They lost the will to fight/play so now we're looking at dying stars

I have not posted in a while (understatement) as I am a tad busy with real life (another understatement with accompanying attempt at a lame excuse). Please pardon me if I ramble here. In case you’re feeling cranky and don’t feel like going through a meandering streams of consciousness-esque account, kindly feel free to stop reading at this point. No, really…..

Our current Mutant Future campaign (set in the post-apocalyptic Southeast Asian Wastelands) is on hiatus. It appears that my players will to play/fight took a nose dive from our last three sessions. Briefly, the surviving crew of a dozen or so-odd mutants, androids and one precious (and hard to kill) pure human ran through the proverbial meat grinder after trying (unsuccessfully) to dislodge a tribe of unusually well tech-equipped mutant frogmen from the ruins of what seemed to be a pharma products lab-cum-warehouse. I think of these Palaka-folk (“palaka” meaning “frog” in Tagalog) as mutants physically resembling rabid specimens of Frank Herbert’s Gowachin endowed with viet-cong tactics. Yes, enough insurgent deviousness to put Tucker’s Kobolds to shame. My players choose to call them the Chtulhu-frogs and they don’t smile when they say that.

Post game assessment: it appears that my players became a wee-bit enamored with their cool and funky mutations. This, coupled with a modest amount of pre-disaster weapons and artifacts and a seemingly-unbroken string of victories against the mutant flora and fauna of the Southeast Asian Wastelands brought about a perceived sense of invulnerability. Speaking from a GM’s perspective, I frankly didn’t see this kind of cockishness in my players since way back. By way back, I mean back when I ran my one-and-only attempt at a D&D 4th edition campaign. On second thought, maybe I downplayed things a tad bit when I said that the heroes possessed a “modest” amount of pre-disaster weapons. From my recollection, they HAD a blaster rifle, two .50 cal. M2 heavy barrel machine guns, a Rambo-type M60, assorted hand grenades and poisoned bolts on top of the miscellaneous rifles, pistols and the odd-sniper rifle. Ok, so I guess I’d more accurately say “rather modest” amount of pre-disaster weapons.

Well, so here we were in this jungle with everyone feeling cocky after flattening a 20 hit die mutant two headed jungle sawa that spits disintegrator rays from each pair of saurian eyes (“Sawa” means big python in Tagalog). Everyone’s feeling good as no-one even got damaged substantially from the last encounter. That’s when we arrive at the mutants’ lair which is a flooded warren of pre-fall basements and tunnels. Apparently still feeling cocky, my friends proceed to waltz into the dungeon proper. No recon, no precautions, using their giant mutant salamander/beast of burden to use his part water mutation (from Creatures of the Wasteland), the intrepid band marches boldly into the dark. Eighteen effectives walk in and get pounced upon by the Cthulhu frogs waiting in ambush. Seven get out swimming for their lives as Moses the Salamander is one of those KIA-ed.

The most memorable post game comment went something like this: “Gee, they were waiting in ambush. How’d they figure out we were coming anyway?” with accompanying accusing look at the Mutant Lord. So cue in your Mutant Lord patiently explaining how all that water displaced by the part water mutation has to go somewhere, right? A bubble of air 30 meters in diameter in the middle of the bottom of a lake has to force all that water somewhere, correct? Duh!

In any case, the game went on for two weeks after that with more characters (yes, much more characters rolled up with manic old-school ferocity) against a justifiably more well-armed tribe of Cthulhu frogs. Using viet-cong tactics, the palaka-folk still manage to hold off the party and to this date, they have not even RE-ENTERED the dungeon.

The quotable quote from those sessions went something like this: “For crap’s sake I don’t believe you Bob! Such a mean game master – those were our characters’ weapons and now you’re using them against us!” Cue in more accusing stares aimed at yours truly. This time, I just cracked up. I do believe the kids playing out in the street heard my manic laughter right after that. I guess a good laugh was my best answer to that comment.

Which brings me back to my original point – I guess this served too much to test my players’ will to play and the group opted for a more 90s-style science fantasy role playing game. Yes, they did hope it would be more forgiving in terms of casualties but then, as now, I make no promises. After all, as Mr. Arneson once said, I don’t ever kill any characters. The players end up doing that to themselves.

Fading Suns – it’s big, wonky, kitchen sink-ly, has apparent pretensions at “role playing” as opposed to pure “roll playing”. I got myself the 1st edition rules sometime in 1998 (this being my very first ever on-line purchase of a role playing game book from Amazon.com). I ended up getting practically most of all the other books in the line and played the game extensively. Our gaming group had since scattered to the four winds but yes, I’d like to think it was Loads Of Fun.

When introducing this to a new player, I always describe this as Herbert’s Dune meets Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun. For the literary-challenged player I tend to say, think HBO’s Game of Thrones meeting the technology of Star Wars. What episode of Star Wars, you say? Whatever- it don’t really matter. If I’m feeling particularly ornery that day, I’d say this to a purely local would-be player: think of the Philippines today with all the corruption of its politicians, big business and the military, throw in the hyper-hypocrisy of our monolithic Church (Which one you ask? Why, there’s only one over here, right?), the flooding of our streets, the poverty of the proles and add spaceships, rayguns and laser swords into the mix (at least for those who can afford it). Make the suns fade and viola! Fading Suns!

So now I’m running a game in the year 5010 amidst the remnants of humanity’s great failed experiment at galactic-scale free-market democracy. The Nobility rules. Technology largely keeps working because of the Guilds. The Church in power puts its predecessor of the middle ages in Terra to shame. And amidst all this, the suns appear to be fading. Yes, you read that right- they’re going out, one by one.
Still, I’d venture to say that Fading Suns is a post-apocalyptic game of sorts.

Admittedly, it isn’t a Mutant Future (or at least not all around) but there are striking parallels with my old school favorites:

1. The Good Old Days are behind us and we live in Interesting Times. The Republic is dead and it’s essentially every sentient for himself these days….


2. Old tech is dangerous but nice to have. They don’t make stuff like they used to but if you go to places where the Ancients lived you may get lucky and bring home some Magic Items. Or you can die.

3. Here Be Dragons. Yes, civilization (what’s left of it) has contracted and frozen. Lots of old history lies out there waiting to be rediscovered.

4. As always, the characters drive the story. I wouldn’t go so far as saying they will make a difference in the scope of historical events (I tend to take the Warhammer 40k-ish bent on things that eventually, entropy claims us all – it’s just a matter of time). But pass or fail, they’ll make a great story worth telling.

Maybe I’ll draw up some Cthulhu Frogs and see how they’ll deal with them in this game universe…