Tomes of Antiquity: Gamma World 1st Edition – Part I

I was digging through a couple of boxes and came across my copy of Gamma World 1st Edition. Sadly, it is not the original boxed set just a copy of the rules. I believe I picked it up in the 1990’s on a shopping spree. Leafing through the book, it remains a very playable game but not one I was ever interested in running back at the height of my gaming.

Gamma World, like many other games of the TSR era, has been through many permutations. At least 7 editions have been published to date with varying degrees of acceptance. The 1st edition was released in 1978 and penned by James M. Ward and Gary Jaquet.

Gamma World features one of the first post apocalyptic frameworks in the RPG world. The book references the year 2471 as the start of the experience while referring back to events from 2309-2322 — the Shadow Years. The Shadow Years depict a time of violent social unrest that lead to the destruction of the civilization as it was known. It isn’t hard to imagine how the late 1960’s and early 1970’s could have influenced that portrait of the world. The exact downfall of the world is not stated. Hints of nuclear and bio-warfare are present but no specifics in the roughly 1 page introduction of the game setting.

As was common in the early TSR products, Gamma World takes a roll your own approach. A minimal introduction for Designing Gamma World spans only a couple of pages. The population is fractured. Only a few core ideas are highlighted for population centers and ancient ruins.

Character creation is streamlined. Six core attributes are utilized just like the D&D framework of the time. The exception is that Strength is divided into Mental Strength and Physical Strength and Wisdom is not present. The now prevalent 3D6 generation system is used for all rolls. The only major deviation from systems of the era is the generation of mutations which can take one of two forms — randomly generated or cooperative selection between the player and referee. Finally, the player has to select a race, which is little more than a human, mutant or mutated animal. Many of the animal mutation illustrations in the book take on an anthropomorphic spin but mechanically there are no mechanics to force that idea. Interestingly, Hopeless Characters are mentioned allowing the referee to permit generation of a new character if the generation process results in something inadequate for play. This may be the first reference to characters as heroic level that I’ve seen to date.

The Mutations available to characters are either physical or mental manifestations. Each category features 49 possibilities. NPC mutations for plants/vegetables are present on another table. The plant table states, “It is recommended that the referee now allow players to become mutated plants. Most of them do not have the intelligence or life span necessary to successfully interact with other player types”. My fallible memory of later editions recalls forcing characters into a possible plant result. That may have lead to me ignoring Gamma World for years. The mutation descriptions span 8 pages of the book. That presentation is roughly 1/5th of the core rules and they are well explained with the occasional oddity. The mutation details are well explained and even reasonably balanced by time usage and effects on the character itself.

I really love the end of the mutation section. The referee will need to populate his GAMMA WORLD with many non-player creatures and plants. It gives a couple of options to do so. The reality is that it strongly suggests that the world be your own. Do some work and own the world you present to the players. On a complete side note, the idea of the player as a character versus a player as a character was still evolving at this point in the writing. I learned that from the TSR emeritus at NTRPG Con over several discussions.

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Look for Part II in the near future covering combat, creatures, and world development.

Tags: Gamma World