Making the old new again doesn't stop with the OSR it seems.
The Morrow Project was not a game I initially had direct knowledge of back in my early days of gaming. Sure, I had seen the ads in Dragon, I just had little to no clue as to what it was all about.
That changed one day when one of my friends gave me his copy of The Morrow Project.
"Dude, I really want to play this. Read the rules and run it for us. Please!" I tried to read the rules, but they were the usual mess that the small game publishers back then usually put out. I couldn't quite get a handle on the system, and truth to tell, my desire wasn't there. The old group played our last game in February of 1997. Paul was lost when the Towers came down on 9-11-01. Damn shame, because he would have been all over this Kickstarter.
I may have to pick this up solely for the memories of what was and what never came to be. Hell, I might have to actually run a session this time around. I suspect it will play much like a pen and paper Fallout ;)
(16 days left and its already blown past goal - $22k+ with a goal of $15)
Next RPG that That Time Forgot will be Synnibarr ;)
I own this but have never read it carefully. It's a bit spartan for something post-Gamma World. The thing I remember most distinctively is a death rule where your chance of expiration depended upon blood loss, whose rate and sum had to be tracked. There was a chart.
ReplyDeleteI have very fond memories of TMP, which I played quite a bit in the '80's. It was the setting and the premise more than the rules, that made the game so appealing. I'll have to check this out - thanks for the head's up!
ReplyDeletea post apocalypse game wher you act as if there is hope, spread civilization and know what tech is and start well equiptment - keeps players from being horrible survivalist murder hobos
ReplyDeleteSupposedly the designer had created the weapon damage system (fixed damage point amounts based on the weapon's muzzle energy) as some sort of thesis project, and then created the game around that.
ReplyDeleteThe setting is definitely compelling -- Mysterious industrialist places trained teams of Green Beret-like soldier/doctor/engineers in hibernation in secret underground vaults in anticipation of a global nuclear war. The player-team finds that it has been revived over a hundred years after the war, rather than in its immediate aftermath, and has no coordination with other teams, if they've survived at all. It's not particularly pulp/Gamma World-y. The closest things to mutant monsters in the original rulebook were things like giant (maybe bear-sized) wolverines. Human bandits and barbarians were the most common foes.
I briefly ran a campaign back in the '80s, which the players recall fondly, but mostly for reasons of character and plot, rather than anything about the system, which I didn't especially care for and was indeed "a bit spartan". I would expect the Kickstart product to be better, but I'd say the original materials could make for an enjoyable post-holocaust game using GURPS or d20 or nearly any other contemporary RP/combat system.
I've recently been able to play a few sessions of Morrow Project and I am absolutely hooked. When I found this Kickstarter there was no question of whether or not I would get in on it.
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