Gamma World 7th edition

[kenada]

Rich Baker updated his blog with some Gamma World 7th edition information.

My next bit of handiwork to hit the shelves is the Dungeons & Dragons Gamma World Roleplaying Game, which should be out in October. We’ve been showing off our new take on this classic RPG setting for several months, and I have to admit I’ve been surprised by the number of people who are delighted to see its return. Bruce Cordell (my co-author) and I remembered the game fondly ourselves. Applying some bold new design “tech” to an old classic was a ton of work, but at the end of the day I think we managed to do something special. The office games that are currently running seem to think so, anyway.

I’m very proud of the character chassis that Bruce and I came up with; basically, each character consists of two mutation themes, which you can choose or roll randomly. (Real men roll their mutations randomly, of course.) Each theme is a 10-level “half-class” that provides a couple of features, plus three powers (your novice, utility, and expert power). So at 1st level you have the features of both themes, and the novice powers of both themes. At 3rd level you gain the utility power of your first theme. At 5th level you gain the expert power of your first theme, at 7th level you gain the utility power of your second theme, and at 9th level you get the expert power of your second theme. If you’re an electrokinetic cockroach, you decide whether “electrokinetic” or “cockroach” is more important to your character concept, but eventually you’ll get the full set of powers for both. You gain a few other special benefits as you level up, but I’m going to save those for later—I don’t want to say too much right now! Anyway, you can produce your character completely through random rolls if you want, and it won’t take you much more than 15 or 20 minutes. Which is good, because Terra Gamma can be deadly!

We get to see how badly Wizards screw up Gamma World when it is released this October.

[Thomas Kerwin]

About as bad as you screwed up the link?

I think if someone wanted to take the rules from Pathfinder and update Omega World it would work out pretty well.  Even better if they added some playable robot and intelligent plant PC rules.

Edit: Who am I kidding, it's going to be screwed up much worse than you screwed up the link.

[kenada]

Yes, at least fifteen times as bad as I screwed up that link, which is fixed now.

[kenada]

io9 has some pictures from Gencon.

Apparently there will be booster packs of cards. What the fuck? I guess it’s Wizards being Wizards (i.e., a bunch of fucking retards).

[kenada]

Wizards is running a series of articles on Gamma World 7th edition. It looks like the CCG aspect is integral to the game. Well, you don’t have to buy anything beyond the starter box, but you’re encouraged to. It just seems like an unnecessary headache for the GM. Either the players who spend more money will have access to more/cooler powers, or the GM has the unenviable position of telling those players that they can’t use their cards because they’ll be using the same set for everyone.

If the booster packs sell well enough, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a CCG element added to 5e.