JMW: Sigh, I'm very glad you asked this question. The idea to make Gamma World wackier was not mine. It came from several designers from the TSR staff. On the other hand, I never considered a 9-foot tall humanoid rabbit that could turn all metal into rubber—wacky. This might be an area where I have blinders. I went along with the wacky material because I had lots of other things to do in those days. In hindsight, I should have used some editorial brakes on some of that material.

 

I could not agree more.

Ward's interesting interview is here. He's got a great perspective on the early days of roleplaying. It's really worth a look.

And I have to admit, it's nice when the game designer vindicates my decision to put the seriousness back into Gamma World.

In a previous entry I sketched out some ideas for my Gamma World backstory. In particular, I am replacing the Big Mistake with something more meaningful and interesting. At the same time, I want to keep the wild mutations that are in Gamma Terra, because I want to preserve as many player options as I can.

Here's what I came up with. 

The Year of the Dragon

While the World That Was had already been in decline for years, the event that tipped the scale and birthed Gamma Terra occurred in 2022. Scientists and astronomers discovered it first: a rogue asteroid hurtling towards the Earth out of the constellation Draco. Over the months that followed, the asteroid – officially christened Draco 12 but known colloquially as the Dragon – was constantly observed amid growing concern over a planetary collision. Some world leaders might have considered trying to keep the Dragon’s existence a secret, but this proved impossible: information was just too easy to obtain, and the world’s hunger for news quickly spread word of the Dragon to virtually every corner of the Earth.

As the asteroid neared, tensions rose among the world’s wealthiest, most populous, and well-armed nations, who began to prepare for the worst by gathering strategic resources. Small wars broke out in many nations, especially those where oil, natural gas, and the rare metals necessary to high technology were located. Meanwhile, in the cities, panic and an increasing awareness of the possible end of the world wreaked havoc with ordinary life. Inhibitions were lowered, and man began to do things he would never before have attempted, from the pursuit of eccentric pleasures to the performance of violent crime or the breaking of ethical and moral boundaries.

As the Dragon came closer, its course could be more accurately measured, and the likelihood of a collision became ever greater. Where before the nations of the world had been content to use mundane arms in their struggles over strategic resources, some of those nations now felt threatened enough to use nuclear missiles and bombs to defend themselves. Armies and capital cities were destroyed in the Middle East, East Asia, and Southeast Asia, but the devastation – while awfully – remained fairly confined to these regions.

Ultimately, Draco 12 did not hit the world, but it came so close – so horrifyingly close – that the damage it did was catastrophic. Global storms, earthquakes, and volcanic activity rocked the planet. Many died, especially those who lived in coastal regions. But in the great plains, hurricanes the size of states raged, and elsewhere earthquakes shook down entire cities, so nowhere was entirely safe.

The years that followed were characterized by the rapid collapse of civilization. The end of global trade, not to mention the effect of the storms and nuclear fallout on climate, resulted in widespread famine, a crisis which wealthy nations tried to address with food stockpiles gathered in the Year of the Dragon and, when these stocks were exhausted, with genetically engineered crops and animals. But in their rush to create new ways to feed a starving population, the bio-engineers of the world over-reached, and their “frankenfood” caused new illnesses and disease in the population, including genetic mutation, cancer and death. Some genetically-engineered species escaped into the wild, causing unforeseen dangers and wreaking further havoc in an already-crippled food chain.

The Man Who Wanted to Save Humanity…

All of this took only a few years, but already it was a commonly-held belief among those who survived that the world was in fact coming to an end – not quickly and all at once, but slowly and painfully. One of the individuals who admitted this likelihood was Dr. Emil Throckmorton, a brilliant geneticist who had managed to survive the ongoing collapse of civilization on an isolated ranch in Mexico. Throckmorton theorized that if the human race could somehow evolve to suit the new post-Dragon world, it might survive. This evolution would have to be by design, since there was no time to wait patiently for natural selection to do its work on the surviving billion humans who still walked the Earth. More importantly, Throckmorton could not imagine a single human species which could survive all the myriad threats now coming together on the world. To survive in the wreckage of the Middle East and East Asia, man would need to be resistant to radiation and intense heat, but radioactive fallout had created perpetual winter over much of the northern hemisphere, and that suggested a human race adapted to the cold and with little need for food or water. When he added in concerns over plague, hostile genetically-engineered species in the wild, and the rising sea level, Throckmorton could only conclude that no one human race would do; he must somehow evolve multiple offshoots of humanity at the same time and allow them all to compete in nature. Only in this way would humanity have a good chance of survival. Over many months, he developed a complex plan which would allow him to design not just one new human race but an infinite number of them, and at the same time distribute this new evolution around the globe.

One of the many experiments which had run amok in the years following the Dragon was nanite technology. One particular nanite colony, originally designed to remove toxic chemicals from the environment, had escaped confinement and gone rogue in a South American jungle. There, the tiny machines were disassembling everything they could find and using the raw materials to manufacture more of their own kind. Throckmorton traveled to the site, where FEMA employees were working hard to contain the “gray goo”, and masquerading as a staff scientist he managed to obtain a thermos-sized colony of the nanites. National security and travel safety had almost totally broken down; it was not difficult for him to bring his sample back to his ranch, where he used his own lab to begin reprogramming the nanites for a new task.

The processing power required for a project of this magnitude was far in excess of what Emil had available, but through his circle of academic contacts he knew of a supercomputer project underway in Austin, Texas. There a large team of the world’s greatest computer engineers were attempting to construct the first quantum computer, a tool which they hoped would allow the management of the entire world’s remaining international resources in order to maximize efficiency and bring the world’s surviving nations together. Throckmorton had great admiration and respect for this project and never considered stealing the quantum computer; it would be enough if he could borrow it. With his nanite canister, he set off for Texas and was able to ingratiate himself to the project team so that they trusted him with access to the facility.

With this access, Throckmorton was able to use the quantum computer to re-program his nanites with an infinite variety of potential human species, a theory which he called the Hyper-Evolved Lifeform, or HEL. With their new programming, the nanites would come into contact with human beings and “put them through HEL,” altering their very genetic structure into something stable but very different than traditional humanity. Throckmorton intended to take the nanites back to his lab and continue his work with them, but he was discovered by FBI agents working undercover at the facility to root out a suspected Al-Jambiya cell. When he tried to run, Throckmorton was shot and died.

While the FBI agents investigated Throckmorton, however, the actual Al-Jambiya terrorist in the facility made off with the thermos filled with nanites. Abdullah al-Wihashi was disguised as custodial staff at the quantum computer lab and had already come to suspect Throckmorton was up to something. Covert spying on Emil’s notes had only convinced Wihashi that the HEL was some kind of virus kept inside the thermos bottle. At this time, Al-Jambiya was in the last stages of a massive bombing plot designed to tip the world over into Armageddon and al-Wihashi, while he knew of the plot’s broad outline, had not been smart or skilled enough to actually be chosen to participate. Resentful of this fact and eager to prove his dedication, Wihashi took the thermos and kept it in secret for 48 hours while he eluded the FBI and his organization positioned itself for its strike on North America.

… And the Man Who Wanted to Destroy It

At noon EST, in twenty cities across the United States, Al-Jambiya terrorists detonated nuclear car bombs. At that moment, al-Wihashi was standing on the roof of the tallest building in Austin. He opened Throckmorton’s thermos and released its contents, hoping to do his small part to destroy the world.

Instead, he may have saved it. Even as Al-Jambiya’s carbombs were going off, the HEL nanites escaped into the air, using raw materials in the environment to self-replicate and seeking out human beings to modify. Abdullah al-Wihashi was their first victim, but millions more would follow. Powered by solar energy, drifting on the wind, and programmed by a quantum computer with the genetic blueprints for countless variations on human life, the HEL nanoplague slowly swept over the world, bringing with itself infinite variety in infinite combination. Al-Jambiya’s nuclear terrorism was the final nail in the coffin for the United States – economic, environment, and social catastrophe accelerated in the months that followed until the federal government ceased to exist, communication broke down, and America descended into a vast inhospitable wilderness punctuated by the occasional village or town. At the same time, animal and plant species around the world were altered by the HEL nano-plague until they bore little resemblance to their original stock. These races – including countless mutated human beings – were better suited to life in Gamma Terra, but stranger than anything which had previously walked the earth.

It took decades for global climate to stabilize, but eventually the rain began to fall once more, birds began to migrate, and flowers began to bloom. But the rain falls on Gamma Terra, not on the World That Was, and somewhere in the ruins of civilization walks Abdullah al-Wihashi, the only man in the world who knows what happened.

The latest sad news out of Gamma World 2010 is that "Famine in Far-Go," the second book in the GW trilogy, is delayed for about a month. There were rumors to this effect for a few days, then yesterday Wizards officially changed the release date on the product page, took the "Famine" banner out of the D&D webpage rotation, and replaced it with the old banner for the Dungeon Master's Kit. Feh.

I was already waiting to start actually running GW until I had the entire game -- it seems silly to introduce new origins, Cryptic Alliances, and more when the players are already halfway through the campaign -- but I dislike waiting an additional month.

Onwards and upwards: House Rules, Theme Powers, and You.

First, I have updated the House Rules pdf with some art and minor corrections. It's still located in my Gamma World folder. It's just larger now because, when you put images into a Word document, it becomes enormous. It's Microsoft, what can I say.

More importantly, I have begun the Theme Powers document. Eventually this will get folded into the House Rules, but for now it is a separate document. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, it is definitely a work in progress. Even better -- it is open to all of you!

Yes, the Theme Powers document can be edited by anyone. Now, at the moment, all I have done is go through the Skill Powers presented in PHB3 and assign some of them to various Themes. I will rename some of these powers, but the effects seemed like good ones to me. Some of these powers use the skill which the Theme is trained in, but others do not. My priority is:

• Each Theme should have at least 2 powers.
• Each Theme should have at least one power which uses its key skill.

Other than that, the power just needs to be appropriate to the Theme. I would like to invite all of you to jump in the document and add your own ideas for powers. You can add notes, you can add full powers, you can add comments -- just put your name on it, so we all know who is saying what!

Some of the themes need powers which are more unique to Gamma World. Things that manipulate Omega Tech, for example. That's where we need to get creative. All you will see there now are the Skill Powers I thought most appropriate.

Check out the current list of Theme Powers here, and make any comments directly on the document.

First off, a shout out to everyone who has commented and written PMs to me in the last week. It's really encouraging to read your notes, and to know that I'm not alone in my desire for a more serious Gamma World which -- while still fun and filled with player character options -- nevertheless confronts the themes of a post-apocalypse game with some degree of bravery. I think it is perfectly possible to have a Gamma World game which has yexils, arns, and hoops in it, but which also allows players to make characters they want to play, and which also dares to Say Something Important.

Thank you for coming along on the ride.

The rest of the My Gamma World series is here.

Now, on to the latest. I have updated my House Rule document to include various corrections and modifications which you have suggested or which have finally made it to paper. Included in this: removing the Speed penalty for Wounds, adding the ability to remove a recent Wound by using your Second Wind, changing the name of Occupations to Themes, clarifying how players build their Alpha Mutation decks, changing the way Omega Tech decks are built, and allowing Pure Strain Humans to use other Origins as long as they can come up with a good way to "reskin" it.

You can find the new House Rules here.

And while we're sharing documents, you can find more Gamma World stuff in my Gamma World folder. This includes a relatively complete setting, the Domain of the Steam Queen, as well as a setting-in-progress, Prime Nation. There are tons of adversaries and creature write-ups for both groups, including lots of Steampunk goodness for the Domain and some flying monkeys, psychic baboons, and machine-gun Gorillas in Prime Nation. 

Who says a serious Gamma Terra can't be fun?

A few days ago I re-watched the Postman. I want to blog about it, but in the meantime am getting your feedback and thoughts on the film. Is it Truly Awful? Is it an Underappreciated Classic? Does it have anything useful for gamers in it?

Keep those thoughts and letters coming in. 

"I heard of you. You're famous."

Welcome back to My Gamma World. Check out my blog for the rest of the series, where my particular take on this campaign setting can be found. 

As most of those reading this know, I want to make sure players can make recognizable human characters in Gamma World. If you want to be a crazy mutant Seismic Yeti, bully for you. But maybe you just want to be this guy:

If he had a name, I can't remember it, but holy cow was he scary.

Anyway, My GW needs a rule for characters who aren't mutants. And that means they don't have Alpha Mutations. Since Alpha Mutations are encounter powers, the logical solution seems to be Omega Tech, which also acts like an encounter power. My solution tries to keep it as simple as possible.

Pure Strain Humans

 If you wish to play a Pure Strain Human (or PSH), you must select your origins from those which have no power source, such as the Engineered Human, Young, Survivor, or Old. In addition, the following rules apply to you:

• You do not draw Alpha Mutation cards. Alpha Flux does not apply to you.
• You gain the “Fresh Batteries” power. 

Fresh Batteries • Pure Strain Human Novice

Encounter

Minor Action

Effect: Select one of your Omega Tech which has already been tapped. Ready that Omega Tech again.

At 4^th level you may use this power twice per encounter. At 8^th level, you may use it three times per encounter.

 

The second thing I have been working on is a way to get players more choices when it comes to Utility powers. Utility powers are, to me, the most interesting part of the character. Everyone in GW has a few different attack powers. We all do damage. But it is in the Utility powers that characters really find their unique role. What do you contribute to the group?

My addition to Gamma World is based on the idea of Skill Powers, which is one of my favorite additions to D&D 4E. The idea is to have a list of Utility powers which you can choose from instead of -- not in addition to -- your standard utilities. Gamma World heroes get utility powers at 3rd and 7th level. Normally their only choice is which to take first: their primary origin utility or their secondary one? By 7th level you have both.

I haven't made up any of the actual Utility powers yet. I know, I know. But I have to start somewhere. So first, some Occupations. I use Occupations to qualify for the new utility powers because GW doesn't have the idea of "trained skills." I can't make a power with the requirement: Trained in Athletics" because training does not exist. I'll make them keyed to Occupation instead.

Occupations

You can choose to give your character an occupation. This occupation will give you a bonus to a specific skill and will give you access to utility powers which you might select instead of the utility powers given to you by your origin.

If you select an occupation for your character, the following rules apply to you:

• Do not roll on the skill bonus table. Your occupation bonus replaces this roll.
• At 3^rd and 7^th level, when you select a utility power, you can choose from the powers listed for your occupation as well as from the powers listed for your origins. You still select only one utility power at 3^rd level and another one at 7^th level.

Drifter

Gamma Terra is full of drifters, men and women with no home and only the belongings they can carry on their back, their mule, or their wagon. Drifters are seldom welcome by communities; they are unknown quantities who consume vital food and medicine. This appraisal is more right than wrong: drifters are a cagey, secretive lot who aren’t above theft or deception when it comes to staying alive. A drifter with vital skills, however, can often find at least a temporary home for himself before boredom or his own self-destructive nature forces him to hit the road once again.

Skill Bonus: Stealth

Driver

It’s not hard to find a vehicle in Gamma Terra, but it is very hard to find one that runs. With hard work and a conversion to ethanol fuel, a few communities have been able to get some cars and trucks moving again. Other vehicles serve as a home for nomadic bike and car gangs, who can stay in a small town for weeks extorting fuel and food before moving on.

Skill Bonus: Acrobatics

Healer

 Being a doctor isn’t what it used to be: a physician in Gamma Terra has to learn to make do with only those few medicines that can be made, scavenged, or found in the wild. A healer is as much psychiatrist and counselor as he is doctor or nurse. Because they collect all written records for a hint of medical knowledge, healers can often be a source of information for facts about the old world.

Skill Bonus: Science

Homesteader

Most residents of Gamma Terra don’t try to be heroes; they just try to stay alive. The homesteader is a farmer or craftsman, often married and hoping for a kid or two to survive the pox. Homesteaders are usually taught to get out of the way when disaster strikes, but they have a strong sense of community and know the area well.

Skill Bonus: Insight

Hunter

Animal populations were devastated when the old world ended, with many species dying out entirely. But without man to hunt them, those who survived the long winters, the disease, and starvation have begun to make a comeback, and many new strains of dangerous creatures have been born on Gamma Terra. Every community will have men and women who hunt animals for food, using their fur and other parts for clothing or tools. Hunters are among those most likely to have skill with firearms, though few would be so reckless as to waste a bullet on an animal when an arrow will do.

Skill Bonus: Nature

Mechanic

Someone has to keep the generators running, the plumbing working, and the stills in operation. The Gamma Terra mechanic is one part salvage expert and one part jury-rigger, trying to keep old machines in operation as well as cobble together new ones that can help the community at large. Because he is the ultimate authority when it comes to vehicles and firearms, he may know how to use them as well as fix them, and he spends any free time scrounging for old manuals and books that might shed light on a particular technical problem.

Skill Bonus: Mechanics

Scavenger

The scavenger is a person who makes a living by investigating the ruins of the old world, typically by venturing into the fringes of a dead city or large town and looting it of anything he can find. The scavenger avoids other people, usually working alone and fleeing from danger. Nonetheless, he can have a surprising amount of knowledge about old world machines and history, lore picked up in his many forays into the city interior.

Skill Bonus: Perception

Slave

Slavery in Gamma Terra tends to be one of two types: either the slave was seized as a conscript, or he wandered into a community that put him to work in exchange for food and housing. In the first case, the slave probably began as a healthy adult. A strong back and a willingness to obey orders is a plus in this brutal life. Some conscripts try to escape but only a handful ever do so; their guards are usually well-armed and sometimes former conscripts themselves, conditioned through cruelty to feel no pity or sympathy for those they guard. In the other case, however, an exile or wanderer may have attempted to join a community. With no skills to contribute, the newcomer is just another mouth to feed and while compassion dictates taking the pilgrim in, necessity requires him to work for his living, often in a state of menial labor akin to slavery. After a time, such slaves sometimes earn a place in their community, but others wander on or suffer one of the accidents all too common in a life of hard work.

Skill Bonus: Athletics

Survivalist

The survivalist was a man or woman of the World That Was who was convinced the end of civilization was coming and meant to be prepared for it. Often thought a paranoid gun nut, the survivalist probably wasn’t happy to be proven right. He entered the new world with a stockpile of guns, food, fuel and other equipment, though little of this has survived the decades. Nonetheless, he remembers the way the world was and he may have an idea of how the new world should be.

Skill Bonus: Conspiracy

Teacher

If there is to be any hope for civilization the young must be educated, taught the mistakes of the old world and the hopes of Gamma Terra, what went wrong and what went right, what is truth and what is legend. That role falls to the teachers. Teachers work with young people of all ages and have good social skills as well as some knowledge of the way things used to be. They tend to stay in one community where they gather respect and admiration.

Skill Bonus: Interaction

Warrior

This occupation represents those who have been using their fists for most of their lives. Gang members who hunt the roads and cities, taking what they want from those too weak to resist, are warriors, but a traveling youth who sells his fighting skills for food and shelter might also have this occupation.

Skill Bonus: Athletics

This is the latest in my series on Gamma World. The rest can be found on my blog's main page. Thanks to everyone who is contributing their comments and ideas; the end result is better for it!

Today I have three new Origins for you, origins based on the idea that age matters. This is key to many post-apocalypse settings. Gamma Terra is the only world which young people have ever known, but in the kind of game I want to run, there are some who are old enough to have had lives -- sometimes long ones -- before the Crash. 

Generation Origins

These origins are intended for a Gamma World game which is set closer to the Big Mistake. Films like the Road Warrior cycle are good examples of these games, in which middle-aged and elderly heroes remember the world as it was, even as a new generation grows up adapted to a mutated world.

All of these origins are specifically intended to be Secondary Origins, probably with the Engineered Human as primary. If you are using random origins and roll a Generation Origin, your other origin automatically becomes Primary. They are also designed to boost the Leader role, so they provide healing and other buffs.

Young

You are a child or adolescent, no older than nineteen. All your life has been spent in the strange world of Gamma Terra, and you can imagine no other existence. Your life may be difficult and brief, but at the same time you are the embodiment of hope for what remains of mankind. If the world is to have a future, that future depends on you.

Mutant Type: Dexterity; no power source

Skill Bonus (level 1): Gain a +4 bonus to Stealth and Interaction checks.

Slippery (level 1): Gain a +2 bonus to Reflex.

Not Your Time (level 1): Gain a +2 bonus to death saves.

 

Desperation            Young Novice

The sight of your desperate attack against a dangerous foe helps an ally ignore his wounds.

At-Will • Physical, Weapon

Standard Action  Melee or Ranged weapon

Target: One creature

Attack: Your level + 4 + weapon accuracy vs. AC

Hit: 1[W] + your level physical damage and one ally within 5 squares of you can use his second wind.

 

Lucky  Young Utility

It’s never cool to cap a kid.

Encounter • Immediate Interrupt

Target: One creature who has just hit you with an attack

Effect: The target must re-roll the attack.

 

All Grown Up            Young Expert

With a furious blow, you remind those around you that you’re no longer a snot-nosed kid.

Encounter

Standard Action  Melee or Ranged weapon

Target: One creature

Attack: Your level + 4 + weapon accuracy vs. AC

Hit: 3[W] + your level physical damage and all allies within 5 squares of you are +2 on attack rolls until the end of your next turn.

Survivor

You remember the World As It Was. You might have been only a child, however, and were certainly no older than a young adult. In the years since then, you have survived every imaginable trial, including plagues, radiation, global catastrophe and the death of all your friends and loved ones. Coming of age in Gamma Terra has left you bitter and hardened, but tougher than you were before.

Mutant Type: Constitution; no power source

Skill Bonus (level 1): Gain a +4 bonus to Athletics and Nature

Rugged (level 1): Gain a +2 bonus to Fortitude.

Survivor (level 1): +2 bonus to saves against disease and radiation.

 

Inspiring Attack            Survivor Novice

We don’t need another hero. Because we have you.

At-Will • Physical, Weapon

Standard Action  Melee or Ranged weapon

Target: One creature

Attack: Your level + 4 + weapon accuracy vs. AC

Hit: 1[W] + your level physical damage and one ally within 5 squares of you regains 5 + your level hit points.

 

Shake it Off            Survivor Utility

You don’t have time to bleed.

Encounter

Minor Action            Close burst 5

Target: One ally

Effect: The ally regains hit points equal to his bloodied value and makes a saving throw

 

Get a Move On            Survivor Expert

To stay alive, you have to keep moving.

Encounter

Standard Action  Melee or Ranged weapon

Target: One creature

Attack: Your level + 4 + weapon accuracy vs. AC

Hit: 3[W] + your level physical damage and each of your allies can move their speed.

Old

You lived a full life before the Big Mistake, and now are one of the oldest human beings still alive. Others say you are lucky, but you know that it is your skill and determination that has kept you going. Others look to you for wisdom and knowledge far in excess of other folk. However, because of your age and the terrible things you have had to endure, your body is frail and your time is nearly at an end.

Mutant Type: Wisdom; no power source

Skill Bonus (level 1): Gain a +4 bonus to Conspiracy and Insight

Too Stubborn to Die (level 1): Gain a +2 bonus to Will

Time to Die (level 1): You have a –2 penalty to death saves

 

False Bravado            Old Novice

Your brave words conceal inner frailty

At-Will • Physical, Weapon

Standard Action  Melee or Ranged weapon

Target: One creature

Attack: Your level + 4 + weapon accuracy vs. AC

Hit: 1[W] + your level physical damage and one ally within 5 squares of you gains 5 + your level temporary hit points.

 

Wise Advice            Old Utility

You get farther with kind words and a gun than with just a kind word.

Encounter • Immediate Interrupt

Target: One ally who has just rolled a skill check or attack roll.

Effect: The ally can re-roll the check or attack roll.

 

Reserve Power             Old Expert

I said the red button! The red button!

Encounter

Standard Action  Melee or Ranged weapon

Target: One creature

Attack: Your level + 4 + weapon accuracy vs. AC

Hit: 3[W] + your level physical damage and one ally within 10 squares of you re-readies an Omega Tech item he has already used this encounter.

 

This is my sixth post on Gamma World. I really appreciate all readers and comments! You can find the rest of "My GW" on my blog. 

Today I want to talk about the way PCs recover from injury in GW, which can best be described as "instantaneous." There are no healing surges, but that's not what really bothers me about the game. Healing surges work fine in 4E, but they do create a kind of "3-5 encounters then rest" rhythm which vanishes when you remove them. I'm totally down with that. If my players can decide how long to go between rests, that's more freedom for them, and it makes adventures less predictable. I'm talking about the, "We can't fight the dragon today, we're out of surges" problem.

Far more important, and immersion-breaking to me, is the fact that PCs in Gamma World suffer no long term effects from any injury that does not kill them. Broken legs knit back together in a short rest in Gamma World. And that doesn't seem very post-apocalyptic to me. I'm not looking to cripple players, but the best post-apocalyptic fiction and films have characters who suffer, who are human, even if they look like tiny dolls, radioactive mutants, or cyborgs.

In a conversation on this topic on the GW forums, one player suggested "Wounds," something player characters would accumulate at various damage thresholds: Bloodied? You have a wound. 0 HP? Another wound. Failed a death save? Another wound. Each wound inflicts a -1 to your d20 rolls. It's not a bad concept in principle, and it kind of reminds me of Mutants & Masterminds and the way failed damage saves inflict penalties, but it breaks one cardinal rule: it adds suck. That is, a character with wounds just starts to suck. He can't hit anything, and that's no fun. The attack/defense matrix is finely balanced in 4E and wounds which penalize your attack rolls are just going to make the game un-fun as your mutations and omega tech are wasted.

Instead, increase risk. Wounds have a very simple effect: They are a -1 penalty to Death Saves. Now your character can still fight and hit, but if you go down, the chances of you dying are higher. Everyone fears the death save. Let's use that fear. If you take an extended rest, your Wound penalty goes away.

How do you get Wounds, exactly? We can't set it at "Bloodied" and "0 HP" because these are things every character does on their way to a Death Save, so every Death Save would be made at a -2 penalty or worse. (Some GMs may not mind that, but I find PC death a more effective threat than a practice.) Instead, if a character takes damage from a single attack which is equal to or more than his Bloodied Value, he takes a Wound. This may not sound very likely, and in regular 4E it wouldn't be, but damage in GW is insane and characters get bloodied all the time in this game. 

I want to make Wounds a little more obvious, even if you're not rolling a Death Save, so for now I am also using a "-1 Speed for every Wound Penalty" rule. In Gamma World, everyone has a decent ranged attack. It's much more of a shooty game. So a speed penalty, while certainly significant, is not going to cripple most characters.

Wounds (new rule)

Most of the damage your character takes in Gamma World is superficial, the sort of thing a hero brushes off with a few minutes and a swig from the canteen. But sometimes you get hit hard, and then that happens it takes more than a few minutes to recover.

Whenever a single attack inflicts hit point damage equal to or greater than your character's bloodied value, you receive a Wound. The exact nature of the Wound is up to you and your GM: it may be a twisted or broken limb, a cracked rib, a bleeding shoulder shot, or a concussion. Every wound has two effects. First, you are -1 Speed for every Wound you have. Second, you have a -1 penalty to death saves for every Wound you have.

When you take an extended rest, all Wounds are removed. Your character may still look hurt, and may even complain about his injuries, but the game effect has gone away. You're just that tough.

Apparently there is a tradition in Gamma World which goes something like this: Every time you put out a new edition of the game, you have to come up with a new way to destroy it. It's a rule that makes sense, because apocalyptic fears vary every generation and they're driven a lot by technology. In the 70s, it seemed pretty obvious that, if the world was going to get destroyed, it would be because of nuclear war. But by the 1990s, with AIDS ravaging the US, Africa, and everywhere else, we all decided that it would have to be a plague that killed us all off. With the millennium, we feared divine wrath. Now, it's an environmental catastrophe or some nanite bomb. 

Or, honestly, all of the above. In the famous words of Joey Tribbiani, "Put your hands together."

For Gamma World 2010, the developers used the Large Hadron Collider, which is swell. But they also crashed an infinite multiverse into the Earth, swirled it together in an instant, and then let it fall back apart again. The point of this appears to be so they could say, "The world is whatever you want," and hand-wave the rest of it. 

I find this lazy.

So if I am going to run post-apocalypse, I am going to need to come up with a new reason for the world to end. Ordinarily this would be easy. A little of this, a little of that, kaboom, the Big Crash. But it is not this easy, because even though I want a world which makes a little more sense than "Flip switch! Everything go boom!" I also want to preserve as many character options as possible. Gamma World gives us the tools for all kinds of characters, from mutant plants to animals to robots or "Pure Strain Humans." I may not personally want to play an irradiated rat swarm, but someone in my group might, and I would like to accommodate that player. So we need to blow up the world, but we need to do it in a way that somehow allows mutations of a sort other than the, "You get cancer and die," variety. Which is actually fairly hard to rationalize, if we intend to be at all reasonable or realistic about this.

Indeed, for destroying the world, I really do think the "little bit of everything" approach is the way to go. It makes the most sense to me, too, because it reflects the way a chain of events all builds on itself. So start with some near-earth collision which triggers some Katrina-level storms and floods, which topple a global warming domino. Peak oil drives countries to war and tactical nuclear weapons get used in desperation. Efforts to keep everyone fed and healthy in this catastrophe leads to experimentation with frankenfood and genetic engineering, ending in escaped plague-bugs, famine, and death. Let's face it, its easy to destroy the world.

But we still have to account for mutants who shoot radiation out of their eyes. That's Old School Gamma World, man.

This is the idea I have. It's a bit long, so bear with. It requires two different super-inventions and one fairly-realistic human error.

First off, let's say that a team of scientists, some of the world's brightest computer engineers, develop an incredibly powerful supercomputer. It uses some kind of design we can only theorize about now, making it so much faster than our current generation of computers that it's like HAL-9000 to my Commodore-64 or something. This computer does not have to be AI. It just has to be insanely, almost unbelievably, powerful. OK, that's the first Impossible Thing.

In a completely separate place, there's a single super-genius inventor. A borderline mad scientist. The kind of guy we sometimes see in post-apocalypse films like 9 (a film which I liked, though have not though a lot about). Maybe he can see the end of humanity coming -- not that hard really -- but he wants to do something about it. He figures he could engineer a new human race, but it seems impossible to predict which eventuality to plan for. Do we need a humanity that can survive a 30-year winter, or one which can survive a radioactive hell? One that can swim in the Waterworld that is coming, or one that can walk the desert and breathe poisonous fumes? There's just too many variables. So instead of designing one new human race, he decides he needs to design an infinite number of them.

Genetically engineering a new human being requires an incredible amount of processing power. The human genome is just too complex and big. This guy is a geneticist, not a computer designer, but he knows about the super-computer the other guys are making. So he resolves to infiltrate the lab where the computer is, and use it to construct an infinite number of alternate human biologies. We'll call this the Hyper Evolved Lifeform project, or HEL. But what is he going to do with all these blueprints for new human beings? He must be thinking about implementation.

Gray goo to the rescue. We've already established that there are, perhaps, nanite infestations running around in some places. Maybe they haven't gotten loose yet, or maybe they have, but they are still sort of contained, and the mad genius, he needs them for his plan to Save All Humanity. He heads to South America or wherever the nanites are running around, and there are corporate science teams there coralling the nanites and bringing them to heel, even as they take apart the rain forest and whatever else gets in their way. And the mad genius, he steals the cannisters in which the nanites have been contained. He doesn't even need that many of them, since the things reproduce, so maybe he just takes a coffee-maker sized cannister in true Mr. Fusion fashion and then slips out, back on a plane to the States. This guy has totally got to be played by Christopher Lloyd now.

The mad genius has brought these nanites with him to the computer lab. And when he sneaks into the lab to use the super computer, he uses it to program the nanites. So the nanites are now programmed with all the blueprints of the HEL Project. But the mad genius is caught in the lab, and he's shot, and no one knows what the nanite canister is.

But the computer project has, unknown to everyone, been infiltrated by religious radicals about to deal a blow to the United States. The nanite cannister is recovered by a would-be terrorist who really wants to help his terrorist buddies blow up nuclear carbombs in major cities across America, but he's not considered devout enough or whatever, and he's been sidelined. Maybe he's not really all that smart. But he really wants to be involved in the end of the world, and when he investigates the genius's notes, all he can really find is "HEL," and he quite naturally figures that the canister is some kind of bomb.

The plan to set off nuclear carbombs around the United States is already far along, so our terrorist fella takes his "bomb" with him, climbs to the top of the nearest landmark, and when all his friends blow themselves up with nuclear weapons, he just breaks open the HEL canister, thinking he'll die in a big flash and so will everyone else.

Except, of course, he doesn't. Instead, even as millions of people are being blown up, the HEL nanites escape and begin reconstructing every human being they come across in an infinite set of mutations. Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

A good 30 or more years will pass from that day to the present, but you can pretty much see how it plays out. What GW calls "mutations" are the result of the HEL Project doing its work on a generation and a half of humanity, animals, and anything else it comes across. Any origin combination is possible. There's still plenty of irradiated wasteland, lots of viruses, lots of ruined cities, plenty of desolation and radiation. And most of the people who survived, they're not mutants. They're just ordinary folks. The nanites did not alter everyone, or even most folks. But there are also these freaky mutants, things like Hoops, Badders, and Arks, irradiated rat swarms, empathic mindbreakers, and giant pyrokinetics, all re-engineered by the HEL nanites into stable forms designed in infinite variety by a super computer which no longer exists. Presumably.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I ran Gamma World for Game Day today and, when it was over, we got to talking about how we would run the game if we wanted to treat it a bit more seriously and take out some of the random wackiness. Graydon, whose character was Str 10, Con 9, Dex 9 and Int 8, had good reason to ask, "What would you do for ability scores? Would you have some kind of point buy?"

I'm all for random ability scores if everything else is random. When your origin is random, you draw random Alpha Mutations, and random Omega Tech, then everything will balance out in the long run. Sure, Graydon's Mindbreaker Empath had lousy stats, but he also got the Photon Grenade and some pretty useful mutations along the way.

But if, as I have discussed elsewhere, we are going to let the players choose their origins, build an Alpha Mutation deck, and have a consistent Omega Tech deck which they re-draw from rather than remake from scratch every episode -- then there is no other randomness to balance out bad ability scores. If you roll poorly on them, you just have bad luck forever. If everything else is determined -- or, at least, it can be if the player wants to pick origins -- then there has to be a way to pick your ability scores, too.

But because it's Gamma World, those abilities have to suck.

Starting array: If your origins each emphasize different ability scores, you will begin with 18, 16, 10, 10, 10, 8. If your origins both add to the same ability score, you begin with 20, 10, 10, 10, 10, 8. In either case, you have 4 additional points to spend.

What That's Worth: Both these arrays are "worth" 39 ability score points, counting an 8 as "0 points".

Getting more points: Gamma World traditionally has had characters with some very poor stats, and let's face it, 4 points to spend is likely to result in characters with very boring ability score sets. Scores below 8 have a "negative" cost; they actually give you back points which you can use on your other scores.

Ability Score Cost: 20 (27 points), 19 (22 points), 18 (18 points), 17 (14 points), 16 (11 points), 15 (9 points), 14 (7 points), 13 (5 points), 12 (4 points), 11 (3 points), 10 (2 points), 9 (1 point), 8 (0 points), 7 (-2 points), 6 (-4 points), 5 (-6 points), 4 (-9 points), 3 (-12 points)

Standard arrays: These are examples of the point buy and what you can do with it.

No Weaknesses: 18, 16, 12, 10, 10, 10

Flawed: 18, 16, 12, 12, 10, 8

Lousy at One Thing: 18, 16, 14, 13, 10, 6

Negative Mutation: 18, 16, 16, 12, 12, 4

Using this point buy method, a Mindbreaker Empath with Str 10, Con 9, Dex 9, Int 8, Wis 9, Cha 20 would have spent only 32 of his 39 points. With his 7 remaining points, he might end up with something like this:

Str 10, Con 13, Dex 8, Int 13, Wis 8, Cha 20

He'd still have a lousy Dex and Wis, but he could use the points to give himself a positive Intelligence modifier and some more hit points.

I know some people are going to go off and call me a Gamma World heretic. That lousy stats are part of the game. Well, these stats aren't anything to brag about. They're based on a 10-11 average, not counting the stats your origins happen to buff. And if it makes a player happier about his character, I'm all for it. 

And if characters live a bit longer, I don't consider that a flaw. It makes it easier to tell long-term stories. One of the worst features of GW 2010 is the way that new characters are expected to just wander around the corner and be invited to the party. Lame.

"If you really want to play something specific, ask your Game Master if you can pick your origins. But you're a big chicken." -- Gamma World p. 35

Okay, I have no problem with some randomness in character generation. I have played completely random characters, I have played characters handed to me by the GM, and I have handed characters to players in my game and (politely) asked them to play these pre-made characters. I can totally get into the roleplaying challenge of taking something that seems to make no sense -- the Cockroach/Yeti being the now classic example -- and trying to figure out how to rationalize it. You should see the people on the GW forums trying to figure out how to explain the Rat Swarm/Engineered Human. I think they decided he must be a pack of bio-engineered midgets.

But not everyone wants to play a freakish mutant. And, in past versions of Gamma World, that was an option. There was an app for that. But not in Gamma World 2010. Now, there is no app for that. It is freakish mutant or nothing. And that's lame.

Part of the solution to this problem is creating "Pure Strain Humans", or at least a human origin which is still recognizably human instead of, you know, a pack of rabid midgets. But I will get to that another day, because it is going to require some game design, some power design, and some balancing, as much as anything in Gamma World requires balance.

But the other half of the problem is the randomization of character origins. Is Gamma World 2010 the only version of the game to take away your choice of a) human, b) mutant, or c) mutant animal? I don't have all the versions of GW, and my memory of the versions I once possessed is mighty thin. But I will go ahead and go out on a limb and say no other version of the game had the chutzpah to do this. Because taking away the player's right to play what he wants to play -- on at least some, basic, "are you a human being or a mutant freak" level -- takes balls of solid rock.

The designers of GW make a couple of jokes at the expense of those who might want to, you know, make a character they want to play. First, they get sarcastic on you.

"Now that you have your ideal character fixed firmly in your mind, pick up some dice and start rolling to see what sort of bizarre freak you're ACTUALLY going to play.

Sorry. That's life in Gamma Terra."

Or, Suck it up, you irradiated pansies! This game is for hardcore gamers only! Manly men who know how to suffer and die at the hands of whimsical and arbitrary dice! And if you can't handle it, you must be ... (say it with me) ... CHICKEN!

Please make chicken noises now.

Dear Wizards of the Coast, Bruce Cordell, Rich Baker et al:

We all understand that you have written a Beer & Pretzels RPG. And that is potentially a lot of fun. I cannot listen to Shelly gleefully narrate the tale of her Gamma World character and say that your project has failed. Clearly it has not. But I am going to run the game how I want to run it, and how my players want to play it, and I don't care if you get sarcastic, call me a chicken, or even if you pull out the ultimate threat: the double-dog-dare. Because we were all there for the Back to the Future movies, and if these movies had a point -- well, other than "your future is what you make of it, so make it a good one" -- it's that when someone tries to get you to do something, and they call you chicken, there's only one proper response.

The WotC blog censor won't let me say it, but you know what I mean.

In my Gamma World, if a player wants to roll random origins, he can. If he wants to choose his origins, he can do that too.