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There doesn't seem to be much of a ruckas over the way mutations are handled in this edition. As someone who used to play back in the 3rd edition days, I find the constantly changing mutations annoying. I'm usually the GM and can imagine the PC's getting annoyed by this rule when/if I introduce them to it.
Are there threads I missed where people are venting?
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Brian Cooksey
United States
Nashville
Tennessee
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I haven't heard anyone complaining about the changing mutations but I have heard and read multiple accounts of people just leaving that rule out. Fortunately, keeping the mutations stable or only changing them under rare circumstances, is an easy fix and doesn't break other parts of the game.
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Ned Leffingwell
United States
Shreveport
Louisiana
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I just ordered a copy of Gamma World off of Amazon. I read a review in which the review said that they left that rule out. I plan on doing the same thing. Of course, it will be possible for the PCs to acquire new mutations...
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Yeah, I'm definitely not going to leave it as is. I think I like the concept of seldomly changing mutations... such as when a rare event occurs in the game world (as deemed by the GM) or when an Alpha Flux happens. Though I think the frequency of PC's rolling a '1' may be too common. Maybe if 3-5 'ones' are rolled it triggers. I don't know... I'll have to mull it over. Leaving it as is isn't an option for me though.
Maybe I'm being too cynical, but I feel like this concept is mainly a gimmick that was intended to incentivise us to buy more Alpha/Omega booster packs.
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Hey, I also bought my copy from Amazon. I read a few of the reviews. I didn't see the one you were referring to that had a variant. Can you point me to it?
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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Over on the WOTC forums theres been alot of grumbling about this, and the total randomness of the characters and various ideas for fixes which all boil down to ignoring those rules and just going with what you start with and playing from there, picking up new as chance allows.
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Rob A
United States
DFW
Texas
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The total randomness of the GW character creation process leads to a more wacky game and less connection to the PC. Which is fine for me and the way we played this because it is a little more deadly and a fun change of pace.
The game is easily changed to allow more input into character generation.
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DMSamuel
United States
Ithaca
New York
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It is one of the strengths of this edition of GW that you can easily go Wacky, Wild, Random, Deadly, Crazy, Constantly Growing Clown Feet, Short Campaign style or Serious Post Apocalypse, Non-Random, Deadly or Not, Single Mutation, Long Campaign style. Or anything in between.
Luckily it is a relatively rules-lite version of 4eD&D and can withstand ample removal or addition of rules as the GM sees fit to make the game have the style they want.
Edit to say: I leave out the constant mutational changes when I am playing in a group that wants to have some character consistency in the 6 or so sessions planned for the campaign.
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Ned Leffingwell
United States
Shreveport
Louisiana
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madhatter1 wrote: Hey, I also bought my copy from Amazon. I read a few of the reviews. I didn't see the one you were referring to that had a variant. Can you point me to it?
I read this review on rpg.net
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/15/15082.phtml
4th paragraph:
"After a couple of play test sessions with my players, we came up a mechanic where you didn't pull a new mutation every singe time. It's not as game breaking as you might think, as the players agreed that certain situations might cause mutation, such exposure to radiation."
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Eric Jome
United States
Milwaukee
Wisconsin
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madhatter1 wrote: As someone who used to play back in the 3rd edition days, I find the constantly changing mutations annoying. I'm usually the GM and can imagine the PC's getting annoyed by this rule when/if I introduce them to it.
I am entirely sympathetic to your point of view on this.
I was planning to modify the core rules a bit to deal with my aversion to playing them as printed. First, I was going to try to make players choose mutations that really represented things their character had - they'd pick exactly 7, with some repeats, and could not rebuild their deck willy nilly... and I wouldn't have any GM deck; if you run out, you shuffle up and re-deal. Alpha flux would mean you could change your card if you wanted, but you wouldn't have to - and if you did, you'd likely get something "on message" about your character, representing you switching up to a power you always had but hadn't been using right then. Perhaps you've grown tired or bored with the other power.
I was shooting for more consistency in much the same way that 3rd edition worked.
Further, I don't plan to play this game for laughs. I want to play a more serious game myself, so my adaptations of the system as printed go beyond just switching up the was cards work to choosing to portray everything in a more "serious" sci-fi way.
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John Middleton
United States
Laramie
Wyoming
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I have run multiple parties in this edition since it came out and always use all the rules as is. This game should be viewed as a free-wheeling anything goes sort of affair not like Sci/Fi 4e. It is much more role-play intensive and exploration heavy than encounter heavy.
Gamma World players need to embrace the mutations and randomness of the game world as something that makes this version unique. Once they get into that point of view, everyone that I have run this for, loves the crazy things that can happen.
So this leaky plasma gun will hurt ME too? What the hell, I fire it. Character deaths can be great fun as well, I had one guy get annihilated by a claymore mine while changing a truck tire. The party found his new character sleeping under a trap a mile up the road. Another player got tired of his mutations so we had an octopoid alien burst out of his chest, and become his new character. Two of my players are infected with a mold that will kill them dead if they drop to 0 hp and they are desperately searching for a cure.
The random alpha mutations seem odd but unless certain environmental conditions exist, like beta moss, then it only happens on a roll of one and ONLY on attack rolls. After combat, it happens automatically, but players love this as it makes each fight different. You need to make sure you have the players role-play their alpha fluxes, actually describe how they feel and mutate. Trust me that little bit adds a ton of flavor, and the players embrace it.
When the players hit 3 give them cryptic alliances, when they hit 4 it's a Vocation and feat. These little advances help out too.
Also, hand out loot the characters can use, the loot table in Famine on pg 28 and 29 give hints about uses as clues to what you can do.
Award about half the Gamma Tech that encounters normally call for, I often have the players search and the two high rolls get one card each. This keeps the gear a bit rarer and encourages the players to creatively use their mutations and powers rather than relying on gamma tech for each fight.
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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It doesnt quite make it unique as the setting mirrors TORG. Except taken to the Nth degree of reality overlaps. It does though far far remove it from the original setting. But not so badly as did d20 GW. ugh...
Its a fun setting. Just paste a "Flux World" title over the GW one. Which is really what they should have done.
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Matt
United States
Wilton
Connecticut
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Couple more questions...
How much do the 2 expansions really add? I've read what's in the box. I'm wondering about substance.
I have all the old 3rd ed. modules GW6-GW10. Does anybody know how hard it would be to retrofit those to fit the 7th edition?
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Brian Cooksey
United States
Nashville
Tennessee
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madhatter wrote: Couple more questions...
How much do the 2 expansions really add? I've read what's in the box. I'm wondering about substance.
I have Gamma World Expansion Pack: Famine in Far-go and I like it a lot. It introduces 20 new origins such as Exploding and Gelatinous. That, along with the Cryptic Alliance section, makes it worth what I paid for it.
There are also new monsters and an adventure. I haven't run the adventure but it looks like fun.
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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1: Far-go at the very least adds alot more new player types and the rules for the Cryptic alliance type groups. And new mutants and an adventure... Don't know about the Legion box but if it followed suit then its likely got more of these.
2: The 3rd ed modules are geared for a somewhat diffrent crystal tech that while not overly compatible with other GW settings. Can be likely be proxied with D&D GW tech. Mutants are mostly the same and where the modules add new creatures just swap in something equivalent from the new.
madhatter wrote: Couple more questions...
How much do the 2 expansions really add? I've read what's in the box. I'm wondering about substance.
I have all the old 3rd ed. modules GW6-GW10. Does anybody know how hard it would be to retrofit those to fit the 7th edition?
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John Middleton
United States
Laramie
Wyoming
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The expansions are important I think, for the further variety in character developement.
Famine adds the cryptic alliances and 20 more origins - plus monster levels 4 - 8. New random gear tables, and starting gear with game stats.
Legion offers character vocations at level 4 that open up cool feat trees that give some bonuses and allow beast riding for example. Also 8 more origins (for a total of 49 counting Eng. Human) and monsters levels 8 - 12. Moon exploration rules and gear.
The adventures are well worth having and both are sort of mini campaigns that run a character from 3-6 and 6-10 respectively.
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John Middleton
United States
Laramie
Wyoming
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TORG is very different from this version of Gamma World. Your characters were from a specific reality and your party could travel to the various other realities of the Torg universe. It did not feature a world where all parallel realities surrounding the Earth had collapsed into one.
And your characters we mostly based on real life or fantastic archetypes rather than mutants in constant flux.
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John "Omega" Williams
United States
Michigan
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Read what I said next time. TORG was about various factions overlapping their realities over the Earths in specific zones, with the reality altering people and landscapes sometimes radically. D&D GW takes that and simply covers the whole earth in constantly vying realities over what was modern day earth now a crazy quilt of anything and everything.
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Richard
Greece
Marousi
Athens
RPGGrEEK Guild, γινετε μελος εδω:http://rpggeek.com/guild/1256
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I think that in the second expansion are the rules for running skill challenges, isn't it?
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John Middleton
United States
Laramie
Wyoming
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Skill challenge rules are in both expansions, but honestly you sort of need the monsters and maps from Famine to run Legion. And Legion comes with 10 new Omega Tech and Alpha cards that are there own little set.
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John Middleton
United States
Laramie
Wyoming
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Omega2064 wrote: It doesnt quite make it unique as the setting mirrors TORG. Except taken to the Nth degree of reality overlaps.
It order for something to be mirrored the duplicate would be an exact copy, reversed. And all you mention is reality overlaps, nothing else. Torg has realities that don't even exist on Earth with corridors that lead to other worlds, Mars, etc. Gamma Worlds collapse of all realities into one is unique in games. So the two are very different animals. The concept of alternate realites intersecting with Earth is not and Torg comes closer to stealing ideas from Rifts than Gamma does from Torg.
So if you what to argue semantics about my use of the word unique then you should probably spend more time with a dictionary.
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Matt
United States
Wilton
Connecticut
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I have a dumb question about XP distribution. There's an adventure included in the base rules. Encounter S1 says it's a LVL1 encounter... worth 550 XP. That # is divided by the # of players, right? I'm sure the answer is yes, but want to be sure.
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John Middleton
United States
Laramie
Wyoming
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That is correct xp for each encounter is evenly divided between all surviving players. It's up to you whether to round or drop fractions for easier book-keeping.
Don't forget that these xp awards are tailored for five characters, so if you add monsters or subtract them to keep the encounter challenging for your group size, then you need to add or subtract an equal amount for the monsters changed. The xp amounts per monster are all listed in their stat blocks.
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Maurice Tousignant
Canada
Windsor
Ontario
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Personally the constantly changing alpha mutations is what we have the most fun with when I have run the game (about 6 times now). I love it.
Regarding the expansions, if you expect your game to go above level 6 you will want the expansions for the new monsters. What most people seem to miss is that there is a huge level gap in the monsters provided that make the game unplayable at higher levels without the expansions. The other stuff is cool too like more origins, factions, traps, maps, pogs etc.
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Bossko B.
England
Brierley Hill
The Black Country
BAZINGA!
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I've only run the one Gamma World game so far but I went with the wacky play style. Players loved it and that's the way it will be played in the future. So the random mutations are certainly staying in our games, it's one of the things we like about it.
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