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Gamma World | ||||||||||||||
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new sun is rising on Gamma World, a role-playing game with a history almost as long as Dungeons & Dragons and a cult following that happily remembers sending its mismatched characters questing for mystical artifacts such as "a ball point pen."
That new sun is Sword & Sorcery, which has produced Gamma World's fifth incarnation after licensing the game from Wizards of the Coast. The original Gamma World, released in 1978, imagined a post-apocalyptic future in which nuclear war had reduced most of the world to a radioactive ruin. Bands of pure-strain and mutated humans, laid low by the Big One, were reduced to using spears and the occasional rare gun to eke out an existence, fend off radiation-spawned monstrosities and explore ancient ruins.
The game's new incarnation forgoes the radioactive bogeymen of the Reagan Era for new horrors—and wonders—inspired by nanotechnology and bioengineering. As a result, individuals were as much to blame as governments for the Final Wars, as poorly programmed nanotech, rebellious genetically engineered creatures and, yes, a few nuclear weapons fell into the wrong hands and sparked an apocalypse. When the dust finally settled, it was composed almost entirely of nanites, and it fell on creatures and landscapes mutated beyond recognition.
The new game sheds the rule sets of previous editions in favor of Wizards of the Coast's d20 Modern Role-Playing Game, which is required to play the game. Players can choose to be pure-strain humans or stock humans (the former having escaped exposure in Gamma World by living in protective vaults, the later having grown up in the wild), mutants or synthetics (including androids, robots and cyborgs).
As in d20 Modern, players build their characters using one of six base classes built around d20's six archetypal characteristics: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma. These classes each have special abilities, called "Talent Trees," that allow them to do things like eat anything or master pre-War. As in all d20 games, skills and feats help determine what characters are capable of, but Gamma World goes beyond that, offering mutant powers, psionic abilities and nanotech wizardry.
The first half of the book is given over to character creation, including the various races, feats, skills and powers that are unique to the Gamma World setting. The later half of the book covers the environment of Gamma World, including new monsters, wildly altered environments and suggestions for creating campaigns.
Too little of a good thing
Gamma World has a long history with gamers, and re-imagining any part of it—even to update it to 21st-century dangers—is a risky proposition. Too many changes risk alienating the fan base, too few could fail to attract enough new blood to make the setting viable. It's a nano-thin line, and one that Sword & Sorcery manages to walk, but only barely.
There's plenty in the new edition that long-time players will appreciate, including updated versions of mutant powers (including hostility field, increased metabolism, wings) and monsters (such as the arn, brutorz, hoppers, terls). Cryptic alliances—those post-apocalyptic factions dedicated to various ideals—also make a welcome return.
The game's newfound reliance on the triple threat of radiation, bioengineering and nanotechnology may turn off some traditionalists, but it does more adequately reflect the threats of the modern age. In a world where terrorists were able to destroy two skyscrapers using hijacked planes, it makes sense to have the Final Wars caused as much by individuals as by nations.
The first misstep has more to do with semantics than any game design problems. The title of this first book, Gamma World Player's Guide, leads players to think that it's dedicated entirely to making characters and defining the basic rules of the game. Instead, it has as much to do with world creation as it does with character creation. That may disappoint fans who see the sections on building towns and creating geography as robbing them of potential mutations and psionic powers. The feeling's only intensified by the fact that Sword & Sorcery plans to release a Gamemaster's Guide in April 2004.
And those fans wouldn't necessarily be wrong. The Player's Guide provides just enough mutations, nanotechnology, psionics and biotech to get the job done, but not enough to make it feel complete. For example, the original 1978 box set included 49 physical mutations and an equal number of mental ones. It also included 40-odd plant-specific mutations. The Sword & Sorcery release, on the other hand, has only 46 total mutations. Players might expect the new technologies to pick up the mutation slack, but nanotechnology has eight powers, cybernetics has seven enhancements, and there are only 12 psionic powers. For a game that's always been about mutating your characters in new and exciting ways, this lack of diversity is bothersome.
The game's mechanics are sound, though, and it does provide a framework for players to bring back all of their favorite mutations. Sword & Sorcery also shows every sign of growing the line to fill the oversized shoes of its predecessors. Its first source book, Machines and Mutants, is a monster tome that reintroduces a lot of old favorites. Another book, From the Vaults, promises more on nanotechnology and cybernetics.
Fans may quibble over this book's content, but when all is said and done, there's enough here to run a satisfactory Gamma World game, and enough coming down the pipe to sooth many of the concerns of disgruntled fans. It's not perfect, but it's worth checking out.
Gamma World relies heavily on d20 Modern for its rule set, but it does include an appendix that will let you use the Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition Player's Handbook instead. The fit isn't as good, but it's nice to have the option. — Ken
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