Gamma World for D&D4 - Yay or Nay ?

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat May 09, 2015 4:34 pm

I have the box here, and even played it once but I would like to know the opinion of folks around here.

I found the game weirdness/silliness to be really fun, but the gameplay is too focused on combat. Did some sourcebook came out to widen or expand its concept ?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 09, 2015 8:43 pm

Yes:

Why would you bother playing 4e? I can only assume you didn't know that Gamma World books got made for better systems.

Ice9 · Post by **Ice9** » Sat May 09, 2015 8:48 pm

I played the 4E Gamma World at a convention once, and I have to say it's a big improvement on normal 4E. Reasons:

1) Compresses the level scale to 10 levels. The amount of stuff 4E gives you is a lot less insufficient when you get it 3x as fast.

2) Lower expectations, character-wise. D&D characters have a certain expected amount of awesome that 4E doesn't deliver. Gamma World characters are post-apocalyptic survivors that might have a few useful mutations or a piece of cool tech - and the game gives them that.

3) Better flavor than 4E. Being an atomic hawk-man just sounds like more fun than 4E's endless War-prefix classes, to me anyway.

I haven't played the previous versions of Gamma World though, so I can't say whether it's better or worse than those. But don't discard it off-hand because of the 4E in the name.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sat May 09, 2015 10:17 pm

Ice9, that was my impression too. Gamma 4E felt like a pretty tight and flavourful little game. Was it intended to be some sort of beginner/entry-product or something ? That would explain the little support (at least that I know of).

Prak: does the d20 product shares the high weirdness of the 4E version ? I confess that was one of its selling points for me. To the point that when I heard about Numenera I expected at least that kind of weirdness (which was never delievered, it seems).

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat May 09, 2015 10:36 pm

Gamma World was a campaign setting created for AD&D. When 3rd Edition came out with the OGL, a company reached into the history of D&D and updated Gamma World for 3rd. I haven't played it, so I can't say for certain, but as high weirdness is the entire point of GW and not an invention of 4e, it should. You might need to assign numbers to powers to make a random table if it's something you want, but you should not want for high weirdness.

Edit: I should mention that it's based on D20 Modern, not D&D, so there's that, but I don't think you mind that D20 Modern is mechanically shitty, and that the mutations do already have random tables.

You could also get the d20 books and just use them for setting stuff and run it in M&M

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sat May 09, 2015 11:57 pm

Gamma World was the absolute best thing done with the 4e D&D engine. D20 Modern is a strong contender for absolute worst thing done with the 3e D&D engine.

RelentlessImp · Post by **RelentlessImp** » Sun May 10, 2015 12:56 am

Nobody's asking the hard-hitting question here: Is silva actually intelligent enough to know Gamma World doesn't belong to his *World fappery?

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:07 am

Josh_Kablack wrote:Gamma World was the absolute best thing done with the 4e D&D engine. D20 Modern is a strong contender for absolute worst thing done with the 3e D&D engine.

And yet I would still much rather play something D20 Modern based than something 4e based, unless we're talking about a board game.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:10 am

I haven't played the 4E version, but it has to be far, far better than the original version which had "old school" bullshit like randomly rolling for powers from a completely unbalanced list (so you could have Superman and Aqualad in the same party).

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:12 am

are we talking AD&D original or d20 original?

spongeknight · Post by **spongeknight** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:49 am

hogarth wrote:I haven't played the 4E version, but it has to be far, far better than the original version which had "old school" bullshit like randomly rolling for powers from a completely unbalanced list (so you could have Superman and Aqualad in the same party).

I've played the 4th edition, and don't worry, it's still unbalanced as fuck. You roll randomly for powers so sometimes you get super sweet combos that make you rape face and sometimes you get deeply unsynergetic powers that cause you to commit suicide so you can get a new character. Well, to be fair the power differences aren't completely incompatible with each other, but some people are definitely sidekicks of others.

Orca · Post by **Orca** » Sun May 10, 2015 3:56 am

There was an edition before the AD&D campaign setting; it was silliness more concentrated than in any edition since, with barely a hint of a campaign setting. It definitely wasn't D&D, I don't remember classes (other than the starting type; pure strain human, mutated human, mutated animal, or mutated plant) or levels in it. God that was a long time ago.

The AD&D version lost some of the silliness to make it slightly coherent, and managed to be both silly and dull IMO.

The 3e version rethought the whole thing. It was more a build your own campaign setting than a single defined setting, and it was pretty good. It had support for going silly or serious post apocalyptic as you preferred.

After reading the 4e core books it never occurred to me to look at the 4e Gamma World.

TiaC · Post by **TiaC** » Sun May 10, 2015 4:16 am

spongeknight wrote:
hogarth wrote:I haven't played the 4E version, but it has to be far, far better than the original version which had "old school" bullshit like randomly rolling for powers from a completely unbalanced list (so you could have Superman and Aqualad in the same party).
I've played the 4th edition, and don't worry, it's still unbalanced as fuck. You roll randomly for powers so sometimes you get super sweet combos that make you rape face and sometimes you get deeply unsynergetic powers that cause you to commit suicide so you can get a new character. Well, to be fair the power differences aren't completely incompatible with each other, but some people are definitely sidekicks of others.

So, they took 4th, of which the best you could say is that characters were more balanced, and made it unbalanced. Well done.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun May 10, 2015 4:57 am

Prak wrote:are we talking AD&D original or d20 original?

I didn't know there was a d20 version. I'm referring to the 1978 version and the 1983 version (which were fairly similar, I think).

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 10, 2015 5:21 am

That what I was talking about with AD&D, I didn't realize it was OD&D.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun May 10, 2015 5:34 am

Prak wrote:That what I was talking about with AD&D, I didn't realize it was OD&D.

The AD&D DMG had conversion rules for Gamma World, so one certainly wasn't a subset of the other, but there were similarities (e.g. hit points, hit dice, armor class).

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 10, 2015 7:15 am

Well, I was under the impression that it was just a different game, same rules, sort of like 3rd edition and d20 modern

silva · Post by **silva** » Sun May 10, 2015 1:31 pm

Peak, why the obsession with balance ? Just go wild. Release yourself from the straps of sanity. It's Gamma World man! You can be anything you want: A cyber-roach, a gestalt of rats, a flying human-fly, even a sentient plant! Who cares for balance with all those awesome possibilities ?

Ok, this sounded ridiculous but the thing is that the game provides various flavorful powers and abilities to each one of those. Its clearly a work of love. I really like it. I think a more sanitized version of the game would lose the appeal.

I wonder how the actual Gamma World fans rate the D&D4 version. Hmm..

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 10, 2015 3:21 pm

...Because balance and giving all players the same opportunities is the foundation of a game. Rolled ability scores are bad enough when you're friends with Comet the Wonder Roller, but when you add wildly unbalanced random powers into it, his flying brick mutant is going to have to bury several of my "I got a rock" mutants until I feel that there's even a vague point to me even being there and stop eating blaster bolts for rerolls.

Because the BMX Bandit has no reason to exist alongside Angel Summoner.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Sun May 10, 2015 4:18 pm

silva wrote:Peak, why the obsession with balance ? Just go wild. Release yourself from the straps of sanity. It's Gamma World man! You can be anything you want: A cyber-roach, a gestalt of rats, a flying human-fly, even a sentient plant! Who cares for balance with all those awesome possibilities ?

In the old Gamma World, one PC could be a mutated human with laser eyes, super-strength and a superhuman sense of direction, while another PC could be a mutated human with a superhuman sense of direction.

I find it hard to "go wild" over the fact that I'm exactly like another PC except way worse. I assume that 4E Gamma World isn't quite that bad.

silva · Post by **silva** » Sun May 10, 2015 4:49 pm

Hogarth, as soon as I get home Ill put the character options.

prepare to have your brain explode.

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun May 10, 2015 5:37 pm

Looks like the power cards were refine by someone and posted here (download, 4shared)

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Sun May 10, 2015 7:33 pm

hogarth wrote:I find it hard to "go wild" over the fact that I'm exactly like another PC except way worse. I assume that 4E Gamma World isn't quite that bad.

No, it's not.

Basically you randomly roll both of your "classes", and everybody gets two. Some are better than others, but only as much as like a 4e class is better than others. Where it gets a bit wonky is in the aforementioned synergy.

If your first class is "Birdman" (er "Hawkoid") giving you flight, then you get a hell of a lot more synergy out of a second class that gives you a ranged attack than you do out of a class that gives you additional HP and Con bonuses.

silva · Post by **silva** » Tue May 12, 2015 3:25 am

Ok, here are the character origins from the box. You must pick 2 randomly (or choose 1 and roll randomly for the other). Each is its own "class" and comes with its set of powers and abilities progression per level (max level is 10):

Human Engineered
Android
Gravity Controller
Radioactive
Cockroach
Hawkoid
Rat Swarm
Doppelganger
Hypercognitive
Seismic
Electrokinetic
Mind Breaker
Speedster
Empath
Mind Coercer
Telekinetic
Felinoid
Plant
Yeti
Giant
Pyrokinetic

Also, there are 2 card decks: one called "Alpha Mutations" and other called "Omega Tech". During play, players are prompted to draw cards from these at certain points (Ie: after you win a combat encounter, its assumed the enemy had some kind of tech that you can loot, so you draw a Omega Tech card). Also, while the basic rules says the GM manage these two decks by default, players are encouraged to build and bring their own customized decks to play. This way its possible to synergize these with your character types. So for eg. a "Hypercognitive Rat Swarm" character could be boosted up with card mutations like "Super Genius" or "Robot Control" to represent his improved mental capability.

(the in-game explanation for these "Alpha Mutations" taking over you character is the "Big Mistake" - rifts in reality that fused various dimensions together, and now some people and things are infused by these inter-dimensional properties at certain times)

The game seems to have a light-hearted approach to its rules, saying players should try over the top feats as much as they can (there are 10 broad skills for helping with this, but nothing too detailed). And it says death can come anytime so be prepared to create a new character before long (but then creation is so fast I could see myself creating a new char even before the current encounter in which I died ends).

Thats more or less it. I dont know how prolonged play would fare, but judging by the fast and flavourful char creation and the sample encounters we ran, the game looks super fun. Im really curious if this would fit a slightly more serious-toned and long campaign-inclined group though.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Tue May 12, 2015 3:33 am

silva wrote:Ok, here are the character origins from the box:

No Pure Strain Human PCs? They were the fighter or thief equivalents in the original Gamma World, in the sense that they had dick-all for superpowers but you could always hope that the GM might throw you a bone in terms of human-only loot (e.g. power armor that only fits a PSH), or robot companions, or access passes.