What else?
I would love rules for vehicles and an origin mimicing that of a Transformer.
Famine in Far-Go is supposed to add (among others) Shapeshifter and Wheeled, a combination that brought transformers to my mind right away. I'm presuming from the new set that AI, Wheeled, and Plastic are all supposed to be artificial options to have alongside the existing Android which should allow a lot more robot and cyborg style characters.
As far as expansions, I'd love them do some simple rules to cover huge scale battles: Massive armies of mutants or robots fighting eachother over ancient bases and the remaining settlements, and working together against the occasional titanic mutant monster. There was the old Battlesystem for AD&D (which was just to much like a full miniature wargame) and the War Machine rules from the original D&D Companion Set (which was just to much like a battle against an aggressive math problem). Something in between that is GW style vibrant ("Send in the borrowers." "Sir, the Hoop mercenaries are demanding more carrots again." "Oops, that unit just turned into radioactive goo..." could be awesome.)
I would also like to see some more Omega Tech categories then Area 52, Ishtar, and Xi. Maybe like Tesla (goofy 50s pulp style gadgets like shrink rays and leftovers from his robot army), Gamma Knight (individual pieces of hyper advanced power armor suits), and one that is all about organic equipment that joins to and feeds on the wielder to fuel its power.
I would love rules for vehicles and an origin mimicing that of a Transformer.
Hhhm, I made an Android./ Speedster, who transformed from a motorcycle into an upright humanoid robot with wheels side by side to for better slow speed maneuverability. I thought of transformers when I came up with the idea. Anyway for me the transformer robot Pc already exists.
A dedicated monster book, or DM box set that includes same (plus maps, counters, etc).
Options to have origins or classes that work more like D&D classes - learned skills and professions rather than mutant origins.
A box set for more serious play. Maybe "Gamma World: Survivors." Could include alternate apocalypse scenarios, Pure-Strain-Human origins, more 21st century tech, and more sinister/brutal futuristic tech. Grittier, more detailed rules on weapons & ammo, wounds, healing (surges?), economics, survival, etc...
Box sets that are at least 11" along one dimension, so you can store standard-sized paper in them (like plain paper copies of the character sheets, printouts, and, oh, the Freesboro module).
Worldines. Cyberpunk Xi, science-fantasy/atlanitean Ishtar, Tesla's robot empire, etc...
More cards. For instance, each expansion could include an 80-card DM deck that reprints the Commmon and Uncommon cards from the prior booster set.
Feats. I was thinking I could homebrew these as an alternative to being able to use alpha mutations, which I think, as a concept are too silly. This trading card thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth though Omega Tech is alright. I like feats because as it stands now, the randomness makes people less attatched to their characters and I would rather run a more stable game where PCs have a more DnD like survival rate.
More Monsters! We don't even have monsters between 7-9. And the gamma world book doesn't give any advice on making custom monsters and traps. Yeah you could use DnD but Gamma World is supposed to be stand alone. Which leads me to...
Guidelines for making NPCs. I guess I could stat them up like players but how do I determine their role?
As much as I am disappointed by the lack of a paragon tier, a higher priority is making sure I have a complete game for the heroic tier and this game seems to lack even that.
Backgrounds like in DnD! I think these encourage more roleplaying and also encourage players to value their characters more.
Healing Surges and Second Wind! Maybe we can use nature for heal checks on humans and mutants and mechanics for heal checks on androids.
Vehicle rules and stats. If we run a combat now, there is not telling how many squares a truck can move.
Less randomness in character creation. Why is skill training a d10 roll? Why can't players pick?
An official GM screen. I love my GM screen as I love putting stickers everytime I kill a player.
Equipment rules for buying things, maybe with bottle caps like in fallout.
., a higher priority is making sure I have a complete game for the heroic tier and this game seems to lack even that.
Backgrounds like in DnD! I think these encourage more roleplaying ...,
Healing Surges and Second Wind! ..,
Less randomness in character creation. Why is skill training a d10 roll? Why can't players pick?
...,
Equipment rules for buying things, maybe with bottle caps like in fallout.
I think we want different games. In practice, the random character creation system encouraged a lot of roleplaying in our group.., a lot more than the DnD backgrounds did on thier own in our group. As for us, we enjoy the random character generation and yes it has encouraged a lot of roleplaying. I think the majority of the players in our group are Min/ maxers at heart, random character creation gets them out of the number crunching rut, and more into the role playing.
You can also choose to pick your skill and origins if you wish. Don't be hung up on the rules, play the game the way you wish. Take this advice from an old school role player, rules should always be a guideline in reaching the fun in playing, if the rules aren' t fun for you, change them, it's OK.
I think all you requests are valid ones, but I am glad for one, that they did not make Gamma World a DnD 4e clone. The new Gamma World is similar enough to 4e, that making the transition is easy especially running combat, but a complete clone would have been boring to me.
But I do get the point you are making.
And yet this system is 100% point buy, no randomness at all. You start with the character concept, and you pick attributes, skills, and if you're a supernatural, powers that support that concept. And while its not part of RAW, generally STs are adamant that your choices be logically consistent with each other (no mastering occult without some academics, no mastering medicine without some science).
To me, randomness makes you care less about the character, and if you do it at the game, you don't have time to write a backstory. The high fatality rate makes this even more true.
I can respect what you're saying but I have never been able to fathom how randomness served roleplaying. Take a look at the World of Darkness games, which I would say are much more geared to roleplaying, to the degree that combat skills are not any different than any other sort of skill, a starting character can be master of combat (and nothing else) but there is just as much incentive to put your points in things like contacts, socialize, or occult knowlege. Social skills are given equal weight to mental or physical skills.
And yet this system is 100% point buy, no randomness at all. You start with the character concept, and you pick attributes, skills, and if you're a supernatural, powers that support that concept. And while its not part of RAW, generally STs are adamant that your choices be logically consistent with each other (no mastering occult without some academics, no mastering medicine without some science).
To me, randomness makes you care less about the character, and if you do it at the game, you don't have time to write a backstory. The high fatality rate makes this even more true.
if you want all the stuff from 4E, just play 4E D&D but use mutation tables here http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/26170289/Random_AMOT_Charts;_Character_Sheet . and the cards list here http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/26023881/Card_List . pick all your stuff out. and presto change-o you have less randomness, more 4E, and no bad taste.
and if your into killing players do you really need guidelines on NPCs? just pick a monster of the roll you want and change the names around. or better yet a monster 2 levels higher from the MM 1, 2, or 3. just saying.
i randomly rolled a radiated cockroach. i wanted to play a swarm of machines, but i played the roach anyway. i also roll up weapons(1d8 on melee and 1d8 on the ranged) and got a shank(light single hand melee). i got a truck, a weed eater, and a sub woofer, all randomly. i then played my character as if he was the roach from Futurama that loves to shank. it was fun and every one else laughed, when i shanked every one and acted scitzo(spell check error). i opened my 2 boosters and got radio head mutation(you pick up radio waves from the air). so i had my roach don a tinfoil helmet that i found(to keep the voices out). along with a leaky fusion riffle and a photon grenade, and even a mini tank, i then came up with the idea that my character was a war vet from Viet Gam. all only possible through randomness. i was going to play a swarm of robots, which i still have no good ideas of how to play or give a back ground too, still in my rad box.
I can respect what you're saying but I have never been able to fathom how randomness served roleplaying. Take a look at the World of Darkness games, which I would say are much more geared to roleplaying, to the degree that combat skills are not any different than any other sort of skill, a starting character can be master of combat (and nothing else) but there is just as much incentive to put your points in things like contacts, socialize, or occult knowlege. Social skills are given equal weight to mental or physical skills.
And yet this system is 100% point buy, no randomness at all. You start with the character concept, and you pick attributes, skills, and if you're a supernatural, powers that support that concept. And while its not part of RAW, generally STs are adamant that your choices be logically consistent with each other (no mastering occult without some academics, no mastering medicine without some science).
To me, randomness makes you care less about the character, and if you do it at the game, you don't have time to write a backstory. The high fatality rate makes this even more true.
if you want all the stuff from 4E, just play 4E D&D but use mutation tables here http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/26170289/Random_AMOT_Charts;_Character_Sheet . and the cards list here http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/26023881/Card_List . pick all your stuff out. and presto change-o you have less randomness, more 4E, and no bad taste.
and if your into killing players do you really need guidelines on NPCs? just pick a monster of the roll you want and change the names around. or better yet a monster 2 levels higher from the MM 1, 2, or 3. just saying.
i randomly rolled a radiated cockroach. i wanted to play a swarm of machines, but i played the roach anyway. i also roll up weapons(1d8 on melee and 1d8 on the ranged) and got a shank(light single hand melee). i got a truck, a weed eater, and a sub woofer, all randomly. i then played my character as if he was the roach from Futurama that loves to shank. it was fun and every one else laughed, when i shanked every one and acted scitzo(spell check error). i opened my 2 boosters and got radio head mutation(you pick up radio waves from the air). so i had my roach don a tinfoil helmet that i found(to keep the voices out). along with a leaky fusion riffle and a photon grenade, and even a mini tank, i then came up with the idea that my character was a war vet from Viet Gam. all only possible through randomness. i was going to play a swarm of robots, which i still have no good ideas of how to play or give a back ground too, still in my rad box.
I actually don't like killing my players' characters. I think its better for the stability of the narrative for them to generally survive even if they are at some risk. Hense why I am going to experiment with an altered ruleset. This is not to say there are not things about gamma world that I like. I really like the origin concept as opposed to classes. I like how you can play pretty much anything, from a psychic hawk person to a swarm of kittens.
I can respect what you're saying but I have never been able to fathom how randomness served roleplaying. ...,
As I mentioned above, the majority of the people I game with are min/ maxers, so they tend to build 4e character by the numbers, most will pick a background considering the benefit first, and story second. They are focused in picking the best feat, power, and ability scores array for the character they want to buuild. For them, story is a secondary consideration, not that they don't enjoy role playing, they do, but when building characters they are focused on the numbers. In the random character creation of Gamma World, they don't have to focus on the numbers, powers, traits, and even ability scores are randomly determined, that burden is taken from them, now players can focus on the story behind the origins. That is how it worked for us, during character creation everyone was focused on the story behind the origins. Randomness creates spontaneity, spontaneity spurs on creativity.
Spontaneity is the key to the enjoyment that comes from creating characters in this fashion. One of the things I enjoy most about playing any rpg, is the creative group effort in spontaneously creating a story. I enjoy surfing, backyard ukulele jams, drunkin improv and free style rap, when I get a mic, so random, spontaneous story telling and character creation is right up my alley.
To me, randomness makes you care less about the character, and if you do it at the game, you don't have time to write a backstory. The high fatality rate makes this even more true.
None of which has stopped anyone from roleplaying in rpg. In our on hieatus, Dark Sun campaign we spent a four hour session just crafting background stories and personalties, meshing them well with one another and the setting. A lot of this was done, because I wanted a more indepth role playing experience. Everybody is really enjoys the campaign. So we can play the indepth role playing game, but I admit it isn't our usual habit. So I do know where you are coming from with a desire for crafting PCs, its fun as well. But the best role players I know can do it with out much indepth planning and with only a vague idea of the Pc's background and personality. The randomness does not make you care less about the character, untrue in our group, writing background story is not a prerequisite to role playing and high faltality rate in a game does not make one role play less.
If you are really interested in understanding how one can enjoy randomly making a Gamma World Pc, give it a try. Start rolling the dice and see what kind of character story you can spontaneously create. I would guess that in your group that a random game would probably fail, because no one wants or can see the rp potential, I assume. So if you are interested in how people can enjoy such a game, find a group playing Gamma World, randomly, join for a session and see if you like it.
I'm not trying to convert you, to random Gamma World. But if your asking why some one would enjoy rpgs like Gamma World, or how such randomness can promote roleplaying, I hope I helped. I think the key is enjoying sponteneaty in the randomness and letting that fuel your imagination and creativity in role playing.
...
I actually don't like killing my players' characters. I think its better for the stability of the narrative for them to generally survive ..,
I think here we differ as well, I'm not shy about Pc death as a Dm. Thier are many great narratives where a Hero dies. I like to keep Pc death spontaneous and unscripted. It makes such moments suprisingly tragic.
happy gaming.
Its kind of funny how the next set is famine in far-go and yet there are no rules for starving to death and no endurance skill.
For all we know rules for covering those situations will be in the book. I believe it has the same page count, so assuming the adventure, monsters, module, and new origins take up similar amounts of space (or even a little more) that leaves a lot of open area that was taken by basic character creation and combat rules in the first book, that won't be repeated since Far-Go is not a standalone product. Everything I've seen implies this is a staged release with each box specifically tailored to the sort of material you would need for the low, mid, and then high ranges from 1-10. Most D&D games and a lot of Gamma World campaigns start with what amounts to a dungeon delve to get the rules clear, and usually those are high on combat and low on travel time.
Personally I'm waiting to see what shows up in December and early 2011 before I judge system completeness.
In the random character creation of Gamma World, they don't have to focus on the numbers, powers, traits, and even ability scores are randomly determined, that burden is taken from them, now players can focus on the story behind the origins.
I've found its much the same experience as being thrown pregens at a convention game. "Here's a poorly photocopied and possibly incorrectly calculated character that may or may not be a random PC from the designer's home game (and if it is, the true player of that character is probably at the table but using a different PC "to keep things fair", though he will frequently comment on how well your decisions match how that character is "supposed to behave"). If it ever existed and wasn't misplaced during the last session, there may be slip of paper that includes a badly worded paragraph of backstory that indicates you are the sibling or lover (perhaps both, its not very clear) of either the character being handled by the scary dude across the table or the one that will be run by the 9 year old to your left who is new to gaming and doesn't have any dice. You have 3-4 hours to demonstrate that you are the ultimate manifestation of gaming coolness to a table of people you've never met before, while trying to ignore that the plotline of the adventure (and even the names of some of the NPCS) is disturbingly like a movie you saw sometime: Go!"
*sigh* I have to start attending cons regularly again... They are pure awesome.
I like to keep Pc death spontaneous and unscripted. It makes such moments suprisingly tragic.
Depends on the situation and the player. Not everyone has Joss Whedon's talent for extracting maximum emotional impact from a purposeless death during a random encounter.
Really, some more exploration rules, even if you have to lift them, would be nice. Like I've said elsewhere, I like feats.
Oh, and I want rules to use that nice truck I got in combat.
They could even do a crashed starship or cool stuff like that.
I want some GW styled dungeon tiles. They could release urban, wilderness, and wierd tiles that would allow us to make some believable ruined interiors, etc.
They could even do a crashed starship or cool stuff like that.
I Ditto this comment, more maps or tiles.
Though I think if any maps are included in Famine in Fargo they will be spaceship interiors at least based on the write up.
N8
a GW monster vault
Comprehensive rules compendium
a GW monster vault
Once the two supplements are out I'm planning on slicing the bindings and reorganising/reassembling them in this way as 3 spiral bounds of the rules, monsters, and adventures. The alphabet order of the monsters may end up a little off but it should be close enough.
Vehicle Rules and more vehicles
Full-size battlemaps
More fluff on the setting, for fun and inspiration
More creatures (in particular higher level ones)
Stat blocks for members of Cryptic Alliances
More traps, terrain etc.
More in depth rules, like charging etc.
Suggestions for converting DnD creatures and PCs to GW and vice versa