Labyrinth Future! (Labyrinth Lord/Mutant Future crossover)

[IfanYFfwl]

Anyone familiar with Labyrinth Lord or Mutant Future? The former is a fairly straight clone of basic D&D (though it has an addon that turns it into AD&D 1). Mutant Future I guess is meant to be an alternative to Gamma World, though I've never played that, so I can't be sure.

Anyway, the site mentions that the two games use the same ruleset, and are therefore more or less compatible. So I was thinking a crossover. Something along the lines of this: The world has all but ended in the fires of nuclear war. Not only are the survivors beginning to mutate, but the cataclysm has started to break down the walls of reality! Magic, and strange new humanoids and creatures have begun to bleed through into our world. Along with the ruins of civlisation, strange, mazelike structures have begun to appear deep underground. Certain people are finding that their prayers are being answered, or they can bend the laws of reality.

So what would need balancing? Prices of equipment would need a little adjusting, but that shouldn't be too big a deal. I'd probably go with the "basic" form of LL, since MF uses the "race as class" setup that basic does. I haven't read enough of MF to tell how well it's classes are balanced with LLs classes, though.

There's also another compatible game on the site, Starships and Spacemen which I guess is a Star Trek kind of deal. You could have mutants in space, or elves in space, or even mutant elves in space. That one costs money, so I haven't checked it out yet.

[Thrudd]

Anyone familiar with Labyrinth Lord or Mutant Future? The former is a fairly straight clone of basic D&D (though it has an addon that turns it into AD&D 1). Mutant Future I guess is meant to be an alternative to Gamma World, though I've never played that, so I can't be sure.

Anyway, the site mentions that the two games use the same ruleset, and are therefore more or less compatible. So I was thinking a crossover. Something along the lines of this: The world has all but ended in the fires of nuclear war. Not only are the survivors beginning to mutate, but the cataclysm has started to break down the walls of reality! Magic, and strange new humanoids and creatures have begun to bleed through into our world. Along with the ruins of civlisation, strange, mazelike structures have begun to appear deep underground. Certain people are finding that their prayers are being answered, or they can bend the laws of reality.

So what would need balancing? Prices of equipment would need a little adjusting, but that shouldn't be too big a deal. I'd probably go with the "basic" form of LL, since MF uses the "race as class" setup that basic does. I haven't read enough of MF to tell how well it's classes are balanced with LLs classes, though.

There's also another compatible game on the site, Starships and Spacemen which I guess is a Star Trek kind of deal. You could have mutants in space, or elves in space, or even mutant elves in space. That one costs money, so I haven't checked it out yet.

They are compatible, sort of. The rules of play are almost exactly the same, but the characters and leveling are very different. Actually the basic equipment and currency is one thing that needs no changes, they are exactly the same in both games.

The thing you will have to decide is if PC's go by Mutant rules or LL rules. In Mutants, there are no classes, only "races", and characters all begin with more HP than LL characters will probably ever have (a number of HD equal to CON). There is a single XP chart for all characters, and upon gaining each level a random bonus is awarded, usually an increase to a random ability score.

LL is exactly basic D&D, as you know.

Mutants has technology instead of magic items, but it occupies exactly the same place in the game, given out as rare bits of loot. The basic equipment available to PC's is medieval-level, exactly the same as LL, and the same cost as well.

You could easily run LL with some tech as loot with little modification. Use only normal LL character classes, but allow mutations to potentially occur in-game through exposure to radiation and other things detailed in MF.

Using the MF themed characters alongside LL characters will take some work. You could create LL style classes for the different MF mutants races and androids, starting them out with 1HD and increasing with level, and assigning them a number of allowed weapons or weapon proficiencies (in MF, there are no weapon or equipment restrictions). I'm not sure how unbalancing it will be to give them access to all the mutations they normally have from the start of the game. Some of the mutations are quite powerful, but there is a good chance of getting drawback mutations as well as beneficial ones. You might reduce the number of mutations they receive, or tone down the power of some of them (perhaps letting them scale with level).

Or let players select both a mutant type (or pure human) and an LL class. They progress like LL classes, have weapon and armor restrictions, but just have extra mutant abilities. This would be a more high powered game. You might then want to do away with the fantasy races, or else give them some extra abilities. Maybe they should get increases to ability scores like pure humans do, since they don't get mutations. Androids may need to be restricted to NPC only.

[Thrudd]

I had a better idea. Play MF as written, and adjust the elf and dwarf to MF style. Make them like Pure Humans, no mutations allowed, and give them adjustments to ability scores. Dwarves get d8 HD and +4 CON, +3 INT. Elves get d6 HD, +2 DEX, +3 INT, +2 CHA. Or something like that, will need tweaking.

By default, all MF classes are basically "fighters", they have no restrictions on weapons or armor and have a chance of increased damage or getting extra attacks when they level up. You could allow any race/class (except elves) to choose to be a thief instead, giving them thief abilities, backstab, and use the thief hit progression table from LL. For thieves, the level up table is changed to improve thief abilities instead of getting more damage and extra attacks.

Only Pure Humans and Elves can be magic users. There are no weapon or armor restrictions, they begin the game with level 1 casting ability and the MU hit table from LL. Replace the fighting improvements with increase in caster level on the level-up chart. Elves are automatically magic users, and get to use the fighter hit chart.

Only Pure Humans can be clerics. Otherwise they are treated the same as Magic Users, begin the game with level 1 casting ability and use the cleric hit table from LL. The level up table gives a chance to increase caster level instead of fighting ability.

The thing you would need to think about is the distribution of loot. Will magic items and scrolls be just as prevalent as tech items? Without less access to scrolls, magic users will not be adding many spells to their books. Of course, a magic user will also probably have fairly high intelligence, meaning they will have a better chance of using any tech they find as well, so it may balance out.

[Azraile]

Something you might consider is an PC/mac game called the labyrinth of time

In the game, fore reasons I forget, some god like beeping has issued the creator of the original labyrinth to build one for him... having plucked him out of time and given him dominion over time and space to create a labyrinth spanning across ... well...mtime and space

You could use this to e xspand open you idea and have pockets of various times and places connected by rifts in these mazes...every entrance and exit in a area yanked out of time by the rifts its own passage to somewhere and some when else