Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World" - io9 Comments

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

fant0mas — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 19:39:16 PDT

Give me Aftermath or Morrow Project over Gamma World for 20th century Post-apocalyptic RPGs. (both of which are sitting at home on the self)

fant0mas

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Turael — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 15:32:24 PDT

Geez this is a trip down old RPG lane...Twilight 2000, Gamma World, RIFTs. But no one mentioned Star Frontiers! Go go Yazirian's!

[en.wikipedia.org]

Turael

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

rektide — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 22:38:17 PDT

Gamma World is #1. Probably the biggest thing holding it back is that the setting is so open ended. D&D gave DM's places to jump in and run stories for, Gamma World had some similarly targetted sourcebooks but for the most part the DM's really had to craft their own world and had very little baseline to work with.

The random mutations chart is the type of thing legends are made from.

rektide

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Swami_Binkinanda — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 12:08:41 PDT

Own that.
I think the Fallout game series, even the orphaned Fallout Tactics, are really what people were looking for with a lot of RPGs bitd. I really got bored with D&D and a bunch of other tabletops/rpgs/strategy games, but playing them on the computer now is bearable to fun to obssessing. And the level of lead and paint solvents in my bloodstream is way lower.....

Swami_Binkinanda

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

NeoPoliticus — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 04:09:56 PDT

Gamma world was Science Fantasy - not Science Fiction. Just D&D with randomly generated creatures.

NeoPoliticus

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

sharky — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:32:02 PDT

@Rus McLaughlin: Rus, I couldn't agree more. Paranoia was a great concept. Why aren't more of these games licensed and turned into computer games? Car Wars had those old school Apple II games, but that IP is a natural for a modern computer game. Twilight 2000 had an old DOS game I think. That's a setting that would be perfect for a game. I'm really surprised we don't see more games made from old PNP RPG properties.

sharky

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

sharky — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 01:23:12 PDT

@Spiral: Yeah Spiral, I'm right there with you. I had whole games that I did nothing but imagine the worlds, get the campaigns ready, make a slew of NPC's, but never ACTUALLY played the game. Damnit if those weren't the most fun.

Gamma World was the first role-playing game I ever played. The artwork in those days was so fun. I love these looks back from io9. It keeps this site firmly entrenched in my feedreader.

sharky

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Thorby — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 16:48:58 PDT

Don't make me dig up my Morrow Project rulebook!
It's in the bolthole under my house...

Thorby

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

firesign — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 11:44:09 PDT

gamma world and traveller ftw.

firesign

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Slatz_Grobnik — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 08:48:39 PDT

The White Wolf D20 version of Gamma World is an amazing game. It is, with the possible exception of GURPS Transhuman Space, some of the best actual Science Fiction in an RPG published this decade.

Some of the sections display the sort of forward thinking that simply are not present in RPGs, that tend to be slavish in repeating the tropes of others. Instead of just repeating some myths critters, they, more or less, ask what would people make to cure the problems of the world, and then how would that go disastrously wrong.

It is also totally not Gamma World.

Contrary to the article, I think that one of GWs sources of success was that edge of wackiness. The totally random mutation tables produced outrageously unique and strange characters. It was weird science at its finest.

So much of what made GW a great game is that sense of the normal being somehow special. Fabulously, I once managed to spend an entire hour of a gaming session as the players attempted to figure out the mysterious artifact that they'd found, which was, in fact, a stereo speaker. I kept assuming the gig was up because I kept looking at the speaker above my head for points of reference, because I'd never expected this to drag on as long as it did.

Gamma World lived and died by the length and strangeness of its mutation table. Too few people understood that.

Slatz_Grobnik

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

gybryant — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 07:58:05 PDT

This Pure Strain Human wants you to get the hell off his glow-grass lawn.

gybryant

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

medeasin — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 00:17:25 PDT

Nerdcore to the max. Thank you for this.

medeasin

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

shehanum — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 22:35:14 PDT

Whoa, time warp to 1981! Now I've gotta break out my Traveller game!

shehanum

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

RemusShepherd — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:34:10 PDT

I loved Gamma World. The setting was terrific, and the variety of characters you could make was almost unbounded. Androids, robots, mutant humans, sapient plants...

But the reason it never caught on was the game system. The first edition encouraged characters to sit and bask in radiation zones, as they would collect mostly beneficial random mutations and become like unto gods within days. The second edition fixed that, but it had other problems -- a character wearing a leather vest, as I recall, could not be injured by an opponent with a knife. And so on, and so on.

I wish they had made a Gamma World movie. I remember writing a script when I was about seventeen...with luck it's permanently lost, now.

RemusShepherd

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

stefan_jones — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:30:26 PDT

I have a copy of Metamorphosis Alpha tucked away.

I never liked Gamma World, though; I hated the whole post-apocalypse genre back in the 80s and it seems kind of quaint now.

stefan_jones

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

thorshammer — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 18:09:23 PDT

Alternity flavored Gamma World is, in my opinion, the best post-apoc RPG ever made. It's about as close to perfect as something can be.

thorshammer

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

royen — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:56:47 PDT

@AdamL: Actually there are two. Sort of. One's a fan-made version [fallout-rpg.narod.ru] , and the other one [pnp.fallout.wikia.com] is by J.E. Sawyer.

royen

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

t3chg1rl — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 16:15:54 PDT

Man, you want post-apocolyptic, mutations, craziness, I reccommend HOL (Human Occupied Landfill). Of course, no one ever gets past character creation, but it's hilarious.

t3chg1rl

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Belabras — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:49:30 PDT

I remeber really liking Gamma World, but also getting pretty seriously bogged down in character creation. Then the TMNT game from Paladium came out and my group never looked back.

Belabras

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

kaosdevice — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:48:46 PDT

I played some Gamma World back in the day, I've never looked at the new D20 version to deeply, but the production values look top notch. Gamma World came out in a swarm of post apocalypse games including 'Aftermath' and 'The Morrow Project'. That fatalistic end of the world thing was big back in the 80's dontchaknow.

kaosdevice

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Grandjester — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:22:43 PDT

Spiral,

Wizards and Fire & Ice are out on DVD. The Fire and Ice one had an awesome Frazetta doc on the 2nd disc, well worth picking up. Also, Bakshi is selling orginal cels from Wizards, Fire & Ice, his LOTR (got myself some nice Nazgul), Cool World and some hand drawings too on eBay, check it out!

As to Gamma World, our D&D group went the Travller route instead, so never played. Sounds fun tho...

Grandjester

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

ManchuCandidate — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:05:10 PDT

@pleitch:
Victory Games made the James Bond 007 Role playing game. I know as it is sitting on my bookshelf.

Re: Gamma World. It was fun, but I played with a GM who was a total asshole and over did the mutation thing. One character had the powers of Akira (from Akira) and it got so boring that I decided that it was more fun to play Top Secret.

ManchuCandidate

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Spiral — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 15:02:52 PDT

@zerofritz: I was actually thinking about the James Bond RPG recently. I was remembering their interesting mechanic about attractiveness. If you had high attractiveness, you had the down side of being very recognizable.

But that's any type of game that wants to balance: any positive choice you make differently than the person next to you has to have some flaw or constraint associated with it.

Spiral

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

AdamL — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:55:38 PDT

Makes me want to play a Fallout tabletop RPG. Surely someone somewhere has created such a thing.

AdamL

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Rus — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:36:20 PDT

@sensenet: All true, but I did also segue from Gamma to Paranoia with remarkable speed. That and Teenagers from Outer Space, which got me back in the mutated racoon business.

Still, I've got to say that Paranoia was one of the all-time best RPG concepts ever forged.

Rus

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

zerofritz — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:32:43 PDT

@pleitch: possible, also, you were thinking of the James Bond RPG, which I can (sadly) confirm exists, both via the web *and* via my closet.

[web.archive.org]

zerofritz

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

sensenet — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:26:21 PDT

I'm a huge post-apocalyptic fiction fan, and Gamma World had a big part in nurturing that interest. Man, nothing like fighting against the Knights of Genetic Purity with your trusty mutated raccoon and oak companions!

@ pleitch: the TSR game you are thinking of is "Top Secret/S.I."

sensenet

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

pleitch — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:18:27 PDT

I remember Gamma World too. Started out with D&D/AD&D but somehow I wasn't quite nerdy enough to truly enjoy it. Gamma World and Car Wars though, now there were two games I could sink my head into.

One more game I played, not really related at all, that I can't remember the name of was a 007 type of role playing game. I'll feel like a complete fool if it actually was a James Bond branded game but I don't think it was. I remember always creating female Israeli spys...for some odd reason.

But yeah, Gamma World made for many fun afternoons and evenings.

pleitch

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Rus — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:16:14 PDT

Takes me back, too. I've still got the edition with that killer bunniez drawing on a shelf somewhere.

Rus

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

ideaman2020 — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:03:29 PDT

Am I the only one who expecting the Hulk to pop up somewhere in this game..?

Yeah. I thought so.

ideaman2020

Return to the Future Past of "Gamma World"

Spiral — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 13:57:29 PDT

Man, I remember Gamma World. I also remember the Light On Quest Mountain choose your own adventure based in Gamma World, which at my young age, had the coolest cover art.

Gamma World had this surreal look at post-apocalypse. One that had so much going on in a world where the table was supposed to be wiped clean. RIFTS picked that up as well. Very rich worlds that I could just read the sourcebooks and imagine, even without getting to play. I kinda wish they had gotten the good fiction treatment, the way Warhammer40k got.

I also remember looking forward to mutation in Gamma World. While there was always supposed to be drawbacks for mutation, they never quite came through when some of the mutations were so damn cool.

I also miss the Wizards movie, including seeing it on an old betamax copy a friend had in college, but that's a whole other set of memories.

Spiral