Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
Role-Playing Game

Designers	Erick Wujcik
Publishers	Palladium Books
Years active	September 1985 (1985-09) – January 2000 (2000-01)
Genres	Science fiction, superhero
Systems	Megaversal

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness

Cover of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles role-playing game core rulebook
Author	Erick Wujcik
Illustrator	Peter Laird, Kevin Eastman
Cover artist	Kevin Eastman
Language	English
Publication date	September 1985 (1985-09)
Publication place	United States
Media type	Print (paperback)
Pages	112
ISBN	978-0-916211-14-1
Followed by	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness is a role-playing game based on the comic book created by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird. The core rulebook was first published by Palladium Books in September 1985 – before the Turtles franchise achieved mass popularity – and featured original comic strips and illustrations by Eastman and Laird. The rules and gameplay are based on Palladium's Megaversal system.

Characters

Turtles and rats were not the only option for mutated animals; a rather large list was made available of animals that could be mutated in a wide variety of ways (intelligence, human looks, functioning hands, bipedalism, etc.). Some animals allowed access to different varieties (most notably dog breeds), and rules allowed for the creation of new animals. Characters had access to psionic powers and could come from a wide variety of sources (e.g., natural mutation or man-made experiments), as well as a variety of educational backgrounds.

The mutant animal player characters in the game lived in the modern world, functioning on the fringes of human society. One of the more innovative details of the game was the alignment system which used qualitative terms like "principled" and "miscreant" along with a list of diagnostic behaviors such as "would kill an innocent bystander" or "would never accept stolen property". These hypothetical behaviors pegged a character as fitting one of the particular alignment terms.

Campaign setting

The original TMNT game partially mirrored the universe of the TMNT comic books and provided statistics for the Turtles, The Shredder, and other characters from early in the series. However, the adventures included with the book were completely independent of the TMNT universe, and brand-new characters were also introduced.

According to Kevin Siembieda, the 1987 television series and live-action movies, which made considerable changes to the Turtles' universe, had a severe negative impact on the popularity of the role-playing game. In an interview, Siembieda claimed that depictions of the Turtles in other media made them seem so childish that "no self-respecting teenager, even if he thought the Turtles were cool, or thought the Ninja Turtle game was cool, was going to be caught dead playing it. So our sales plummeted from 50,000 copies in a year to 12,000, and the next year that dropped to 6,000."

In January 1986, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness spawned a supplement with an alternate setting, that of a post-apocalyptic earth populated mainly with mutant animals and residual humans, called After the Bomb, which soon developed into a separate, though compatible game series.

Palladium announced that a second edition of the game would be released in the fall of 1997. However, due to the cost of maintaining the license as well as delayed production and low pre-orders for the proposed title, Palladium decided to end its license with Mirage Studios in January 2000. In 1998, a summary of the distinct rules outlining the basics of creating mutant characters and providing a short list of animal options, were incorporated into the second edition of Heroes Unlimited.

Years later, in a February 2007 interview, Siembieda hinted that Palladium might consider re-licensing the property depending on the performance of the CGI movie and other factors, but this prospect has not since been revisited.

Editions

The original edition of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness was published with a section detailing a comprehensive list of mental illnesses ostensibly drawn from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Players could either select a form of insanity as an optional step in character creation or randomly assign one during the course of gameplay as a result of their characters undergoing some kind of trauma, such as demonic possession, near-death experience, or torture. This section also featured an extensive list of sexual deviations which included pedophilia and homosexuality (in terms of the game, a traumatic event could potentially induce a character to convert from one sexual orientation to another), despite the latter having been officially declassified as a mental illness more than a decade before. After parents of younger players objected to the list of sexual deviations – which had previously appeared in the Palladium Role-Playing Game and Heroes Unlimited rulebooks – Palladium Books covered it with a plain white sticker. Subsequent printings removed the list of mental illnesses entirely, although occasional references to it remained elsewhere in the book.

On October 13, 2023 Palladium announced that they will be releasing a reissue with the help of Kickstarter, the goal was met and books will be sent out in early 2025.

Supplements

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures (June 1986)
• After the Bomb (1986)
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Guide to the Universe (May 1987)
• Mutants Down Under (June 1988)
• Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (April 1989)
• Road Hogs (1989)
• Truckin' Turtles (November 1989)
• Turtles Go Hollywood (March 1990)
• Mutants in Avalon (1991)
• Mutants in Orbit (March 1992)

Reception

Marcus L. Rowland reviewed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness for White Dwarf #79, and stated that "the comics pretend to take themselves very seriously. To reflect this, the style of play is completely deadpan, setting intelligent and deadly animals against a background of urban terrorism, gang warfare, juvenile delinquency and random violence."

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was ranked 36th in the 1996 reader poll of Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time. The UK magazine's editor Paul Pettengale commented: "The rules are badly laid out, but the principles are easy to learn and combat is fluid. So, fine on that score. It's a superbly fun game to play because of its quirkiness, and the fact that the post-apocalyptic setting has most of California under the ocean. Fantastic fun."

In his 1990 book The Complete Guide to Role-Playing Games, game critic Rick Swan thought this game "is equally sophisticated and just as fun [as the original comics]." Swan admired many parts of this game including the "excellent rules for psionics and combat", the five included scenarios and the many humorous illustrations. Swan concluded by giving this game an excellent rating of 3.5 out of 4, saying it "is a perfect blend of whimsy and adventure. Recommended to all role-players with an appreciation for the bizarre."

In his 2023 book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground, RPG historian Stu Horvath noted, "TMNT & Other Strangeness appeals to players by translating a world unseen in the comics into a world that can be inhabited and explored." Horvath approved of the mutation rules, which he thought were the "star attraction" of the game. He went on to comment "This variety of choices coupled with an ambiguous alignment system gave TMNT & Other Strangeness a sense of freedom and maturity that few other games could match."

Reviews

• White Dwarf Issue #83 (Nov., 1986), "Open Box" column
• Different Worlds #44 (Nov./Dec., 1986)
• Magister Issue 30 - Sep 1991 (Dutch)
• Arcane #12 (November 1996)
• Casus Belli #37 (April 1987)
• GamesMaster International Issue 1 - Aug 1990

External links

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles boards at Palladium Books' Forums of the Megaverse
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at RPGGeek
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at RPGnet
• Grabianowski, Ed (16 December 2013). "The most controversial pen-and-paper RPGs ever made". Gizmodo.