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The new version, the seventh edition, is officially D&D Gamma World. This is deliberate. Not only is it a Wizards of the Coast game, it actually uses the D&D 4th Edition system, not just a parallel development of AD&D. On top of that, it refines D&D's use of tools like 'power cards' and maps to produce the game as a full box set.
I find it interesting that the contents are all together in a square box in various industrial/biohazard/puke green shades, and listed as a roleplaying game for “Age 12+”. In addition to a small booklet (which is actually the main rulebook) and battlemaps, D&D Gamma World includes various cards, which we'll go over later. Much more than D&D, it blurs the line between a board game and a roleplaying game (when the latter usually doesn't require all the components of a board game).
The Introduction in this case is a very necessary explanation of the setting: In 2012 the Hadron Collider in Switzerland got futzed somehow, due to an experiment that has since been called “the Big Mistake.” The gist of it was that multiple realities started to collide into this one, such that various alternate universes, aliens, etc. got thrown into this world. But in 83% of the alternate universes, the Cold War went nuclear, such that the results greatly resemble the “typical” Post-Apocalypse setting. However the results also allow for a lot of exotic character types and legacy super-tech.
Chapter 1: How To Play is again necessary because this game seems to be marketed to a non-RPG audience, pointing out that “Computer games and console games that allow you to play the part of a character exploring a dangerous world are descended from paper-and-dice games such as the D&D GAMMA WORLD game.” The prose here carries on with an irreverent tone, explaining that when you roleplay, you decide “whether to negotiate with a villain, to pretend to go along with his scheme, or to suddenly belt out 'Hello My Baby!' and dance like Michigan J. Frog.” This game also points out that the polyhedral dice you need to play are provided with the D&D Roleplaying Game Dice Set - strange that with all the other components provided in this setup they don't provide the dice. A character sheet (in 4 copies) is also provided and it does a pretty good job of walking a player through the character creation process, which differs somewhat from D&D 4th Edition.
And, along with the battlemaps and a set of punch-out cardboard counters (circular with character/monster pictures on them, colored and printed on both sides) you have two decks of “Alpha Mutation” and “Omega Tech” cards, with extra cards provided in expansion rule packs. These are roughly analogous to New D&D's power cards, except that while D&D cards are simply descriptors of the powers on your character sheet, the Gamma World cards are required to play the game. This is because both your advanced mutations and advanced tech (equivalent to daily/utility powers in D&D) are subject to change and can be replaced at random with new draws. “One minute, you could have feelers that help you avoid walking into walls in the dark, and the next minute, you might manifest a deadly disintegrating touch.”
After a brief example of play, the booklet reviews the basics: roll d20 against a difficulty number, you always want to roll high, etc. Then it goes into an explanation of how the cards work. The cards are never used by NPCs, only players. When you get to draw or use a card it is considered readied - only a certain number of mutations can be readied at any given time, but any number of tech cards. When a card's effect ends (usually no later than the end of the encounter) the mutation cards used are put back in the deck. The tech cards might continue to work; a player who uses an Omega Tech card basically has to make a saving throw once the tech is used, with failure meaning the tech “burns out” and has to be returned to the deck. Some tech items allow the option of salvage by characters who have reached a certain minimum experience level. This basically allows a PC to turn the item into standard equipment at the cost of reducing the item's abilities. The upside is that you never need to roll for burnout on that item again.
Then the booklet discusses the combat rules. (The game text says a combat sequence is required because: 'Combat is pure chaos. But our game doesn't model pure chaos well.' I beg to differ.) This works pretty much like standard D&D, and this section goes over what types of actions there are, what 'combat advantage' is, what an 'interrupt action' is, and so on. Fortunately, like other games in the New D&D format, D&D Gamma World does a pretty good job of organizing the power descriptions (both the cards and the innate powers received in character creation) in such a way that it's fairly obvious from context how a given ability works.
After reviews of the combat terms, there's an overview of healing, dying, and death. In one of several changes from D&D standard, the “second wind” action is a minor, not a standard action, and heals up to bloodied value (half maximum hit points, not one-quarter). However, there are no other “healing surges” as a standard option except for those who may have individual tech items or mutations allowing such. Death still occurs if one fails the “death save” three times, or gets knocked to negative his bloodied value in hit points. “Too bad, so sad.”
Then there's the section on “how to read a power.” “Origin” powers (innate powers derived from the background rolled in character creation) are organized as Novice, Utility and Expert (see below). Omega Tech powers have an origin based on whatever lab or alternate reality they came from, like “Area 52.” Each power also has a power source which in this game is either “Dark” (radiation and other weird powers), Bio (biological mutations) or Psi(onics). Certain powers work via Weapon, meaning that if a weapon has an accuracy bonus it adds to your attack roll. Attack types (necrotic, force, etc.) are as in standard D&D. Other bits like whether the power is an area attack are also explained here.
All this leads to Chapter 2: Making Characters which again, differs a good deal from how it works in D&D's fantasy setting. Like most of this game, character creation embraces randomness, even in basic concept: “It's all up to you. Well... not exactly. Now that you have your ideal character fixed firmly in your mind, pick up some dice and start rolling to see what sort of bizarre freak you're ACTUALLY going to play.”
A character origin is described as “a package of traits and powers that all go together.” On page 34 you get a table for rolling random origins (there's an expanded table in the Famine in Far-Go supplement). A character rolls for one primary and one secondary origin. These could be anything from “Android” to “Yeti.” If you end up rolling the same origin twice, you end up as what's called an “Engineered Human”- similar to what classic Gamma World called a “Pure Strain Human” engineered to survive a poisoned world. Each standard origin is in the same format: Mutant Type (even if, like Android, it isn't actually 'mutant') has a linked attribute and a linked power source (Dark, Bio or Psi). Skill Bonus of +4 to a specified skill. There's also a miscellaneous ability that gives a +2 bonus to one of the three defenses (Fortitude, Reflex or Will). You get a special ability at level 1, and a “Critical” power detailing what extra benefit you get when hitting someone with a natural 20. Each origin again has a Novice, Utility and Expert power.
How this all works is that your primary origin gives an automatic 18 for the linked ability and an automatic 16 for the secondary origin ability (so if Android is your primary origin, your Int is automatically 18). If the two origins otherwise share a linked ability, that ability automatically becomes 20 instead of 18. Your other four (or five) abilities are random-rolled on 3d6. Your first critical bonus (for primary origin) is gained at level 2 and the secondary one at level 6. Likewise your primary Utility power is gained at level 3 and the primary Expert power at level 5 (with the secondary Utility and Expert powers gained at levels 7 and 9 respectively).
This is where D&D Gamma World gets into more detail as to how the game differs from regular D&D. For one thing, the game is only built for characters to get up to 10th level, whereas New D&D has provision for characters getting up to level 30. Accordingly the “level modifier” that is applied to most stats and rolls is a whole number equal to experience level, not the level halved. Since there are no classes, hit point base is automatically 12 + Constitution score at 1st level, gaining 5 HP every level including 1st. At 10th level (which takes 10,000 XP in this game) a character gets an “Uber Feature” that he has to choose. It can be either one extra use of a Novice power, the ability to use an Omega Tech item one time without having to make a save for it, OR the ability to keep one Alpha Mutation card “readied” for another encounter without discard.
When discussing the random origins that the system can roll up, the booklet encourages an ad-lib creativity. For instance if your origins are Rat Swarm and Felinoid, “Either you're a pack of kittens, or you're a swarm of rats that climbs and clings together in a panther-shaped collection of individuals.” This even applies to the Engineered Human origin, given that the character still ends up getting one other mutation type. For the Human you get TWO skill bonuses and +1 to all three defenses and a set of Novice/Utility/Expert powers similar to what New D&D gives the Warlord class. The booklet says that Engineered Humans explain their other origin through applied technology (Hawkoid equals jet pack or glider units) or special talents (Felinoid abilities can be explained as martial arts disciplines). Needless to say, this all can lead to some silly results, which apparently D&D Gamma World considers a feature, not a bug.
Then after briefly going over the six D&D abilities and how they apply bonuses, the booklet discusses the Skills system. Such as it is. There are exactly TEN Skills: Acrobatics, Athletics, Conspiracy ('to remember significant information about a significant person, organization or event'), Insight, Interaction (all-purpose Charisma skill), Mechanics, Nature, Perception, Science and Stealth. In addition to the skill bonuses you get from your two origins, you also roll a d10 to determine an additional skill you get +4 with. There are otherwise no other “trained” skills. There are also no feats. (Correction: In the brand-new Legion of Gold supplement, there are new 'vocations' described as feats, which grant usually at-will benefits, but even these are limited in variety and based on the three-tier model of abilities, gaining new bonuses for a chosen vocation at 4th, 7th and 10th levels)
After this there's a brief bit about roleplaying and developing the character's personality and appearance (it's mentioned here and in the origins section that if a character isn't Engineered Human or an origin that is obviously not human, like Plant, he is usually by default humanoid in appearance, though his origin and mutations betray his nature). Then they go into a bit more detail on those Alpha Mutation cards. In this section it's explained that Alpha powers work by “drawing on alternate worldlines in which you naturally possess them.” In the text the booklet says that before each game, each player can make a personal deck from D&D GAMMA WORLD Booster Packs (sold separately, of course). A personal deck must have a minimum of 7 cards, and no more than 2 cards can be the same power. The GM's deck is the one that came with the box set plus any boosters. It says that you can draw from either, but by default you use the GM deck if nobody built their own. In play, you start each session by drawing a card from your deck for use as an encounter power. (A 4th level character gets to use two cards and an 8th level character gets three) Such cards are called readied cards or readied Alpha powers. Generally you can use a readied card once per encounter, after which you have to discard and draw a new card to replace it. There are at least two complications in this: When you roll a natural 1 on a d20 (for ANY reason) you experience an “Alpha Flux” and you have to discard a readied card (which can be either one you have used or have not yet used) and draw from the GM's deck. This new readied card can be used during the encounter even if you used it to replace a card already employed. The other complication is the option to overcharge. This works like a saving throw (10 or better on d20) and if it succeeds the power works better. If it fails, it screws up somehow. For instance the power card “Shaggy Pelt” includes the flavor text: “A thick, yeti-like pelt of hair covers your entire body. It smells like a yeti too.” It grants the Benefits +1 Armor Class and 5 resist cold. If you successfully overcharge, the bonus is boosted to resist cold 10. If the roll fails, you get tangled up in your own hair and are slowed. Most of these powers fall into a certain power category (Dark, Bio or Psi); if the power card is the same category as your primary mutant origin type you get a +2 to the roll (in this case, Shaggy Pelt is a Bio power). Note that not all power cards can be overcharged.
Similar in function are the Omega Tech cards, roughly equivalent to D&D “magic items.” They have their own booster decks and likewise a player can draw from the GM's original deck or a booster deck. In game, whenever the GM announces that you've found an Omega Tech cache, you make a d20 roll: 10 or more means you can draw from your own deck or the GM's deck, 9 or less means you have to draw from the GM deck. The tech you get becomes a readied card. There is no limit to the number of Omega Tech cards you can have readied at one time. Usually the cards are once-per-encounter powers. They can usually be overcharged like other power cards. At the end of an encounter you have to “check the Omega Charge” - roll a saving throw and if the result is 10 or more the card is re-readied. If the roll fails the “charge” is depleted and you must discard. Again, some tech items can be salvaged to work on a lower level as described on the card; usually this requires the character be at a certain level (e.g. 'a 2nd-level character can salvage the stun whip'). The tradeoff to using the item at reduced power is that you never need to roll the Omega Check again.
This leads to Chapter 3: Gear, appropriately illustrated with a charging human in plate armor built out of traffic signs, wielding a two-handed club that is basically a ripped-out parking meter, followed up by a humanoid mantis holding a six-gun and a cleaver. The booklet says that in post-Big Mistake society, barter is the rule of the day except among local dominions that either rediscovered coinage or appropriated the old coins. This chapter deals with common gear, that is, “normal” tech that was common in most worlds before the Big Mistake, as opposed to the highly advanced Omega Tech described above. Common tech is also normally scavenged or bartered gear- accordingly, the game's approach to outfitting the beginning PC is just as “whatever works” as everything else in the game: “If you're in a hurry, take armor, one melee weapon, one ranged weapon, and an explorer's kit and call it good.” Otherwise there's a random table on page 75 for miscellaneous gear ranging from a canoe to a cell phone to lanterns and fuel. These are more or less useful depending on how much the GM wants wilderness survival to be a factor in the game. Otherwise adventuring gear is extremely minimal in terms of rules description: Light armor is +3 AC and could be anything from a leather duster to baseball player's gear, while heavy armor is +7 AC but reduces your speed by 1 square (it's normally 6). A shield, of course is +1 armor but precludes you from using two-handed weapons. Likewise weapons are almost as abstract: “Light” weapons are at least +3 accuracy and use either Dex or Int bonus to hit but do less damage than “Heavy” weapons which have less accuracy, use either Str or Con bonus to hit but do more damage (usually 1d12 versus 1d8). Also, with ranged weapons, you have a distinction between guns and more improvised weapons like thrown hammers: The guns are usually more accurate and have longer range (up to 20 squares) but require ammunition, which is rare. In D&D Gamma World you basically have ammo or you don't. If you have it, you can fire any gun regardless of little picky real-world things like caliber. In play, you are assumed to either be conserving your ammo or not. If you are only using ammo once an encounter, you are conserving ammo and thus will still have it at the end of the encounter. But if you use your guns more than once an encounter, “you might as well rock n' roll, because at the end of the encounter, you are out of ammo.”
In addition to the random table on page 75, there's a list of other general gear (including what's actually IN the 'explorer's kit') including everything from binoculars to a horse. Incidentally the game assumes a riding horse averages 5 mph overland (speed rating 10) and causes the rider to grant combat advantage to any one attacking him while he's horseback. There is also a brief section on carrying capacity, which the game normally considers to be not worth detailing much, but you can normally carry up to your Strength x 10 in pounds and in extremis drag or push up to five times your normal load, which causes you to be slowed.
Chapter 4: How To Run The Game is the chapter that tells a prospective GM how to run the game. The booklet stresses: It's About Having Fun. “You're not competing against the other players. All of you together are helping to tell a fun and exciting story. Your goal is to make the characters' successes all the sweeter by presenting challenges that are just hard enough that they have to work to overcome them, but not so hard that you wipe them all out.”
Just as the 4th Edition Dungeon Master's Guide makes certain assumptions about the D&D World, D&D Gamma World tells the GM there are some basic principles about the setting of “Gamma Terra.” Because most of the population has developed some sort of mutation, “Human is a broad term.” “So is 'mutant.'” People can explore the Ancient ruins and encounter not only hostile inhabitants and Omega Tech but also “Ancient junk” which has its own random table for things like “green plastic soldiers”, “corporate logo T-Shirt” or “sci-fi serial on DVD.”
This chapter also has a small but useful primer on how to set up a combat encounter. In addition to suggesting interesting and varied terrain, it gives rules for surprise (each side rolls Stealth against the other's passive Perception check, which is 10 + the adds for the Perception skill). In normal circumstances, each PC rolls initiative once per encounter, but the booklet encourages the GM to roll once for each group of similar creatures, to speed things up. Monsters are described in terms of their type, just as in the DMG (Brute, Artillery, etc.) This section also goes over the various game conditions, what they mean and how they work. (Usually they're all or nothing; a target can't be 'double weakened', for example.)
The chapter goes over how a GM should reward experience, how to set up quest lines (like in the other D&D books) and also more-to-less tangible rewards like the aforementioned stores of ammo, which PCs will need to keep using their guns. In addition to giving some story seeds and brief mention of the old Cryptic Alliances, the booklet also mentions the idea of basing your Gamma World game in your home town, to mix the familiar with the bizarre. It discusses how to set up storylines, usually with a beginning, middle and end, and gives three more hints: Provide Multiple Paths to Success, (establish) Clear, Limited Choices on those paths- and Embrace the Weirdness. Chapter 4 also gives a few prospective locations for adventure, some of them mythic places like a “Timeslip City” that is out of sync with reality and another city in the sky said to be the home of the last pure-strain humans.
Then the chapter gives us some design tips for setting up an encounter. As in New D&D, an encounter challenge is built around an “XP budget” that assumes that the threats are built on the same level as PCs or one higher. “Encounters more than four levels above the characters' level are lethal, so use them sparingly and give the characters escape options. Or not.” It goes into further detail in how to set up the terrain, advising “Remember, it's Gamma Terra: Mundane is dull.” Bits like vertical levels and ruined tech cluttering the field affect both the feel of the setting and the tactical options. For instance, difficult terrain (like rubble or undergrowth) in game terms costs 1 extra square to move through, while blocking terrain would be walls, columns, etc. Obscurement or cover provides either -2 or -5 to attacks against a target in the affected area. Certain common bits of terrain are listed with examples of how or if they can be bypassed. A window, for instance, takes a minor action to open and 1 extra square to move through. Large fields of difficult terrain often require Athletics checks to navigate. More exotic examples of threatening terrain are given for the Gamma Terra environment: “Beta Moss” for instance clusters in areas of high radioactivity and grants characters in the area +2 to overcharge but causes Alpha Flux on a 5 or less, not a 1.
Next you have the straightforward Chapter 5: Monsters which lists various threats, first on a single list by level and “role” (Artillery, Soldier, etc.) and then by stat block, each of which includes not only the monster's level and role but XP value (XP gained for defeating the monster), HP, bloodied HP value, AC and other defense ratings, Initiative and Perception modifiers, speed, any special senses, any immunities or vulnerabilities, special traits or powers, skills, abilities and any equipment used. As with D&D, some creatures get a 6-sided die icon in their stat block showing how a used power might recharge if it rolls the number shown on the icon. Pages are interspersed with rather garish illustrations. The GM is advised when using a monster for the first time: “Show (the PCs) the illustration of the creature. Wait for the laughter to die down.”
This section also gives the rules and stats for hazards (including traps) which are various threats that are also worth XP even if they aren't “fought.” For one thing their stat blocks usually include the line “Immune attacks”. Usually if they inflict damage it is considered triggered by a certain event such as landing in a pit or radioactive area.
Chapter 6: Steading of the Iron King rather deliberately recalls the classic AD&D module “Steading of the Hill Giant Chief.” It's fairly straightforward, although it may not appear as such in play. Robots keep attacking the PCs' village from somewhere up in the hills, and they have to find out why. The chapter is set up in 8 encounters, in a format that includes total XP and rewards in the form of Omega Card draws and Ancient Junk.
SUMMARY
In this case, I actually got to play a little bit of D&D Gamma World with my Wednesday night group before volunteering to switch to a Pathfinder game with some other friends. Our GM, Jeff, had bought the boxed set, and we went over to our friend Paul's house to build a party. I've since discovered in looking over the rules that in doing things for the first time, Jeff made a few “mistakes” or non-standard decisions that were basically GM rulings to cover some grey areas.
For instance, the first thing I had to do was roll my base character on two d20s. I got “18” and “19” which on the charts apparently comes up as “Speedster” primary and “Telekinetic” secondary. However, Jeff decided that neither one of these qualified as a “body type” and so told me to roll again specifically to determine body type. I got 3 for “Doppleganger” and Jeff determined that that qualified as humanoid. Again, we discovered afterward that the text actually uses Humanoid as a default: 'If your origins don't suggest any animal, android or plant origin, but you're not human, you're considered a humanoid.' Jeff ended up saying that if the body type had to be rolled a third time it didn't give the benefits of that type but it did provide the skill bonus given to the third origin.
Also we haven't really been using the Alpha Mutation rules correctly: Rather than taking draws from the deck and then re-drawing every encounter we were allowed to draw three cards each from the GM deck (no one had bought booster decks) and at 1st level draw one for use as an encounter power. Our 'decks' didn't change except with a rise in level (to allow another Alpha Mutation use per encounter) or with an Alpha Flux. I kinda like that approach better anyway.
But it was pretty fun for what it was. Jeff had set up a “use your hometown” scenario loosely based on the notes and players' guide for Fallout: New Vegas. Our PCs were villagers in a community set up by the Davis Dam in Arizona, which the elders were able to maintain so as to provide limited hydroelectric power, which was also used to help trade commodities with other communities in need of that electricity. It was about the best you could hope for on Gamma Terra, until barbaric humanoids (especially motorcycle-riding 'porkers') started raiding our supplies. We had to step outside town in order to stop disruption of trade supplies, which led to contact with Hoover Dam and the larger Las Vegas community, where we got a little more info as to where the raiders were forming up. This allowed us to take proactive raids. We set up one ambush outside city limits ('nobody dies in Vegas') and fairly quickly executed one biker gang. In the process as we were looting for Omega Tech, one of the PCs pulled a mask off the porker gang leader and revealed him to be- another porker. But one wimpier and less impressively built. As it turned out his piece of Omega Tech was a “Psi Mask” that the wielder could use to disguise himself as any other type of humanoid- so in this case he remained a porker, just made himself bigger looking to intimidate his followers. So one of the players read the card and started singing: “Can't read my- can't read my- no he can't read my P-P-Porker Face...”
The game definitely models what TSR used to call the “Wahoo!” attitude: Throw everything in with the kitchen sink and see what happens. And it actually fits the way it played out: Who cares if we missed a couple of rules on the first read as long as we had fun and got the gist of it right? Overall, D&D Gamma World does a great job in presenting an easy, workable system for a post-apocalypse setting where the dimensional barriers have broken down along with civilization and nature, and anything goes. If only there was an existing setting in this genre with a lot of published background material that needed such an effective system...
Style: 4
D&D Gamma World redeems itself by a steadfast refusal to take itself seriously. Of course it also attracts with the high production values of its components, the drawback of course being that they are even more necessary for play than the suggested player aids of mainstream D&D.
Substance: 3
D&D Gamma World is a quick, fun variant on the new D&D system. If you know the main version, you can play this. If you never played any version of D&D, the rulebook helps you figure it out.
