Gamma World was the major inspiration for Mutant and later Mutant Year 0. Old Mutant took ideas like tech identification, a mutation table including negative mutations, bunker-crawling and four distinct "races" of non-mutant humans, robots, psionics and mutants. Any time you found a widget you had to play a little minigame. It used the BRP license like other Äventyrsspel games. They made their own version of murderous bunnies. The psionics resistance worked roughly the same, using equivalent BRP stats. Items had a durability system. They also started to make humans the social class. Humans made up the upper class of the rising world with tech and organizational skills from the dying enclaves. I like that humans have some "hidden" advantages. Robots will treat humans as humans and generally follow Asimov's laws while they can swing wild with mutants, treating them from honorary humans to pests to talking animals. All medicines, vehicles, armour etc is made for pure-strain humans and might fit badly or do odd things with mutants. Robots had an advantage to interact with the old world.
Charisma had the same adjustment and use in D&D at the time. It determined the size of your personal trainer goon squad, their starting morale/loyalty. It might affect reaction rolls.
I like your use of the Magenta and Yellow Radiation Symbol. That version of the Symbol is overlooked. I used it for the Icon of a Post-Apoch game I've been running.
After looking at Metamorphosis Alpha this looks like a huge improvement. There’s still major clunk surrounding non-human mutants but everything else has been streamlined in a major way.
As a major Gamma World fan, I am SO HAPPY you are doing a character creation series for all the Gamma World editions. It was also a wonderful touch doing it in honor of Mr Wards passing. Great video (honestly I really enjoy all you Let’s Make Us A --- Character series).
Thank you for such a fun and informative exploration of this game! Gamma World is such a weird and wacky game, full of jank, but also charm. Also, I absolutely adore the character art you do for these videos (and the changes to their appearance)!
Gamma World was the inspiration for Makaitoshi Saga a.k.a. Final Fantasy Legend for the gameboy (just as Final Fantasy is inspired by D&D). instead of classes you had Races: Human, Mutant/Esper, and Monster. Monsters were mostly large intelligent animals and plants rather than traditional fantasy fair. No experience at all, each race had it's own ways to increase stats and abilities. Humans needed potions (meds). Mutants randomly changed after each battle. Monsters would randomly change after eating another monster's meat (more Japanese yokai inspiration). Weapons and equipment were a mix of traditional medieval and high tech; and all had limited usages. Some specifically from Gamma World would be the electric whip, Parasuit, and grenade crossbow.
That's so cool! I had no idea that this was the case, but it makes so much sense! Thank you for taking the time to explain the connections; this makes me appreciate both games more!
It really needed to have been made compatible with dnd from the start. For one thing, the hp looks great - but that is pretty much all you will ever get, and the amount of damage the enemies do just keeps going up. So having levels would have helped with long running campaigns rather than one shot sessions. My experience was mostly one shots, and it was a lot of fun for that purpose, but it just needed more work with playtesting to make it a deeper game. I remember a lot of the games of that period really rewarding the rerolling of characters until you got someone who was overpowered. They then died in the first combat, of course.
I'd be tempted to run "double damage" as meaning double dice rather than straight doubling the result; seems like the text shown could support either interpretation.
Yeah, I touched on it more in the Metamorphosis Alpha video, but games of this age have a bit of a "Surely the intent here will be understood without going into specifics," problem.
Enjoying these! I would actually love to see you do rolemaster 2nd edition, it's a suprisingly slick system in play but character creation is comically involved.
You could just transpose the gamma world rule changes into Metamorphosis Alpha. 3d6 gives much more consistently average rolls than 1d20 so that one is basically preference. i kind of like 2d10 as there is still a 1% chance of rolling a 2 or 20 with an average of 11.
Now I know that nothing official was ever published along these lines, but has anyone ever done anything like thos old D&D ecology of articles but for Gamma World or even just a bit more elaboration on the culture of things like the Hoops, Badders, etc?
not sure if it has been mentioned before, but i think the poison matrix shown has a misprint, in that it has no 3 dice of damage category, it jumps straight from 2 to death, for 11 constitution only, which seems kinda oddly specific to do on purpose
Great series. Played all versions of this game, my rating is first place 7th ed, second place 3ed, third place 2nd ed. 7th ed was a fresh breath of incredible ease of play and alot of fun generating a character.
I know of Gamma World but even my old self haven’t played it. In Highschool our go to Post Apocalyptic mutant setting was TMNT After the Bomb. My friends back then were very Palladium pilled at the time so we also played a lot of Heroes Unlimited and, of course, Rifts. It took until college for me to really realize just how bad the Palladium system is. Seeing how much more streamlined D&D got with 3rd edition and comparing it to Palladium was laughable and Palladium was one of the few companies that refused to jump on the D20 craze(which is fine) but also actively sent letters to any fan made conversion websites because they didn’t like the idea of people messing with their mess
Thinking back... there's Traveller can take some time to create a character, not as bad as F.A.T.A.L. Empire of the Petal Throne, an SF/fantasy mix. Japanese role playing games Bushido and Chivalry & Sorcery's Land of the Rising Sun. Tunnels & Trolls was popular at my games club. And one I remember from DragonCon, Bunnies & Burrows, a loose take on Watership Down.
If you're looking for game suggestions, I recommend a few superhero games: - Superhero 2044 (the first superhero RPG, as far as I know) - Villains & Vigilantes (a classic supers game) - Marvel Superheroes (also known as the FASERIP version) - Champions (4th edition HERO was the last superhero-specific version of HERO. 5e and 6e were redone as generic systems (like GURPS))
First of all, Caves of Qud mentioned!!! Second of all, not only have they played this but they've cited it as "the single biggest inspiration". Pretty cool!
I always like to compare to the other end of the spectrum, the extremely anti-gonzo Twilight 2000. The game of calculating how many service hours a jeep with radio needs. Without Gamma World there would be barsoomian sword and planet science-fantasy and T2000.
3:25 I can chime in on this one, at least with a theory (I could, of course, be wrong). The annoying old-school enthusiasts you're referring to aren't actually thinking about how "old-school games" as a whole were played, they're thinking about how very specifically the old-school game _they_ grew up playing was played, and _also_ they're usually thinking of the way they were _taught_ the old-school game they grew up playing which is very frequently not the actual way the rules were written but was in fact based on whatever random way that person learned how to play or half-remembered the rules and said "yeah I think that's how it works". Unfortunately these memories are formative and result in an ironclad belief that *this is the one true way and everything that would stand against my half-remembered ways are invalid and for babies.* These people are truly insufferable for multiple reasons and should not be engaged with. Everyone has their favorite way to play, of course, but the true historian knows that there was never one true way for things like attribute scores, they were always varied and spread across tables via word of mouth and the telephone game. Hell, DnD 2nd edition (which sure, many people don't consider old-school but fuck them I do) had _six different ways_ to generate attributes, and some of them were very strange but very interesting! Here's a fun one: All your scores start at 8, roll 7d6, you can add each individual die and its full point value to whatever score you want as many times as you want, nothing can exceed 18 (which must be made exactly, no going over and "wasting points").
I mean the 4d6 vs 3d6 thing isn’t so much an assertion when people say you should play old school games with 3d6, it’s more of a preference. Like I prefer 3d6 just because I like the framing of “these are a random sampling of regular people who strive to do something greater” rather than being better by virtue of being players. It’s a philosophical disagreement, and other people might prefer to play with 4d6. I’ve used 4d6 for some games. It’s a game, play it however is fun for you, there’s no right way.
@@zigmenthotep That's fair, also from your FATAL vid it seems that the reason you don't like it is the reason I do, preference of taste I guess. Anyway, keep it up!
The Old School players the host is talking about are the new old-school people. The *NEW* Old-school people ether started with newest editions and then went back to the old editions. Or Are people that started with D&D 3e or 3.5e and claim they started earlier. Both groups believe the myth not the reality and they want the prestige of starting earlier or being more hardcore and more truer fans of the hobby.
I'm sure some of them are actual old school gamers who've mythologized their own memories to fit the modern "Old games weren't about fun" narrative so they can claim a place in it.
I was not emotionally prepared for your flumph-sona's mouth to move. Like literally, it prompted a shocked utterance.
"BUH!"
It freaks me out so much
holy shit this is the basis for Caves of Qud, I had no idea it was based on an old TTRPG
Caves of Qud
Qud
CoQ
Me foaming at the mouth as venom is repeatedly called poison.
Ikr like just call it a toxin if you must cover all your bases fgkahgjalgjsb *cranky biologist grumbling*
2e Gamma World was my first RPG experience back in 1984. GW will always have a soft spot of nostalgia for me.
R.I.P. Mr. Ward.
F
Gamma World was the major inspiration for Mutant and later Mutant Year 0. Old Mutant took ideas like tech identification, a mutation table including negative mutations, bunker-crawling and four distinct "races" of non-mutant humans, robots, psionics and mutants. Any time you found a widget you had to play a little minigame. It used the BRP license like other Äventyrsspel games. They made their own version of murderous bunnies. The psionics resistance worked roughly the same, using equivalent BRP stats. Items had a durability system.
They also started to make humans the social class. Humans made up the upper class of the rising world with tech and organizational skills from the dying enclaves. I like that humans have some "hidden" advantages. Robots will treat humans as humans and generally follow Asimov's laws while they can swing wild with mutants, treating them from honorary humans to pests to talking animals. All medicines, vehicles, armour etc is made for pure-strain humans and might fit badly or do odd things with mutants. Robots had an advantage to interact with the old world.
Charisma had the same adjustment and use in D&D at the time. It determined the size of your personal trainer goon squad, their starting morale/loyalty. It might affect reaction rolls.
I love that you are doing Gamma World characters for all the versions. I adore Gamma World =D
I like your use of the Magenta and Yellow Radiation Symbol. That version of the Symbol is overlooked. I used it for the Icon of a Post-Apoch game I've been running.
Yeah, I guess it's just not dark and gritty enough for the unsophisticated post-apocalypse enthusiast.
The Last TTRPG that james M. Ward made was GiantLands from wonderfilled.
After looking at Metamorphosis Alpha this looks like a huge improvement. There’s still major clunk surrounding non-human mutants but everything else has been streamlined in a major way.
As a major Gamma World fan, I am SO HAPPY you are doing a character creation series for all the Gamma World editions. It was also a wonderful touch doing it in honor of Mr Wards passing. Great video (honestly I really enjoy all you Let’s Make Us A --- Character series).
Thank you for such a fun and informative exploration of this game! Gamma World is such a weird and wacky game, full of jank, but also charm. Also, I absolutely adore the character art you do for these videos (and the changes to their appearance)!
I think I unironically ADORE those artifact use flowcharts. Like.. WOW.. What an utterly unique system for 'figure out the weird doodad'
Gamma World was the inspiration for Makaitoshi Saga a.k.a. Final Fantasy Legend for the gameboy (just as Final Fantasy is inspired by D&D). instead of classes you had Races: Human, Mutant/Esper, and Monster. Monsters were mostly large intelligent animals and plants rather than traditional fantasy fair. No experience at all, each race had it's own ways to increase stats and abilities. Humans needed potions (meds). Mutants randomly changed after each battle. Monsters would randomly change after eating another monster's meat (more Japanese yokai inspiration). Weapons and equipment were a mix of traditional medieval and high tech; and all had limited usages. Some specifically from Gamma World would be the electric whip, Parasuit, and grenade crossbow.
Young me was _very_ confused by that game.
That's so cool! I had no idea that this was the case, but it makes so much sense! Thank you for taking the time to explain the connections; this makes me appreciate both games more!
It really needed to have been made compatible with dnd from the start. For one thing, the hp looks great - but that is pretty much all you will ever get, and the amount of damage the enemies do just keeps going up. So having levels would have helped with long running campaigns rather than one shot sessions.
My experience was mostly one shots, and it was a lot of fun for that purpose, but it just needed more work with playtesting to make it a deeper game.
I remember a lot of the games of that period really rewarding the rerolling of characters until you got someone who was overpowered. They then died in the first combat, of course.
I'd be tempted to run "double damage" as meaning double dice rather than straight doubling the result; seems like the text shown could support either interpretation.
Yeah, I touched on it more in the Metamorphosis Alpha video, but games of this age have a bit of a "Surely the intent here will be understood without going into specifics," problem.
The lack of playable plant mutants is a crime, and I will not stand for it.
Enjoying these! I would actually love to see you do rolemaster 2nd edition, it's a suprisingly slick system in play but character creation is comically involved.
Woo! Was wondering when you were gonna drop this! I have been interested in running a GW 1e game, so this is a great way to learn how it works.
You could just transpose the gamma world rule changes into Metamorphosis Alpha. 3d6 gives much more consistently average rolls than 1d20 so that one is basically preference. i kind of like 2d10 as there is still a 1% chance of rolling a 2 or 20 with an average of 11.
Very fond memories! Thanks for the show!
Thanks for walk down memory lane! Now I need to dig out my GW 1st Ed. rulebook and read through it again.
As a fan of both authentic old school games and of OSR games, I can confidently say they are not the same thing :-D
The Apocalyptic Mutant Furry TTRPG Grandaddy of them all .
Now I know that nothing official was ever published along these lines, but has anyone ever done anything like thos old D&D ecology of articles but for Gamma World or even just a bit more elaboration on the culture of things like the Hoops, Badders, etc?
not sure if it has been mentioned before, but i think the poison matrix shown has a misprint, in that it has no 3 dice of damage category, it jumps straight from 2 to death, for 11 constitution only, which seems kinda oddly specific to do on purpose
Your Flying Spaghetti Monster mouth is terrifying
It's a flumph, a weird old dnd monster
The FSM does look like a flumph, huh?
Great series. Played all versions of this game, my rating is first place 7th ed, second place 3ed, third place 2nd ed. 7th ed was a fresh breath of incredible ease of play and alot of fun generating a character.
I loved Gamma World. I still have my 3rd ed books that use the ACT / FASERIP I really enjoyed playing it in high school
Zigmenthotep never fails to impregnate me with quality content :D
I know of Gamma World but even my old self haven’t played it. In Highschool our go to Post Apocalyptic mutant setting was TMNT After the Bomb. My friends back then were very Palladium pilled at the time so we also played a lot of Heroes Unlimited and, of course, Rifts.
It took until college for me to really realize just how bad the Palladium system is. Seeing how much more streamlined D&D got with 3rd edition and comparing it to Palladium was laughable and Palladium was one of the few companies that refused to jump on the D20 craze(which is fine) but also actively sent letters to any fan made conversion websites because they didn’t like the idea of people messing with their mess
Thinking back... there's Traveller can take some time to create a character, not as bad as F.A.T.A.L.
Empire of the Petal Throne, an SF/fantasy mix.
Japanese role playing games Bushido and Chivalry & Sorcery's Land of the Rising Sun.
Tunnels & Trolls was popular at my games club.
And one I remember from DragonCon, Bunnies & Burrows, a loose take on Watership Down.
If you're looking for game suggestions, I recommend a few superhero games:
- Superhero 2044 (the first superhero RPG, as far as I know)
- Villains & Vigilantes (a classic supers game)
- Marvel Superheroes (also known as the FASERIP version)
- Champions (4th edition HERO was the last superhero-specific version of HERO. 5e and 6e were redone as generic systems (like GURPS))
There's no way the Caves of Qud devs haven't played this - tons of those mental mutations are in it, down to having an ability called Mass Mind.
First of all, Caves of Qud mentioned!!!
Second of all, not only have they played this but they've cited it as "the single biggest inspiration". Pretty cool!
@@cyberneticsquid Yes, I'm quite a fan, even if the some dev's behavior is... questionable.
@@smergthedargon8974 ?
@@cyberneticsquid Their Discord sever is infamously trigger happy with bans and general... political behavior.
@@smergthedargon8974 I've seen that server. I don't think many of the complaints about it are being made in good faith.
Requesting an eventual video on creating a character in the HERO System, please.
I’m interested in seeing you cover the classic traveller
oh boy six editions!
I always like to compare to the other end of the spectrum, the extremely anti-gonzo Twilight 2000. The game of calculating how many service hours a jeep with radio needs. Without Gamma World there would be barsoomian sword and planet science-fantasy and T2000.
Game looks sick!
Great video thanks!
Please tell me those radiation dice exist, I NEED THEM IN MY LIFE!
I know I've seen black on yellow ones before, but it might be a bit harder to find the traditional magenta on yellow colorway.
Wait - did the flumps mouth start being animated?
It sure did
Could you try a mutated animal when doing 3e
All I will say is that I'll be hitting every mutant character type at least once in the TSR-era videos.
3:25 I can chime in on this one, at least with a theory (I could, of course, be wrong). The annoying old-school enthusiasts you're referring to aren't actually thinking about how "old-school games" as a whole were played, they're thinking about how very specifically the old-school game _they_ grew up playing was played, and _also_ they're usually thinking of the way they were _taught_ the old-school game they grew up playing which is very frequently not the actual way the rules were written but was in fact based on whatever random way that person learned how to play or half-remembered the rules and said "yeah I think that's how it works". Unfortunately these memories are formative and result in an ironclad belief that *this is the one true way and everything that would stand against my half-remembered ways are invalid and for babies.*
These people are truly insufferable for multiple reasons and should not be engaged with. Everyone has their favorite way to play, of course, but the true historian knows that there was never one true way for things like attribute scores, they were always varied and spread across tables via word of mouth and the telephone game. Hell, DnD 2nd edition (which sure, many people don't consider old-school but fuck them I do) had _six different ways_ to generate attributes, and some of them were very strange but very interesting! Here's a fun one: All your scores start at 8, roll 7d6, you can add each individual die and its full point value to whatever score you want as many times as you want, nothing can exceed 18 (which must be made exactly, no going over and "wasting points").
I mean the 4d6 vs 3d6 thing isn’t so much an assertion when people say you should play old school games with 3d6, it’s more of a preference. Like I prefer 3d6 just because I like the framing of “these are a random sampling of regular people who strive to do something greater” rather than being better by virtue of being players. It’s a philosophical disagreement, and other people might prefer to play with 4d6. I’ve used 4d6 for some games. It’s a game, play it however is fun for you, there’s no right way.
1D…3?
Nice!
So “personae” is actually just the plural
“A Character Persona” would be what you’re making
Hey...what's wrong with using 3d6 for Checks :/
Great vid though
Just that it's inconsistent with the rest of the mechanics. Also, I personally just don't really like doubling curves.
@@zigmenthotep That's fair, also from your FATAL vid it seems that the reason you don't like it is the reason I do, preference of taste I guess. Anyway, keep it up!
For some reason all of my GW characters ended up looking like a potato.
Damn. Why is After the Bomb out here catching strays? What did ATB ever do to you?
ua-cam.com/video/ZU8mcMvociE/v-deo.html
why is the flumph moving?
Advancements in digital flumph technology
Digital revolution and its consequences
Why don't you just get 3 instead of due on 10 str Poison be 11 con?? Why is that one the only different one?!
The Old School players the host is talking about are the new old-school people.
The *NEW* Old-school people ether started with newest editions and then went back to the old editions.
Or
Are people that started with D&D 3e or 3.5e and claim they started earlier.
Both groups believe the myth not the reality and they want the prestige of starting earlier or being more hardcore and more truer fans of the hobby.
I'm sure some of them are actual old school gamers who've mythologized their own memories to fit the modern "Old games weren't about fun" narrative so they can claim a place in it.
Please make your thumbnail girl less sexy next time I'm trying to stay pure this year
Never!
@@zigmenthotep damn so it's like that, then. I'll see you in GW 4e then we'll settle this like mutants
were is that pathfinder race thing you made?
rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/139000/Exotic-Races-01-Spellwarped
It's like the 5th thing I ever wrote so no guarantees on the quality.