"What was good about Gamma World?" Topic

I never played but have heard good things about it. Can I hear from those that did and like it?
Okay, this is TMP, how about those that played and didn't like it?
And those that didn't played but didnt like it? :)

Which edition, I have them all except the D20 versions – and I think they could have asked your question in order to avoid a total failure on their part.

First, Gamma World was really "pulp" in that it didn't make sense, and wasn't your classic road warrior setting. It was tongue in cheek, and really designed to be a fun setting, in my opinion.

Second, the whimsical nature of character generation in most editions could be fun. You never completely knew what you were going to get or if it were even viable as a PC lol.

Third, the challenge of trying to make everyday objects we would take for granted, sound like real mysterious treasures.

My fondest memories of Gamma World are things like spending 45 minutes or more trying to figure out how a piece of tech worked, only to discover that we were dealing with a toaster! It did make a nice flail though.

I recall one poor player who played a mutant plant. He was required to move at al times because if he didn't, he'd roo to the ground and drop seeds that quickly grew to be exact replicas of him, only bent on his and everyone in the vicinities destruction!

Even though we didn't take the game 'seriously' we really got into characters and the adventures and it always proved to be a good time.

I never played it and hated it. LOL. Actually I played it a little and liked the sessions we had. The mutant creation, post-apoc, whatever-your-imagination-can-create type of setting was unique to the time ('70's). Space/wasteland/freaky drug-induced nightmare world…all were possible. That is what held my attention. Don't remember much of the game play mechanics, though. Old age, I guess.

Pete

Honestly I don't think the rules had much to do with the enjoyability of it. One of the editions (2nd or 3rd) had this weird color chart you cross referenced with percentage rolls to get results. It was awkward but we still played it.

First edition was a lot like Basic DnD, alot of fun but not a whole lot of background info.

The final TSR edition used Thac0 similar to AD&D and was also a lot of fun.

In all of those editions you had the fun flow charts for solving mysteries ofthe ancients!

Think 50s B movie post apocalyptic atomic war irradiated mutants running amok chasing nubile human survivor girls and then we can talk about the NPCs and monsters!

That's my experience of Gamma World's craziness; throw the actual theoretical and empirical data on what would happen if some damn fool pushed that big, red button, and think chaos as in "how radiation really worked" according to Ed Wood and his contemporaries and you get the idea.

I passed many a rainy day rolling up characters hoping against hope for a character that would actually have a fighting chance at survival (and romance with an imaginary beautiful human woman – God, I was a lonely kid! LOL!!).

So I say Gamma World is what yer after? Very cool. Think Planet Terror meets Ro-Man and The Beverly Hillbillies are packin' salvaged laser weaponry and why does Jethro have an extra pair of arms with crab claws and Ellie Mae can communicate with animals telepathically, Uncle Jed?

And remember, the most dreaded weapon of the ancients was called a "Hoover."

Hope this helps!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

And remember, the most dreaded weapon of the ancients was called a "Hoover."

Actually, I think that's from Paranoia – but it works in either. We played the first edition many moons ago, and had a blast because we played it like "Monty Python and The Post-Apocalyptic Mutants." Those were the days.

Doug

"Actually, I think that's from Paranoia – but it works in either."

You never met my old gaming group…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

This was always one of my favorites.
We would spend hours rolling up characters just to see what we would get.
Once the games started, they quickly would spiral into games of "Name that item", which was also so much fun.

So yeah… wildly random characters and the every day items turned into artifacts of wonder was what we enjoyed.

Not long after we got into this, a new guy joined our group and introduced the group to Rifts (we had already been playing TMNT and Heroes Unlimited). Didn't take long for the players to push my Gamma World game aside for the more "dirty and gritty" feel of Rifts.

our games dissolved into people shouting "MUTIE!"

at every opportunity, sometimes for 5 minutes solid

regards

jim

The rules were hit and miss. We often ignored whole sections of the rule book and just fudged the system with whatever we were used to playing at the time (AD&D 1st or 2nd editions mostly). The best part was the character generation, and what you made of the setting.

In the South American campaign I ran we had a mutated sloth character, who carried another character who played his mutated fur fungus. The interplay between the two was hilarious at times. In one battle the Sloth was badly wounded while the only robotic member of the group was killed. The Fur Fungus talked the players into salvaging parts of the Robot to repair his "Ride". It was a bit of stretch for the campaign but well within the spirit of the game when the Sloth found himself returned to mobility and playing host to his Fur Fungus buddy and Sentient Cybernetic parts.

BTW: I'm currently pooling figures and terrain for a Mutants and Death Ray Guns game using the same setting

Huge, huge…huge fan of Metamorphosis Alpha and Gamma World.

That said the games in all of their versions have issues, small and serious.

The basic idea is that it is science light, and by light I mean to say fantasy…science fantasy.

Helpful mutations that can take affect over night by getting caught in a "bad energy" storm, injected by a rouge medical robot, walking through a radioactive zone, etc..

Lots and lots of mutations…this is one of the least favorite parts for me…the laundry list.

The list would normally include 8-10 mutations, depending on the GM it could be more. Mental and physical mutations, and mostly no one had defects…you were supposed to, but fudge makes the die rolls taste better.

4 and 4 mutations…so a handful of mutations that make it fairly unmanageable…players would forget they could do one thing or another because they had other better mutations.

The most ridiculous mutation was Life Leech…if this was allowed in the game I would opt out…usually I ran the game to keep a better control of the deal breaker mutations.

But all in all the flavor of Gamma World was classic D&D with mutants, ray guns, and runaway robots…fun in a can.

First edition was a lot like Basic DnD, alot of fun but not a whole lot of background info.

The final TSR edition used Thac0 similar to AD&D and was also a lot of fun.

TSR did FIVE editions under the GAMMA WORLD name, and three (IIRC) more as Metamorphosis Alpha.

1st and 2nd were very D&D-ish mechanically.
3rd edition was the color charts % version, matching the system in Marvel Superheroes.
4th was, oddly enough, a 3rd edition D&D "near miss" years ahead of its time. They flipped AC to a climbing scale, did an excellent job of rectifying and standardizing a lot of the rules wierdness then, in a typical late-TSR brain spasm, completely foobed the skill system.
5th try was Alternity based, coming after the abortive Alternate Engine-based Metamorphosis Alpha re-do.

Gamma World 4th and Alternity are sufficient evidence to suggest that what became D&D 3.0 was rattling around in TSR long before they were bought by WotC.

6th serious* try at Gamma World was the D20 version done by White Wolf. Sadly for all prior attempts, this version had more campaign construction help in the first fifty pages than all the TSR editions put together.

* there had been a short attempt in Dungeon Magazine during their "one-shot resurrections of old settings" period as well.

I only got to play it once and didn't own or read the rules at the time. It was a fun game, probably because I was role-playing some strange mutant in a strange unexplained world encountering other strange unexplained things and trying to kill them for their strange stuff that you had no idea how to use or work. So I have a fond memory of the game but would probably be disappointed if I were to read the rules today. It would taint the role-playing decisions with meta-gaming knowledge and ruin the part of the game I enjoyed most- the unknown.

There's a lot of fan based stuff knocking around the net, might be worth sniffing it out to get a feel for the game.

Fun game, I was a hardcore Thundarr the Barbarian fan, so I was nabbed easy.

My favorite aspect was the NPC factions, they had great story potential (Knights of Genetic Purity, etc.)

I also liked the Tech 5 weapon names… "Tender Touch" ect. crazy stuff!

Perfect for gaming Zardoz my friends!

"Think 50s B movie post apocalyptic atomic war irradiated mutants running amok chasing nubile human survivor girls"

oh, you mean like at a miniatures convention when there are some semi-cute girls working the vendor tables ….

… IF you revise "running amok chasing" to read "shyly peeking at" i mean. lol

Science Fantasy is a good way to describe it. I ran a brief campaign once. IIRC we had a Quaddie (from the Lois McMaster Bujold books)stranded at an unused spaceport, a survivalist fresh out of his cryogenic sleep tank, and a couple of tribal villagers, among others. It was a wild mix but everyone was happy playing what they wanted.

I thought the 'treasure' system was pretty stupid. It had no value in the game because nobody knew how to use it and there was no electricity even if stuff could be repaired. It was just trash and the players knew it.

I also thought the combat system was weak. I think we had a first edition rulebook. Overall, it seemed very rules-light and vague, even for the time period it was from.

Its strong point is the otherwise sheer flexibility of the world setting. Post-apoc you can do anything from tribal, through pseudo medieval fantasy, to Mad Max, Planet of the Apes, Alien-esque survivalist, or mutant zombie rampage.

So if one, who had never read the books, wanted to catch up on all the cool treasure bits and other fun stuff, which edition is the best read. I don't plan on running as a game so the actual rules aren't super important. I'm more interested in the crazy stuff and source material.

The best of the wacky bad SF tropes would be in the first three editions, while the treatment of the setting with a bit more concern towards running a coherent campaign would be the White Wolf D20 edition.

For the ultimate Gamma World experience you should acquire a copy of Space Gamer magazine number 68 (March/April 1984) for its "Generic" post-holocaust adventure "Island of Entellope" by W.G. Armintrout.

There was a really good article on running Metamorphosis Alpha in Space Gamer a bit before that one.

PDF link

That's the one!

Let me see:

Black Ray Rifles
Torc Grenades
Death Machines
Powered Scout Armor
My Mutant Mountain Gorilla character named "Omne"

The "lets find out what it is" chart.

2nd or 4th were the best of the TSR ones, The D20 is pretty good, more designed for long term, stable gaming

Yes you should be a Thundarr fan. Read Daybreak 2250AD throw in some triffids and giant cockroaches and you have a game.

The rule mechanics of every TSR edition of GW have pretty much sucked, and the 3rd edition was so full of errors I was embarrassed for the company… but it was my first SF roleplaying experience so I love it! The setting is outstanding. I do find it interesting that nearly everyone describes GW as a tongue-in-cheek, whimsical, "light" game. My GM always ran a rather dark, Mad Max type campaign and that's how I remember and prefer the game.

Why was it great? It's summed up in one of the interior art pieces… it shows a sword-bearing warrior fighting off mutants. He's using a stop sign for a shield. Nice.

"Yes you should be a Thundarr fan link Read Daybreak 2250AD link throw in some triffids and giant cockroaches and you have a game"

+ Kamandi en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamandi

Lords of Light! Demon dogs…I am in! Ookla Ariel we ride…Ahhhhhhhhh-Hee!

Gamma World links
wapedia.mobi/en/Gamma_World
link

This is one of those issues that comes up every time Gamma World is mentioned among friends…"why would you play that game, it failed a bunch of times"?

Simply, it was and could be fun. It is not your complex system with a dozen class manuals. What it does well is to provide a platform for whatever version of mutant madness you desire…choose a book, a movie, or an idea and drop it in.

"why would you play that game, it failed a bunch of times"

Rather, it was important enough to TSR to keep the trademarks in use every few years. It was SET UP to fail each time by TSR because they wanted to do the minimum to keep the trademark in use.

The most recent version's license was yanked by WotC during their pre-4e property consolidation. Same with Ravenloft. That White Wolf was doing a better job with both than TSR or WotC ever had was probably just embarrassed icing on the cake of corporate shenanigans.

The White Wolf version had a bunch of good going for it.

A real shame though. It seems there is a small niche, those that like the formula of Gamma World…but I am in that niche…wedged into a crack holding on with all of my extra arms :)

When I recall Gamma World I recall the…

Vibro-Knife!

Ah the memories of a 12 y.o.

White Wolf's version blew dog in my opinion. totally missed the whole Gamma World feel.

4th edition (If that's the one they used Thac0 in) – TSR's final I think was probably the most 'filled out'. They had some scenarios and adventure packs, plus a book with 'treasures of the ancients' and some other good stuff.

I always looked at MA as an offshoot or side story. Since it all basically takes place on a ship – albeit a large one, it never had the appeal for me that GW did. Besides which we could run campaigns in our own home town of 'Apolis (minneapolis).

If you pick up one edition of the game and like it I highly recommend trying to track down others. They're did alot of stuff from edition to edition but I think each edition had some neat stuff init that others did not and I've always found them useful to have around.

"Monty Python and The Post-Apocalyptic Mutants"
Classic…that sounds about right.

I have seen Gamma World/Paranoia games that were most amusing.

As for the White Wolf version being better or worse or not holding the torch high enough. The theme was tread on, that is true…the White Wolf version is more modern and less tongue in cheek. More nano tech and less flying, telepathic, winged, pink (glowing), hippos.

Was the White Wolf version better than the original? How can you compare the late 70's bare bones to an effort from those who have been fans for 25+yrs? Tough call.

The White Wolf version has issues, as any game will. All in all IMO this version made an effort to include the rest of the gaming world to join us on the other side of the fence.

And what can you say, they tried. I appreciated the effort. I have the products…in fact I have every GW book produced. I have let most of the adventure modules go over years as I never used them…it never made sense to me to use a product that everyone can review, hard to have secrets or surprises during the game that way. But the books, I have every edition, from Metamorphosis ed 1 up to the latest…most signed by James Ward, call me a goof but the timing of GAMA conventions just worked out right and we had discussions about the various versions and directions, so why not right?

++++++++++++

Running the game in your own "gamma" home/current town/city was always fun…and everyone did it…fun times.

Gamma Knights and Gammarauders were both more fun. The monsters present in the boxed set depended on which printing you had. As presented, the game (1st Ed. -- never tried any later ones or Metamorphosis Alpha) had the same playability issues as Dark Sun. There were monsters that you *would* randomly encounter that could kill your entire party. I seem to recall grass that would teleport seeds into you, but perhaps that was psychic grass from Dark Sun.

Its all about the PSH. Pure Strain Humans… No muties for me, thank you very much.

Just the fact that PSHs were sooooo 'racist' was the funny part… They seemed to hate everybody!

Also one of the best parts of Gamma World (1st ed is what I played…) is when you rolled up yer character, if you wanted to be a mutant, you had to roll on a chart, so you never quite knew what you were gunna play… Good times.

@ blackscribe:
You've got it right, that's gamma grass you're remembering, from Gamma World alright. I was always turned off of trying Gammarauders by the bad cover art (if I remember correctly that's the boxed set with the crazy T-Rex looking thing on it?).

@ 28mmMan:
"Running the game in your own "gamma" home/current town/city was always fun…and everyone did it…fun times."

You just hit the nail on the head. Having a hometown post-apocalyptic campaign setting really pushed GW over the top in terms of fun. I grew up in northern Nevada though so the blasted wastelands of Gamma World were not much of a change from real life…

@pahoota:
"I grew up in northern Nevada though so the blasted wastelands of Gamma World were not much of a change from real life"

The process I most liked about using the local city/town was to take the same in a different direction…in your case I would have gone with a massive invasion of mutated kudzoo, great low lying jungles of kudzoo that thrives on direct sunlight…this creates a huge umbrella to live under, root pulling water closer for you and I, whole communities under cover…all the buildings would be covered etc.

Fun times…

PS
I built a setup just like this for my current project, I have a bunch of images and details if you are interested.

I played it some and liked it. I think it was helped by having movies, and to a lesser extent TV, that went well with it for that time. It always had a great Planet of the Apes feel, particularly when you get into the later, cheesier PotA movies. Omega Man too went well with it.

Another "in" it had was that surviving in a post-holocaust world was in the popular conciousness because we had the Cold War and all those warheads hanging over us. Remote, sure, but more likely then than now. In the early 1980's I knew there were warheads targeted at where I lived, I doubt there are now (and I'm not sure they'd work). Different fears in different times (hence the counter-insurgency games we seem to see more of now).

Now though I would use GW more as a setting, Earth AD 2 by Precis Intermedia is a slicker system that can give a similar feel (but without the lamer mutations).