I picked up a copy of the new edition of Gamma World. I played Gamma World when I was younger so was interested in seeing what they did with the setting. It is a very interesting update where they went mainly for comic fun over serious story and game play. Instead of a post nuclear war, the world has been destroyed by scientists at CERN who while using their atom smasher broke down the barriers between the infinite universes. This leads to reality constantly changing around the characters including their own abilities as they deal with this world.It comes in a pretty sizable box.
Open the box first, you find a small form factor rule book. This has the rules for playing the game. Both making characters and running the game. While it is based on 4e D&D, you do not need those books to play this game.
Unfortunately, the big box is pretty much empty space below the card board holding up the book.
You get 2 maps, 2 pages of card stock markers, a card set and a random booster of cards.
Two sides fold out maps.
Pages of character markers. Nothing fancy but helpful in the current rule set who movement and position is more important than in earlier versions.
Here are the character markers.
Here are the cards. This is probably the most controversial part of the set. Players got to draw random cards to represent their shifting abilites and gear. The DM has a set but WotC would like the players to go out and buy random booster packs to use in the game to. So you can spend money to make your character better in the game. Nice little Revenue Enhancer. Some of the gear can be salvaged to give long term advantages to the player. If I was running a game of these I might let players buy the cards to donate to the GM set but I would not let them build their own decks.
I really want to pick up this game, but when we would squeeze it in I have no idea. It looks cool, and though the cards have me scratching me head a little bit I think I like the idea. I had a chance to sit in on a game, but it was full up unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteThere's also a Gamma World console game in the works?
Quite a departure from the original. The whole bend of the game going "broken multiverse" instead of post-apocalypse is odd, but the idea of compelling settings has changed a bit since the doomsday clock was constantly on the mind of the culture. We though Gamma World looked pretty great back in 1980, but it would probably look campy now, and the campy post-apoc setting already has plenty of representation.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, maybe I should do a re-unboxing of my original Gamma World.
Mik, the problem with the cards is that you essentially can just power game your character by stacking the deck with all great cards that can be salvaged into gear. It is a clear money making scheme as we can see they have new cards for the main line D&D game.
ReplyDeleteMike, our gamma world box we found later was missing something since it had no info on the costs of gear. I think my brother still has it in Philly now but he has been slowly selling off the old unused stuff on ebay. Unlike I who am adding to my old blood bowl collection.