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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 11:49AM
#1
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2009
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After running the players through "The Steading of the Iron King" and through two sessions of homebrew encounters, the party has finally reached the village of Far-Go. Suddenly, they just can't take anything seriously. The ficus tree mayor, the library of comic books, the sheriff bear, etc.
Things are so wacky, the party is about ready to leave the adventure because they think everyone is crazy. On top of this, they're about ready to walk away from the Gamma World game.
Any other Gamma World GMs out there trying to reign in the wackiness? Any ideas?
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 12:07PM
#2
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Date Joined:
Jun 26, 2010
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If they can't handle wackiness, maybe Gamma World just isn't for them?
Gamma World basically has the tone of Futurama in my mind. It was never meant to be taken too seriously.
We're in a world of plastic hawks, plant androids, sentient swarms of cockroaches, and they're just now finding things too wacky? I have always seen Gamma World as something that should be played very tongue in cheek.
(Sorry if this post comes off as unhelpful.)
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 12:09PM
#3
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If they can't handle wackiness, maybe Gamma World just isn't for them?
Gamma World basically has the tone of Futurama in my mind. It was never meant to be taken too seriously.
We're in a world of plastic hawks, plant androids, sentient swarms of cockroaches, and they're just now finding things too wacky? I have always seen Gamma World as something that should be played very tongue in cheek.
(Sorry if this post comes off as unhelpful.)
This is pretty much my take on it.
Every game isn't for every player; it looks like GW isn't for your squad.
Another day, another three or four entries to my Ignore List.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 12:40PM
#4
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Date Joined:
Aug 22, 2007
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I love the wackyness and with the group I play with will love Far-Go potted Ficus Plant as an elected mayor and all. That said it is a matter of taste. If the potted ficus plant as the mayor is just to wacky, then make the mayor a vanilla human. Instead of a bear mayor make him a "bear of a man" a large human with a beard and a hairy chest. I think the trick is to chnage the flaovr to fit your own tatses. Really I don't think you need quite Gamma World, you need to change the flavor to suite your tastes. I'm with Mordiceius, GW is most fun if you take it as serious as an episode of Futurama. But if your not a fan of futurerama, then change the flavor, spice it up with some seriousness and have fun.
I guess my best advice is to change the flavor where it gets to wacky for you. If the humanoid mutant chickens, vengful sentient walking corn stalks and little gray aliens is not for you, then the rest of the Famine in Fargo adventure will not be for you. For now it looks like you are stuck with homebrew encouters. But the setting materialin FiF can easily be adjusted, it just takes some editing by the Gm, to make it suit your groups taste.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 1:35PM
#5
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2004
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Any other Gamma World GMs out there trying to reign in the wackiness? Any ideas?
Maybe try to ensure that combat is challenging enough to occasionally kill a PC. The setting is certainly wacky and my own players seem to enjoy the humor, but they still get serious about combat because they know that encounters can be pretty unforgiving & lethal.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 1:42PM
#6
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Date Joined:
Oct 28, 2009
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The strange thing is that nothing was too wacky until they arrive in Far-Go. Just prior to that, I had a Restorationist NPC trying to fight off a pack of Kai Lin vine lizards with a See N' Say toy (thinking it was a weapon). Before that was a gang of sentient, talking motorcycles.
The Iron King wasn't too silly, even with humanoid rabbits. For some reason, the wackyness of Far-Go just hit them the wrong way. They were asking questions like "Are you kidding?" "Are you serious?" "Is this guy crazy?"
I then turned the questions to them. "Which one of you is a radioactive sasquatch?"
It seemed at that point that the absurdity struck them.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 3:28PM
#7
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If it's really bothering them, maybe just roll with their suspicions? Maybe he IS crazy. Maybe this whole town is held in a sort of mass delusion by some sinister force. Maybe their entire stint in Far-Go is a hallucination they themselves are under.
Far-Go is a great bunch of wackiness, but I could see coming into it (particularly compared to SotIK) that it might possibly be too much silliness all at once for some people. Maybe simply keeping the pop culture references and the more excessive weirdness in the background could soften the blow a bit. Learning that the mayor is a sentient plant (or isn't, as the setting and adventure led me to believe) and then that Zaphod Beeblebrox runs a tavern and then that the historian is the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons might be a "silliness overdose."
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 4:44PM
#8
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Date Joined:
Jun 15, 2004
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Before that was a gang of sentient, talking motorcycles...
For some reason, the wackyness of Far-Go just hit them the wrong way.
It sounds like the talking motorcycles were a combat encounter while the ficus tree mayor, comic book library & sheriff bear were all roleplaying encounters. There are various reasons why that might make a difference.
Luckily, my own players didn't really check out the town at all. However, they were fairly interested in the (less detailed) town of xenophobic mutants to the west (Tower City).
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 5:03PM
#9
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Date Joined:
Mar 26, 2010
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The crazy is definitely part of the appeal of GW, but I will say that when my players met the ficus tree, I played to their suspicions that the high priest (whom I renamed Arthur Tostito) had bamboozled the town into believing it was sentient.
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2 years ago ::
Feb 21, 2011 - 5:49PM
#10
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Gamma World doesn't have to be silly. My campaign has some elements of humor but the main story arc right now is pretty serious. The heroes were recently saved by a redneck named Cletus who drove a dodge ram with a gunner seat in the back who fired sewer covers.
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