Just a quick reminder that I will be running the Gamma World Game Day this Saturday, October 23, at Imagine Games and Hobbies. Festivities start at 1:00. We’re going to have three GMs on hand to run, so there should be plenty of space. Here’s the snippet for the adventure:
Grab a friend and get ready to celebrate the launch of the new D&D Gamma World Boxed Set. Mutate a brave new hero and be ready to take on just about anything! Experience the return of an old classic in a new play experience using the D&D 4th Edition rules engine! The D&D Gamma World game is a fast, furious romp through a post-apocalyptic Earth where mutant heroes face-off against killer robots, alien weirdness, and strange irradiated creatures.
Gamma World Game Day: Trouble in Freesboro
It’s shocking how the Big Mistake completely obliterated some places while others got by relatively unscathed. Freesboro falls into the latter camp, but if Genghis Tangh has his way, life will never be the same for the mutants of Gamma Terra. Delve into the origins of the Big Mistake as you take on Tangh and his forces! Pick up a D&D Gamma World Boxed Set, a few booster packs of power cards, and create your own characters in an exciting new Game Day experience! A D&D Gamma World Game Day adventure designed for 4-6 characters of 1st level.
Come on down and play. No purchase necessary.
SO looking forward to this tomorrow. I’m so confident that I’ll love the game that I asked Wendy to hold a copy for me! 😀
This was pretty awesome. Long live the Collective of Timmy!
And next time, you can track down the vicious party of mutants that teleported the sentrybots onto your fight with the klickies!
I am suuuuuuuuuuuuper skeptical on the new Gamma World. If I’m going play GW, I want it more open ended, like with the Burning Wheel engine, instead of super crunchy 4ed style. How is the game play? What are your thoughts? How do people who like more role-playing and less crunch find it?
Gamma World is a blast. It is, however, very much designed to deliver a certain style of game-play. That style emphasizes combat encounters (because that’s where the really cool stuff happens) and fairly high level of wackiness. It’s built on the 4e chassis, but has been somewhat simplified in execution, leading to fast set-up and fast play. The basic structure does not lend itself to long-term campaign play, nor to deep investment in your character – both the random character creation method and the high mortality rate contribute to this. That said, a few tweaks can alleviate some of these issues, if that’s the way you want to go.
The BW engine, I think, does pretty much the exact opposite of what GW does. It focuses on carefully designed characters and de-emphasizes combat.
Now, as to the whole role-playing vs. crunch thing, I gotta say, I think that’s a false dichotomy. I liked GW a great deal; I also like games like Fiasco, Trail of Cthulhu, Call of Cthulhu, the whole World of Darkness thing, DFRPG, 3.5e, 4e, and lots of other systems that emphasize different aspects of the play experience. To use a rough analogy, I like carrots, but I also like steak. I don’t eat only carrots, or only steak; I don’t play only one kind of game, and most of the gamers I know also play different games as their moods strike them.
That said, if you’re looking for something with a lot of deep character exploration where you can build a serious examination of humanity in a post-apocalyptic setting, this is not the game you want to play – not without making some real changes to the way things work. On the other hand, if you want pure distilled mutant craziness packaged in a fun game, then GW may be just what you’re looking for.
So. To sum up: I like GW. It’s silly, and is a simplified version of the 4e rules. It is not, as written, a deep or serious game.