Mutant: Year Zero

We make this apocalypse look good.

Mutant is a series of Swedish role-playing games that were developed and published by Target Games. The current version is developed by Fria Ligan under license by Cabinet Entertainment and published in Swedish and English by Fria Ligan and Modiphius respectively. It currently consists of two games that use the same system and can be played together (much like World of Darkness) with another two on the way, the first being the eponymous Year Zero. The second is Mutant: Genlab Alpha, in which you play as mutant anthropomorphic animals leading a revolt against your robotic overlords. The third, Mechatron, is about to finish its Kickstarter; you play a robot who suddenly finds it has gained self-awareness. And in the fourth, Elysium, you play as un-mutated humans. Not much is known beyond that at the moment as it's still in its Swedish Kickstarter.

Editions

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Mutant has gone through several editions and revisions since its 1984 origin, Year Zero being the most recent (in actuality and in-universe).

• The original, 1984 edition. Used the BRP system also found in GURPS, Call of Cthulhu, and RuneQuest.
• The 1986 Mutant 2 edition. Updated several of the systems and expanded on the setting.
• The 1989 New Mutant edition. Kept the rules from Mutant 2, but advanced the setting into Cyberpunk.
• The 1992 Mutant RYMD edition (Mutant SPACE). Advanced the setting into SPAAACE!
• The 1993 Mutant Chronicles edition. Mostly the same setting with a fresh coat of paint.
• The 2002 Mutant: Undergångens Arvtagare (Mutant: Heirs of Doom) edition. Rewound the setting back to its roots with a whole new system.
• The 2014 Year Zero edition.

Setting and Rules

Lore and Metaplot

*Note* Mutant makes a big deal about keeping its metaplot secret from players. So if you're a PC or planning on being one in a Mutant game, be warned, reading this might upset your GM.

This article contains spoilers! You have been warned.

The world of Mutant is something like a post-apocalyptic mishmash of Fallout, Metro, and Gamma World. Really, pretty much any popular post-apocalyptic franchise can find something of itself somewhere in the world of Mutant. Basically, there was a plague called, creatively enough, the Red Plague. It was more or less tuberculosis on steroids, and put the Black Plague to shame (damn those colored plagues). This proved to be the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back and pretty soon nukes started flying. Before humanity got turned into irradiated ash, all the rich people made like trees and got the hell out of Dodge, either in underground bunkers (Elysium), space stations (Mimir), or Sealab 2021 (Noatun). These enclaves became the new world superpowers, the Titan Powers, and rather than chill the fuck out after blowing up Earth they just moved the nuke-fest to their new houses.

The Titan Power Mimir was a big fan of a scientist named Jeremiah Atwood (who may or may not have created the Red Plague) who specialized in biogenetics. They picked up one of his pet projects, Project Eden, and revitalized it to create life that could live on what was left of Earth. Project Eden 2: Electric Boogaloo involved creating a bunch of settlements in relatively safe places across the planet, the Arks, where a handful of scientists would babysit the new mutants and report back to base. The project was deemed a failure as the mutant's DNA had a tendency to go haywire and either kill them or eventually mutate them into that-which-shall-not-be-named. Oh, and it made them sterile, so the whole repopulate-the-planet thing was a bust anyway. The leader of the project, Dr. Retzius, decided to scrap the whole thing and start over, but the scientist nannies couldn't bring themselves to murder their new mutant babies. So they grabbed as many as they could and GTFO'd to the Arks, where they remain to this day.

Dice and Mechanics

Mutant uses a simple dice pool mechanic similar to World of Darkness, except with d6's instead of d10's. You add up the number of points you have in a skill, its attached attribute, as well as any bonus dice from gear, and roll that many d6's. Any 6's rolled results in a success, but if you fail and Push the roll, any 1's rolled have different additional results, all of them equally shitty, depending on which type of die rolled the 1 (attribute, skill, or equipment). A 1 on a base (attribute) dice results in trauma to that particular attribute (but also nets you a Mutation Point, so silver linings), and a 1 on a gear die results in the gear in question becoming broken and its bonus reduced by a point. A 1 on a skill die doesn't do anything extra. Due to this, Modiphius sells special dice for Mutant with different colors for the dice (yellow for base dice, green for skill dice, and black for gear dice), and the "radiation" symbol in the 6's place, "biohazard" symbol in the 1's place on the base dice and an explosion symbol in the 1's place on the gear dice; which you might be tempted to get if you don't play 40k and already have a metric fuckton of d6's of every shade of color conceivable lying around.

Pushing, a mechanic familiar to Call of Cthulhu players, allows you to re-roll a check at the risk of harsher consequences beyond simply failure. You re-roll all the dice that weren't 6's or 1's, but this time 1's are extra bad (see above). Note this means you can push a roll you already succeeded to fish for extra 6's, as most skills grant additional benefits for each 6 rolled (like converting each additional 6 into another point of damage for the Fight skill, for example). Note, you get bent over for every 1 you roll even if you succeed on the check.

Player characters

Players of M:Y0 play mutants (duh), or as they refer to themselves, the People. The Elder has been warning you your entire life (you're not exactly sure how long that's been) to stay safe and sound in the Ark. Well now he's in the post-apocalyptic geriatric ward, and you're running out of food and non-contaminated water. This coupled with your inability to make babies has led you to make the obvious decision: it's time to go out into the Zone to find Eden, the magical holy land of happiness and rainbows that'll save your people... maybe. The Elder has been telling you about it since you were a kid, and now it's time to find out if it was all just a load of bullshit. But you don't really have many other options at this point.

Roles

Every mutant gets a role, even the NPCs. As opposed to character classes in other games which grant you numerous features that get progressively more powerful as your character advances, roles in Mutant grant you access to a single skill. While this may make it seem like role isn't especially important by comparison, each of the skills granted by your role are very useful. Each role also has a Key Attribute that allows you to begin with said attribute at 5. There is also a selection of Talents that are limited to certain roles.

• Enforcer:Your bog-standard close combat face-puncher. Has the Intimidate skill which is actually far more useful than it sounds since trauma directly reduces base attributes. You can Intimidate someone to do what you want, but it can also inflict Doubt so you can literally scare someone to death.
• Gearhead: Repairs all the group's shit when it inevitably breaks. Not to be confused with the Fixer, who does not, in fact, fix anything. Gains the Jury-Rig skill which, as previously mentioned, fixes broken stuff, but also allows you to craft items whole-cloth out of the miscellaneous junk you find lying around.
• Stalker: Most RPGs borderline require at least one person to play some form of healer. Mutant practically requires someone play a Stalker if your group plans on ever going into the Zone. Gains the Find the Path skill which not only helps you actually find artifacts in the Zone (you have to damn near trip over them to find any otherwise), but more importantly allows your group to enter a Zone square without wandering face first into whatever horrible monstrosity happens to be hanging out there.
• Fixer: Combination used car salesman and drug dealer, the Fixer gets the Make a Deal skill. This allows you to effectively pull items (like food or water) out of your ass, but any GM worth his salt is either going to make you work for it or have it come back to bite you later.
• Dog Handler: The first pet class. You have a dog that you probably like better than your fellow PCs. Can use the Sic a Dog skill to make your pooch do stuff for you (life track or bite people), and you can play with your dog to regain Empathy rather than spend time with actual other people.
• Chronicler: Has been writing down everything the Elder's been talking about in his notepad. Functions as the team "buffer/de-buffer" with the Inspire skill.
• Boss: The other pet class. Instead of a dog, comes with a gang of goons to do your dirty work for you. Can use the Command skill to order your thugs around, as well as recruit more.
• Slave: It feels good to be a slave. Has quite possibly one of the best skills in the game, Shake it Off. Any time you take trauma of any type, you can pull a Taylor Swift and roll to negate it. Your life is so shitty, any additional shit just doesn't bother you.

Mutations

To help you survive in the Zone, your mutant comes with Mutations (surprise!). These are always random, but very powerful. They allow you to do all sorts of things like fly, crawl on walls, turn invisible, possess extra arms, breathe fire, heal from sunlight like Superman, and sniff out a trail like a damn bloodhound. Using them requires Mutation Points (MP), which you gain at the top of each session and refill during game by pushing die rolls. Every time you use them, there's a chance that you'll gain an additional mutation. The downside of this is that every time you do, your attributes/health permanently go down. Dem's da brakes.

External Links

• https://www.modiphius.com/mutant.html - Official site.