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Nov 21, 2009, 8:08am

Original D&D Discussion :: Other TSR Classics :: Metamorphosis Alpha (1976) and Gamma World (1978) :: my vision of Gamma World

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geoffrey
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my vision of Gamma World
« Thread Started on Apr 15, 2008, 6:02pm »

Some of you will already be familiar with some of my ideas on a cool Gamma World conception. Here I've gathered most of my thoughts on the subject.

Right up front let me note that I do not like a wild and wacky Gamma World setting. (Unfortunately, this style of play was supported to at least an extent in the published modules.) I don't like that, and I never have liked it. A post-apocalyptic campaign should be nothing if not serious.

That said, I don't think that the 1st edition Gamma World rulebook implies a wacky world. The cardinal problem is that some of the rulebook's illustrations (though not all--such as the cool cover) are wacky (such as those d**n rabbits with the rifles). Ignore those illustrations, forget about other peoples' wacky GW campaigns, and read the rulebook with fresh eyes. Its setting is dark and inhuman (with just a few discordant notes, such as the aforementioned rabbits), moreso than any other RPG I've ever seen. [And don't forget that the AD&D Monster Manual, Players Handbook, and Dungeon Masters Guide all have outright cartoons in them, but that doesn't stop AD&D from being able to be as deadly serious as the D trilogy of modules, or S1.]

Some considerations:

GW is bleaker IMO even than Call of Cthulhu. In both those games, mankind is eventually going to go extinct, but in GW the extinction has already started and is nearly complete. Instead of living on a planet with billions of humans on it (as in CoC), the humans of GW number probably only in the hundreds of thousands. You run the numbers, consider that high-tech artifacts are becoming scarcer by the day, and look at how the various mutants with human-level intelligence are all more powerful than the pure strain humans...

...and you're looking at human extinction. The Big Show is over. The Apocalypse has already struck, and it wasn't a mere WWIII. The very continents buckled. The very oceans boiled. All the nukes on earth couldn't do that. Mysterious forces and energies changed the very fabric of life on earth. Probably vertebrates as a whole (not just humans) didn't do too well. Now comes the age of the insect, the worm, the plant, the fungus, and all the hideousness of the microscopic world. The entire Gamma World is dominated by gloppy, tentacled, multi-legged, insectile, oozy, writhing, hideous abortions of life. At the most humans will be around for another 1,000 years (if they're lucky), and in that time their numbers will continually dwindle until the number reaches 0. And they are already well over 99% of the way there. GW simply allows you to adventure in the last choking gasp of humanity before the ultimate end.

In my experience, CoC characters last longer than do GW characters. Plus CoC characters live in a safe world. If they so chose, they could simply stay at home and listen to the radio. To get in real danger, CoC PCs typically have to go looking for it in obscure corners of the world. Contrast that with GW, in which there is no safety or comfort anywhere. The best you can hope for is to find yourself in a place relatively less dangerous than others. The whole freakin' planet is a danger zone.

In CoC there are happy families all over the world with little children playing safely in the yard. People go to movies, eat out, take vacations, and enjoy life. There's none of that in GW. That sort of thing is over. Civilization is gone. All that is left is a planet-wide mutated and insane wilderness, with a few small bands of endangered humans here and there.

I think that the tribe of natives in Jackson's King Kong perfectly illustrates what the typical human enclave would be in Gamma World. These guys are seriously messed-up from living in the shadow of vastly more powerful monsters.

Also, get some good recent science books (with lots and lots of color photos) about insects and microscopic life. That stuff is more horrific and even Lovecraftian that Lovecraft's best work. Now imagine the real-world insects and microscopic organisms horribly mutated and much LARGER, and some with a high (though inhuman) intelligence. As much as I love Lovecraft's extraterrestrials in At the Mountains of Madness and "The Shadow out of Time" (which I regard as clearly Lovecraft's two finest works), they aren't as scary as the GW versions of real-life creepy-crawly stuff.

Also, I do not think it would be possible for humans to rebuild their civilization in GW. They've been shunted back into the Stone Age. They'd have to start all over again by learning to farm...er, maybe not, since the flora bites back. And they'd have to learn to domesticate animals...um, ah, the animals are now trying to domesticate humans. It's a non-starter. With no farming, none of the rest of technical civilization follows. Small groups for short amounts of time could carve out little enclaves of high-technology. But who do they call when their computer crashes? Now their robot-control network doesn't work (resulting in wild and/or uncontrolled and/or defunct robots), and all they have are a few hand-held weapons with, oh, 47 charges total. What happens after firing that 47th charge? Meanwhile, the mutants can fire those eyebeams from now until the cows come home. Plus those mutants are making little mutants. Nobody's making new high-tech items. Inhuman mutated insects and mutated microbes inherit the earth.

In short, I think that a 1st edition GW campaign can be darker and more serious than any other type of campaign.

In a GW campaign I like to have a lot of "god-mutants" (as well as "god-computers" and robot "gods"). These "gods" are definitely not gods in the sense of A/D&D gods. They are simply powerful monsters that delusional beings worship. Of course, the primary form of worship would be sacrificing humans to them by giving them to their monster gods to eat. (Think of that purple worm "god" in Necromancer's Ancient Kingdoms: Mesopotamia, or [closer to home] the "gods" in module C1: The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.)

Why would humans worship such monsters? Survival. Pure strain humans (unless armed to the teeth with the rare tech) are generally too weak to survive without protection from the mutated flora and fauna of Gamma World. In exchange for a steady stream of sacrifices, a mutant god would allow the pitiful humans to live in its vicinity. Humans would also tend to worship powerful computers and robots. The only humans not so benighted would be the vanishingly rare enclaves (typically from artificial satellites) of humans whose ancestors maintained pre-holocaust civilization and passed it down to them. They would still recognize high-tech as simply tools and not as gods. In fact, if other humans were to run into such pocket remnants of pre-holocaust civilization, they would probably treat those humans themselves as gods.

With considerations such as the above, one can have a long-lasting and far-reaching campaign of rival gods and their worshippers. It's precisely because there is nothing supernatural or "airy-fairy" about these gods that they really fire my imagination. No theologies, creeds, philosophies, spiritualities, etc. Instead, there are powerful mutants or computers demanding tangible objects from their worshippers. In return the worshippers get protection and perhaps some material rewards (and not spells!). I like how old Zadok Allen described the worshippers of the Deep Ones in section III of Lovecraft's "The Shadow over Innsmouth": "I kin mind him [Captain Obed]...callin' all the folks stupid fer goin' to Christian meetin' an' bearin' their burdens meek an' lowly. Says they'd orter git better gods like some 'o the folks in the Injies--gods as ud bring 'em good fishin' in return for their sacrifices, an' ud reely answer folks's prayers...Them things liked human sacrifices...What the things agreed to give in return was plenty o' fish--they druv 'em in from all over the sea--an' a few gold-like things naow an' then."

I also dislike a "Road Warrior" type of setting for GW. That sort of setting is far too close to the real world for my taste. Any everyday technology we have today (motorcycles, shotguns, etc.) breaks the spell for me in a GW campaign. I like only far-futuristic tech (and rare at that) in a GW campaign--stuff such as laser pistols, advanced robots, and the like. I also don't like for there to be remains of real-world cities (New York, London, or what-have-you) still existing, or any contemporary topography (mountains, rivers, etc.) for that matter. I prefer for the post-holocaust world to be entirely new. Different continents, different oceans, different flora and fauna, etc. The only remnants from the old world being some of the far-futuristic tech I mentioned above, and some pure strain humans. I like my GW setting to be science-fantasy (the "fantasy" part in terms of weird mutations, not in terms of magic spells and the supernatural).