Thread: Gamma World

I had the pleasure of playing the yet-to-be-released version of Gamma World at DDXP. Rich Baker pulled some of us freelancers aside, along with some notable industry bloggers, and gave us a quick preview of the game. Sitting down, the first thing we went over was character creation. Without giving away too many spoilers, the process is simple and fun. Those who played the original version of Gamma World know what I am talking about



Gamma World is built on the 4e rule-set "engine", so it is very easy to play if you already familiar with D&D. There are some small changes obviously but also some extremely fun twists all throughout as you play. Sci-Fi fans should rejoice and those looking for a break between long D&D campaigns will find a great twist from the norm.



This writer is not allowed to speak on specifics, but the game was so pleasantly enjoyable that I wanted to get an article up on Loremaster to talk about. I have included some small, quick photos that I snapped while playing. The last one is of Trevor Kidd, the D&D community manager for Wizards. He was playing a character named Abo Bomble, which had an incredibly low intelligence. This is Trevor stopping for a photo-op of his immaculate role-playing.



If you played an earlier version of Gamma World, it still has the same great "feel" to it and you will not be disappointed. The whackiness of character creation is still there and makes it very fun from the start. I should mention that you can have a full set of characters created within 20 minutes of starting because of how character creation works. No toiling with options and decisions- but alas I wish I could say more

gamma world?? isnt it that sci-fi post appoc pen&paper world??

I have a book of that somewhere......
was pretty good...

Yep, sure is. It was a ton of fun and a great reprieve from standard D&D fantasy

I am excited about this. I love Sci-fi but have never found a system worth playing, that didn't take a long investment to understand. I will be interested to try this one when it comes out.

So, got the product release seminar at the end, and the designer was there.

Basic mechanics will be 4.0 similar. Although, this is Gamma world, which means MUTANTS!! But, the whole mutations being drawn from a deck of 'collectable' cards (yes, basic deck with game, and then collectible booster packs sold separate), I just don't know about.

Well, having said that, I have had great fun with good players and GM in system with bad rules. So, since I didn't get a chance to preview it, I will give it a chance when it comes out.

The rules are no different than D&D minus some small changes (players will not get action points, etc...). The "Deck" is that of variable powers. You only pull them in specific situations- otherwise your powers are you own. More to follow once I can figure out what can be talked about

It's also important to note that the rules aren't yet finalized. They may choose to go with less power-changing (our table had it happen a lot, though we may just have been rolling poorly), or they could change from a rarity-based booster to something more random and less collectible.

I sort of think that Wizards is underestimating the community's feelings on the collectible card issue. An RPG with collectible components (even components that can be proxied without a problem) triggers an instinct in some people who feel that they've "gotta catch 'em all". I tried to say something to that effect on rpg.net, but I was almost totally ignored.

The problem is that this is nothing new. TSR had several RPGs that had card support throughout the 90's. I never felt that Gamma World was akin to playing a TCG. You swapped out powers only in specific situations and it made play more enjoyable (and often pretty funny). TCGs don't include full character sheets, character development, and often rely on you playing someone else- vice a storyteller/gamemaster presenting a plot.