TMNT and Other Strangeness RPG - DGS#33

Recently had a discussion with the rpg necromancers Chad Parish and David Bauter over at the Dead Games Society about the old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles RPG that was done by Palladium back in the ancient days of nineteen-eighty-sev-oh-my-god-I'm-so-old!

Now, I didn't play the Turtles RPG immediately when it came out, I was far to young to understand how the hell Palladium's SDC system worked or how it relates to Hit Points (still kinda confused about that, actually), but I did pick up the original TMNT graphic novels and RPG books in the early nineties after I had gotten enough paper route money to buy stuff for myself. My favorite retail therapy in those days was hanging out in Waldenbooks after I rode my bike to the mall. You guys remember Waldenbooks? Once you got past the huge christian section they had a pretty bad ass sci-fi books department, with a ton of esoteric graphic novels and RPG stuff from those halcyon days.

I digress. The point is, I flippin' loved the Turtles as soon as I saw them. They were bad to the bone. Sure, the cartoon had recently come out which was all cutesy-wootsy at the time, but I was into the Original Eastman and Laird graphic novels. The ones where the turtles weren't separated by bandana color (there were no colors in the comic back then, only shades of gray), and you didn't see a single pizza or skateboard anywhere in the books. The turtles were serious killers. Slicing up ninjas and thugs who were plaguing New York without a second thought. And they never said "Pizza Time!" Those Eastman and Laird bad-asses were the turtles I loved. Even at the age of twelve I was already way too hard core for my Cowabunga classmates.

Who am I kidding, I still bought the toys! I had the goddamn Turtle Sewer Playset even (yeah, the paper route business was pretty good to me back in the day). I didn't differentiate, the Turtles were awesome, plain and simple.

Some kids had GI Joe's USS Flag. I had this bad boy.

And that's when I discovered the Palladium Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness RPG! This beautiful instruction guide let you build mutant animals and take them on journeys of your own. You got a certain amount of points (called "BIO-E") to spend on your animal mutant to turn them as anthropomorphic as you want, or give them psychic powers or whatever. The point is by the end of it you might have a tough-as-nails mutant porcupine vigilante named "Quillz," who took no shit from nobody.  Then you went out and fought some corporate mercs, stopped some mad scientists, and fought other mutants as needed to save the city.The game was great, even though you needed a thousand dice and logarithmic paper to play it (*shakes head* Palladium, gotta love 'em...amiright?).

Anyway, we dredged up some old memories of that fantastic game and those mutant amphibians on this week's Dead Games Society podcast #33, so if you want to hear about making mutant ducks and ninja porcupines (and maybe where you can actually get in on a game at some upcoming 'Cons), or reminisce about how awesome the turtles were before the movies gave them noses and lips, head on over to the DGS and give podcast #33 a listen!

Cowabunga dudes!