It's the middle of the last week of January. Is it too late to catch up? Let's find out!
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| Gamma World 1e box cover art. |
Gamma World 1e is an early TSR product that didn't fall far from the D&D tree. It's a sci-fi dungeon crawl set generations after the Shadow Wars. The post-apocalyptic setting explains where all the high-tech ruins come from. Mutants and robots replace fantasy monsters. Mutant powers replace magic. Technological artifacts replace magic items. It borrows heavily from James M. Wards' earlier work in Metamorphosis Alpha.
I might run it down the road. It will likely hit the table as the X-Men meet Mad Max with a dash of Gene Roddenberry's Genesis II mixed in. My usual approach of familiarizing myself with a game involves reading the rulebook and generating a character or two.
The Gamma World 1e rulebook is as poorly organized and incomplete as I've come to expect from products of its era. What equipment do starting player characters have access to? How much starting funds do they have? The book doesn't say.
Let's take armor as a specific example. The Gamma World 1e book only lists a single price for armor, but the armor class table describes various types. Even if technological artifacts are eliminated, that still leaves a range of armors available. Are furs and skins, cured hide, plant fiber, and piece metal armors all the same price? Even if they are, those accustomed to D&D may assume that more protective armors come with offsetting factors like weight. Surprise! Gamma World 1e doesn't seem to have encumbrance rules.
It's going to take some work to get this game table ready. The designers seem to assume that the GM already owns D&D or AD&D and will pull any rules not covered in the Gamma World 1e book from them. I'll likely look to OSE as an additional source.
For these reasons, the following characters don't have equipment listed.
Tom "Spacewalker" Christian
Pure Strain Human is the problematic term for humans genetically identical to those from before the fall of civilization. They don't get cool mutant powers. They do get a charisma bonus, some familiarity with advanced technology, and a better chance of passing as authorized personnel to automated checks when possessing the correct (stolen) credentials. I guess future AI is sometimes smart enough to question why the person with the identification of a high ranking scientist or military officer has too many arms of green, photosynthetic skin. On the other hand, those same AI don't seem concerned that the person in front of them don't match their identification, so maybe they're not that smart.
Mental Strength 11
Intelligence 10
Dexterity 13
Physical Strength 13
Charisma 18
Constitution 13
Hit Points 45
No mutations.
The stats are fairly straightforward to anybody familiar with any version of D&D. Mental Strength is used with attacking or defending against what D&D would refer to as psionics. Hit points are determined by rolling a d6 for each point of Constitution.
Tom Christian was born in village established within the security perimeter of an automated farm. He grew up tending crops and tinkering with agricultural machinery. The elders told stories of how one of Tom's ancestors walked the void above the skies (she was an orbital construction worker). Tom took the name Spacewalker when he came of age and left the village to seek his destiny. Nobody actually calls him that.
Bartholomew "Bart" Allen
Humanoids are what Gamma World 1e calls mutated humans. Since the game runs on 1960s-70s sci-fi tropes, mutations are more likely to result in strange powers than debilitating conditions. Although debilitating conditions are still possible. I used the rules that allow for choosing mutations rather than randomly determining them. However, the number of mutations is always random.
Mental Strength 14
Intelligence 14
Dexterity 17
Physical Strength 11
Charisma 13
Constitution 14
Hit Points 56
Physical Mutations
Increased Speed
Regeneration
Mental Mutations
Molecular Understanding
Planar Travel
Teleportation
Defects
Increased Metabolism (D)
This is an attempt to model a superhero speedster using the Gamma World 1e rules. Increased Speed is an obvious choice. Teleportation and Planar Travel simulate extreme speed and access to other realms unlocked by that speed. Molecular Understanding models a speedster "vibrating" to do more damage.
Regeneration allows for faster healing, but the amount of healing is based on the character's weight in kilograms. I couldn't find rules to determine such a thing in the book. Porting rules from AD&D doesn't work without conversion, since those are in pounds.
Increased Metabolism (D) requires a character to stop every fifth combat turn to eat. There are also comments about having to carry around more food. While the cost of a week's travel rations is given, I couldn't find out how much they weigh. And, again, there don't seem to be encumbrance rules in the game anyway. Also, the prices of other sources of food - a meal in town, for example - are not presented.
Bartholomew "Bart" Allen was born to a modest trading community. His powers made him a useful messenger and scout, although his enormous appetite was a concern during lean years. In time, Bart decided to strike out on his own. At speed.
Two characters down out of thirty one. More to come!
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