look at it in its 1990's iteration) it's a Warhammer 40k knock-off. I disagree. While it does appear to be similar, I find the history of it compelling and fascinating to delve into.
It's billed as a "Diesel-punk" game. It's a universe set in the far future where advanced technology is untrustworthy (because of, well, it can be possessed by dark entities from another dimension, and anyone who works in technical support knows, this is terrifyingly close to the truth), so humanity has to rely on older tech to keep things going in the solar system at large. Earth was abandoned centuries ago because of pollution, war, climate change, etc. when the MegaCorporations were being jackasses and decided to destroy the planet (more or less).
One of the things that always makes me smile about it is one of the MegaCorporations is called Imperial, and it's the remnant of the United Kingdom given corporate form. Also, they're pretty much to blame for everything going to the dogs. If I remember right, and I might be getting things mixed up, here, in the setting, humanity discovers these weird ruins on Pluto and Imperial hops on a ship, goes out there, and starts touching stuff. This wakes up the Dark Symmetry and technology pretty much goes nuts. Later on, when they discover a tenth planet the call Nero, Imperial goes and once again pokes something with a stick when they shouldn't, and causes a bunch of bad stuff to happen.
Mutant Chronicles isn't a setting that anyone who knows me would think I'd be into. I'm generally not into bleak and hopeless genres like post-apocalypse or true-to-form Call of Cthulhu. I like there to be some kind of light at the end of the tunnel that isn't a train bearing down on you. Mutant Chronicles is bleak, but it's bleak in a Blade-Runner sort of bleak.
Basically, take Blade-Runner, add zombies, religious zealots who can cast magic, and add in a little Event Horizon "hey-what's-that-I-poke-it-with-a-stick" human stupidity and ignorance, and mix in large shoulder-pads, ridiculous firepower, and bad-ass Doomtroopers along the lines of the Colonial Marines in Aliens, and you have the Mutant Chronicles.
It's a universe of grimy, future-noir that just clicked with me back in the day, and it's stuck with me.
Ironically, I've never run the game. I have played in it ... once at Gen Con in 2018. It took me over 25 years to go from reading the trilogy of novels to rolling dice in the game proper. I had a great time, too, and would love to re-visit the setting once again. It's one of those universes and games that I've always wanted to play in.
To that end, being the completist that I am, I've been trading in a bunch of stuff to Noble Knight and building up my collection of the third edition of Mutant Chronicles, put out by one of my favorite companies, Modiphius.
When it's all been said and done and I receive my box from Noble Knight, I'll have all but two of the Mutant Chronicles books - The Mishima Source Book and the Dark Legion Campaign Guide. I think that's pretty cool.
Then begins the arduous task of reading this stuff. That will take a bit.
Incidentally, there was a Mutant Chronicles movie made in the late 2000's that was not great. It's not a good representation of what Mutant Chronicles is. The movie had a ridiculous cast including Thomas Jane, John Malkovich, Ron Perlman, Sean Pertwee, and a bunch of others you'd recognize, but lacked a real budget that could do the Mutant Chronicles universe justice. I give it credit for trying.
I'm going to get some more reading in before bed, and I'll be back tomorrow.
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