The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Introduction

Here it is again... the game that doesn't want to die. Gamma World is back in its fifth edition with yet another rules system (this time it has been ported to the Alternity rules created by TSR)... and it's dead before it could start seriously. Even before Gamma World 5th Edition (GW5 for short from now on) was published, TSR announced that the Alternity line won't be supported with any further commercial products after the end of this year. How much unofficial support there will be is left to be seen.

Given those dark premises I did not feel very well about GW5 and I have not been pleasantly surprised. But first of all some words about me: I have been an avid fan of Gamma World for many years, I own all editions and almost all the stuff ever published for Gamma World and I created the first (now almost defunct) Gamma World mailing list the Internet had. I was very much looking forward to this release because I like the Alternity rules and finally saw the chance to have a Gamma World edition worth its money. This sadly is not quite what I got... but see below.

After reading over this review I noticed that I talk a lot about the art (and the lack thereof). Don't take this as a hint of me being an art junkie. In retrospective I rather feel that this recurring point of criticism has its roots in the subjective feeling, that the GW5 lacks the heart and the soul of the former editions.

And a final warning: this is going to be a pretty long review because I really like the Gamma Terra setting! Proceed at your own danger!

Short Introduction for Newbies

This review is targetted at the oldtime Gamma World fans and thus only will cover the basics of the game only at the surface. I will assume some familiarity with both the Gamma World background and Alternity.

To sum up the most important points: Earth has gone to hell due to some kind of [nuclear / biological / chemical] war waged by the Ancients. There is not much left except for the radiated remains of cities, mutant settlements and technological artifacts no longer fully understood by the survivors. Gamma World never has been very scientific (earlier editions had everything from sentient plant PCs to instant mutation effects due to radiation). Mutations and the wonders of discovering technological remains of the Ancients have always been a big part of many campaigns. Mutations mostly were pretty weird (everything from two brains to a life leech aura).

Life in Gamma Terra usually was short and hard, many campaigns were full of action and the game was able to cover all kinds of gaming styles from mystery over action to downright silly. All previous editions of Gamma World left the joice between serious, weird, mysterious or outright sill campaigns in the hands of the GM.

Overall Impression

GW5 comes in a softcover book of 192 pages (actually 189, the first two pages contain just publishing data and credits, the last page sports a Dragon magazine advertisement). The cover is full color but nothing I got excited about: two armed humans and a Menarl (a ten-armed mutated water snake) in front of the remains of Seattle. Neither the colors nor the dynamics of the scene are very inspiring... it's basically a standard "two post-apocalyptic warriors and a mutie monster" scene. Even if earlier edition covers might be less perfect from a pure technical point of view (3rd edition IMHO was miles above this one, BTW), they always managed to spark a sense of wonder and excitement in me... this cover makes me think of the countless other post-apocalyptic games out there. There's nothing special about it.

The interior of the book is pure black and white on non-glossy paper - the next disappointment for me. Most of the previous Alternity releases have been of very high quality with glossy paper, colored maps, etc. The core rulebooks IMHO embody the current state of the art in RPG design and layout. Not much of this shines through in GW5. While the layout is readable, it's not very inspiring and does not carry much of the flavour of Gamma Terra. The pages are surrounded by some ruin scene, which could fit into any standard Mad Max flick. The B/W art itself is pretty well done, although it's standard post apocalypse fare (except for the occasional mutant). The weird undertones of earlier editions have been seriously downplayed in this edition... wild it might be, wahoo it no longer is.

The maps and equipment pictures also are pretty well done. In color and with high-gloss paper (and with a bit more of the weird feel of earlier edition) GW5 might have stood out as beautiful rulebook and an interesting game - the current design (at least for me) makes it pretty standard.

The Contents

In the following sections I'd like to comment on the individual chapters of the book. I'll try to avoid concentrating on the technical details where unnecessary (because rules use standard Alternity systems) and feel and objective completeness.

Besides the chapters described below there is a very well-done 3-page table of contents and two pages with a general introduction to the game.

The designer notes stress that the designers felt that it was their duty to put a slightly different spin on the familiar Gamma terra setting: make the world tougher, darker and more serious. Personally I can't agree with this decision since one of the strengths of former editions was that they provided you with all the tools and information for campaigns of any flavour and left the final decision to the GM. GW5 takes this decision partially out of the hands of the GM by removing some of the information required for less serious campaigns (see below). Thus Gamma World in its 5th edition is doomed to become one of the many post-apocalypse games on the markets (it feels surprisingly similar to the Blood Dawn rpg which not necessarily is a good thing).

Chapter 1: Welcome to Gamma Terra (4 pages)

A short and functional introduction to roleplaying and Gamma Terra. I would have liked to see a short story introducing the game (not longer than a page or two) and a bit more about the style of the game instead of constant plug- ins to other TSR products. The initial flavour text "The Shadow Age" doesn't quite make up for this omission because it tries to take one of the basic mysteries of Gama Terra out of the hands of the GM: why has the world become what it is today? Overall this section is pretty average in quality.

Chapter 2: Hero Creation (19 pages)

This chapter presents you with a somewhat simplified version of the Alternity Hero Creation rules (there e.g. are no Perks, which I'll re-adopt immediately from the core rules). Character creation is somewhat less random than in previous editions, mutations are still rolled for (with a non-random choice of category and general power of the mutations), attributes and skills are purchased with a point system. You can choose several races (Pure Strain Humans, Mutants, Androids, Dabbers, Sleeth and Sasquatch) and professions (basically warrior, rogue, technician and diplomat). Characters are elaborated with a moral attitude, motivations and a few traits.
The chapter concludes with rules for experience and advancement.
The steps in this section are pretty clear for experienced role-players although new role players (which probably won't buy GW5 anyways) will be inhibited by the lack of a decent introduction to the technical aspects of roleplaying and the Alternity terminology.

The major disappointment for me was that this section does not contain any rules for mutated animals or plants. For me these things were a major part of the fun of Gamma Terra - now they are gone and there is not even a hint on how to get them back. You'll have to refer to the Alternity core rules and do quite a bit of work for yourself to get these races back. If you never liked sentient cacti and talking tigers, you won't miss them - I do. Folks like me probably can get by for some time by referring to the 4th edition of Gamma World and converting values when needed. The omission nonetheless annoys me because it IMHO makes GW5 incomplete - four more pages probably would have been sufficient to provide dozens of additional options for fascinating characters. Erase the dabbers, sasquatches and sleeth (who never were available as PCs - makes for 1 1/2 pages) and make better use of the open spaces in the remaining book (a 1/3 empty page at the end of chapter 2, a 2/3 empty page at the end of chapter 4, a 1/2 empty page at the end of chapter 5 and the annoying 1 page advertisement in the back and you easily get the required amount of space.
Ok, I got worked up about this enough ;-)

Final nitpick: The racial descriptions for the non-humans are rudimentary at best - you will not receive anything but a very general idea about each race ("they are strong and wild", "they are wise and aloof", "they are nimble tricksters", only in more words). A look at the monster section somewhat remedies this situation since there you'll find tiny tidbits of additional information about the social habits and the actual cultures of the races.

To summarize: a well-structured and understandable character creation system with a few (IMHO very annoying) holes as far as available detail and options are concerned.

Chapter 3: Heroes in Action (30 pages)

This chapter contains the Alternity rules, adopted for Gamma World. There aren't any noticable changes compared to the Alternity core rules that I'm instantly aware of (some optional rules have been omitted). The beautiful thing about this section is, that it's very very complete. You'll find everything from short campaign advice, skill checks, scavenging, combat, damage, recovery and movement to various environmental hazards.

Although the presentation is pretty dry this section is surprisingly complete. You don't just get a dumped down fast-play version of Alternity but a very complete rundown on the required parts of the game. More than enough to play without having to resort to the core rules... and they even included optional advanced rules for combat.

In other words: very well done! For me these rules are the best and most comprehensible that ever graced any edition of Gamma World.

Chapter 4: Mutations (18 pages)

While pretty complete this section again suffers from dry presentation. Just one piece of art in 18 pages makes for hard reading, especially since there is neither much narrative nor much flavour text given with the mutations. OTOH the section is pretty complete and covers over 120 mutations and drawbacks, which should be more than enough to create a wide variety of interesting mutants.

Mutations can either be determined in a completely random or in a semi-random fashion. With the latter method the categories (physical & mental) can be preselected and the strength of the desired mutation can be purchased with a point system. The exact mutation nonetheless is determined randomly.

Overall I'm content with this section since it gets its job done.

Chapter 5: Skills (10 pages)

This chapter lists all available skills, arranged in broad categories and specialized skills connected to a broad category. Each skill is linked to an attribute which is used to determine the skill score. The list is pretty complete and seems to be appropriate for Gamma World. The descriptions once more are dry and not very interesting to read. Skills suffer somewhat from nitpicky details ("at level 4 you can... then at level 8 you can...").

Personally I miss one optional rule mentioned at the WotC website that IMHO really improves the skill system: the cost for raising a skill (in the rules) is list price (if the skill does not belong to your profession) or list price - 1 (if the skill is related to your profession) plus the new rank minus one. This makes it pretty expensive to raise skills to high levels and IMHO makes high skill levels overpriced compared to their usefulness. The revised rule stated that skill levels always cost list price or list price - 1, no matter to which level they get raised.

Besides this minor technical quibble and the dry presentation this section is pretty well-done (and short enough to leave more room for more specialized GW5 stuff).

Chapter 6: Equipment (26 pages)

The equipment section is pretty thorough in its treatment of potential equipment. It covers items from three tech levels (the ancient age, the shadow age and the gamma age) for the following categories: melee weapons, missile weapons, armor, miscellaneous items, cyberware and vehicles. The listings are pretty complete for a decent start. If you want more, you can easily insert the equipment guides from the Dark*Matter campaign or the Star*Drive campaign.

My major quibbles with this section can be summarized as follows:

It would have been nice to see captions for the various p ieces of art. Sometimes it's hard to guess what is what.
There could be more art (but since contents is more important than art, the mixture seems to be good).
I could not find any explanation for the meaning of the Actions column in the equipment list.
The system for figuring out the functions of artifacts is a lot less interesting and exciting than in earlier editions.

Chapter 7: Creatures of Gamma Terra & Cryptic Alliances (25 pages)

This chapter lists 26 creatures typical for Gamma Terra and 5 Cryptic Alliances (secret cults). Each creature/alliance is given roughly a 2/3 page description and there are pictures for all beings (except for the non-human PC races, which got their pictures in chapter 2). The art is very well-done (although I would have loved to see color art), the descriptions are useful enough given the space constraints and the cryptic alliances are well-chosen (from the helpful to the diabolical).

Overall this section provides a great start for any campaign. Minor quibble: for new players it probably would have been helpful to add captions to the art to make it clearer which picture depicts which creatures.

Chapter 8: The Land of Settle (9 pages)

This section once more disappointed me... it's a pretty generic description of the post-apocalyptic remains of the larger Seattle area with some feeble attempts at providing interesting adventure hooks. Nonetheless most of the stuff is presented in a very boring and generic way ("there's yet another village with xxx mutants...").

Personally I found this section to be a waste of space... a short description of the general state of the world with some generic advice on setting up different campaign types would have been a lot more useful than a unimaginative campaign setting which is not very useful to new players and can be made up by experienced GMs in about 15 minutes.

Chapter 9: Adventures in Gamma World (41 pages)

The adventure section contains three adventures: one introductory-level adventure (levels 1-4), one medium-level adventure (levels 4-8) and one high-level adventure (levels 10+). The adventures are loosely tied together to be used in a longer-running campaign and all take place in the area of Settle.

The low-level adventure is a basic "transport this item to the next village" type mission with lots of combat and too many situations that lend themselves to solving them in a brutal way. Besides the mindless "monster bashing" there's another feeble plot attempt involving a few cryptic alliances. Sadly this whole subplot is badly contrived and not used to create any more interesting diversions than some more fights at worst and some weak social encounters at best.
Overall this is one of the typical boring and mediocre introductory adventures that plague todays rpg releases. Quite a bit of GM work is required to turn this adventure into something decent.

The medium-level adventure puts the heroes into the middle of a desperate attempt to save their home village from an advancing hostile mutant army. The adventure (as presented) again is nothing but a series of boring combat encounters and die rolls, but it at least has the redeeming feature of being easily extendable. It also lends itself to a lot of creativity, drama and roleplaying and thus for me rates a lot better than the introductory adventure.

The final high-level adventure pits the adventurers against the Knights of Genetic Purity who intend to let loose the wrath of the Ancients upon Gamma Terra to get rid of all mutants in a terminal way. This adventure involves some high-level power-gaming and is very combat- and stealth oriented. Overall I'd rate it as an average adventure because - although the risk is high - it offers less opportunity for drama than the medium-level adventure.

In summary 42 pages spent on adventures instead of campaign and plot ideas IMHO were the wrong way to go. Too much of the stuff presented is standard fare (or even below). I was throughly disappointed by this chapter, especially considering the juicy tidbits of information that could have been included instead.

Appendix: Hero Sheet & Skill Sheet (2 pages)

The hero sheet and the skill sheet both are functional if a bit cluttered. Both are presented in the same uninspiring way as the rest of the rules and don't provide any flavour. The folks at WoTC might want to look at state-of- the-art character sheets (e.g. from the Deadlands game) that effectively combine design and functionality to create useful character sheets.
OTOH I have never found a truly usable character sheet in any rulebook, so I'm not overly disappointed or surprised.

Summary

So what does all this mean for my final vote? Well, GW5 had the potential to be a truly great game. Rules-wise there are the Alternity rules (IMHO the best rules incarnation Gamma World so far had), which combine playability, a certain degree of realism and flexibility in an effective way very well suited for Gamma World. Flavour-wise TSR/WotC had the chance to build on many past editions to create the epitome of weird post-apocalyptic roleplaying.

Sadly GW5 fails for me in the second category. 41 pages get almost completely wasted on bad adventures, while more important features are left out (no rules for robots, a scampy look at computers, no mutated animals or plants). The layout and physical design of the rulebook is pretty uninspired and rather disappointing for someone like me who enjoys both solid rules, contents and a good presentation (nothing helps me more to sign up new players than a visually stunning game - GW5 will cause potential new players I know to yawn - but not much else).

Comparing GW5 to the fourth edition also makes it appear of rather poor quality. Despite the same number of pages, the 4th edition has more creatures, more cryptic alliances, a similar amount of items, mutated animals and plants, robots, wonderful art by Elmore and Caldwell (among others), a color map, more general background information and and colored pages. The price was the same, only the rules system (IMHO) left a lot to be desired compared to the Alternity system. But can this make up for the lack of information in GW5? I'd say: No!

Thus GW5 leaves me with the feeling of great potential and a rather disturbing impression of incompleteness and sloppy finishing. There are not many grammatical or typographical mistakes in the text I noticed, but many sections just don't seem to fit very well together. Maybe my expectations simply were too high, but GW5 once more left me pondering wether I finally should start to write my own rules for this setting or to patch an existing system. Since the foundation (Alternity) suits me very well, I'll probably go for the latter approach. Nonetheless I would have loved the idea of finally getting a really great Gamma World rulebook with a solid rules system, great art and complete loads of useful information. I still believe that it can be done in 192 pages... maybe in Gamma World 6th Edition (probbly due in another ten years and based on the D20 system?).

Style: 2 (Needs Work)
Substance: 3 (Average)

Gamma World Campaign Setting (Alternity)