Amazing Adventures Rpg and The Battle Arena of Mr. Millennium By Mark Taormino - Session Report Two

 'America's favorite wrestling champion has turned evil and declared himself the supreme ruler of the new world! He has established an ancient fortified wrestling arena and broadcast TV studio showcasing his Battle Royale where the winners will receive riches beyond their wildest desires and the defeated face death. Furthermore, he wields a sinister technology capable of mind control, using it to broadcast manipulative signals during the matches via his hypnotic theme song. '

These broadcasts transform unsuspecting viewers into contestants and devout followers, expanding his tyrannical empire. A brave group of heroes is needed to answer his challenge, infiltrate the deadly games, destroy the source of the broadcasts freeing the captives and finally confront him and his wicked wrestling minions to end this reign of terror once and for all in the Battle Arena of Mr. Millennium!'

We left Oaken Leaf at the healer's outpost and then moved into the deeper post apocalyptic urban landscape. And this urban landscape this is when we saw the battle arena of Mr. Millennium. This  dominated the entire surrounding area with giant holograms of the warriors and wrestling action. There were 'fanatics' and audience members lined up around the block. There were a few dust ups but our Dwarven fighter Hanic Odinson took out a few of the humans with a few moves followed by the Manhattan Mauler doing his best to break up the violence. 
We broke away as the two masters of violence are convinced that there's something going on with the fans outside of the battle arena. 

We quickly slipped away into the darkness with a clever illusion by our gnome illusionist Levi who simply joined our party. Where and when we're not even sure. Our party will sort that issue out later on. 
For me moment we found a local inn for our accommodations after selling a few little trinkets from our loot. 
We were attacked by thieves and bandits but we were waiting for this. We made contact with the local thieves guild after a brief parley. 
We found out plenty including confirming our suspicions that there's something off with the fans of Mr. Millennium.  

The guild has a wrestler/gladiator in the thick of the up coming events. We got in good with the thieves guild by getting our gadgeteer to fix a water purifying system in one of their neighborhoods.  We also saw a couple of the Orc gangers entering into the battle arena events. We're staking out the arena for the moment. The party's Amazing Adventures rpg PC's for tonight's The Battle Arena of Mr. Millennium  were on full wrestling mode with all of the action outside the arena. 

Amazing Adventures Rpg and The Battle Arena of Mr. Millennium By Mark Taormino - Session Report One

 'America's favorite wrestling champion has turned evil and declared himself the supreme ruler of the new world! He has established an ancient fortified wrestling arena and broadcast TV studio showcasing his Battle Royale where the winners will receive riches beyond their wildest desires and the defeated face death. Furthermore, he wields a sinister technology capable of mind control, using it to broadcast manipulative signals during the matches via his hypnotic theme song. '

These broadcasts transform unsuspecting viewers into contestants and devout followers, expanding his tyrannical empire. A brave group of heroes is needed to answer his challenge, infiltrate the deadly games, destroy the source of the broadcasts freeing the captives and finally confront him and his wicked wrestling minions to end this reign of terror once and for all in the Battle Arena of Mr. Millennium!'

 We were wrapping up in the nearby Village of the Burning Sun with the artifacts of the Chainbreakers biker gang from last session.  Our party distributed the artifacts to the village. The broadcast power was turned back on. The party's Amazing Adventures rpg PC's for tonight's  The Battle Arena of Mr. Millennium were on full wrestling mode as the party saw the transmission of Mr. Millennium's wasteland battle royale! 

 Our fellow adventurer 'The Manhattan Mauler' is completely fixated on the battle royal because he failed his saving throw. We started packing up and moving deeper into the wasteland urban landscape. We rolled on random encounters and ran straight into the remains of the Chainbreakers. We got into an extended fire fire with bows and arrows. The Chainbreakers were using obsidian headed arrows. This was in response to our using a light scout armor we found in the bowl-a- rama. 
We left the scout armor back in the village as a huge artifact. Our pair of Elven bowmen laid the smack down with a hail of arrows. But Oaken Leaf was injured by an arrow cutting deeply into his leg. We threw a hand grenade and fled deeper into  the urban landscape when we came across a healer outpost. 
A lizard man healer named Dr. Zaurous was on staff and brought in Oaken Leaf. We paid with two medicine kits and the PC will be out of commission for a month. We stayed the night at a local inn directly opposite of the healer outpost. 

Amazing Adventures Rpg and The Warriors of the Wasteland#1 Mutants in the Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama - Session Report Two

  "In the desolate stretches of your post-apocalyptic world, the dusty and abandoned “Bowl-A-Rama” stands as an unlikely beacon of hope. Powered by a hidden, ancient energy source which has suddenly turned off, it is the last known lifeline for locals in the nearby Village of the Burning Sun. However, the building has recently been invaded by a biker gang of mutant orcs, known as “The Outriders,” led by their evil boss “Chainbreaker” who has taken some locals captive and transformed the place into his new fortress and party headquarters!"

" Because of its significance, the locals have cobbled together a brave group of survivors from the hamlet to set out to breach and reclaim it. Your challenge is to restore the power, rescue all captives, gather any valuables and destroy the evil Mutants in the Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama"
Our party secured thier camp and moved in on the remains of the Moonlite- Bowl- rama. We guaged the gang's numbers and strength. We pick right up here on the blog. 

We were deep in the wastelands with our Amazing Adventures rpg PC's for tonight's The  Warriors of the Wasteland#1 Mutants in the Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama. Our party of adventurers got into it hot and heavy with the Outriders gang around the premeter of the Moonlite Bowl-a- rama. Things went from bad to worse for the Orc biker gang and things slid down hill. 

 We crawled into the ventwork of the bowling alley. Then into the bowling alley's lounge and then snuck along the hall. The orcs had made the lounge a huge mess. Our Elven archer took out two Orc warriors and the Manhatten Mauler took out two more warriors in the back of the warehouse of the alleyworks. 

We got bogged down with four more Orc gangers in the bar. We had to take these guys out fast before they sounded the alarm to the rest of the gang! We did this with a sleep spell and then three slit throats. Next it was a straight blasting of two more gangers in the bar by Wild Bill our gunslinger. We confronted Chainbreaker with a plethora of four hand grenades that we'd been saving for taking the bastard out. And we managed very well with our rolls. The rest of the 'Outsiders' gave up! Not simply a little bit but took off with white flags flying. Next Dr. Chan got the  the Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama A.I. and broad cast power back on line restoring power to the nearby Village of the Burning Sun. We then went about training three other village elders to be in the arts of the A.I. and broadcast power unit's operation and maintence. All of this took about two months game time, 
While getting the broadcast power station back on line we intercepted a transmission from Mr. Millenium's Battle Arena! The Manhattan Mauler & party will answer the call! 

Amazing Adventures Rpg and The Warriors of the Wasteland#1 Mutants in the Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama - Session Report One

 "In the desolate stretches of your post-apocalyptic world, the dusty and abandoned “Bowl-A-Rama” stands as an unlikely beacon of hope. Powered by a hidden, ancient energy source which has suddenly turned off, it is the last known lifeline for locals in the nearby Village of the Burning Sun. However, the building has recently been invaded by a biker gang of mutant orcs, known as “The Outriders,” led by their evil boss “Chainbreaker” who has taken some locals captive and transformed the place into his new fortress and party headquarters!"

" Because of its significance, the locals have cobbled together a brave group of survivors from the hamlet to set out to breach and reclaim it. Your challenge is to restore the power, rescue all captives, gather any valuables and destroy the evil Mutants in the Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama"

We created Amazing Adventures rpg PC's for tonight's The  Warriors of the Wasteland#1 Mutants in the Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama. The PC's were taken over into an alternate timeline onto  a post apocalytic Earth. The  Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama has stopped broadcasting power & scouts were sent in. They didn't expect the pig faced orc motorbike gang 'The Outriders' has taken over the Moonlite bowling alley.The scouts were captured by 'The Outsiders' & only one of the scouts managed to escape.  We got called in by the shaman's council of Village of the Burning Sun. 
The Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama is twenty miles from the village & we had to march through wasteland. And came face to face with mutant bats by night after we camped and faced down giant rats by day! 

 We secured our camp and moved onward. Our party encountered several 'Outriders' biker scouts but we hid to observe. 
They dropped actual bottled beer on the roadway that runs through the woods! So we know that they've been to the Moonlite. We came face to face with a giant mutant snake with acid breath. Our Elven archer Raven Oakleaf took this thing out. We found another area to camp in. 
We went hunting for food and ran into a very large mutant dinosaur. The party ran away leaving the dinosaur to eat the deer. The camp was by a lake & we found another herd of deer. And we shot a deer and this time checked it over for physical or other  mutations. The white tail deer was normal and delicious. Apparently the smell of cooking deer attracted a giant rat of unusual size. We gutted this thing and began smoking & salting meat for our continuing  trip to The Moonlite Bowl-A-Rama.

Thoughts & Impressions On First Read Through of The 4th Edition Morrow Project rpg From Timeline Ltd.

 "When it appeared nuclear war was inevitable, a clandestine project was considered and launched. Hundreds of citizens and experts with specific skills would be cryogenically frozen in hidden boltholes around the world. A few years after the End of the World, these people would then be released to help rebuild the world. Complications arose, and the first of these enclaves were instead released nearly 150 years in the future. And contact has been lost with the other enclaves. Can this small crew exist and survive in a world they no longer recognize? Can the world still be saved?"

So almost a week back I contacted the Timeline Ltd. folks about the Morrow Project rpg. And just incase you don't know the history of the Morrow Project rpg here's the short synoisis from the Morrow Project Wiki entry; "The Morrow Project is a science fiction role-playing game created by Kevin Dockery, Robert Sadler and Richard Tucholka and published by TimeLine Limited. It is set after a devastating nuclear war. It was first released in the 1980s, and it still has a loyal following. The fourth edition was released as of December 15, 2013 by Chris Garland, the head of Timeline Limited." 
What came in the drivethrurpg link from the Morrow Project facebook group was a mamoth 330 page monster! This wasn't the game that came across the table top in 1980! Instead this is a whole cloth behemoth classic. Let me explain, the Fourth edition of the Morrow Project is possibly one of the most customizable post apocalpytic rpg that has crossed my desk. Yes, the classic Morrow Project background is there & yes the bulk of the setting is there plus more; "One hundred and fifty years after the fall of civilization, the members of the Morrow Project wake to a changed world. Without the modern transit and communications infrastructures, distances that once took hours, now take weeks, and news that once traveled in milliseconds now takes months to arrive, if ever. This new world is characterized by tiny hamlets of simple daily existence awash in a sea of barbarism and anarchy. The Morrow Project could not prevent the coming catastrophe, nor did they have the resources to help everyone immediately. It was possible to help with the rebuilding, but even this was a massive undertaking. Plan became action and over the years many well-trained teams were cryogenically frozen in hidden bunkers to emerge at the time when their resources and help could do the most good. Intended to be part of an organized plan to rebuild America, your team finds that they have missed the 3-5 year expected wake-up call. Now, far outside the original time frame and unable to contact the rest of the project, they must start alone the process that was intended for thousands. Isolated in a world where the war is only a distant legend, your team must rely on their ingenuity, training and each other to carry out the general orders of the project: 1. Assist the population in rebuilding America whenever possible. 2. Reunite with the bulk of the Morrow Project forces. 3. Survive! The Morrow Project may be played with nothing other than this book, dice, paper and pencil. Included in this book are full details on Morrow Project teams, vehicles, equipment, modern weapons, complete medical details, people and creatures living in the post-holocaust world, and more." This blurb comes from the back of the Morrow Project book. 

 So all this is within fourth edition Morrow Project. But there's so much more then what was thought to be in the book as I remember it. Morrow Project is a savage post apocalytic rpg with the DM deciding how, where, & why the apocalpytic events will touch the US 150 years down the road when your party wakes up from hypersleep. The Morrow project itself & its background is still intact but man, the rpg has become a very detailed post apocalpytic rpg tool kit. Chris Morrell states the aims of the fourth edition of the Morrow Project right in the introduction; "My aim, even from that fi rst meeting to discuss the re-write, was to establish a system that tightly meshed both rule sets together, and produced something new. Gone were the D20 tables, and most of the other dice types. Instead everything was based upon 1D100 and 4D6. We had new Ability scores, permitting a more rounded character. The core mechanism of rolling under a score that is a product of an Ability Score x 2 plus any skill, borrows inspiration from the old 2nd edition D&D NWP. The degrees of success mechanism had already been used in another game I was writing, and had its infl uences from a conversation I had had with Steve Perrin the original author of Runequest. The doubles as critical or fumble rule was, I thought, new. I was later to fi nd that it had been thought of before."

The Morrow Project rpg that I remembered is here but there's far more too it now & that's a good thing. Paramilitary & post apocalytic rpging is a niche within a niche of the rpg hobby & the Morrow Project fits this niche incredibly well. But with that come certain challenges & that includes finding the right group of players willing to take the gamble on such a game. The combat is incredibly lethal for this system & the reality of the rpg is very detailed. Even more so then say classic Twilight 2000 or the gonzo nature of Gamma World. Survival within the Morrow Project's campaign setting is going to take team work. Solid gaming & a very well thought plan on the part of a party of PC's.  All of the classics to take out your PC are here danger,  disease, radiation, fallout, & other humans ( some of the most dangerous things to encounter are other people), etc. And yet the reward of survival, thriving in the wasteland that was America, and helping to rebuild civilization is all a part of the Morrow Project. 
Many folks in the OSR talk about adult gaming & realism the Morrow Project provides that in spades. The world is super detailed as you make it. Are the little booklets that you remember from 1980 still here? Umm no instead we get a complete survival at all costs & a balls to the wall classic in the Morrow Project fourth edition. Five out of five for me as both DM & Morrow Project gamer. 

Review & Commentary On Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse From Michael Brown For The Cepheus Engine & 2d6 Old School Science Fiction Rpg Campaigns

 Everyone who goes to the Southwestern United States loves ghost towns & the remains of mines from the centuries of the Old West. The tourist industry thrives on them out there and by default players love 2d6 post apocalpyse adventuring & playing. And when wants to visit a failed colony world in the Clement Sector?! There are a number of 2d6 options on the table for the Cepheus Engine. But Michael Brown's Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse isn't usually on the lips of players & DM's.

 And this is something that I'm counting on. You see  Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse is only 26 pages long & hits that 2d6 sweet spot for post apoclapytic game play. Why because it hits that sweet spot with more 2d6 skill, career, & more for post apocalyptic adventuring. And it does this by creating variations on existing Cepheus Engine careers & skill paths. But where  Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse excels is the fact that it builts on the existing rules by giving more options at the table top rpg level. Is  Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse  able to stand on its own?! Yes! But where it shines is when its paired with other existing Cepheus Engine products and this comes across especially with the Cepheus Engine rpg rules. Because stumbling upon a post apocalyptic world or failed colony is always both a puzzle & a hazard.

 Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse isn't Gamma World, if your looking for that I suggest another set of 2d6 Cepheus Engine rpg rules in the form of Stella Gemma's Cepheus Atom. Then you're going to get a far more gonzo set of parameters for your 2d6 campaign settings. This is a greatr pairing but if we slide to the right a bit more with  Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse & say Barbaric! then things begin to warp & become even weirder ala Thundarr The Barbarian. 

The failed colony has slid down the laddar of barbarianism based on old half remembered video games, legends of fantasty role playing games and more. The colonists have evolved into the roles of video game classes. 
If we go down the rabbit hole of the Clement Sector then the failed  colonists could take the pace of the American Indians ala something out of Firefly for a Space Western setting. The failed colony world describes some of those who have remained behind to transcend into the orbital remains of the space stations and fueling stations in orbit around the planet. And this really gets into the flexibility of  Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse. The rules are crisp, easy to use, and plug into the very heart of some of the ideals of 2d6 Science Fiction rpg's.  Afterday: 2D6 Adventure After the Apocalypse is a classy, solidly done, and easy to use set of rules. 

Gamma World 1st Edition "Legion of Gold GW1" by Gary Gygax, Luke Gygax, Paul Reiche Ill As Well As Gamma World Memories.

 "There is much to worry about in the mutated world of the future, but Baron Jemmas, Warder of Horn, has more on his mind that most. In recent weeks several of the outlying towns of his Barony have been wiped out by a band of mysterious golden marauders."

"These creatures struck from nowhere and vanished without a trace when their deeds were done. The Warder has decided that they must be stopped before the entire Barony of Horn falls beneath their onslaught, and so he is offering a great reward to anyone who can defeat the Legion of Gold."

"Legion of Gold GW1" by Gary Gygax, Luke Gygax, Paul Reiche Ill still remains one of our all time favorite post apocalyptic sand box adventures. This is because while other post apocalyptic rpg games come & go Gamma World first edition remains iconic. So iconic that even today the model is being offered in print once again by Wizards of the Coast. Even today mutants & adventurers are still being killed off in the wilds of horn seeking out the golden maruaders! 

Baron Jemmas, Warder of Horn, is an interesting NPC in his own right. Often glossed over in favor of the the rest of the sandbox of a module. Horn has all of the hallmarks of a post apocalytic domain. And that's exactly how we used it back in the Eighty one. The more we solved the dilema's of Baron Jemmas the more we came into his own good graces. According to Zen Darkstar on Rpg Geeks; "This is perhaps the best GW module ever made! If you are a lazy/unimaginative GM who needs everything laid out for you (or you like your adventures designed by rail-road engineers), that this is not your game. This is a "sandbox" (or 'point of light') setting - its an open-ended setting, with enough "seed" to run all sorts of adventures in and around it. The only down sides, is the way the players get to pick freely from the Baron's armory. This armory has a number of powerful artifacts, that the players should find on the course of the adventure - with all the trials and errors that comes with figuring them out."

And its these trials & tribulations from the players of the Gamma World adventures within GW1 that gives the fodder to create the campaign world of Gamma Terra from the ground up! The sand box style of GW1 is both its strength & weakness. Paired with Gamma World first or second edition & soon your mutants & adventurers had their own kingdoms if they lived that long. 

"Legion of Gold GW1" has several of the usual high end qualities of Gamma World classic play going for it! Weird creatures, outlandish awesome adventure encounters, weird factions, & deadly combat. Beware that even though it says on the module cover, "Designed for use by 2-8 players of low to mid-levels." There have been several PC's of mine from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons that have been killed by the monsters in GW1. There's so much potential for campaign use in GW1. And the encounters can end well or not at all. 
And its the all or nothing attitude with GW1 that remains a part of intriniscic charm & why it remains iconic even today. What makes it better? The "Legion of Gold GW1" module has been reprinted & is available on Drivethrurpg right here 

There are five things that our group absolutely loves about "Legion of Gold GW1": 

1. The sand box nature of the module allows the DM to string in their own encounters into the mix. "Legion of Gold GW1" is that module that brings the best of early Gamma World to the table top. 
2. The Buggems! 
3. There is so much potential for actual hard core Gamma World campaign planning. 
4. The potential is there for Greyhawk cross over! Nuff said there! 
5. The mutants & adventuers actually have a chance against some if not all of the Gamma World horrors within GW1! 

Gamma World 1st Edition "Famine In Far Go" By Michael Price As Well As Gamma World Memories.

Far-Go is dying... the people are afraid... the animals are wasting away... the crops are withering the fields. No one, even Arx Skystone, the high priest, knows what has caused Far-Go's misfortune."



"YOU are part of a group of young adventurers about to begin the sacred Rite of Adulthood. The last hope of survival for Far-Go rests with your party. On your journey to the Forest of Knowledge, you must search for clues to the origin of the mysterious plague. This quest may led you into great danger... and great knowledge. As you travel through the savage wilderness, all you have are your companions, your wits, your strength... and your dreams!!"
 "Famine In Far-Go" by Michael Price remains a favorite Gamma World module from Eighty Two. And it still hits all of the high marks including referee notes, background information, maps, new creatures, mutations, robotic units and new rules for Pure Strain Humans. But what marks this module as different is the nature of the coming of age of the youth of Far-Go adventure. This module hits all of the high lights of a big numbers post apocalpytic adventure, "This module is designed as an introductory adventure series for 2-1 0 players, but a group of 5-7 players is best."
Did I happen to mention that its in print on Drivethrurpg?!! What makes  "Famine In Far-Go" is the coming of age aspect of the module & its vivid imagery from Gamma World. Walker P on the Rpg Geek site says it best in the comments on Famine in Far-Go; "An absolute classic and my all-time favorite module. Sure, it seems a bit railroady, but you can just strip that wrapper right off and let the players go wild in a crazy part of the world. The whole chicken processing plant gone wild is exactly the kind of thing you want to do in a Gamma World game. And what an awesome cover!" 
From the Tim Truman interior to the exterior artwork  "Famine In Far-Go"  works!  "Famine In Far-Go"  works as both a sand box or as a rail roady style adventure. The whole cloth adventure has far more potential as both module & as campaign jump off point for Gamma World. 

If   "Famine In Far-Go"  has any unresolved adventure plots then these can be solved by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition rpg adventurers later on. This was major campaign point within my uncle's AD&D & Gamma World campaign crossover.  "Famine In Far-Go"  hits all of the classic Gamma World points from wandering monsters to mutant chicken warriors to artifacts from before the fall of man. When we think Gamma World's  "Famine In Far-Go"  we think badders! Mutant badgers are still loathed in this house folks. 

Anyone whose played "Famine In Far-Go"  knows the ins & outs of badders. And personally I've lost at least three or four PC's to the badders & Gallus Gallus 5/13! These cyclops chicken mutants were the worst! 

Gallus Gallus 5/13, gun-toting mutant chicken cyclopes, the hideous – yet in retrospect inevitable – result of running an experimental radiation laboratory inside a poultry breeding house  (Tim Truman and Jeff Easley, Gamma World module GW2: Famine in Far-Go, TSR, 1982). These things were horrid to face down in the post apocalytic wastes especially with a DM who knew you'd be dealing with a chicken factory full em! Make no mistake these are evil poultry & I can believe in gun toting mutant chickens! 

So does "Famine In Far-Go"  still stand up in 2021?! Yes no only is this classic a classic for a reason but the adventure plot points about, ""The Rite consists of traveling far from the community to find the Forest of Knowledge, where they must eat from berries growing around a certain tree." work. But this aspect of a party's quest is something lacking in many modern OSR modules today. "Famine In Far-Go"  is everything I expect in classic 1st edtion Gamma World adventures & Gamma World done right. 

You Can Pick Up A Print Copy of Famine In Far Go Right Here