Monday, December 12, 2016

Scavenging in the Mutant Future

"The battle is over, and the Pigmen lay at your feet, in slowly congealing pools of blood. Well fought.  Everyone gets … 120 experience points."
"How much are their swords worth?  Can we take them?"
"Umm...  sure.  They're not very valuable, seeing as they've been fashioned for, and by Pigmen."
"Their boots look cool.  Can we take those?"
"…"

I do like the Treasure Tables included in the Mutant Future ruleset, as published, but anticipate my players asking what could be scavenged from the corpses of Mutant Humanoids. Along with the Furs and Hides of animals, which could be useful, I came up with this Quick Abstract system.

Anytime it's possible that something valuable could be gleaned from a location, roll 1d100.
This is the amount of "Crap Pieces" (CP), that one could scavenge from the locale.
The amount of time needed, to extract and pack the loot, is equal to the roll, in minutes.

If either of the die show a zero (0), then negate the roll, and re-roll the dice, changing the Loot Value to "Scrap Pieces" (SP).

Do the same, should either die show a zero, changing the Loot Value to "Goods" (GP).

Finally, should either of THESE dice, show a zero - Roll ONCE on the Random Artifact Table, found in the Mutant Future Rulebook.

In the cases of CP, SP, or GP - the weight of the scavenged materials, will be the value of final Roll/10 in pounds.

Note that this roll is allowed once per location, not for each enemy defeated.
It simply adds a bit of variety to the encounters, without (hopefully) creating an imbalance.

This may serve to increase the incentive of the PCs engaging appropriate parties, while maintaining the increased Lair Value of the creatures found in the rules.

4 comments:

  1. Brilliant! Should certainly work for any game where the abstraction is amenable.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I eagerly await the look of frustration on my player's faces, as they debate the value of spending more than an hour, scraping the iridescent scales off the backs of the Vomit Flies for a lousy 75 cp.

    "I'm NOT leaving empty-handed! Keep scraping!"

    ReplyDelete
  3. Love the crap/scrap/goods tweak to the traditional coin denominations. Is that what you use for all MF transactions?

    ReplyDelete
  4. We do ... it made the 10 (coins) per pound carrying capacity more credible, as well.

    10 lbs. of "Crap" might get you a cheap beer in a Wasteland Saloon, whereas 5 lbs. of "Goods" might pay for lodgings for a week.

    We started looking into a "Gem" like medium of exchange, that would be seem appropriate ... And nearly every debate was won with one word.

    "Ammunition".

    (grin)

    ReplyDelete