One thing I love about the Year Zero Engine games is that each one finds a way to use the engine to represent the theme of the game.

Mutant: Year Zero is about decay and this is represented mechanically by everything breaking down: The Ark, your gear, your body, etc.

Forbidden Lands transforms the system into one of the best exploration engines I’ve ever ran, coupled with a good resource management system to make everything flow together.

My only complaint with FL is the book layout is a bit clunky, and I don’t think the base-building rules are that good. I’d love a supplement where they cross-port the Mutant: Year Zero base building rules over to FL.

Why am I so bad at markdown 🤣

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Yeah, that was a big surprise to me also! I took its basic ASCII hex map and made a real one with HexKit (that’s the good-looking map) and it seems pretty playable! I’m keeping it in my back pocket for my next one-shot.

I use it for ultra-lazy mode:

• Generate a Dungeons and Dragons adventure about X
• Ask for more in-depth information on things is mentions.
• Ask for a random dungeon based on the adventure
• Ask for a hex map for the area.

That’s honestly like 80% of the work. I just have to do some editing and jazz on top of it.

Edit: here’s an example from a couple months ago: https://imgchest.com/p/92493wqm4nk

Play the game the way it wants to be played.

Each game has a specific style/way it’s designed to be played. The system is for that specific thing, and usually it’s worth playing through at least a quick start, starter set, or simple module to figure out what that game demands.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hack or homebrew, but you should keep in mind what the system wants when you’re bolting things on to it.