Welcome back, dice fondlers! As we leave behind the wonders of Numenera and The Strange, let us not look back in longing. We can always return to them. That’s the whole point of games, silly. However! We have some interesting paths to explore in front of us. Seeing as we are all about the random here, I want to crowdsource which system we meander through next – that’s right, I want you to do my job for me. Uh… I mean… I want your valued input! Yes, that’s it.

E3-Themed RPG System Choices

You see, two of games roaming the floor at E3 this year (and let’s be honest, they’ve been anticipated at different levels for quite some time now) are CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077 and Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden by the indie developer Bearded Ladies Consulting. These two, while being projects of a significantly different profile, have one major feature in common. They both originated as tabletop pen and paper RPGs back in the day. Cyberpunk 2077 is based on the Cyberpunk RPG game originally published by R. Talsorian games back in 1988. The original version is often nicknamed Cyberpunk 2013 because its setting was looking forward to… five years in the past? Living in the future is weird, y’all. The second edition was set in 2020 and so Cyberpunk 2020 is the name most RPG nuts are familiar with. Likewise, Mutant Year Zero: Road To Eden is based on the Mutant Year Zero RPG… which is the latest incarnation of the original Mutant RPG published all the way back in 1984 by Target games.

Why bring these systems up? While they may be young’uns compared to Dungeons and Dragons’ 1974 birthdate, these other systems have been around for three decades and counting! That’s one heck of a lineage for games that your casual RPG gamer may have never heard of. Now, let’s talk about these lovely systems.

Reasons You Should Pick Mutant: Year Zero

Mutant has a post-apocalyptic setting hundreds of years in the future with mutant humans, robots, anthropomorphic animal people, and other strangeness inhabiting the world. Expansions and different editions let on that large corporation had survived by forming Judge Dredd style Mega-Cities and were actively funding space exploration programs to escape the world they created. In doing so, they proceeded to anger a supernatural evil on a 10th planet in the solar system called Nero. Hah! 10th planet. They still don’t know about what happened to Pluto.

Reasons You Should Pick Cyberpunk: 2020

Meanwhile, Cyberpunk 2020 was a deep immersion into the shiny and grimy world of the future where augmented humanity is the norm and life is cheap. Johnny Mnemonic, Blade Runner, that kind of thing. You know a game has a laser focus when it names itself after the genre it is all about emulating. (Which reminds me of Paranoia… DO NOT ASK FRIEND COMPUTER ABOUT PARANOIA. That will be for another day.)

The Choice Is Yours

With these vague descriptions in mind, what do you favor, my cherished readers? Shall we deep dive into the shiny chrome and blood of Cyberpunk or wade through the refuse of the apocalypse in Mutant? Or shall we disobey our instructions, ask Friend Computer about Paranoia, be summarily executed for treason, and let our clones learn further? Tell me which of these magnificent options has you most interested.

VOTING (Ends 6/29/18):

Choose the next tabletop dystopia we meander into for our next Adventures in Random Roleplay series! The choices are… #tabletopgaming #RPG #E32018 — DashingNerds (@dashingnerds) June 22, 2018

We’ll announce the winner next Friday, so stay posted for those Twitter results! If you don’t have a Twitter, feel free to send us your vote via the Contact page before next Friday.

Thank you kindly for your input (Hah! You have to take my survey now! I saw it in a video game.) and remember to always…

STAY RANDOM!

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