D&D Gamma World Expansion Kit 2: Legion of Gold
A D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game Expansion
Richard Baker
The radioactive wastelands of Earth are home to many bizarre and barbaric creatures. The apocalypse hasn’t exactly made the world a better place. It’s survival of the fittest. Time to build a new food chain.
This game expansion presents a menagerie of mutant creatures and a ready-to-play adventure. The monsters presented herein can also be pulled over and used in the Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game.
This product includes:
160-page adventure book,
including new mutant monsters and
4 sheets of die-cut mutant monster tokens
A fold-out battle map
D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game
A D&D Roleplaying Game
Richard Baker and Bruce R. Cordell
A wacky, wily roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic peril.Earth. After the apocalypse. Never mind the radiation—you’re gonna like it here.
The D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game offers hours of rollicking entertainment in a savage land of adventure, where the survivors of some mythical future disaster must contend with radioactive wastes, ravaged cities, and rampant lawlessness. Against a nuclear backdrop, heroic scavengers search crumbled ruins for lost artifacts while battling mutants and other perils.
This product is a complete, stand-alone roleplaying game that uses the 4th Edition D&D Roleplaying Game system as its foundation. It appeals to D&D players as well as gamers interested in fantasy science fiction set in a bizarre, post-apocalyptic world.
- 160-page book with rules for character creation, game rules, and an adventure
- 2 sheets of die-cut character and monster tokens
- 2 double-sided battle maps
- Cardstock character sheets and mutation power cards
- Mutation power card deck
- Loot power card deck
Item Details
Item Code: 254600000
Release Date: October 19, 2010
Format: Box
Page Count: 160
Price: $39.99
D&D Gamma World Expansion Kit: Famine in Far-go
A D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game Expansion
Robert J. Schwalb
A new adventure and more monstrous mutants for your D&D Gamma World game!
The radioactive wastelands of Earth are home to many bizarre and barbaric creatures. The apocalypse hasn’t exactly made the world a better place. It’s survival of the fittest. Time to build a new food chain.
This game expansion presents a menagerie of mutant creatures and a ready-to-play adventure. The monsters presented herein can also be pulled over and used in the Dungeons & Dragons Fantasy Roleplaying Game.
This product includes:
- 160-page adventure book, including new mutant monsters
- 4 sheets of die-cut mutant monster tokens
- A fold-out battle map
Item Details
Item Code: 254610000
Release Date: November 16, 2010
Format: Box
Page Count: 160
Price: $29.99
I love this game so much. I think I'll go back and read the old, Gamma World endless quest books I have.
Will Gamma World have it's own page soon? How is DND insider going to be involed in this? Will there be anything in Dragon or Dungeon articles?
I love this game so much. I think I'll go back and read the old, Gamma World endless quest books I have.
They don't currently expect to support Gamma World in the Character Builder/Compendium/etc. I don't think they have explicitly said anything about Dragon/Dungeon. I suspect it will be limited/none in the magazines. The reasoning being that the mutations/loot are going to use cards. Since people won't be able to print cards that are indistinguishable from the physical products, I wouldn't expect them. They could still do adventures or other material but I don't expect them to take that away from D&D.
I was excited to here of Gamma World coming back but I've grown disenchanted with the current information. If the game has a collectible card aspect, I'll probably avoid it. I want to do a long term campaign which isn't what they are designing it for.
Gamma World has been a game that you could run seriously or wacky, I think both options are going to be there for GMs and if you want al little both they both it will be there for us. .
Thanks Wizads fun guys!
This is a complete transcript of supplied Gamma World information.
D&D: Beyond the RPG - TranscriptThe audio file is in this News Archive
www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4...
Introduction to Gamma World - Rich Baker talks. Host Bart Carol
BC: You are going to be presenting the seminar about Beyond D&D. Part of which is going to be about GW. Can you give us a quick introduction?
Gamma World is a game setting that has been around almost as long as D&D. It is a Sci-fantasy world. Sort of in-between The Road Warrior and Star Wars and generally post-apocalypse fiction.
It’s a mix of incredibly high-tech, power-armor, fusion rifles, people with awesomely powerful mutations, weird bizarre monsters. An America that‘s, the entire world really, that’s been utterly destroyed and laid waste by radiation and mutagenic diseases and all sorts of stuff. It is essentially a role-playing in a D&D style adventure, in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world. It a…
B.C.: Sounds a little dark, but from what I’m gleaning it has a fun, quirky element to it.
Absolutely. The setting is one that has always kind’s lent itself to a certain amount of humor, because your characters often had powerful mutations and drawbacks of crazy things like…, sure you might be able to shoot lasers out of your eyes, but you have narcolepsy and you might fall asleep in the middle of a fight. Or hey, you might have the ability to control the minds of others and make them fight as your puppet slaves, but you happen to have no skeleton… so you have to be wheeled around in a cart by your friends. You might be a plant. You might be a mutated badger. So it is just a bit wacky what things you could be.
So in returning to GW now, after a little time away from it, we wanted to make sure we presented a game where a lot of these sorts of humorous touches were there, but it is still was a pretty good solid D&D style game.
BC: Well thanks for the primer and looking forward to more details in the following seminar.
My Pleasure.
__________
D&D: Beyond the RPG
Gamma World - seminar - Rich Baker talks. (?) - some other voices
October release for the core box.
Gamma World box set - It is not a hard bound book.
In the box is:
A 160 page rule book:
- Character generation
- How to play the game
- How to Game Master in GW
- A decent selection of monsters. About 30 classic GW monsters and a couple of new ones. Because we had to throw a few new ones in there.
- You’re first adventure. Will get you to about level 3 or so. So, it is a pretty good, self contained way to get you started on your GW game.
In addition:
4 token sheets - All the monsters in the adventure plus PC tokens. The good thick heavy cardboard stock with the linen-like surfacing to it.
(?): They are also in the [essentials] role-playing game starter set.
A couple of poster maps.
Deck of 80 cards - “form what we call the starter deck or the GM deck.” Are split into 40 mutation cards and 40 tech cards.
When you create a GW character there is a lot of stuff you get to control. It depends on [what you’re used to] I suppose.
(?): But that is the fun part!
But there is stuff that stays the same about your character, more or less, throughout your character’s career. PC generally contains two themes of mutations. Themes of mutations might be like Android or Seismic powers - and your big and tough and rocky. Or Giant, you’re really big. Or Yeti. You are part Yeti. This was Ursonoid until a week ago.
(?): You like Yeti. Brought it up again.
I took a poll around the office on which [name] was more cool. Ursonoid or Yeti, in the office. Yeti is 2.33 times as cool as Ursonoid.
But those components of your character are pretty much what your character is. We don’t necessarily use classes.
But in addition you have a random of over-the-top mutations. Which may be good or may be bad. That are reflected by these cards.
Also your really high-tech, crazy sci-fi artifacts are reflected by the Omega-tech as we call it. You might be able to arm yourself with an M-16, or a Stop-sign, or walk around in a bullet-proof-vest, or you maybe from a primitive part of the setting and walk around with a spear and leather armor. Whatever it is. But, as you find things, the really great crazy thing - like the Torque grenades, blaster rifles, Black Ray pistols, powered assault armor or things like that. Those all kind of live over in the card acquisition. So, the game comes with 80 cards for the GM which includes a full selection of these things. Plus we are going to create an entire deck of booster cards. 120 card set of booster cards, that will be sold 8 cards to a booster pack. Cost is $3.99 a pack.
With those cards you have the opportunity to customize you own deck of these specialty mutations and the special technology things. You don’t necessarily always know what your going to find these special things off your deck, because you might be drawing off the GMs deck. So you might say, I know I‘ve got disintegrating touch in my personal deck, but it turns out I have to draw from the GMs deck, and though I wanted disintegrating touch, and I got Big Floppy Feet.
(?): If you’re walking on snow your good.
If surviving the scenario absolutely depends on you not taking a penalty for running around a difficult terrain, of mud or snow, then big floppy feat will save your life. (Ha, ha, ha!) It is true that it might be a bit of a narrow power.
(?): You can do crazy things like that when you have the GM’s deck and the player’s deck.
That’s the Core rule set for GW.
We’re also going to do another, uh… two adventures/expansions that follow after that. The first is Famine at Fargo. Which sort of reprises the classic GW adventure that involved the dreaded Gallus-Gallus 13. Which was actually a giant mutant one-eyed chicken, with a bad attitude. The expansion has pretty much the same stuff as the core has. But it only has 10 cards, included with the expansion.
Then we have another expansion coming up in 2011. Because it is in 2011 I don’t think I can say what it is yet. But we are hard at work at that right now.
(?): Are the expansions in box sets.
Yes, the expansions are in boxes and they have much more adventure content than the base set. Because the basic set had to have all the rules.
We expect that probably 90% of the people who pick this up will very familiar with D&D. But we still have to include the starter rules. Explains things like this is what AC is, this is what Defense is, this is how you take a turn, all that sort of stuff.
And by the way, I do want to mention that the game is very compatible with D&D. For the first time in GW‘s history you could play D&D and GW pretty much inter changeably. There are a couple of rules that need a little adjustment. The skill list is a little different. You can drop D&D monsters in GW and they work just fine. You can drop GW monsters in D&D and they work just fine. The artifacts would be spooky and scary in the D&D game. (Laughs!) But it is build on the same chassis as how D&D powers are described. So, you know here’s the Fusion rifle. It’s going to be +17 attack that does 6d10 radiation damage. Not many D&D monsters have resist radiation. (laughs!)
(?): I could see places where using the mutation deck in D&D. Like in the areas of the spell plague in Forgotten Realms. Temp-mutation while you’re in this area.
Yes, absolutely.
Question for R&D about first experiences with the original GW - Generally discussing whether it was humorous or serious originally, and how that effected what they were doing now. Some had played it straight up, not as a total gag. But other had not. So, there is a tradition in GW over whether it is serious or humorous.
We made sure that the skeleton of the rules were solid. The rules have a bit of a snarkier tone then D&D and make a few snide asides. We let the ton powers and theme combinations carry the humor. Because let’s face it, if you are playing a Yeti/Cockroach - that’s just funny. “I’m part Yeti and part Cockroach and I’ve got a fusion rifle. Stay out of My way!”
Q: On themes creating PCs features and how they make powers? By smashing them together or [do] all your powers [come] from mutant and tech cards? - Themes do include some powers.
In fact, all the themes lean you toward character roles. Yeti is a big strong guy, that leans toward defender. He likes to be in melee. Cockroach in a fast & nimble. So leaning toward striker and has a power that as a free action he can spit acid.
Another part of the game is that you get a two themes that just don’t seem to go together. Then watch people try to figure it out. Hawkoid (a flying bird-man) and seismic? Interpreting themes is a lot of fun. Heavy bird? Finally realized that this is a gargoyle.
We have 20 themes in the first set. We realized that we wish we had 40!
12 more in Famine In Far-go and maybe 8 more in the one after that. We’re making more. They are fun.
We intend GW as a change of pace campaign. If you have to take time off from D&D. If you play straight through all three boxes, it would support about 5 or 6 months, of play at once a week. We don’t look at this as, “You are going to start a years long campaign.” Which is what every designer always hopes for. Just have some fun, then go back to D&D. Or you could go ahead and build new adventures or a campaign.
I wouldn’t rule out that we might have DDI support. No reason that we might not make adventures, or you guys tell us what you want.
Q: The necessity of Booster packs/mutation cards? - You don’t have to buy boosters if you don‘t want to. If you don’t have your own cards, you can just draw off of the GMs Deck if you don‘t have your own. But the problem with the GM’s deck is you might get Big floppy feet.
(?): Or you could pool cards and make a central deck. Make it crazy. So you’ve got options.
Q: Do you want to talk about the random element in PC creation? - Yes, we wanted to make it different from D&D. We wanted to make it something easy to pick up and play as easily as possible. The default option that we use around the office for figuring out what your PCs themes are is throw two D20 & that’s what you get. If you don’t like it? You what to do it again? We call you a wose and make fun of you. Because the spirit of GW is you get what the chart tells you.
So, we had that and we were going to have assigned ability scores for everything else, and pick your skills. Our development team looked at that and said rolling for development is so much fun, we want to keep going. We want to roll our ability scores. We want to roll our skill choices.
(?): Sort of old school?
Yes. But if you do get a theme that has a required minimal ability, it becomes 18. But for anything else you are picking up 3d6 and rolling. So, you might have Constitution of 4. I had some problems with this at first, but they had to talk me down off the cliff.
(?): Let is go Rich. (Ha, ha!)
But, I had to tell myself that back in the day when you rolled characters, 33% of the mutations were defects. Some were like Brittle Bones - double all damage. So a Con 4 is kind of like that sometimes a 3d6 will do nasty things to you..
Also why an 18 charisma? I don’t know… it is what the dice said. It must be a charisma mutation. There it is!
(?): PC creation is super fast.
Because of the fact that you don’t spend any time evaluating options. You just do what the dice tell you. You can create PC in 15 minutes. And that’s if you take the time to really look at the weapons table. Do I like the great ax, katana, or the tire iron. (Laugh) And I probably have to change a tire too. (Laughs)
(?): That seems like it is going to lend itself to organized play events. No hand out characters, just roll them up.
Q: On the generation of themes ? - I was very clever, bragging about this for weeks. 20 themes and the Engineered Human theme sitting off to the side. How to generate 21 options with 2d20? Then it came to me, when you roll doubles, you’re an Engineered Human. So you get the [rolled] theme and Engineered Human [theme]. So this is how you make things that aren’t necessarily Pure Strain Human, but might work. So if you got Android and Engineered Human, than you’re a Terminator. That’s pretty cool. Looks like PSH, it’s not green or has tentacles.
There’s telekinetic theme, a hyper-cognitive theme (greater perception powers) and other themes that would not effect appearance. Other themes that would be hard to reconcile with PSH appearance.
(?): Could the Cognitive guy just be a huge floating eyeball?
No reason you couldn’t do that.
Q: Use of Cards? - The cards are essentially powers. Some times they are persistent (like carapace, +3 AC) is going to last until the next time you change cards. The Language is, “As long as this is your readied power.” We’re all going to draw a new card and see what you got. [this happens] after a long rest or at the beginning of the adventuring day. Some powers are one use and its gone (like Gamma Eye). The assumption is that you are going to change cards at the end of each encounter.
The tech stuff is a lot of fire and forget stuff as well. So if you draw the blaster pistol, it is only going to be good for a couple of shots, before it breaks. I am not going to tell you the mechanic that decides that. But you get a shot or two then it breaks and is done.
Tech does not disappear because you sleep. But it might just be junk. Most of the things are going to be like encounter powers. A Black Ray pistol is going to get off a deadly shot, but then you have to see if it will work again.
There is a mechanic to “salvage” tech and make it part of tour character permanently. [The item] will operate at a lower level of power. In GW you don’t get +3 bow, you get a “salvaged down” Plasma rifle. This will function about as good as a D&D magic item.
Also the stuff in the GM Deck is not the stuff that is going to persist. You’ll use it and it goes away. [They] Also have narrow usage.
Q: PC progression? - Level faster than in D&D. To tenth level and then we stop at that point. Obviously, a fully geared up level 10 GW character is probably going to be stronger the a 10th level D&D character because a fusion rifles are just righteous. There is an advancement chart, and it looks like the one in D&D. And tells you when you get to choose new powers from your themes.
Q: Difference between GW and D&D mechanics? - (?): I can see someone starting with GW and switching to D&D.
There are some little details. Like probably no action points. Right now only monsters use action points, so we will probably drop them because we don’t want to use the space in the rule explaining something that only monsters use. We want to keep the monsters simple.
Questions about the product:
DNDINSIDER@WIZARDS.COM
2010 D&D Product Overview (47 minutes into the Audio)
October. Revisting Gamma World. Different product format.
10” x 10” box. Rule book 160 pages. 6” x 9” Includes everything you need. Strong ly rooted in D&D. If you know how to play D&D, you’re going to know how to play this pretty. Its got character gereation. A little inromation on how to Game Master. About 30 different Gamma World monsters. Including some of the classics, like the Badders, Arn, Blaashes and the this and that.
Also includes about a 10 encounter adventure. Which will get you close to pretty close to 2nd level worth of XP. All in the on package.
Also a couple of poster maps. Token sheet. And we didn’t include dice in this one? (Someone, “No.”) Once again, we figure you guys, most of you at least have your dice.
With GW the assumption is that your character is probably going to be a mutant. You are going to have a couple of different mutation themes. So, you might be part Cockroach/part Yeti, part Pyrokinetic/part Yeti, or Plant/Seismic. You know there’s these [21] different themes. That kind of group different powers together. The character in 2 themes and you bolt them together. Arm them up. And send the on their way.
It is a lot of fun to play.
And the biggest, craziest component of this thing is that it includes a card component.
In the starter box is a deck of 80 Cards. Which is 40 tech cards (thing you might find) & 40 Mutation cards. Weird unexpected mutations you might suddenly manifest. Those might range from things that are useful. Like, oh- Life leech. To things that are not so useful or narrow. Like anti-life leech, or things that are just comical. Like (I used to call until recently...) Big floppy feet. Not terribly useful, but if you’re fighting in mud or snow you don’t take a penalty because you stay on top of it.
In addition to the cards in the starter set, what we call GM cards. We also have the GW Booster cards. Which is a place where you have, as a player, a place to invest in making your character better, uh… giving yourself better options on the card draws. So, things like powered-armor, and fusion rifles, and really good kick-butt mutations. Like Gamma Eye and all sorts of fun things like that.
A lot of those are in the boosters and you have the chance to have your character basically composed to some extent of the thing that are always true about ‘you’. Like you’re a Yeti and a Cockroach, and the things that are going to change, because this is GW and radiation just does that!
Character generation is a snap by the way. You can generate a character in about 15 minutes and be playing with them.
-- - -- -- - -- -- - -- -- - --
December
(follows several items later.)
Famine in Fargo is also a box. Like the first GW box. This one is a little more adventure focused. There’s an adventure in there, that’s about 25 encounters, give or take. (mumble) What’s that? 16? My [garbled] 16 encounters.
160 page book.
A couple of sheets of tokens.
A couple of poster maps.
It does include 10 additional cards for GM’s cards deck.
Questions about the product:
DNDINSIDER@WIZARDS.COM
Some new or slightly different information from:
rpg.brouhaha.us/?p=2300
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS
Q: Can you roll a “pure theme”? Like Seismic Seismic?
A: (Rich) I did something clever for this. There are 20 themes, and you roll twice to get Primary and Secondary. Roll the same number twice? You’re option #21 – Engineered Human
Q: How does the card mechanic work?
A: Cards are basically (encounter) powers. Some are persistant, some are when you want to use them. Carapace, for example, would be an always-on effect. At the beginning of your day/after a long rest – everyone draws a card to see what they’ve got. Gamma Eye – fry something with Radiation. Use it and it’s gone.
Probably change cards for mutations at the end of every encounter. Tech is only gonna last a while: Blaster only good for a few shots – then it breaks. You don’t necessarily lose tech when you stop for a long rest. Most will be junk, and you’ll maybe be able to salvage down really good tech to make it a permanent part of your character. GMs deck tech would be like “Rusty Laser Pistol” – good for one shot.
Q: Will Gamma World see DDI / Character Builder support?
A: (Chris) No plans right now, but it depends on what the community wants. Certainly not on the books for 2010.
A: (Rich) Gamma World will be simple enough that Character Builder support may not be needed “you guys” will likely have it broken down into Excel Spreadsheets in no time.
Q: Does Wizards plan to keep branching out into genre games like this more?
A: I think the 4E rules system is universal enough that, yes, we should be able to do more of this. It’s also possible that players could start in Gamma World and move on to D&D.
Monsters (may) have action points, player’s don’t. This sounds like it may be in flux right now – so don’t be surprised if this changes.
Gamma Design
Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 09:54 AM PST [Dungeons & Dragons]
This week will be my last fulltime week on Gamma World. It's been a wild, fabulous ride, and I want to thank my co-designer Rich Baker for a wonderful experience, as well as Rob Schwalb and all the developers including Peter Schaefer, Andy Collins, and Stephen Schubert. I haven't had this much fun designing a game in a long time.
I've always been a fan of post-apocalyptic scenarios. Which is sort of odd, because if I really had to survive through one, I'm positive it'd be a nightmarish ordeal.
Of course, the aftermath scenarios I enjoy are the kind where some element of the fantastic is part-and-parcel with the experience. Plus, so far anyway, I've always been able to enjoy Armageddon from the comfy remove of my reading chair or game table.
So, you're in luck; the new Gamma World offers both these luxuries: you can expect superscience oddities to go with your nuclear fallout, and you don't have to suffer the death of most everything you hold dear. Win, win, eh?
Not to mention, if you're really lucky, you may get to shoot beams out of your eyes.
Viva La Gamma Terra!
- WotC_Bruce
Further Gamma World Playtest
Wednesday, March 3, 2010, 05:15 PM PST [Dungeons & Dragons]
This Sunday past, my house group played another round of Gamma World. We had another fun, rough-and-tumble romp through the wasteland.
Roll of HeroesMiscreants: The party consisted of the Master (Paul), a nightmare mind-breaker with great mental powers and an enormous way with people; Gregor the Jung-er (Doug), an empath with the ability to pull duplicates of himself from other worldlines; Frigidaire (Mike), a plastic mutant with cryokinetic powers; and Herb (Alan), a zombie ghost.
The players all decided that the Master was, in fact, the master, and all the others had worked for him before they mutated and went exploring: his gardener (Herb), an applaiance repairman (Frigidaire), and his therapist (Gregor). Besides, the Master's social checks were enormous enough to ensure that anyone would generally agree with his whim.
Short story shorter: The small town of Gasstop was being oppressed by mutants who were taking money and "selling" an addictive, mutagenic drug in exchange. The PCs got caught up in the conflict when they tried to get a peaceful drink when the mutants attacked Ol' Stoney's Bar. After being offered free drinks and half-price gasoline for all time, the heroesmiscreants chased the oppressors up the mountain to a blown-up ski-lift.
The Master died, and the game wrapped up before we could explore the ramifications of a team's mental master dying.
Oh, and yes, I ripped up Paul's character sheet.
- WotC_PeterS
Gamma World and Random Cards
Gamma World Playtests
Thursday, February 4, 2010, 04:24 PM PST [Dungeons & Dragons]
I ran a couple games of Gamma World for my home group during the playtesting phase, and we had a blast. We had to set them up for swift access to the largest volume of rules, so each character started at level 1 and leveled up after each encounter, finshing the night at level 4.
The characters my players rolled up for the first week were Herrrtz, an electrokinetic felinoid (Lane); Texaco, the hypercognitive speedster (Mike); and Pinkeye, the radioactive mind coercer (Doug). The lot of them had been enslaved by froggers (the bullywug minis I had to hand) and, after some rudimentary spirit-breaking, were being trained for gladiatorial combat.
Arming the PCs is always a bad idea. After ripping their captors new ones, they were waylaid by spider-people (driders) in the woods on the way back to the slaver camp, which killed Herrrtz.
Lane had a new character ready for the next encounter: Reginald, the seismic yeti, who seemed nigh unstoppable as he joined the other two PCs for an assault on the frogger slave bosses. One highlight is when one (I think Texaco) surrounded the rocket-launcher-wielding frogger with an invisible forcefield, so the enemy's next shot sent him and his backup rockets up like an exploding chimney.
The next week, we had more players, so they all made new characters. I set the game in Slave City, the community of 150 that sprang up after last week's characters freed the frogger's slaves. This week's PCs were Lucius Clay, another yeti and grandchild of the famous Reginald (Lane); Curt Steel, android supacop (Mark); the Rats of Nimh (Mike); Katzensturmbandfuhrer Wolfgang Sanchez, a genetic experiment leftover from the 1940s (Paul); and Neutron Bum, the radioactive layabout (Doug).
They backtracked an assault of scalemen (lizardfolk again scavenged from my minis box) to the source, which turned out to be the founders of Slave City and their characters from the previous week, all juiced up on some weird life-lengthening, megalomaniacizing radiation and headquartered in an old post office. The new guys put down their forebears, of course. One highlight might be when Neutron Bum (I think) created a gravity well in the middle of a ravine, pulling the scalemen ambush (and some of his allies) into the middle of the space where everyone got into a frenetic scrum.
It was fun playtesting and all, but I really look forward to when we have some nice character sheets and cards.
- WotC_PeterS
Gamma World Prototype
Yesterday our production expert Rainni brought something pretty cool by my desk: an FEP (don’t ask me what that stands for) of the upcoming Gamma World game. (A bit more info available on the original BLOG.)
I am looking forward to bumping some of the Gamma World threads when the release date gets closer.
CardsAll earlier editions of Gamma World have had random mutation tables. The typically Gygaxian charts that require a d100 roll to randomly decide some outcome or result.
But, if you add cards to the game, suddenly the table problem goes away. Instead of rolling on a table for loot or mutations you draw a card. It is continually up-datable with new content and all the required information is easily available. By removing cards you can customize the feel of your game making it sillier or more serious.
Cards are a great idea. I have been using homemade 'mutation cards' to speed up character generation when I run 1st-edition Gamma World at conventions. It works in combination with the tables. It'd work great just randomly drawing from a 'deck,' though I never thought to do that (the charts were part of the paleogaming fun). It fits the crazy random-mutation chaotic fun of classic Gamma World. That randomness is part of the apeal, and my convention games are oversubscribed every time I run them, so there's more folks than just me who feel that way.
I have been a fan of Gamma World almost 30 years, and, until I saw the words 'booster pack,' I was excited about it. I had planned to run it at a local 'mini con' in October, if it was released in time, and hoped to take it up instead of my retro-Gamma World games at other conventions. Now, I'm worried. Gamma World has not exactly gotten the support it deserved in the past, and I was hoping that'd finally change.
Actually, let's just review the history of Gamma World for a moment:
1st & 2nd Ed: Primitive, but fun RPGs that didn't take themselves too seriously. The system was very D&Dish, unsophisticated but amusing.
3rd: Gamma World was desecrated to promote the Marvel Super Heroes system (the one with the annoying 'feat chart'), in the hopes of expanding the popularity of that system. The result was aweful instead of awesome.
4th: A stealth release of something that resembled the original Gamma World, but was almost impossible to find. I was only ever able to acquire a few suplements, including 'Gamma Knights' a tactical game that seemed to be the real point of the release.
5th: Shoved onto the Alternity bandwagon just as it was going down in flames.
6th: Shoehorned into d20 Modern with execrable results.
See? Most of the editions of Gamma World haven't been about Gamma World at all, they've been about promoting some other system. And they've failed miserably. I hope WotC can learn from that record and put out Gamma World that's Gamma World, not a CCG disguised as an RPG.
If the material is available in the rulebooks or even on-line, and the cards are just a randomization tool, it'd still be great. I can make a chart or I can print out cards like I do for 4e, and I can be certain I can acquire the complete game rules. The 4e aproach was fine - the few whacky unique 'power cards' slipped in miniatures boxes are on DDI, the whole game is readily available. If there are complete packs of cards available, with good/funny art, I'd be tempted to buy them. But, if the /only/ way to get a given mutation is to buy packs until it randomly comes up or get a store to break packs and sell cards individually, then you've lost me. 'Collectable Cards' available only in randomized booster packs that you /need/ to play the complete game are absolutely unacceptable. A deal breaker.
I'm not saying "don't do the CCG" aspect - I get it, it has potential for those who like that sort of thing. I'm saying: don't make content available /only/ as collectable cards. Let those of us who don't have the time and energy to chase down rare cards simply buy the complete game. 4e D&D did that, there are cards, but the rules are all readily available. SJG's "Illuminati: New World Order" released a 'one with everything' non-collectable card set for people who wanted to play the game, not collect it. It's a viable way to go that respects the original game. I'm sure there are ways you could fan the CCG feaver without fanning resentement. Maybe release new stuff as cards first, then release a supplement with the mutations/artifacts/whatever from the last few card sets summarized for those who don't want to lose content in the shuffle.
Just don't **** over Gamma World. Again.
3rd: Gamma World was desecrated to promote the Marvel Super Heroes system (the one with the annoying 'feat chart'), in the hopes of expanding the popularity of that system. The result was aweful instead of awesome.
I think this was an honest attempt to build a new system for Gamma World. The first two were D&D with scifi/postapocalypse added. I don't think it was an attempt to promote MSH but instead they felt a system like that would work well for Gamma World. Mutations in GW have more of superhero feel than magic. However, they botched the release. Not all the rules were included. Instead you had to mail them to get the errata. Without the errata you didn't have an equipment list so you couldn't create a character out of the box.
4th: A stealth release of something that resembled the original Gamma World, but was almost impossible to find. I was only ever able to acquire a few suplements, including 'Gamma Knights' a tactical game that seemed to be the real point of the release.
I think this being of limited availability was more due to TSR's credibility being shot. Why bother stocking GW when you knew TSR wasn't going to support it for long.
5th: Shoved onto the Alternity bandwagon just as it was going down in flames.
TSR/WotC wanted Alternity to be their Sci-fi base so it makes since in that respect to tie GW to it. Unfortunately they didn't understand what people liked about GW. It has always been sci-fantasy not sci-fi.
6th: Shoehorned into d20 Modern with execrable results.
D20 Modern is D&D rules with the modern world. Exactly the same thing that GW 1, 2, and 4 were. It did more cinematic combat instead of realistic combat from Sci-fi games. This is a good fit for GW IMHO. Unfortunately the d20 Modern rules seemed a little rushed and never given the care of D&D 3.5. The initial GW book had very limited number of mutations and used a different psionic system than d20 Modern. I think they eventually created a fairly good game with the base they were given (the license they got required them to use d20 Modern as a base). The original designer said later that Darwin's World might be a better place to start.
Like you I'm dismayed by the CCG aspect and will probably avoid the new game due to that. Really disappointing. I've managed to collect all the earlier editions. I created a Gamma World group here BTW.
Just my 2 cents.
(3rd Ed) I think this was an honest attempt to build a new system for Gamma World. .. However, they botched the release. Not all the rules were included. Instead you had to mail them to get the errata. Without the errata you didn't have an equipment list so you couldn't create a character out of the box.
I vividly remember that screwup, and did eventually get the errata - it was still a very poor version of the game, though. And, it's not like the first 2 eds set the mechanics bar very high.
Report from GenCon 2010:
A New D&D Experience: Gamma World Seminar
The final seminar of the day announced the new and upcoming Gamma World Role-Playing Game, and this panel was headed by Senior Designer Rich Baker, Lead Designer Bruce Cordell, and Senior Art Director John Schindehette, with support from Designer Greg Bilsland and Editor Jennifer Clarke Wilkes who play Gamma World and had input about the new game from their own campaigns.
From the very start, it was apparent that the new edition of Gamma World, the 7th incarnation of the game, would be a bit more tongue-in-cheek than previous editions. Rich Baker described how in each edition the story of the apocalypse had to be re-invented, and this time, in the year 2012, the Hadron Super-collider in Switzerland created “The Big Mistake”, causing all realities to exist simultaneously for a brief moment, unleashing a nuclear holocaust in over 80% of the dimensions – except for a few where the French simply nuked a small town in Wisconsin. But regardless of how it happened, the world of Terra Gamma is filled with bizarre and terrible dangers, ranging from mutated chickens to radioactive beasts to killer-death bots, and only the Player’s Mutant Heroic Character can face these challenges – most of the time.
The “core” Gamma World product is the D&D 4E Gamma World Role-Playing Game, which is due out in October. As suggested by the title, Gamma World will use the 4E “chassis” for Characters and will technically be completely compatible with D&D 4E. It should be noted that the Designers admitted that Gamma World Characters have a higher damage output, but less healing abilities than a standard D&D adventuring party, but creatures from the Monster Manuals could be re-skinned as mutants – and vice versa. Gamma World will be a boxed set, and will contain a 160 page rulebook for creating Characters and running the world, two poster maps, monster and player token sheets, Character forms, and 40 Alpha Mutation and Omega Tech cards. These cards form a unique and new game mechanic to the Gamma World setting, and booster packs will be available to add additional flavor to the game.
The entire panel agreed that one of the most enjoyable aspects of the new Gamma World RPG is Character creation, which is very random, and can be accomplished very quickly. In fact, they recommend that it is done at the gaming table, because it is good for a lot of laughs to see what sort of mutant hero each Player ends up creating. Each mutant hero will be designed from two themes – and the bizarre example of the yeti-cockroach kept popping up throughout the seminar – and this defines the type of powers and abilities they can use. Not to mention, it also defines how strange and bizarre each mutant hero will look!
In addition to the standard power “chassis” that all 4E Characters have, the Gamma World Characters have two additional mechanics – Alpha Mutations and Salvage Slots. Alpha Mutations are encounter powers which are drawn from a deck created by the Player, and usually revolve around one or both of the Characters particular themes. At random times during play, as designated by the rules (such as rolling a natural 1 in combat), the current Alpha Mutation is discarded, and a new Alpha Mutation drawn from the deck to be used as a new encounter power. Similarly, Characters will also have an Omega Tech cards, representing high tech devices which can be used by the mutant hero until they burn out. But some Omega Tech can be used at a lower power level if they are “salvaged”, which uses a Character’s Salvage Slot, allowing the card to be retained indefinitely, albeit at a lower power level. This use of cards is aimed at adding a random element to the game to make it fun and a bit zany. For instance, Greg Bilsland described a game he was DMing, in which Trevor Kidd drew a new Alpha Mutation which gave him the power to EXPLODE – literally blow-up on his enemies – and he heroically used it to great effect. But he also had to re-roll a new Character!
Character death is apparently not a big deal in the Gamma World RPG, and in fact, seems to add a bit to the humor and light-hearted nature of the game. The Designers stressed that the ease of Character creation made losing a Character just part of the fun. And there are only 10 levels of advancement in Gamma World, so the play experience will be a bit shorter than standard D&D campaigns.
But not all the seminar attendees were happy with the “light-hearted” elements in the new Gamma World RPG, and one gamer voiced his dissatisfaction quite vocally. However, the Designers took the flaring of “nerd-rage” in stride, and both Rich Baker and Bruce Cordell admitted that they were not pleased when they were told by their boss at the start of the Gamma World RPG project that he expected a “light-hearted”, “fun”, and “tongue-in-cheek” game. But having designed the game, they were both quite proud of their achievement, and the other WotC staffers agreed that this new version of Gamma World was a tremendously fun gaming experience. In fact, John Schindehette pointed out that simply because the game was written with a certain humorous style, it did not force Game Masters to run their Gamma World Campaigns that way. The material is taken quite seriously, he went on to say, and he enjoyed playing the game himself.
The Alpha Mutation and Omega Tech Decks were also received with mixed reviews, with some gamers wondering why they should have to buy more cards just to play a game. But the Designers were quick to point out that the booster packs were optional, and simply added more cards to the sizable deck that already existed in the “core” box. It was also noted that the booster packs were numbered so that if a Player were to buy one of each, he would accumulate one of each of the “common” cards available for the game. Of course, each booster contains a random rare, and two random uncommon cards, so collectors wanting a complete set might have to do some trading or buy a lot of boosters to finish their collections.
By the way, the game provides rule for Players and Game Masters to create their decks, and there are limitations to how many of a particular type of card can be placed in a given deck.
Obviously, there will be a few rules changes from standard D&D 4E, specifically with regards to skills, but overall the Gamma World RPG will be easily playable to anyone already familiar with D&D 4E. Given the rest of the D&D 4E product line, it seems that they were due to come out with a game that was less serious and grim, and provide an option for fast Character creation and play for those gamers without a lot of free time.
Monday, September 6, 2010, 02:31 PM PST
Gamma World
This is a really interesting product. Unlike Ravenloft, GW is not a board game. This really is an RPG - though a very light and confined one. And I will disagree very strongly with what Jester wrote here; Gamma World is not a CCG. What WotC has been saying is true - Gamma World plays best when you don't collect the cards. More on this later.
Let's go back and look at the product. For $40 you get a large box with a small-footprint but well made (and very pretty) 159-page rulebook. The rulebook is well written and does a great job of walking you through character creation, gameplay, and things like available monsters. You get what could be called a "starter deck" of well-made CCG-style cards. The 80 cards are half Alpha mutations and half Omega technology items (more on that later). You get two sheets of well-made tokens which contain different images on each side of the monster tokens so that you can use a wider variety of monsters (though this means you can't run certain combinations). You get two double-sided poster maps (similar look to D&D Tiles but made of thin poster paper). You get one booster of Alpha and Omega cards.
The game is a campy sci-fi RPG where the world went crazy thanks to the Hadron Super-Collider. Alternate time-lines of AI robots, aliens, Armageddon, and other wacky stuff all merge into our world. You end up in a post-apocalyptic future setting with a lot of humor because the players know things the PCs do not. For example, the PAX adventure was based in Seattle, but the PCs did not know this (and would not understand the name). A postcard with the Space Needle and the words "Greetings from Seatt" were a hint to the players.
PC generation is extremely fast - you end up with funny combinations of origins such as Cockroach Empath. Each provides skills you are trained in, powers you can use (sometimes Encounter, sometimes At-Will), and other cool but short features. A friend of mine made cut-out cards and this is a good way for players to track their Origins. You then assign abilities based on the origins and finally roll the rest randomly. You quickly calculate a few numbers for skills and attacks, choose weapons, and roll for gear (giving you funny things like a canoe and a wagon).
You also get an initial Alpha Mutation. One of the card types, this is a strange short-lived mutation. The power of these varies widely. One PC might be able to do a blast 5 that stuns creatures, save ends. Another might get tentacles that let you draw or sheathe items as a free action. Many of the Alpha Mutations have an "Overcharge" option, where you can roll a die and see if something cool (make basic attack with tentacles as a minor action) or bad (tentacles decide to strangle you and you are stunned save ends) happens. You discard Alpha cards at the end of each encounter and then draw new ones. The wide variety is part of what makes this not worth collecting. They play best if you are surprised by what you get rather than players making a super-deck and knowing all the cards. The option to use the GM's deck helps this, as well as buying a periodic pack. In this regard, I see boosters as a board game style add-on that can help keep the game fresh.
When you explore you might find random ancient junk (stuff from our world). This can include a car stereo, inflatable kiddie pool, or smoke alarm. This can be a ton of fun. When the young boy at the table I DMed hooked up the car stereo to his power generator and played 80's music... well, let's just say he did very well with the Dancebot 1986 robot. And when a player asked if he could use his foosball table as a weapon... who was I to say no? A friend made some awesome random junk cards, which I will post once the game releases.
The setting seems ideal for short campaigns and periodic adventure settings. The rules may be somewhat limited if you tried to do a protracted campaign. A game like Eclipse Phase would be better, especially if you want serious sci-fi instead of a humorous setting.
Overall, this is a fun game and worthy of your gaming shelf. I think it is a very good product.
((Comment: That's an interesting background, but no bombs and chemicals?))
The Worlds Of Dungeons & Dragons
by Matt Miller on August 27, 2010 at 05:30 PM
Old editions of Gamma World, like the one pictured above, focused on crazy mutations and sci-fi meeting fantasy
Dark Sun isn’t the only new project set to flesh out the D&D game in the coming months. Longtime players will have fond memories of Gamma World, the crazy, partially comedic adventure game that was originally only loosely based on D&D rules. The setting is returning this fall in its own standalone game, but this time it will be compatible with 4th edition D&D rules.
“Gamma World is a setting that has been ravaged by all manner of strange apocalypses,” Baker says. “It’s a post-apocalyptic world in which your character is likely a mutant or a mutated animal, armed with a number of strange mutant powers and abilities, using incredibly advanced science fiction technology and adventuring in a world populated by horrific, mutated monsters.” The new version of the game is built to be fast and rollicking, and to allow DMs to cross-pollinate monsters and other features from their existing D&D libraries into the Gamma World setting. “We want to make sure that a DM can grab some critters out of a monster manual, dress them up as mutants, and throw them into their Gamma World game. If you look at something like a beholder, and you want it in Gamma World, then why not?” Baker tells us.
The Gamma World game stands apart from the normal D&D game in a few important ways, most notably through the elimination of race and class, which are instead replaced by mutation. “A Gamma World character is composed of two mutant themes – we think the right way to do it is to roll them randomly off a table, because if you’re picking them, you’re just not playing in the spirit of Gamma World,” Baker opines. “Sample themes might be: seismic, yeti, cockroach, pyrokinetic, plant, android, cyborg – there’s a zillion of them. You throw a couple of dice, and find out ‘Hey, I’m playing a seismic yeti. Wasn’t expecting that. I guess I’m a yeti made out of rock’.”
Gamma World has a long history with D&D, but this is the first time the two games will be effectively cross-compatible.
The new Gamma World roleplaying game is set to release this October, with an extensive rulebook, character and monster tokens, 2 double-sided battle maps, character sheets, mutation and loot power cards, and more. The game supports play up to 10th level, and seems to be designed as a fun, fast alternative to more in-depth D&D campaigns. It could also act as a brief break from your regular gaming routine.
PAX After Action Report, Part One
Wil Wheaton
When -- was over, and …, Logan ran Gamma World for us. I never played Gamma World back in the old days, but I've always heard that it's a lot of fun, so I was super excited to give it a try. WotC is updating it, using modified 4e rules, and it was a lot of fun. Real quick, here's how WotC describes it:
Earth. After the apocalypse. Never mind the radiation—you’re gonna like it here.
The D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game offers hours of rollicking entertainment in a savage land of adventure, where the survivors of some mythical future disaster must contend with radioactive wastes, ravaged cities, and rampant lawlessness. Against a nuclear backdrop, heroic scavengers search crumbled ruins for lost artifacts while battling mutants and other perils.
This product is a complete, stand-alone roleplaying game that uses the 4th Edition D&D Roleplaying Game system as its foundation. It appeals to D&D players as well as gamers interested in fantasy science fiction set in a bizarre, post-apocalyptic world.
You start out making random characters, rolling 2d20 to get two different backgrounds that combine into one character. I got Sentient Plant and Radioactive, then rolled truly awful stats (yeah, you get to roll 3d6 for your stats! Old school, baby!), so we decided that my character's name was Needles, and I looked just like the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree (Me: Oh, DAMMIT! Logan: I think you mean, 'Good grief.'). Andrew was an empathic giant parrot called Fluffy (he named his character before he even knew what it would be), Will was a seismic doppelganger called Dug Dug, and Keith was a Yeti mad scientist called Doctor [I forget, but it was hilarious]. None of us were particularly smart (average INT and WIS scores were 10), and we all lived in a bunker together. I won't recall the entire adventure, but some highlights were:
- Introducing everyone to each other, sort of like this: "This is Andrew, he edits all of my work, and is the Munchkin Czar for SJ Games. This is Logan, who freelances for WotC, and made the Bard a worthwhile playable class. This is Will, who designed games for White Wolf, and does all the interior and cover designs on my books. This is Keith, who designed Gloom and Eberron. I'm, um, Wil ... and I have really interesting and successful friends."
- Keith getting a kaleidoscope, and then using minor actions the rest of the time we played to take kaleidoscope readings (Logan always gave him results, which Keith recorded in a notebook).
- Dancing with Danceboot '86, who had been modified to also be a guard of some sort. Logan did the best D-d-d-dancebot voice and c-c-c-chaacter voice ever. He was always r-r-r-ready to p-p-p-party!
- Destroying the big scary Umberhulk/Manticore/Laser-beam-eyes monster fairly easily, and getting eviscerated by the little ****ing Sonic The Hedgehog/rolling-needle-best thing.
- Staying up until 230 with my friends, playing a game.
I'm sure I'm forgetting other awesome things, and hopefully the rest of the guys who played will comment here with their own memories about the experience.
My takeaway from Gamma World: I wouldn't want to play an entire campaign, because it's just a little too gonzo for me, but I think three or four sessions (would you call that a mini-campaign?) as a break from my regular game would be perfect. Also: Logan Bonner is a frakkin' great DM.
Upon realizing I stayed up too late, I moved my Saturday signing back a little bit, and went to sleep, marveling at how lucky I am to have such awesome friends, and so many incredible opportunities to do cool things.
“Needles‘” picture
twitpic.com/2mc5fd
also
Secrets of the Gamma World reboot
io9.com/5574788/secrets-of-the-gamma-wor...
Jun 28, 2010 02:20 PM
And the Android can be seen here (www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4...)