Cthulhu Dark is my rules-light Lovecraftian game. (Or try the easily-printable version).
The rules are fun and incredibly minimal: they fit on one sheet of paper. You don’t need a character sheet to play, so you can start playing after two minutes of prep. Despite the simplicity, there are some interesting rules twists: look at the Suppressing Knowledge rule for an example.
[ipaper id=80163753 key=key-24nd8zcmwej4uh1xuny2]
[/caption]Autarch’s Adventurer Conqueror King system fulfills the promise of the original fantasy role-playing game by providing comprehensive, integrated support for play across all levels of a campaign. Any referee who has ever checked for random encounters, and every player who’s has rolled a twenty-sided dice to hit a wandering monster, will find the rules of Adventurer Conqueror King as elegant, familiar, and comfortable to wield as an heirloom sword. The system’s cutting edge is the way every table, chart, and assumption in the game encodes Gygaxian naturalism, Arnesonian barony-building, and the designers’ own experience of hundreds of sessions playing and running old-school games. With Adventurer Conqueror King, you get both the verisimilitude and consistency of thorough world-building with the power of improvisation and discovery through play. We look forward to seeing what you do with these tools!
Enter a world where empires totter on the brink of war, and terrible monsters tear at the fragile borderlands of men; where decaying cities teem with chaos and corruption, nubile maidens are sacrificed to chthonic cults and nobles live in decadent pleasure on the toil of slaves; where heroes, wizards, and rogues risk everything in pursuit of glory, fortune, and power. This is a world where adventurers can become conquerors – and conquerors can become kings.
Will you survive the perils of war and dark magic to claim a throne? Or will you meet your fate in a forgotten ruin beyond the ken of men?
The Adventurer Conqueror King System™ (ACKS) is a new fantasy role-playing game that provides the framework for epic fantasy campaigns with a sweeping scope. With theAdventurer Conqueror King System™ you can:
- Play 12 different classes, including the fighter, mage, thief, cleric, assassin, bard, bladedancer, explorer, dwarven craftpriest, dwarven vaultguard, elven nightblade, and elven spellsword.
- Easily customize your character using a unique, optional proficiency system. Make your fighter a berserker or your mage a necromancer!
- Buy, sell, and trade common merchandise, precious silks and spices, and even monster parts and magic items in a balanced and integrated game economy.
- Construct strongholds, establish kingdoms, and carve out a realm for your character.
- Run a thieves' guild and send your minions to carouse, smuggle, steal, and commit other hijinks.
- Establish a wizard's sanctum and explore the forbidden arts. Crossbreed horrific monsters in an underground laboratory, enact powerful magical rituals, build golems, craft magic items, or even transform yourself and your followers into undead monsters.
- Build and run a living world for adventure on a grand scale. With game mechanics built to support emergent play, ACKS is the ultimate RPG for sandbox campaigns.
Whether you want to crawl through dungeons, trade with merchant caravans, run a merchant emporium, conquer an empire, or even raise an undead legion, ACKS supports your playstyle with simple, fast-playing game mechanics.
The 1983 set's focus on self-teaching and simple language probably made sense from a marketing standpoint. Given how well the set supposedly sold, I can't really fault TSR for going in this direction. At the same time, though, there was clearly a shift happening, away from adults and teenagers as the target audience and away from initiation as the means of entering the hobby. Likewise, the adoption of a unified esthetic (all Elmore and Easley artwork) that, while attractive, seemed to narrow rather than broaden the scope of the game. In short, the 1983 Basic Set marked a definite change from what had gone before. (James Maliszewski)
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[/caption]"Mutant" is one of the three first seminal Swedish role playing games, together with Drakar och Demoner and Chock.
The original Mutant was based on Basic Roleplaying System and was released in 1984. It was set in a post-apocalyptic future where most of the human race had been eliminated by a disease. The survivors hid away in subterranean enclaves and genetically experimented on humans and animals and sent them up above ground to see if they could survive. A following nuclear war between the enclaves eradicated humanity more thoroughly, technology was forgotten, and the only survivors were these humanoid mutants and humans in cryo-sleep. The country has now broken down into smaller societies, technology has been forgotten and is now on pre-industrial revolution level. But there are still the "forbidden zones", where lost technology still lies untouched but where the radiation levels are lethal.
"Mutant 2" was released as an expansion in 1986, and changed the die rolling rules to reflect those of Drakar och Demoner Expert, where the designers left Basic Roleplay and changed into a system based on icosahedric dice.
In 1989, "Mutant 2089", or "Nya Mutant" was released. Not only were there several rules changes, inspired by the cyberpunk wave, the setting was changed from a pre-industrial revolution technology society to large mega-cities, controlled by huge corporations. Designers suggested that the old Mutant setting existed in between these cities.
Mutant R.Y.M.D. in 1992 took another step from the basic setting and was more a space-travel science fiction roleplaying game. The ruleset was very similar to Mutant 2089 and the settings were officially compatible. This version was short-lived, though, as it soon was transformed into Mutant Chronicles.
Mutant Chronicles further enhanced the setting of Mutant RYMD, but added creatures and other ideas from the successful horror RPG "Kult".
In 2002, when Target Games has ceased to exist, another publisher called Järnringen published "Mutant - Undergångens arvtagare" (The Inheritors of the Apocalypse). With this, they reverted back into the first setting with a pre-industrial revolution setting populated by mutants and mutated animals. "Järnringen" (Iron Ring) was also the title of one of the very first scenario modules for the first "Mutant".
Järnringen ceased publication of "Mutant - undergångens arvtagare" in 2008, while continuing with their space travel RPG "Coriolis". (from RPG Geek)
