Mutant Future and Labyrinth Lord—Are they still around?

[doctorhook]

I always thought Mutant Future looked like an awesome game, and I’m finally looking into running it. However, it hasn’t been updated in a decade, and the forums for Labyrinth Lord and Goblinoid Games as a whole looks kinda… dead.

Any news about Mutant Future? Where did all the Labyrinth Lord players go, and is Mutant Future compatible with something else? Is there a “spiritual successor” I should check out?

If anyone can point me in the right direction, I’d be grateful.

 

[Retreater]

Where did all the Labyrinth Lord players go,

Old School Essentials has devoured the OSR market.

 

[doctorhook]

Old School Essentials has devoured the OSR market.

Good to know! Glad I backed their recent KS then. How compatible is anything from Labyrinth Lord with OSE?

 

[Retreater]

Good to know! Glad I backed their recent KS then. How compatible is anything from Labyrinth Lord with OSE?

I think all the OSR stuff is pretty interchangeable because they're all designed to be rules lite. So you can mix and match Labyrinth Lord, Swords and Wizardry, OSE, etc.

 

[LoganRan]

Good to know! Glad I backed their recent KS then. How compatible is anything from Labyrinth Lord with OSE?

Labyrinth Lord and OSE are both clones of B/X (that is Basic D&D edited by Tom Moldvay and Expert D&D edited by Dave Cook and Stephen Marsh). I know that LL made some fairly minor alterations to the games it cloned but both OSE and LL should be very compatible with each other as well as anything officially for Basic/Expert D&D published by TSR.

 

[jdrakeh]

Old School Essentials has devoured the OSR market.

It devoured the LL market, at any rate. Other OSR games (e.g. C&C, S&W, etc) continue to do well and have both high audience engagement and a decent amount of publisher support. LL discussion and support really fell off, though. As the OP says, the official forums are essentially dead and I noticed that publishing support has also dropped off (last year GG didn't even do their traditional Pumpkin Spice Limited Edition).

 

[Retreater]

They did, however, have a booth at GaryCon.

 

[jdrakeh]

They did, however, have a booth at GaryCon.

Huh. That's weird. I wonder why they're focusing on con presence as opposed to publishing.

 

[doctorhook]

Labyrinth Lord and OSE are both clones of B/X (that is Basic D&D edited by Tom Moldvay and Expert D&D edited by Dave Cook and Stephen Marsh). I know that LL made some fairly minor alterations to the games it cloned but both OSE and LL should be very compatible with each other as well as anything officially for Basic/Expert D&D published by TSR.

That’s good to hear. Got any good Gamma World-type recommendations?

 

[Froderik]

Goblinoid Games is leaving a ton of money on the table by ignoring the wave of new B/X gamers that OSE is bringing to the market. Their web site hasn't seen any updates since 2019. Though many of their books are available as POD from both Lulu and DriveThruRPG, I'd love to see some quality offset print runs. I don't understand why they're doing nothing to capitalize on the market's growth.