Mutant: Year Zero RPG- Role-Play at the End of Days

The world...ended. Nobody knows how. The final war? A plague? Weather? All of the above? You are the survivors. For almost all your lives, you have lived protected in the Ark - the last safe place in a wasteland of sickness. But food is running out. You have to venture out into the wastes and find food and water, or the People, your People, will starve.

The learners will get to experience the award winning table-top roleplaying game Mutant: Year Zero, produced by the Free League game company, introducing the revolutionary Year Zero Engine game system. No experience of table-top role-playing games is required. Beginners might even find this system easier to learn than DnD.

I started playing in this setting when I was 12. The game is set in a dystopian future, after the apocalypse, much like Mad Max, or other similar movies/shows. Players will manage their homebase and explore the world, possibly discovering secrets about their origins as they go.

Tabletop role-playing games is an amazing hobby.

Role-playing games can be a gateway to so many amazing creative pursuits:
* Art - drawing ones characters.
* Economics - as they manage their home base and make it more habitable.
* Creative writing - designing the backstory for the character.
* Math - using the rules often requires math skills
* History - learning about the history of the imaginary world often sparks an interest in real world history as well.
* Geography - players have to use maps during game-play and that can spark an interest for how geography matters in real life.
* Social studies - when we play, we create fictional societies, and understanding how a society functions is important to breathing life into fictional societies
* Mythology - a lot of the monsters and creatures of DnD are inspired by real life mythology.
* Team-work and problem-solving- Table-top roleplaying requires players to work together to create a story. Even if the characters in the game might not always get along, the players around the table always should and have to work out their differences so everyone can enjoy together.

I will introduce the learners to all these aspects of tabletop role-playing in this class.

The week of June 21-27, the learners will design the home base and their characters, as well as get to know the basics about the Zone where the base is. If there is time, we will start exploring that zone with the first quest.

The week of June 28- July 4, we will investigate how to explore the zone, and the mechanics for searching through the ruins of the old age.

The week of July 5-11, depending on the group, we explore the first adventure site.

The week of July 12-18, the group adventures inside the Ark.

Mutant: Year Zero is excellent for an Ongoing class. One reason is that the game is, unlike DnD, a so-called Sandbox game. I.e. the players are in charge of what happens from session to session. The Game Master does not, in this game, decide which plot the characters have to follow, or in which order certain things have to happen. The world is open for the players to explore, so the adventure for each session will be decided by the players, not the GM, primarily. Thus, players during session 5 are not tied down by the decisions made by the players of session 4, but are free to explore some completely different part of the world, and make other decisions for the home base. That makes this game more suitable for an Ongoing class than DnD. Further, since the players start with a home base, it is easy to come and go. If a player attends the first session, and then misses the second session, their character is simply assumed to do things in the home base, etc. Also, character creation is much faster than in DnD. In DnD, it takes a new player about an hour, if not more, to create a new character. In Mutant: Year Zero, it takes closer to 15-20 minutes, because the rule-system is fast and easy to learn. Thus, if a learner joins after week 4 or even later, we can build a character together quickly and then jump straight in, as the game system is easy to learn.