Gamma World – The good, the bad, the mutated

The guys and I played through the 4e Gamma World box set last night, and had a pretty good time with it. The character creation process is certainly one of the highlights. The party consisted of the following: a Demon Plant, a Quickling Vampire, a Pryokinetic Anti-matter Blaster, and my guy a Regenerative Hypercognative.  We used the origins from the original boxed set as well as the Legion of Gold expansion.

We had a great time trying to conceptualize our characters and come up with post-apocalyptic arms and armor. My guy was using a sledge hammer as a two-handed heavy, and throwing cinderblocks as a ranged weapon. Strangely the demon plant elected to have a gun as a ranged weapon, as well as a pointy stick for melee. Probably most memorable was the Pyrokinetic using a 50-gallon drum as heavy armor. Fire in a 50-gallon drum? I don’t remember what he actually named his character, but I just started calling him hobo fire. It was awesome.

The actual encounters included with the original boxed set seemed a little arbitrary. They introduce you to some unique Gamma World bad guys like the Porkers and Badders, but they didn’t seem to have much to do with each other. Overall not a great starter adventure. The previous time I played Gamma World 4e, the GM (Gamma Master?) came up with his own stuff and it was way cooler than what was included.

The card mechanics of Omega Tech and Alpha Mutations were interesting. The Omega tech was a cool way to hand out “treasure” that gave the PCs some different combat options. Getting a different mutation every encounter was a little weird, but not as bad as I thought it would be. Overall, we agreed that if your PC had a power that worked really well with your character you could roll a save for it, the same way you do to salvage re-usable Omega tech. Some of the powers were a little game-breaking, so you wouldn’t want them to have access to it forever, but if you got one that just didn’t work for your guy you wouldn’t be stuck with it forever either.

Next week we level up, and I may try a different guy. Overall, it makes for a fun break from your average fantasy RPG. We may work on giving our game a darker, grittier feel than the typical Gamma World aesthetic as presented by WotC. We’ll let you know how it goes!

Dusting Off Gamma World

All the buzz on the blogs is about 5e or DnDNext, wishlists of what to add, what to ditch, and what to keep. While we all wait to be invited to the beta test, Skyland Games is going to take a look at where 4e shined. While not being perfect, the 4e version of Gamma World is a great example of how 4e mechanics can be really fun. If you haven’t tried it yet, I would encourage you to do so. There is even a free online character generator (PS – that would be on my wishlist for 5e!) that allows you to roll up a completely random character or choose the values you want, or have rolled.

Since it has been out for a couple of years, fans in the blogging community have supported  the version with some great articles and tables. 4e Critical Hits has put together an incredible resource for 4e Gamma World material. Roving Band of Misfits has put together articles analyzing the monsters as published, as well as a guide to converting iconic DnD monsters for use in Gamma World.

There are tons of other resources out there, but this will get you started. The guys and I will be rolling up some crazy characters tonight, and I’m sure it will be a hilarious play report tomorrow. If you haven’t given 4e Gamma World a try, it”s a worthy diversion while we all wait for what comes next!