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A New D&D Experience: Gamma World Seminar

The final seminar of the day announced the new and upcoming Gamma World Role-Playing Game, and this panel was headed by Senior Designer Rich Baker, Lead Designer Bruce Cordell, and Senior Art Director John Schindehette, with support from Designer Greg Bilsland and Editor Jennifer Clarke Wilkes who play Gamma World and had input about the new game from their own campaigns.

From the very start, it was apparent that the new edition of Gamma World, the 7th incarnation of the game, would be a bit more tongue-in-cheek than previous editions.  Rich Baker described how in each edition the story of the apocalypse had to be re-invented, and this time, in the year 2012, the Hadron Super-collider in Switzerland created “The Big Mistake”, causing all realities to exist simultaneously for a brief moment, unleashing a nuclear holocaust in over 80% of the dimensions – except for a few where the French simply nuked a small town in Wisconsin.  But regardless of how it happened, the world of Terra Gamma is filled with bizarre and terrible dangers, ranging from mutated chickens to radioactive beasts to killer-death bots, and only the Player’s Mutant  Heroic Character can face these challenges – most of the time.

The “core” Gamma World product is the D&D 4E Gamma World Role-Playing Game, which is due out in October.  As suggested by the title, Gamma World will use the 4E “chassis” for Characters and will technically be completely compatible with D&D 4E.  It should be noted that the Designers admitted that Gamma World Characters have a higher damage output, but less healing abilities than a standard D&D adventuring party, but creatures from the Monster Manuals could be re-skinned as mutants – and vice versa.  Gamma World will be a boxed set, and will contain a 160 page rulebook for creating Characters and running the world, two poster maps, monster and player token sheets, Character forms, and 40 Alpha Mutation and Omega Tech cards.  These cards form a unique and new game mechanic to the Gamma World setting, and booster packs will be available to add additional flavor to the game.

The entire panel agreed that one of the most enjoyable aspects of the new Gamma World RPG is Character creation, which is very random, and can be accomplished very quickly.  In fact, they recommend that it is done at the gaming table, because it is good for a lot of laughs to see what sort of mutant hero each Player ends up creating.  Each mutant hero will be designed from two themes – and the bizarre example of the yeti-cockroach kept popping up throughout the seminar – and this defines the type of powers and abilities they can use.  Not to mention, it also defines how strange and bizarre each mutant hero will look!

In addition to the standard power “chassis” that all 4E Characters have, the Gamma World Characters have two additional mechanics – Alpha Mutations and Salvage Slots.  Alpha Mutations are encounter powers which are drawn from a deck created by the Player, and usually revolve around one or both of the Characters particular themes.  At random times during play, as designated by the rules (such as rolling a natural 1 in combat), the current Alpha Mutation is discarded, and a new Alpha Mutation drawn from the deck to be used as a new encounter power.  Similarly, Characters will also have an Omega Tech cards, representing high tech devices which can be used by the mutant hero until they burn out.  But some Omega Tech can be used at a lower power level if they are “salvaged”, which uses a Character’s Salvage Slot, allowing the card to be retained indefinitely, albeit at a lower power level.   This use of cards is aimed at adding a random element to the game to make it fun and a bit zany.  For instance, Greg Bilsland described a game he was DMing, in which Trevor Kidd drew a new Alpha Mutation which gave him the power to EXPLODE – literally blow-up on his enemies – and he heroically used it to great effect.  But he also had to re-roll a new Character!

Character death is apparently not a big deal in the Gamma World RPG, and in fact, seems to add a bit to the humor and light-hearted nature of the game.  The Designers stressed that the ease of Character creation made losing a Character just part of the fun.  And there are only 10 levels of advancement in Gamma World, so the play experience will be a bit shorter than standard D&D campaigns.

But not all the seminar attendees were happy with the “light-hearted” elements in the new Gamma World RPG, and one gamer voiced his dissatisfaction quite vocally.  However, the Designers took the flaring of “nerd-rage” in stride, and both Rich Baker and Bruce Cordell admitted that they were not pleased when they were told by their boss at the start of the Gamma World RPG project that he expected a “light-hearted”, “fun”, and “tongue-in-cheek” game.  But having designed the game, they were both quite proud of their achievement, and the other WotC staffers agreed that this new version of Gamma World was a tremendously fun gaming experience.  In fact, John Schindehette pointed out that simply because the game was written with a certain humorous style, it did not force Game Masters to run their Gamma World Campaigns that way.  The material is taken quite seriously, he went on to say, and he enjoyed playing the game himself.



The Alpha Mutation and Omega Tech Decks were also received with mixed reviews, with some gamers wondering why they should have to buy more cards just to play a game.  But the Designers were quick to point out that the booster packs were optional, and simply added more cards to the sizable deck that already existed in the “core” box.  It was also noted that the booster packs were numbered so that if a Player were to buy one of each, he would accumulate one of each of the “common” cards available for the game.  Of course, each booster contains a random rare, and two random uncommon cards, so collectors wanting a complete set might have to do some trading or buy a lot of boosters to finish their collections.

By the way, the game provides rule for Players and Game Masters to create their decks, and there are limitations to how many of a particular type of card can be placed in a given deck.

Obviously, there will be a few rules changes from standard D&D 4E, specifically with regards to skills, but overall the Gamma World RPG will be easily playable to anyone already familiar with D&D 4E.  Given the rest of the D&D 4E product line, it seems that they were due to come out with a game that was less serious and grim, and provide an option for fast Character creation and play for those gamers without a lot of free time.

I have been a huge fan of Gamma World since the first edition. Using cards as a randomization tool is a great idea. I can see how picking mutation cards rather than rolling on a chart would further speed up chargen (which, in authentic Gamma World, you often have to do in the middle of the game!).  The Alpha Mutation and Salvage slots are maybe a little too gamist (this from someone who finds the 'gamist' objection to 4e unwarranted), but it sounds like it would be easy enough to come up with alternatives.

But, seriously, booster packs?  I can understand the fans' reactions.  With an RPG, you want a complete game, all the options there to be evaluated and understood before you run it or even start cooking up an adventure.  As a GM, you need that to decide what you're going to use.  I don't want some ill-concieved mutation or artifact screwing up my game because it was on a 'rare' card I've never seen.  What a truely terrible idea.  And 'optional' is really meaningless.  It's an RPG, as a GM, I can change the rules - /everything/ is always optional.  Obviously, it's one option I won't use, and will outright ban from my table when I run, just like any cards in the boxed set I find broken, problematic, or otherwise undesireable.

If the cards in the boxed set seem too limitted or inadequate, well, it's just another bad edition of Gamma World.  It's not like the 3rd, 5th or 6th editions of the game were anything short of disasters.  We can always hold out hope that the next will be better.  2nd and 4th were quite good, and 1st is always fun for the nostalgia.  I can always go back to one of those.