This is a complete transcript of supplied Gamma World information.
D&D: Beyond the RPG - TranscriptThe audio file is in this News Archive
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Introduction to Gamma World - Rich Baker talks. Host Bart Carol
BC: You are going to be presenting the seminar about Beyond D&D. Part of which is going to be about GW. Can you give us a quick introduction?
Gamma World is a game setting that has been around almost as long as D&D. It is a Sci-fantasy world. Sort of in-between The Road Warrior and Star Wars and generally post-apocalypse fiction.
It’s a mix of incredibly high-tech, power-armor, fusion rifles, people with awesomely powerful mutations, weird bizarre monsters. An America that‘s, the entire world really, that’s been utterly destroyed and laid waste by radiation and mutagenic diseases and all sorts of stuff. It is essentially a role-playing in a D&D style adventure, in a futuristic post-apocalyptic world. It a…
B.C.: Sounds a little dark, but from what I’m gleaning it has a fun, quirky element to it.
Absolutely. The setting is one that has always kind’s lent itself to a certain amount of humor, because your characters often had powerful mutations and drawbacks of crazy things like…, sure you might be able to shoot lasers out of your eyes, but you have narcolepsy and you might fall asleep in the middle of a fight. Or hey, you might have the ability to control the minds of others and make them fight as your puppet slaves, but you happen to have no skeleton… so you have to be wheeled around in a cart by your friends. You might be a plant. You might be a mutated badger. So it is just a bit wacky what things you could be.
So in returning to GW now, after a little time away from it, we wanted to make sure we presented a game where a lot of these sorts of humorous touches were there, but it is still was a pretty good solid D&D style game.
BC: Well thanks for the primer and looking forward to more details in the following seminar.
My Pleasure.
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D&D: Beyond the RPG
Gamma World - seminar - Rich Baker talks. (?) - some other voices
October release for the core box.
Gamma World box set - It is not a hard bound book.
In the box is:
A 160 page rule book:
- Character generation
- How to play the game
- How to Game Master in GW
- A decent selection of monsters. About 30 classic GW monsters and a couple of new ones. Because we had to throw a few new ones in there.
- You’re first adventure. Will get you to about level 3 or so. So, it is a pretty good, self contained way to get you started on your GW game.
In addition:
4 token sheets - All the monsters in the adventure plus PC tokens. The good thick heavy cardboard stock with the linen-like surfacing to it.
(?): They are also in the [essentials] role-playing game starter set.
A couple of poster maps.
Deck of 80 cards - “form what we call the starter deck or the GM deck.” Are split into 40 mutation cards and 40 tech cards.
When you create a GW character there is a lot of stuff you get to control. It depends on [what you’re used to] I suppose.
(?): But that is the fun part!
But there is stuff that stays the same about your character, more or less, throughout your character’s career. PC generally contains two themes of mutations. Themes of mutations might be like Android or Seismic powers - and your big and tough and rocky. Or Giant, you’re really big. Or Yeti. You are part Yeti. This was Ursonoid until a week ago.
(?): You like Yeti. Brought it up again.
I took a poll around the office on which [name] was more cool. Ursonoid or Yeti, in the office. Yeti is 2.33 times as cool as Ursonoid.
But those components of your character are pretty much what your character is. We don’t necessarily use classes.
But in addition you have a random of over-the-top mutations. Which may be good or may be bad. That are reflected by these cards.
Also your really high-tech, crazy sci-fi artifacts are reflected by the Omega-tech as we call it. You might be able to arm yourself with an M-16, or a Stop-sign, or walk around in a bullet-proof-vest, or you maybe from a primitive part of the setting and walk around with a spear and leather armor. Whatever it is. But, as you find things, the really great crazy thing - like the Torque grenades, blaster rifles, Black Ray pistols, powered assault armor or things like that. Those all kind of live over in the card acquisition. So, the game comes with 80 cards for the GM which includes a full selection of these things. Plus we are going to create an entire deck of booster cards. 120 card set of booster cards, that will be sold 8 cards to a booster pack. Cost is $3.99 a pack.
With those cards you have the opportunity to customize you own deck of these specialty mutations and the special technology things. You don’t necessarily always know what your going to find these special things off your deck, because you might be drawing off the GMs deck. So you might say, I know I‘ve got disintegrating touch in my personal deck, but it turns out I have to draw from the GMs deck, and though I wanted disintegrating touch, and I got Big Floppy Feet.
(?): If you’re walking on snow your good.
If surviving the scenario absolutely depends on you not taking a penalty for running around a difficult terrain, of mud or snow, then big floppy feat will save your life. (Ha, ha, ha!) It is true that it might be a bit of a narrow power.
(?): You can do crazy things like that when you have the GM’s deck and the player’s deck.
That’s the Core rule set for GW.
We’re also going to do another, uh… two adventures/expansions that follow after that. The first is Famine at Fargo. Which sort of reprises the classic GW adventure that involved the dreaded Gallus-Gallus 13. Which was actually a giant mutant one-eyed chicken, with a bad attitude. The expansion has pretty much the same stuff as the core has. But it only has 10 cards, included with the expansion.
Then we have another expansion coming up in 2011. Because it is in 2011 I don’t think I can say what it is yet. But we are hard at work at that right now.
(?): Are the expansions in box sets.
Yes, the expansions are in boxes and they have much more adventure content than the base set. Because the basic set had to have all the rules.
We expect that probably 90% of the people who pick this up will very familiar with D&D. But we still have to include the starter rules. Explains things like this is what AC is, this is what Defense is, this is how you take a turn, all that sort of stuff.
And by the way, I do want to mention that the game is very compatible with D&D. For the first time in GW‘s history you could play D&D and GW pretty much inter changeably. There are a couple of rules that need a little adjustment. The skill list is a little different. You can drop D&D monsters in GW and they work just fine. You can drop GW monsters in D&D and they work just fine. The artifacts would be spooky and scary in the D&D game. (Laughs!) But it is build on the same chassis as how D&D powers are described. So, you know here’s the Fusion rifle. It’s going to be +17 attack that does 6d10 radiation damage. Not many D&D monsters have resist radiation. (laughs!)
(?): I could see places where using the mutation deck in D&D. Like in the areas of the spell plague in Forgotten Realms. Temp-mutation while you’re in this area.
Yes, absolutely.
Question for R&D about first experiences with the original GW - Generally discussing whether it was humorous or serious originally, and how that effected what they were doing now. Some had played it straight up, not as a total gag. But other had not. So, there is a tradition in GW over whether it is serious or humorous.
We made sure that the skeleton of the rules were solid. The rules have a bit of a snarkier tone then D&D and make a few snide asides. We let the ton powers and theme combinations carry the humor. Because let’s face it, if you are playing a Yeti/Cockroach - that’s just funny. “I’m part Yeti and part Cockroach and I’ve got a fusion rifle. Stay out of My way!”
Q: On themes creating PCs features and how they make powers? By smashing them together or [do] all your powers [come] from mutant and tech cards? - Themes do include some powers.
In fact, all the themes lean you toward character roles. Yeti is a big strong guy, that leans toward defender. He likes to be in melee. Cockroach in a fast & nimble. So leaning toward striker and has a power that as a free action he can spit acid.
Another part of the game is that you get a two themes that just don’t seem to go together. Then watch people try to figure it out. Hawkoid (a flying bird-man) and seismic? Interpreting themes is a lot of fun. Heavy bird? Finally realized that this is a gargoyle.
We have 20 themes in the first set. We realized that we wish we had 40!
12 more in Famine In Far-go and maybe 8 more in the one after that. We’re making more. They are fun.
We intend GW as a change of pace campaign. If you have to take time off from D&D. If you play straight through all three boxes, it would support about 5 or 6 months, of play at once a week. We don’t look at this as, “You are going to start a years long campaign.” Which is what every designer always hopes for. Just have some fun, then go back to D&D. Or you could go ahead and build new adventures or a campaign.
I wouldn’t rule out that we might have DDI support. No reason that we might not make adventures, or you guys tell us what you want.
Q: The necessity of Booster packs/mutation cards? - You don’t have to buy boosters if you don‘t want to. If you don’t have your own cards, you can just draw off of the GMs Deck if you don‘t have your own. But the problem with the GM’s deck is you might get Big floppy feet.
(?): Or you could pool cards and make a central deck. Make it crazy. So you’ve got options.
Q: Do you want to talk about the random element in PC creation? - Yes, we wanted to make it different from D&D. We wanted to make it something easy to pick up and play as easily as possible. The default option that we use around the office for figuring out what your PCs themes are is throw two D20 & that’s what you get. If you don’t like it? You what to do it again? We call you a wose and make fun of you. Because the spirit of GW is you get what the chart tells you.
So, we had that and we were going to have assigned ability scores for everything else, and pick your skills. Our development team looked at that and said rolling for development is so much fun, we want to keep going. We want to roll our ability scores. We want to roll our skill choices.
(?): Sort of old school?
Yes. But if you do get a theme that has a required minimal ability, it becomes 18. But for anything else you are picking up 3d6 and rolling. So, you might have Constitution of 4. I had some problems with this at first, but they had to talk me down off the cliff.
(?): Let is go Rich. (Ha, ha!)
But, I had to tell myself that back in the day when you rolled characters, 33% of the mutations were defects. Some were like Brittle Bones - double all damage. So a Con 4 is kind of like that sometimes a 3d6 will do nasty things to you..
Also why an 18 charisma? I don’t know… it is what the dice said. It must be a charisma mutation. There it is!
(?): PC creation is super fast.
Because of the fact that you don’t spend any time evaluating options. You just do what the dice tell you. You can create PC in 15 minutes. And that’s if you take the time to really look at the weapons table. Do I like the great ax, katana, or the tire iron. (Laugh) And I probably have to change a tire too. (Laughs)
(?): That seems like it is going to lend itself to organized play events. No hand out characters, just roll them up.
Q: On the generation of themes ? - I was very clever, bragging about this for weeks. 20 themes and the Engineered Human theme sitting off to the side. How to generate 21 options with 2d20? Then it came to me, when you roll doubles, you’re an Engineered Human. So you get the [rolled] theme and Engineered Human [theme]. So this is how you make things that aren’t necessarily Pure Strain Human, but might work. So if you got Android and Engineered Human, than you’re a Terminator. That’s pretty cool. Looks like PSH, it’s not green or has tentacles.
There’s telekinetic theme, a hyper-cognitive theme (greater perception powers) and other themes that would not effect appearance. Other themes that would be hard to reconcile with PSH appearance.
(?): Could the Cognitive guy just be a huge floating eyeball?
No reason you couldn’t do that.
Q: Use of Cards? - The cards are essentially powers. Some times they are persistent (like carapace, +3 AC) is going to last until the next time you change cards. The Language is, “As long as this is your readied power.” We’re all going to draw a new card and see what you got. [this happens] after a long rest or at the beginning of the adventuring day. Some powers are one use and its gone (like Gamma Eye). The assumption is that you are going to change cards at the end of each encounter.
The tech stuff is a lot of fire and forget stuff as well. So if you draw the blaster pistol, it is only going to be good for a couple of shots, before it breaks. I am not going to tell you the mechanic that decides that. But you get a shot or two then it breaks and is done.
Tech does not disappear because you sleep. But it might just be junk. Most of the things are going to be like encounter powers. A Black Ray pistol is going to get off a deadly shot, but then you have to see if it will work again.
There is a mechanic to “salvage” tech and make it part of tour character permanently. [The item] will operate at a lower level of power. In GW you don’t get +3 bow, you get a “salvaged down” Plasma rifle. This will function about as good as a D&D magic item.
Also the stuff in the GM Deck is not the stuff that is going to persist. You’ll use it and it goes away. [They] Also have narrow usage.
Q: PC progression? - Level faster than in D&D. To tenth level and then we stop at that point. Obviously, a fully geared up level 10 GW character is probably going to be stronger the a 10th level D&D character because a fusion rifles are just righteous. There is an advancement chart, and it looks like the one in D&D. And tells you when you get to choose new powers from your themes.
Q: Difference between GW and D&D mechanics? - (?): I can see someone starting with GW and switching to D&D.
There are some little details. Like probably no action points. Right now only monsters use action points, so we will probably drop them because we don’t want to use the space in the rule explaining something that only monsters use. We want to keep the monsters simple.
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