Hello! I played earlier editions of Mutant Chronicles in the 90’s, along with the Doom trooper card game and Siege of the Citadel. I enjoyed it so much I have a MC tattoo from back then.
So someone gifted me the 3rd edition of the game, and I have convinced some players as soon as I can make it through the almost 500 page tome that my players and I will play it.
However, I am trying to figure out where to start. I have a fondness for the Dark Legion era due to the fact that it is what I am familiar with from the old days, but with a wife, two kids, and a house my creativeity well runs a bit dryer than I would like. I see there are campaigns available but they are set mostly in the Dark Symmetry era (except for one that says for experienced players, which I wouldn’t want to throw my players into). Have people had experience running the Dark Symmetry era campaigns and are they fun? Would someone recommend something else out there? Admittedly I was thinking of doing Luna PD in the Dark Legion era with people willing to possibly be former soldiers of the various corporations.
As far as I’m aware, there are the main 3 campaign books, which are meant to be linked to each other with the same characters as a sort of super campaign, but can be played independently from each other with adjusted character sheets since the Dark Legion and Dark Eden books are meant to be played with characters that have a certain amount of XP gained. There’s also the Venusian Apocalypse campaign, which is definitely Dark Legion era and starter character friendly.
There are the 2 quickstart adventures, Straffar Gatan 39 and The Fall of Von Holle. Straffar Gatan is definitely meant to take place during the Dark Symmetry era, but I know Von Holle has a side bar saying you can adapt it to the Dark Legion era. There’s also short adventures in a couple of the faction sourcebooks, Bauhaus and Cybertronic I know for sure have one.
There’s just one published campaign set in the Dark Symmetry era. I suppose you can skip that one, if you would like to, by making some ajustments (the Dark Legion campaign has suggestions to accomodate new characters and how many experience points to use when creating new characters).
I played both of those (still haven’t played the Dark Eden campaign, and I’m not sure if I’ll ever will) and I found the first one to be very good, though I was also unsure about how the past era would work. It turns out to be fine, because it’s set in the transition peridod, so techology is falling apart and the players really can’t count on that.
If you were planning to play Luna PD detectives I think you might give the Dark Symmetry campaign a try, because that’s how it starts, the characters are all Luna PD working in The Nines. Almost half of it plays like a season of Hill Street Blues.
I’m running the DS-campaign right now. It’s a bit different from what I’m used to run as a GM. My players are having fun, and that’s my main goal, and I do recommend it as a first time out setting. I would recommend doing Straffar Gatan 39 and The fall of Von Hölle before going in to the main campaign.
I have been the GM for the Dark Symmetry, Straffar Gatan, Fall of Von Holle and Venusian Apocalypse. I have the Dark Legion and Dark Eden on hold. My players enjoyed all of them, specially Venusian Apocalypse as it was a ‘remake’ with several tweaks (also I changed some things as some of my players played the original 18 years ago)
Everyone is ‘new’ to the Dark Symmetry era as it was introduced by this third edition, I think that Straffar, Von Holle and Dark Symmetry are really easy for new players, as they are ‘cops’ and are a good introduction for the universe.
Imho: during a DS campaign you could set up a Chathullu-Dark Conspiracy feeling: the players know there has to be a evil mastermind, but couldn’t put their fingers on it. Even if the PC should be LCPD cops, they are most likely also Corper and so may a hidden agenda from their parent corporation. This may add to the conspiracy theme. The Corporations are in more or less hidden cold war. None had ever heard the names of the Apostles or their Nepharites. At the start of the era the PC have access to Cybertronic-like gadgets, which be get corrupted one after one. With no Brotherhood no one dictates the leaders of Corporations. But you may have define the exact timeline: most likely the Sad Struggle is a future event. House Fieldhausen is on the step to be a fifth Elector House.
And many more little pieces could make a DS campaign much different to the typical DL campaign. Imo some sort of a Shadowrun-like campaign could also be possible, if you don’t want a LCPD campaign. At least until the point, when the players realize that their “Mr. Johnson” is truly a Heretic of Ilian and used the players to cause even more chaos.
