Mutant Year Zero: Why I'm Running a Mega Campaign
Mutant Year Zero is an amazing game. I’ve been reading through all the books and I adore them. It’s not just great mechanics that make the setting come alive. It’s not just a great setting - it feels like four settings in one. The genius is how the four core books fit together to tell the story of humanity’s final days.
This is Mutant Mondays - a series covering everything you need to run this game.
Four Books, One Epic Story
The core books are Mutant Year Zero, Genlab Alpha, Mechatron, and Elysium. Each works standalone with its own campaign. But played together? They create the complete story of humanity’s end.
The History: The Red Plague hits. A billion dead in the first year. Alliances collapse. Nuclear war finishes the job. The rich and powerful escape - some underground, some undersea, some into space.
These become the three Titan Powers: Elysium (underground - tradition, resolution, courage), Noatun (undersea - strength through unity), and Mimir (space - freedom for the future).
Eventually jealousy kicks in. Humans being humans, they go to war again and destroy what’s left.
The Four Experiences
Mutant Year Zero (Core): Surviving the Zone. A mutated, deadly wasteland. You play mutated humans searching for Eden - a mythical safe place that may not exist. The meta-game: building the Ark, your community’s safe haven.
Genlab Alpha: Escape From Paradise. You play mutated animals - human intelligence, but experimented on. Paradise isn’t what it seems. Dark stuff is happening. The meta-game: building a resistance. This one’s GM vs players in the subsystem - not at the table, but in the background game.
Mechatron: Ghost in the Machine. Sentient robots in a decaying world. Humans left them to keep producing, then never came back. You’re exploring what it means to be sentient by playing the least human characters. The world is running out of resources. Fight against time.
Elysium: Guardians of the Fall. Protect your house at all costs. This is Game of Thrones meets Cyberpunk meets Judge Dredd. Politics, intrigue, players in different houses working together and against each other. I didn’t think I’d like players being somewhat opposed, but the checks and balances are genius.
What Free League Does Brilliantly
Part One: Character and World. They help players create characters that experience the world. The mechanics make you feel like you’re there. But they also separate players from player characters through meta-games that impact the entire world.
Part Two: Tools, Not Scripts. They give you tools to create the world. Tools to create incidents and problems. You could run campaigns for ages with minimal effort. It would be different every time.
Part Three: Prep vs Story. They don’t give you story - story happens at the table. They give you incidents. Things that happen. Players choose how to interact. No fixed endings.
Part Four: Conversation Is Combat. Non-physical characters have huge impact. Especially in Elysium where violence isn’t always the option. Everything matters. Players have to be creative with their builds.
Why I’m Running All Four
I have a short attention span. Running all four together would keep me entertained and focused. Short series, like seasons.
This could be the complete tabletop experience: combat, caring, politics, building (not just a home base - building a resistance, building your house), exploration. All wrapped together.
They’ve even got a new skirmish game called Zone Wars. Mass combat rules in the books, plus this standalone that could be embraced into a campaign. Looking forward to it.
What’s Next
Next episode: base mechanics. Important to understand before character creation. Then character creation, combat, basic stuff. I’ll cover each book’s outline so you can decide which to play.
Then I plan on running a mega campaign. There’s an amazing Reddit community (r/mutantyearzero) where people have documented how to combine all four books. Link in the description.
Get them. Mutant Year Zero