Dice and Brush: Q&A with Chris from Modiphius

Tuesday, 21 January 2014

Q&A with Chris from Modiphius

Hi there, yesterday my fellow Warzone blogger Sebastian posted an interview with Chris from Modiphius about their upcoming Kickstarter with 3rd Ed of the Mutant Chronicles RPG. A great read and I got permission to post it here as well (big thanks Seb.), but for more Warzone/MC goodies and more do visit Sebastians blog here: http://moonshriek.blogg.se/

On to the interview:

Hi all! Firstly thank you Chris for taking your time and answering these questions. We are all very excited for the KS. And now for some Q&A with Chris from Modiphius!

1. Could you give us a brief overview on what Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition is?

Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition is a re-boot of the awesome roleplaying game from the 90's that took on this mad ride through a solar system beset by corporate intrigue and the invasion of a terrible dark alien force. With technology failing due to the insidious effects of the Dark Symmetry humankind must find new ways to fight back against the Dark Legion whilst dealing with in-fighting and conspiracy from within.

The 3rd Edition uses our new Destiny RPG system which encourages cinematic scenes, is fast playing and fun yet still uses the d20 and eight stats fans are used to. We've filled in the gaps in the original storyline, unearthed secrets for players and GM's to discover through the coming releases whilst adding in new content to extend the world. Players will be able to secure spaceships and explore the solar system, conduct deadly urban investigations against strange cults as well as roam the battlefields of the solar system.

2. What do you like the most with the IP and setting of Mutant Chronicles, what got you hooked?

It's the full throttle diesel punk style I love, massive shoulder pads, big guns, heroic action. I think the image of Mitch Hunter on this page: http://www.modiphius.com/mutant-chronicles.html falling off a cliff, clutching his dog and shoot backwards kind of says it all - it's massively pumped up movie style adventure in a familiar world of Earth based corporations inspired by well known nationalities that make it easier to relate to.

3. What are your favourite Character/Special Force/Faction(Apostel) in Mutant Chronicles Overall, fluffwise, looks etc?

It has to be the Blood Berets - I loved the early boardgames and the Blood Beret boardgame was my first exposure to the universe. They remind me of the British Commandoes that I grew up liking in my early war-games.

4. What single thing about Mutant Chronicles 3rd Edition do you think will attract most new players?

We've taken an already awesome universe and properly let it loose so people can truly experience all sides of the story like never before.

5. Will the new personalities make it into MC 3rd Edition like the WzR pledgers characters Hamilkar, Henry Thomas and Sanders. Or the new Prodos characters Angelika and Hiroko?

The roleplaying universe is much wider in scope than Warzone but official characters are likely to make it in to the storyline :-)

6. For us old players, how much will change between the 2nd Edition and the 3rd Edition? Fluff, Rules and Settings?

We're not changing any fluff, we've made more sense of often contradicting stories and events, we've added to the story to fill in gaps, give reasons for events, and actions and created a strong back line plot that will serve as a foundation for the growth of the game over the coming years.

You'll be able to start the game just after the Dark Symmetry is release on Pluto just before the first Corporate War and the first Dark Legion invasion - you can start with dark investigations of strange events and cults, or jump right in to the war, or just go right ahead to the main 2nd Dark Legion War. But that first storyline is so full of amazing stories we felt we had to begin things there. There is also an amazing campaign coming together which lets you play through the whole story, up to the final climatic battle with the Dark Legion that sees their first defeat, and then continue on 700 years to the second Dark Legion war.

7. Will more special forces be available to have a career in, like the Imperial Young Guards? Or will more careers just be available?

Yes we plan to expand the possible careers to include more options. Corporate books will further expand on this too

8. Will they White Stars take the place of the Sons of Rasputin? Or will the Co-Excist?

The Sons of Rasputin are a breakaway group from Whitestar - so it gives them a more detailed background, Whitestar will become a major force upon Earth and central to a lot of new and existing events. They offer a different form of play as Cybertronic does in some sense. They have different values, different equipment. they're more interested in the growing mutations appearing in humans and there's lot of opportunities for more raw characters from this violent world. It's a great kick off point for Dark Eden adventures as well.

9. Will books be released in ipad friendly or kindle friendly formats as well?

We're exploring this with Achtung! Cthulhu at the moment, we're already producing colour PDF's that are far more easily read on iPads and with the advent of Kindle Fire's we think most people will be moving towards viewing colour documents as opposed to stripped down text files. Currently in the industry there's actually very little commercial demand for ebook versions and the work involved in converting a book full of tables and images is actually quite enormous for the return so I think we'll be watching this to see what happens. My gut feeling is most people will have devises capable of easily viewing colour pdf's before long so the old black and white ebook format is something that won't be around for long.

10. Can we epect things in 2nd , 3rd, or 4th Quarter of 2014?

Oh yes - we have all the Corporate books, Campaigns, stand alone adventures, GM guides and major settings (the first being Dark Symmetry (set during before and during the first Dark Legion invasion), Dark Legion (set during the time of the 1st and 2nd edition) and Dark Eden (set during the closing stages of the 2nd Dark Legion war).

11. Will the game be in a stand alone book with suppliments or will it be "GM Book, Player Book, variety of other books?

We're creating a core book with rules and the first Dark Symmetry setting which sets the foundation and backstory going forward. There will be a soft back player's guide and then further supplements and setting books to build on it.

12. When will the first campaign be released?

That will be one of the first wave of releases so people can start playing right away. We're always working on the storyline and initial adventures now.

13. Will we have world books, or will it be more focused and give us city specific books for settings?

Each corporate book will also detail one of the major worlds - so for example the Capitol book might also include the Mars world book so make them much more useful.

14. When can we expect "Epic Level" Campaigns for High Level Characters?

That will come with the first campaign actually - it will take you to truly epic heights at the close of the first Dark Legion War. There will also be a GM guide coming later which introduces loads of advice and cool new stuff.

15. I heard you can actually own a Spacecraft in this Edition. How will that work?

Absolutely! We've already worked out how you'll buy them or rent them, perhaps you'll need some credit - but be careful who you owe money too! Most airborne vehicles can get you in to orbit, but you need spacecraft to get you between the worlds or to the various habitats. The ships will be somewhat extensions of the characters and you'll need to collectively spend XP on them so there's a shared sense of ownership too.

16. How does the Chronicle Points work in game and during Character Development?

During character development you'll get a a number of 'lucky days' which you can use to influence the results of the life path generation. A combination of whether you use all of these, and how far you take your life path will determine how many chronicle points your character has. Chronicle Points are also used by Brotherhood characters for the Arts but they also get more ways to accumulate them.

In gameplay Chronicle points let you re-roll a dice roll, add one success to a roll or no matter how difficult something is, succeed with just one success, so they totally reward crazy schemes and cinematic actions. You get them back for voluntarily failing a task or critically failing which means something really bad is going to happen.

17. How do the GMs Dark Symmetry Pool work?

The players generate Symmetry dice for the Symmetry pool anytime they succeed with only 1 success (they can get 2 or more), when they fail, when they roll a natural 20 and by voluntarily failing a task (to gain a Chronicle point). Locations, villains and artefacts might also naturally generate Symmetry dice - a heretic temple, a Nepharite, a very evil artefact, or a Legion citadel. The GM would also start adventures with different amounts of Symmetry dice.

The dice are used to activate minions, NPC's and Named Villains at any time (as long as the players haven't rolled the dice to resolve an action), they're spent to Corrupt equipment with the Dark Symmetry (with the more successes telling you how badly it's become corrupted from simply not working to manifesting Dark Gifts), they're also spent to change the environment - steam bursts from pipes all around the room making tasks more difficult, and also to inflict minor Light wounds on characters from stray bullets, slashing blades in a fight.

18. How is the Co-work with Prodos game go? Can we expect miniatures in your KS?

Yes we're working on a list of miniatures which are more aimed at the RPG e.g. civilians with guns, freelancers, heretics. They'll all have stats for Warzone so it will greatly expand what Warzone players have as well as RPG fans having access to all the Warzone minis.

19. How can the community help out with the game?

Well the community is already playtesting the rules, we'll be shortly launching a Beta version on RPGNow.com to download for free which will include the latest short introductory rules, regenerated characters and a short adventure for the final test stages and all feedback is welcome. Of course we're also running a kickstarter very soon so help in spreading the word to fans and games you think would love Mutant Chronicles would be amazing.