Why I like Gamma World even more than D&D

[Baron]

One of my favorite genres, and a favorite rpg as well. Agreed, I like simplicity. I played this, and played and ran the second edition. Bought 3rd and maybe 4th as well, never played them though. Got to be too many rules. I was thrilled to eventually come across a copy of MA, which I treasure.

I'll interject here one of my new issues with a lot of rpgs, and that's the way combat is assumed to be the majority of the activity; certainly the majority of the rules. In gaming with my daughter, we run up against this bias a lot. We don't really *need* to simulate hacking things to bits. Can't we have fantasy and science fiction games that are less violent? With other types of rolls we can make, other ways to advance our characters than wiping out villages? Ah well, we do what we can.

[oldskolgmr]

This is a great thread. Thank you geoffrey for starting the discussion. 

[greentongue]

Sept 14, 2009 22:53:37 GMT -6 Baron said:

We don't really *need* to simulate hacking things to bits. Can't we have fantasy and science fiction games that are less violent? With other types of rolls we can make, other ways to advance our characters than wiping out villages? Ah well, we do what we can.

It's what the developers think teen boys enjoy?

Look at Minecraft. It's huge but for a long time it was one of a kind. Even now there are few clones just "and can craft" in the fighting games.

[Baron]

Wow, necromancy. I wrote that post twelve years ago. Since then I've come across games that do what I was wishing for. Yes, fighting is still in the spotlight, because many heroic tales have our protagonists come to blows. But there are more options than there used to be insofar as RPG offerings are concerned.

[Malcadon]

I agree with everything save for #5 (Armor Class ranges from 10 to 1), but only because I was never a fan of descending armor scores. (Although, I have no issue with the use of Weapon Class vs Armor Class)

I have more:

18. The artwork looks silly and goofy (but I would not have it any other way). When people think of a post-nuclear holocaust it is grim and depressing. People have the mindset that the world is a massive desert with old buildings were people struggle to just eat rats and find water, and lot of other realistic problems. The artwork in 1e GW takes the mick out of that mindset and reminds GMs & players that the world of Gamma World is bizarre and filled with alien life due to the comic book fallout.

19. Life is grim and funny. As noted above, Gamma World is a grim deadly world, but its also a fun place to explore, filled with exotic new life and environments that may or may not what to kill you. A setting that... say... casually throws intelligent heads of mutant cabbages at PCs who want to cut the PC's heads off to have a body to control so they could form an army of cabbage-headed super-soldiers, all without feeling out-of-place nor have to think too hard on, is A-OK with me!

20. What? You think what you read in page 3 really happened? Nice adventure seed and lore dump, but that is just myth and legend. You can run with it, but in the end, its up to the Referee to come up with what really happened or if it really matters. When everything is said and done, the GM is the one who shapes the world's history.

21. The rules are a workable mess. The rules are such a clutter of ideas that you can add and remove rules without making the whole game falling apart on you. Hell, the rules feels like is screaming to refined by individual gaming groups to suit their own taste!