Review 33 : Museum at the End of Time
Next up is one of the quintessential introductory adventures for Mutant Crawl Classics-- indeed, in its original release it came with truncated versions of the artifact and AI recognition rules because the core book wasn't out yet! I'm talking about The Museum at the End of Time, written by Jim Wampler!
This module includes art by Stefan Poag and cartography by S.S. Crompton. The basic premise of this adventure essentially introduces the concept of MCC as well, so we have the standard "rite of passage" concept where the PCs must venture out from their home village and return with at least one piece of ancient technology in order to become an adult and full member of the tribe. In this particular Rite, the PCs have decided to travel into a taboo area that is sure to have plenty of artifacts compared to the safer places that have been picked clean.
Getting it to the Table
While this is still written in the DCC house style, it is relatively concise and brief-- the actual adventure is only just over 8 pages, with extra pages devoted to the appendices and map. Unfortunately, the map is tucked away after the appendices. Convenience aside, I know a lot of players love just looking at the map in order to get a high level sense of the place featured in the adventure, and it also helps you to have a picture of it in your head as you begin to read the descriptions.
This module is presented as two main stages of the adventure-- the journey to the museum, and the exploration of the museum itself. The GM is given a list of a few encounters that can be had on the way to museum, with one happening during the day, one at night, and a couple of "additional" encounters that can be used to spice things up a bit. There isn't really any guidance given other than telling the GM that it is a "two day trek" across the Glow Desert, with some detail about the dangers of radiation in this place. Since the system itself does not have any specific overland travel mechanics, most GMs will likely just handwave the travel and insert some encounters for fun. On the other hand, if this is being run as a convention game, I would actually recommend cutting out the travel altogether and simply starting the game on the party's arrival at the museum.
Once we get into the area descriptions of the museum, we see the familiar blocks of text, but again we get stat blocks and detail where it is needed, so I won't fault them too much. There are plenty of interesting rooms in the museum, and it really feels more like a "place" to explore rather than a line of rooms that give you a sequence of set-piece encounters in the style of most Goodman Games adventures. It is even possible that the players won't explore the whole place-- the only requirement is that each PC finds a useful artifact, and they will have completed their Rite of Passage.
What Worked?
- Great premise that sets the tone of the entire game. Mutant Crawl Classics is a love-letter to old games like Gamma World, which is full of examples of cryptic descriptions of common, present-day items as seen through the eyes of future stone-age villagers who have never seen a toaster oven before. This concept of a site-based adventure with plenty of stuff to interact with is absolutely perfect for MCC, and this module kicked it off marvelously.
- The Star Child. In one of the rooms, there's a chance to interact with an alien entity a la 2001: A Space Odyssey. It has a great effect that is perfectly safe the first time, kind of concerning the second time, and catastrophic the third time. More of this. Let the players destroy their own PCs!
What Didn't Work?
- Map at the end. Yep.
- The Curator encounter in the atrium doesn't really work as written. The odds are good that when it is first encountered when the PCs initially enter the building, it will just immediately deposit them back outside, which ends up wasting everyone's time. I recommend not having it be triggered until the PCs return to the atrium for the first time after exploring other rooms.
Final Thoughts
Let's be clear-- I like this adventure so much that I essentially used it as a template for writing my own, called And Now, Our Feature Presentation, which is available as part of the Mysteries of the Multiverse zine. I followed the same basic format of a travel section with multiple possible encounters, and then a good-sized location with many places to explore and things to interact with. I think of this one as an absolutely perfect convention game, since it is easily edited to fit a time slot and is a brilliant introduction to one of my favorite systems.
The Museum at the End of Time is available as part of the Free RPG Day 2016 adventure pack, which you can get (sadly no longer free) at drivethrurpg. Thanks for reading!