Gaming with Strangers and Observations About Gamma World D&D 4E

I'm a little late posting this, but I still wanted to capture my experience at the Gamma World Mega Event at the Source back on June 4th. The event had three goals: sign-up, roll-up a character, and then play a demo game. We had the opportunity to create characters from either the Gamma World box set, or the two supplements: Legion of Gold and Famine in Far-go. I rolled up a telekinetic yeti named PSI-Squatch.

I'm not one to provide overly lengthy play reports unless it was really outrageous (RPGs are definitely a "ya had to be there" phenomenon, yes?) but we played two encounters--a wilderness battle and another inside a factory. The overall goal was just to get novice players some game-time under their belts, and to get to know one another (more on that in a second).

Our GM was a nice guy named Tabor who provided all the materials we needed. I brought my own rule book (since the last time I'd rolled up a PC it took forever using one book among 6 players). He'd chopped his bindings in favor of wire-bound and I took mine to Staples office supplies to do the same. It turned out to be a GREAT help and it will be a lot easier on the book in the long run as I flip through the pages at the table.

As you likely already know, the 4E D&D version of Gamma World is big on tactical combat. It's a much lighter version, but it does rely on that engine to drive encounters. But there's still a great deal of bonus/penalty dealing, and lots of rule haggling when the booster cards come in to play (especially with newbies). Don't get me wrong--the cards can be a lot of fun--but they can also end up slowing things down. Maybe it's just an effect of playing with strangers. Though playing this version made me more hungry to play Mutant Future or an older GW edition. I'm chomping at the bit to play one of those (maybe 2E GW if I had to pick).

At our game, the majority of the players was learning to play these new rules AND we don't know each other. Yes, we make believe, but it's in a very stilted manner. So we concentrate on adding and subtracting and don't actually interact with one another.

As we get more comfortable with the game, we relax and banter a bit, but no one's settled enough to be themselves. And yet, that's the beauty of RPGs right there--get people to have fun and socialize, right?

I did have fun--which is all that really matters--and I think that I'll continue to do so. I'm hoping to get in some more games. I'd signed up for a couple, hoping to try out playing with different GMs at the helm, but so far work/life has kept me from the table. When I get to play again, I hope to spend more time getting to know the players, bone-up on the rules, and really--imagining the hell out of it.

Gamma Inspiration: Will Sweeney's Illustration and Video Animation

This awesome music video featuring the art of Will Sweeney melts my neurons (in a good way). I'm certain I've seen it before somewhere, but I can't recall where. It's just been posted over at Monster Brains, along with another one.

Here's a few samples of his art, which are equally awesome. Here's a print titled "Artifacts". Indeed they are!

Greenfuzz is a mini comic, which seems to me to be a Gamma-like strain of Tim Sievert's fantasy comic Clandestinauts.

Interior page from a different issue...

Man, I want that T-shirt--it's as close to a Gamma World War wearable as we'll ever get. It's even appropriately titled: "Battle Royale!"

Gamma Cinema: Wild, Wild Planet (1965)

I've not seen it, but it's available through Warner Bros Archive Collection, and is manufactured on-demand. And it looks magnificent. A utopian society that toys with genetics creating mutants that turn on them? Sold. Apparently Italy makes the best sci-fi films of a certain era/type/quality. From WB's product page:

It’s groovy to be a spaceman! The way-out ’60s meet the far-out 21st century in this psychedelic sci-fi head trip. Villains from überpowerful The Corporations think they’d found a way to defeat their rivals, the United Democracies: send robot minions to kidnap UD citizens, shrink them down to suitcase size and transport them to a planetoid for hideous human experiments. But a fearless rescue team is on the way! All that stands between the rescuers and success are four-armed androids in wraparound shades, martial artists wearing silk nighties and sporting sky-high hairdos, flying saucers swinging around the cosmos on strings like interplanetary yo-yos and more mod malevolence. It’s all wild, wild fun and fantasy, brothers and sisters!

That's an incredible amount of copy, considering how little is officially out there:

Wikipedia entry
IMDB listing

Underground Outposts of Pure Strain "Valid" Humans

I've mentioned before that the pure strain "Valid" humans live in huge underground cities. But those cities had to start somehow--albeit modestly. I imagine that they began as communes or refugee stations camped out in abandoned bunkers and missile silos.

These aren't the Children of the Catalysm--no, those poor bastards were stuck on the surface. Valids were the rich kids with all the toys. They've insulated themselves from the world and built-up a keen sense of entitlement to go with it.

Today, those early hideouts that gave them their start are used as outposts (since they've long outgrown their original digs). But the bunkers and silos of old are still useful for launching mutant hunts and planning their nefarious schemes.

Several outposts circle the City of Mutants, and act as holding areas and serve as labs where Valid scientists are constantly splicing and dicing away in the dark....

More bunker art inspiration

Maps of Nuclear Reactors = Gamma World Mega Dungeons!

Oh yeah baby! Here are some great cutaways of nuclear power plants--they're practically Gamma World "dungeon" maps ready to go. Several of them even come pre-numbered!

Click to enlarge:

...and just so you can see how detailed these are (click to enlarge this one):

Have at it mutants!

You can find larger versions of the images that will be more useful as maps here:

• Biblio Odyssey, and more 
• Boing Boing
• U of NM