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Before I get going too far in this, let me state that this is my first review, so bear with me, please. I believe strongly in maintaining a certain objectivity in one's reviews; maybe it's impossible, but the effort is important. Therefore, the format I've decided on is this: I will list the five foremost positive things that occur to me, and the five most negative things. I leave it up to the reader to decide whether the positive outweighs the negative, based on the weight they choose to give to each thing I list. I also believe in making concessions in one's arguments; after all, what I see as a positive thing, another may see as a negative.
I have, in fact, made use of this product. I haven't had a chance to run a full game session yet, but I've used it to develop material for a D20 Gamma World campaign, including a number of NPCs. It's probably closer to a capsule review, though, so that's what I've called it.
Good Things:
(1). It's Gamma World revived! Gamma World is an excellent setting; it's the traditional prime example of the post-nuclear genre, just as Dungeons and Dragons has always been to high fantasy, Champions has always been to super-hero comics, and Traveller has always been to space opera. Sure, there are close seconds and thirds, but Gamma World deserves far better than the oblivion it's languished in for far too long. Further, this is not just the same old art and text with new game mechanics; new art and great, imaginative text have been added to all of the creatures, character types, and so on.
(2). This edition is more serious than some previous editions have been. Sure, there was always supposed to be an element of darkly tongue-in-cheek humor. But some other editions, Fourth Edition in particular, were criticized by fans for being downright goofy. In this edition, real-world science has caught up with Gamma World, bringing the dangers of nanotechnology and biotechnology. And instead of just seeing the aftermath, we're given some actual glimpses of the earthly paradise that was, torn down by greed, power-lust, and short-sightedness. While previous editions advocated characters as champions of their post-apocalyptic communities, this edition gives us abstract rules on creating communities from the ground up (unlike the rules in D&D these rules are suitable for use by players at a campaign's outset), and helping those communities cope with crises, grow, and prosper. If you think that isn't dark in itself, think about the consequences of the PC's failure in a place like Gamma World; it means not just their deaths, but the community's as well.
(3). The D20 system fits Gamma World perfectly. After all, it's been pointed out that Fourth Edition was very similar in its game mechanics to the D20 system. And even though the rules are really geared towards use with D20 Modern rulebook, there are conversions for using the Dungeons and Dragons core rulebooks instead in the book's appendix.
Heck, I'm sure that with a little tinkering, one could use any number of other D20 System rulebooks, like Wizards of the Coast's Star Wars or Alderac Entertainment Group's Spycraft. You don't even have to buy the D20 Modern book or the Dungeons and Dragons core rulebooks, just go to the Wizards of the Coast website, and download and print the D20 Modern System or "ancient/fantasy" D20 System SRD files. Also, GMs have the additional tools the D20 System gives them to customize the kind of campaign they want to run, by varying things like massive damage threshold, whether they keep track of hundreds of individual kinds of currency and trade goods or abstract the bartering process with the Wealth system, and so on. So basically, unless you're violently allergic to all variants of the D20 System, you can't go wrong.
(4). There are many new options for characters to explore now. Character "genotypes" (races) include Synthetics, which are sentient robots, with their own objectives and goals, and their own upgrades to seek out and purchase. Human genotypes include stock humans, who have survived the post-holocaust by becoming hardier but without mutating appreciably, and the old Pure-Strain Humans, who sealed themselves up in bomb shelters and waited to re-take the world generations later. Now, Humans may become psionic, even if they're not mutants, by taking the Psionic Potential feat. Characters may purchase and gain biotech and cybernetics, and may even unlock the near-sorcerous properties of nanotech. With the community rules, a character can interact with their community's stats to bolster through their leadership. These options together will tend to encourage teamwork and specialization, as no single character can possibly master all of these routes to power adequately.
(5). The overall "look and feel" of the game is superb. The page backgrounds look like ragged scraps of paper, bound together in a folder with ragged sheet-metal covers, an image which evokes the Gamma World perfectly. The art is also great, even in greyscale; and I must say that while there are a few standard White Wolf artists that I really don't care for, I didn't see any art pieces that annoyed me the least bit. The stories and game-related fiction, often the worst part of many game products (including but not limited to White Wolf books, though they tend to have a lot of this sort of thing), were all sci-fi of a superior caliber. I used to read a lot of sci-fi, but I drifted away from it, as I began to see too many recycled ideas and rehashed plotlines. I found D20 Gamma World's non-game text just as inspiring as the artwork, which is more than I expected.
Bad Things:
(1). The number-one complaint of most Gamma World enthusiasts on reading through the D20 Gamma World rulebook is the dearth of mutations. While previous editions had dozens, this edition has just a handful. There are plenty of other "kewl powerz" you can use to amp up your character that were never before available, like cybernetics and nanotech, though, and the line developer has said that the authors are working to correct this problem, both online and in print. However, if you're only buying this one book and have only intermittent internet access, this could be a problem. Related to mutations, I have to add, there are no rules for playing mutant plants in this book. In the years I played Gamma World, I only ever had one mutant plant character, though. I personally don't consider that a huge loss, particularly since they only entered the game in Fourth Edition anyway, but it is one of the only possible post-nuke character options not currently available.
(2). There are a few places where the editing is a bit off. Like just about every White Wolf product ever, there are a few references to "Page XX", and a few of the tables are justified unevenly. These tables aren't illegible, just a bit annoying.
(3). Some people have complained about the game mechanics used for psionics; they're quite different from that in D20 Modern or Dungeons and Dragons. Psionics gain in power level, and knowledge of different psionic abilities, as they make use of their psionic abilities. However, a character has to make a roll each time they use a psionic ability, and any roll of a "1" results in feedback, or "something bad" happening related to the psonic power. Now, a Gamemaster has full and total control over what that "something bad" is, and if they don't want psionic characters with high-level or varied powers, they can simply make feedback more severe as the psionic grows in power. The text lists examples of feedback as severe as the psionic's head exploding a la Scanners, for example. But for those who adhere closely and strictly to the rules, it could be a problem with an insistent rule-lawyer player.
(4). I bought the Gamma World Third Edition boxed set for fifteen bucks, and I got more material than I could ever use. This book cost almost twice that much, and we just got a small fraction of the monsters, relics, and vehicles that other editions had. If this sounds like a paleo-gamer griping about "the good ol' days", it probably is. Part of the problem, I guess, is just that; TSR sold a few measly carboard-and-staple-bound books, and because no one ever needed anything else, they never bought anything else, so TSR couldn't afford to keep the game line going and had to drop the license -- FOUR times! (The fifth, Alternity edition was, of course, dropped to make way for the D20 System as a whole, so it kind-of doesn't count). It's not like we won't get all the old monsters and such when the next book in the line, Mutants and Machines arrives, or all the old tech when the third book, Vaults of the Ancients, hits the shelves. However, now that I'm older, with a bit more money, I don't mind spending a few bucks on books for an RPG that I'm running a campaign in. Just means less money for anime, I guess *sighs*.
(5). I guess the worst thing about Gamma World, for me, isn't in the book, it's all the ongoing, unnecessarily negative discussion surrounding it, reminding me of why I gave up on UseNet long ago. Yeah, this is not a perfect product; but then, anyone who's been reading Charles Ryan's Bullet Points column on the Wizards of the Coast website knows just how extensive the compiled errata for the D20 Modern rulebook will be. Some of us remember the original, un-revised release of Wizards' Star Wars RPG; it had editing and rules gaps you could march an army through, but my gaming group had fun with that game for years. My group isn't even composed of diehard Star Wars fans; we just have plenty of imagination and experience roleplaying, and we patched the game where it needed patches, and focussed on its strong points. Yes, I have accidentally bought downright un-playable game supplements before, so In know what comprises one (Rifts: Headhunter, anyone?), but this isn't one of them.
My Summary:
D20 Gamma World is an excellent, worthy product. It's quirky, and more-or-less a work in progress, but for that matter so am I, and so is the Gamma World itself; a fact which these rules clearly bring out. If you're a fan of the Gamma World setting, and not opposed to innovative game mechanics, I doubt you'll be disappointed.
