You Don't Need to Use Them All

Two years ago, one of my players, Denis, was thinking about running a game. There was some light pressure from the group for him to give it a shot. He eventually settled on trying to run a Gamma World game, details here and here. 

That game never got off the ground. For Denis, he felt that there was too much pressure to compare to others in the group who have years or even decades of experience running games. 

At the English camp we were teaching at through most of August, several guys were asking Denis and I about our games (some are former players, some just curious about RPGs). Denis mentioned that one of the main reasons why he never got his GW game going because the random encounter tables seemed overwhelming. 

I instantly understood what he meant. Random tables like those in the books require the referee to be familiar with most of the creatures in the book. And with all the mutations in GW, that may make it overwhelming. If you only need to worry about a few monsters you've placed in a dungeon, plus whatever powers your players have for their characters, it's not as overwhelming. If everything in the book is on the table, it's a lot to deal with. 

I told Denis that he should try to run the game, but just drop random encounters. The look of relief on his face was noticeable. I think he had been in the mindset that the game has rules for this, so he needed to use them. But that's not true. 

You don't need to use all the rules to run a fun game. Especially when you're just starting out. I ignored lots of rules when I was just starting out as DM nearly 40 years ago. And the games were fun, and challenging. Once you are comfortable with the basics of the game, and with planning and presenting adventures, the more complex stuff can be added back in.

Back to the Grind, Plus Gamma World and Call of Cthulhu!

I'm in the final week of summer vacation. As a professor, I get a nice long summer vacation, but I'm actually usually busier during the vacation than during the semester. So I'm looking forward to things slowing down a little. Not too much, though. I've got a couple of composition (academic writing) classes this semester, plus a study I'm hoping to finish up by October for fingers crossed publication in December. But despite that, my schedule, and my boys' schedules, will be regular, so gaming should be more or less back on track. 

My TS&R Jade game has been going well. Yesterday, my boys and Denis were the only players, and they followed up on a rumor that took them to a location just beyond their abilities (if other players had been there, it likely would have been fine). But with some good strategy, a bit of luck, and negotiation, they managed to complete their objective (rescuing 3 kidnapped children from monsters) and only lost one henchman in the process. 

I haven't run Star Wars in a while. Steven, my younger son, has been asking when I will. And with the new Ahsoka series on Disney+ now, I'll likely fire up those Star Wars creative neurons and get something worked out soon. I need to get on the players, though. I gave them a bunch of leads after the last session, but the only feedback I've gotten so far was one player saying, "Yeah, any of those look fine." Gonna have to pester them a bit more.

Richard, a friend who played in my West Marches game back when I first started it up (as a 5E game), and who I've played with a bit in some of Dean's games, is starting up a new Call of Cthulhu game. We had a session 0 last Friday, and the first game will be this coming Friday. I rolled up a rum runner with a boat and skill at driving a car, so I'll be the party's wheels. We've also got a prizefighting boxer, an Italian anti-mafia spy, and an investigative radio reporter as our party. Should be fun!

On the play-by-post website I use (RPOL.net), I made a Gamma World game last October, but it's just been sitting there unused. I made a few last minute updates and changes (I'm running 1992 4th edition, but with some house rules and mutations from other editions/games, including some of the house rules I used in GamMarvel World a few years back) and opened it up for players. So far, I've had five players ask to join. Two of them are already rolling up their characters: a mutant webspinner (an insect) and a mutant armadillo. I'm hoping to recruit around 10 or 12 players, since RPOL games have a high attrition rate.

Oh, and my boys are still working on their airplane simulator! They've been working on 3D models this past week. If you want to support their efforts, please check out their GoFundMe page! Thank  you!

Adventure Prompts in ChatGPT

I was curious about ChatGPT. Lots of discussion about it in academic/education circles. As a second language teacher who does teach academic writing, this (and computer translation) are things I need to keep up on. 

But for my first foray with the AI text generator, of course I wanted to see how it could assist with adventure design. Here are two quick prompts I gave it (my prompts in bold, ChatGPT in blue):

Gamma World Adventure Module





Generate an adventure module for Gamma World 2nd Edition in the style of TSR modules.



Sorry, as a language model AI I do not have the ability to play games, but I can help you write an adventure module!

Here's an adventure module for Gamma World 2nd Edition in the style of TSR modules:

Title: "The Lost City of Nefara"

Introduction: In the post-apocalyptic world of Gamma World, rumors have circulated for years about a lost city of advanced technology and untold riches. Many have searched for the legendary city of Nefara, but none have returned. Now, the players have received a lead from a trusted source that could lead them to the lost city.

Objective: The players must navigate through the treacherous terrain of the wasteland and avoid danger from mutated creatures and hostile factions to find the lost city of Nefara and uncover its secrets.

Setting: The adventure takes place in a desolate wasteland, filled with mutated creatures, ruined buildings, and dangerous hazards. The lost city of Nefara is said to be located at the heart of the wasteland, protected by advanced technology and guarded by powerful mutants.

Encounters:

The players must navigate a treacherous sandstorm, avoiding sandwyrms and other dangerous creatures.

They will come across a band of raiders, who are searching for the lost city themselves. The raiders may offer to join forces with the players or attack them on sight.

The players will discover a hidden underground facility filled with robots and advanced technology. However, the facility is guarded by a powerful AI system that will not allow anyone to enter without proper clearance.

As they near the lost city, the players will face a horde of mutated beasts, including giant scorpions and fire-breathing lizards.

The lost city of Nefara is guarded by powerful mutants, who will challenge the players to prove their worth before allowing them to enter.

Conclusion: If the players are able to navigate the dangers and reach the lost city of Nefara, they will discover a city filled with advanced technology and untold riches. However, they will also uncover a dark secret about the city's past, which could have dire consequences for the world of Gamma World.

Note: This is just a basic outline of the adventure module, and it can be expanded upon as desired. The specific details and challenges can be adjusted to fit the players and their characters.





Generate a list of confidence schemes appropriate to the Star Wars universe.



Here's a list of confidence schemes that could be appropriate for the Star Wars universe:

Fake Holocron Scam: A con artist offers to sell a rare and valuable holocron to a wealthy collector, but the holocron is actually a fake.

Counterfeit Credits Scam: A criminal creates fake credits and tries to pass them off as legitimate currency, using the confusion of the war and the chaos of the galaxy to their advantage.

Bogus Military Contracts Scam: A fraudster claims to represent a powerful military organization and offers contracts to small businesses, promising a large payout in exchange for an up-front fee.

Illicit Arms Deal Scam: A confidence artist poses as a black market arms dealer and sells faulty or useless weapons to unsuspecting buyers.

Rogue Planet Scam: A swindler convinces investors to fund the development of a new colony on a "discovered" rogue planet, only to disappear with the funds once the investors have paid.

Artifact Smuggling Scam: A smuggler offers to sell valuable and rare artifacts, but instead delivers fake replicas to the buyer.

Fake Job Offer Scam: A con artist offers false employment opportunities to young and inexperienced individuals, only to steal their credits or use them for illegal activities.

Sabotaged Starship Scam: A scam artist offers to repair or upgrade a starship, but instead sabotages it, causing it to malfunction or crash.

Note: This list is not exhaustive, and these schemes can be adjusted to fit the specific story and setting of a Star Wars adventure.

_________________________________________

That's not bad. The Gamma World "module" lacks concrete details, and it's presented as a railroad. But it has a good set-up, progression, and ending with hook for further play. 

I could work with a skeleton like that and flesh it out. I would probably try more specific prompts in the future.

For Star Wars, I gave it a more general prompt, and it gave some good ideas that could be developed further. 

Now, this is not revolutionary. I could easily have come up with these ideas (or similar) myself. But if I were to run an impromptu game, and needed ideas quickly, this could be helpful.

So what do you all think?

Fiendish Gamma World Folio

As I mentioned a little while back, I went through the AD&D Fiend Folio for creatures that might work well in a Gamma World game. I was not disappointed. There are a lot of weirdos in there that I would probably never use in D&D but fit right in a GW game. 

The list of creatures that made the cut are: 

Achaierai

Algoid

Babbler

Blindheim

Bloodworm, Giant

Bonesnapper

Caterwaul

Clubnek

Dire Corby

Doombat

Dragonfish

Eye Killer

Fire Newt

Fire Toad

Frost Man

Garbug

Gorillabear

Gryph

Hoarfox

Jaculi

Kamadan

Mantari

Needleman

Osquip

Pernicon

Quaggoth

Qullan

Skulk

Tentamort

Thork

Tirapheg

Volt

Witherstench

 

I also decided, since I was statting up GW creatures, to add Slow Mutants, lobstrosities, and taheen from Stephen King's Dark Tower books. 

 

There were a few FF creatures that almost made it. I originally put them on my list to convert, but on a closer reading (or just on a gut feeling) decided not to include after all. These were the: 

Crabman

Death Dog (I used these too often in my D&D games)

Dunestalker 

Giant Strider

Meenlock

Quipper

Rothe

Stunjelly

Throat Leech

Umpleby

Vodyanoi

Whipweed

Witherweed

Gamma Folio

My friend Denis will soon be starting his Gamma World game. My sons and I, and Denis' daughter, all rolled up our characters for the game. A few more of the regulars still need to roll up theirs, but since Denis normally meets them online, I don't think they've done it yet. 

 Denis had the kids roll ability scores, then arrange them as they liked. Then he let them select mutations, but gave them defects depending on how many mutations they received. 

Anyway, so far, Renee (who played the Fairy Princess Goldie in West Marches) wanted to play a hippogriff (she's a Harry Potter fan*), so we discussed how to make that work. Horse with eagle/hawk mutations? Hawk or eagle with horse mutations? Anyway, somehow she has a hippogriff. I don't remember exactly what mutations she got.

Flynn, my older boy, rolled up another mutant raccoon. Atomic Raccoon (based on Marvel's Rocket of course) is shorter, has speed increase, mental blast, radar/sonar, and time suspension, plus bacterial susceptibility and periodic amnesia. 

Steven, my younger, rolled up a mutant cat (of course). And he named him "Iamashithole" and his mutations include regeneration, speed increase, weather control, and mental control. He has the fear impulse defect keyed to Fen (fish-men mutants). 

I rolled a Pure Strain Human. Since we were rolling and arranging to taste, and PSH are fairly weak, Denis let me roll 4d6 for each stat, not just for the three that normally get a boost. So Lothar has some pretty sweet ability scores (although PS is only 11, and MS is 12, everything else is 17+). With his bonuses to discovering artifact purposes and ability to command robots, I think he'll do alright. 

For fun, though, I later went on my Roll20 and rolled a random character, a mutant owl named Dr. Hoo. I got some decent ability score rolls, and then some mutations that pumped up a couple of them. In the end, he ended up with oversized brain (+4 Int and MS, +1 mental mutation), arterial weakness (defect), taller (3m tall! +2 PS), duality (nice!), teleportation, fear impulse (keyed to some sort of plant, Denis will decide), devolution, and heightened brain talent (+4 MS for defense only) as his oversized brain bonus mutation. Pretty strong. Denis took a look at it, and is wondering how balanced it will be. I have to admit, those random rolls probably gave me a stronger mutant than if I'd picked and chosen! Anyway, Dr. Hoo is my backup. I'll start the campaign with Lothar. 

In addition to Denis' game (2nd edition), I'm again working on ideas for a play by post 4th edition Gamma World game (I posted my barter table a while back). I've got an area map with settlements, ruins, and installations noted, and named, and found maps online or in my collection of old adventures that I can use for them. I've got the basic game set up on the site, but haven't started recruiting players yet. Real world was pretty busy the past few weeks. 

Last night, talking to Denis about Dr. Hoo, he mentioned maybe grabbing some creatures from D&D or other games to use. I told him it was a good idea. And today, I grabbed my Fiend Folio to do the same for my PbP game. There are a few FF creatures that I really like, and have converted to BX/BECMI stats for my games. There are a lot that are just too goofy for D&D. Some of those goofy ones (and some of the not so goofy ones) would make excellent mutants in GW, though. So I think I will spend some of my free time the next week or two converting Fiend Folio critters to Gamma World 4 stats. Should be fun! And will give experienced players a few surprises.

Twenty Quick Questions for Gamma World

Riffing off of this old post from Jeff Rients, some initial fodder to get my Gamma World setting going. Posting just the questions for now. I know the answers to some of these for my setting, but not all.

1. Where do I go to sell or trade this artifact that I found?
2. Where can we go to buy or trade standard equipment?
3. Where can we go to get armor or other gear custom fitted for this mutant I just befriended?
4. Who can I go to if I can't figure out the purpose of this artifact?
5. Who is the greatest warrior in the land?
6. Who is the richest person in the land?
7. Where can we go to get some mutant powered or high tech healing?
8. Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, radiation, energy drain, mind control, hoops turned my spear into rubber?
9. Where are the local known ruins and installations that I could plunder?
10. Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?
11. Where can I hire mercenaries?
12. Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, mutants are outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?
13. Which way to the nearest tavern?
14. What mutants or robots are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?
15. Are there any wars brewing I could go fight?
16. How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?
17. Are there any cryptic alliances with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?
18. What is there to eat around here?
19. Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?
20. Where is the nearest ruin or creature rumored to have lots of artifacts?

Fun with the Boys (Down Time 2)

Sorry Lance, still no novel innovations for "down time" in games. Just more quarantine fun. 

The boys and I grabbed my copy of 1st Edition Gamma World and rolled up some characters just for fun. I'm not gonna run it (it's a little too loosey-goosey, especially since I have the 4th edition rules which are not that complex, and 2nd Edition in PDF now which is better organized than 1st and simpler than 4th), but one of my players is considering dipping his toes in the refereeing waters soon with GW, and my 7 year old was itching to roll up a character. 

Well, my 7yo went first. He didn't roll so well for stats, and only got a couple of mutations, but I let him pick since it was just 1 physical and 1 mental, rather than rolling which made him happy. He rolled up: 

Popcat TV

Mutant Cat, MS 8 IN 11 DX 9 CH 7 CN 10 PS 13; HP 31, AC 7 (furs, shield)

Wings (fly speed 12), Mental Control over Physical State (ignore pain, heal x4, double DX, PS, speed for 5d10 rounds 1/week)

Then I rolled up  a humanoid (I rolled high for the two physical mutations, allowing me to reroll and ignore defects for #1, and just to select #2, while the mental mutation was a random roll): 

Del Hartman

Mutant Human, MS 17 IN 12 DX 9 CH 12 CN 8 PS 15; HP 20, AC 7 (furs, shield)

Heightened Strength (add 3 dice damage with physical weapons), Heightened Vision (see clearly up to 3km, infravision w/o drawback, ultravision), Mental Defense Shield (+4 mental defense, sense others with mental mutations within 30')

About the time I got done with that, my 14 year old came in and decided he wanted to roll up one too. He went with a mutant raccoon, and of course the dice loved him, although he did get a defect to balance things out:

Missile

Mutant Raccoon, MS 15 IN 14 DX 13 CH 15 CN 14 PS 10; HP 60, AC 3, Speed 9

Total Carapace (AC 4, reduce damage by 1/2, reduce speed by 1/4), Multiple Body Parts (+9 arms!), Wings (fly speed 12), Shorter (141cm tall, -1 AC bonus), Heightened Intelligence (+4 mental defense, -2 on artifact function discovery rolls), Poor Dual Brain (causes problems randomly)

The good thing about this edition is the simplicity. The character sheets are so simple. Char gen is relatively quick. The down side is that the rules organization isn't the best, and a lot of the mutation descriptions say things like "check with the referee for the effects of this" and just leave it up in the air. Of course, with later editions available to me, I can check to see how it has been done by others, but I think if I do run that GW game I'm thinking about, it will either be with the 4th Edition or a house ruled hybrid of 2nd and 4th (simplify where desired, use the more crunchy details when useful).

Bartertown

 I'm working up notes for a play-by-post Gamma World game. The home town will be fairly primitive, just having barely reached Tech Level II (early Bronze Age) but there are some definite Tech II and even a Tech III (Medieval) settlement nearby. Plus a market in the Tech III settlement run by Restorationists where artifacts can be bought and sold...the only catch being that the Tech III society is ruled over by the Knights of Genetic Purity. There is a trade town nearby as well, which takes domars (cash in Gamma Terra), but the home town will be only barter based. Junk from ruins will be a prime means of acquiring things, but time and effort also play a part. A day's food? How about you give me that shiny doo-dad you picked up in the ruins. Want a new spear? Plow my field for me.

I plan to have notes for important NPCs of what they have, what they need, what they want in trade. But for less important NPCs, or when the PCs want something I haven't considered, I made a Barter Table. Figured I might as well share it with you guys. Never know when this might come in handy. It could work for D&D or other games, too, really. Just replace junk with something relevant to the campaign.

Barter Table

	NPC Wants (roll 1d6):
Players Want:	1	2	3	4	5	6
Food (1 meal)	1 junk	1d3 junk	1d2 labor	1 service	1d3 goods	nothing
Water (days)	1 junk	1 labor	1 goods	clothes	nothing	nothing
Labor (1 hour)	1d3 junk	1 labor	1 creature	1 meal	1d4 water	nothing
Service (1 hour)	1d6 junk	1 bauble	1d3 meals	1d2 labor	1d3 goods	nothing
Clothes	1 junk	1d4 junk	1d2 labor	1d3 goods	nothing	nothing
Lodging	1d4+1 junk	1d6 labor	1d4 service	1 creature	1d3 meals	nothing
Goods (Tech I)	1d4 junk	2d4 junk	1d6 meals	1d10 labor	1d2 goods	nothing
Goods (Tech II)	2d6 junk	3d6 junk	2d4 meals	2d6 labor	2d6 goods	no trade
Goods (Tech III)	2d10 junk	3d12 junk	2d10 meals	2d8 labor	4d6 goods	no trade
Weapon (Tech I)	1d10 junk	2d6 labor	2d6 service	4d4 goods	1d8 meals	nothing
Weapon (Tech II)	3d4 junk	3d6 labor	4d4 service	1d3 creatures	3d8 goods	no trade
Small Creature	1d8 junk	1d6 meals	1d6 water	1 creature	2d4 goods	nothing
Medium Creature	2d8 junk	1d4 labor	1d4 service	2d6 goods	4d6 goods	no trade
Large Creature	3d8 junk	2d6 labor	2d4 service	1d6 creatures	4d10 goods	no trade

Junk: On average, 1 curiosity = 20 junk/5 baubles; 1 bauble = 4 junk; 

Labor/Service in hours; labor = physical work, service = mental work

Goods: 1 Tech III item = 10 Tech I items or 3 Tech II items. 1 Tech II item = 1d3 Tech I items

Nothing: free if NPC is friendly, will not trade if hostile; No Trade: will not part with item

Thinking about Gamma World again

One of the players in my West Marches has never DMed a game before, and another player has been pushing him to try running something. I've been giving advice to Player 1, including suggesting some game systems that might not be too much of a shock for him. (Player 2 was suggesting things with 200+ page world lore books in addition to the rules themselves...probably not the best thing to have to worry about on a first time as game master.)

After some discussion, Player 1 decided to check out Gamma World. Close enough to Classic D&D, but different enough to make him interested. I suggested he get the 2E PDF from DriveThru, and he did. He's been going over it slowly, and every now and then shooting a question my way. 

I'm not actually an expert on 2E. My cousin had the box set back in the day, but we never really did more than make characters with it. Later, when I was in college, I got 4E and we played that a bit. I like it, but it's a bit crunchier than 1E/2E. It throws in character classes on top of mutations and whatnot, plus there are a lot of derived statistics to juggle. 2E is a lot simpler, and also a bit better organized than 1E. 

So I've been brushing up on the 2E rules as well. I've also been compiling the creature and robot stats from the main rule book and the modules that I have on PDF. There are quite a few interesting ones that didn't make it into the 4E book. 

I mentioned to my sons a while back that we might be playing Gamma World with Player 1 soon, and my younger son got really excited. He has been transitioning from a love of bulldogs to a love of cats (because of some buff cat character on the internet? -- yeah, I'm old, get off my lawn). So of course he wants to play a mutant cat character. 

We looked through the 4E book's creature section together, and for bedtime reading we read through Light on Quest's Mountain, the old Endless Quest book set in Gamma World. He enjoyed it. 

Of course, now my son wants to pick and choose mutations to be catlike: heightened balance, jumping, night vision, claws, and of course chameleon power. :D 

Now I'm considering putting together a GW game for RPoL (a play by post site). Simple sandbox. Home town, different strange regions in each direction, ruins sprinkled here and there. Nothing as grand in concept as GamMarvel World that I tried to run a few years back. That just became a headache trying to work out a bunch of connections to Marvel comics in each ruin and adventure site. KISS Principle this time around, if I pull the trigger.

Also, it'll be fun to play some GW if Player 1 gets his game up and running.

Gamma Goodness

 A few weeks ago, Tim Brannon gave a review of 1E Gamma World, or to be more specific, the PDF/POD combo from DriveThru/WotC. I got my start with a bit of GW2E that my cousin had borrowed from a friend. But since he had to return it, we never really got to play it. Oh, and I was in love with the setting from the Endless Quest book Light on Quest's Mountain (one of the better entries in the EQ series, at least as far as I've read). Later, in the early 90's, I picked up the 4e, which I've blogged about plenty before. It's my go-to version of Gamma World. 

But I'd always been curious about the first edition, so after reading Tim's post (link above), I ordered it. I got the PDF right away, of course, but only gave it a cursory skimming. The POD book arrived today. I'm always happy with DriveThru's international shipping rates. It wasn't that much. Also, thanks to everyone who purchased Chanbara. I got this with Chanbara profits. 

The book is slim, only 60 pages, and that's counting the "pull out" reference sheets and map at the back. The quality of the print is good, easy to read. It's perfect bound, so probably won't stand up to too much wear and tear at the table, if I were to run a long term dedicated GW game with it. But I'll probably mostly use it for sprinkling some GW oddness into my West Marches game (I've already got a zone of GW in there, using my 4E rules).

First Impression of the Black Hack system

Yes, I realize I'm VERY late to the party on this. Before G+ went tits-up, there were ravening hordes of gamers talking about The Black Hack and the myriad of derivative games based on it. And I pretty much ignored all of that. But this afternoon, Jeremy messaged me asking if I wanted to game tonight, and I said sure. Dean played too. So I finally got a chance to try it out.

Jeremy was running The Rad Hack, which is obviously for post-apoc/Gamma World type stuff. I rolled up Cybersys 842, a robot with a laser gun and satellite uplink to a supercomputer. Dean rolled up Pompeo, a psychic with empathy and life leech. Our mission was to recover stolen property for the warlord of our enclave, but when we found the target we schmoozed with her and ended up traveling across the territory of mutant cannibal freaks to her enclave instead. We're still undecided if we want to stay with her bunch or return to our own.

Anyway, the Black Hack system is pretty simple and easy to run. It's got the standard six ability scores and every sort of check you make is to roll under one of the six. Many abilities and bits of gear have a resource die that you roll. If you get a 1 or 2, it goes down a step. If it's d4 and drops, it's depleted until you rest/resupply. Simple and easy.

The places that take getting used to are the rules for Armor and for NPC/monster rolls. For armor, it works as extra hit points and damage reduction at the same time. Just starting out, we didn't have the money to buy armor (as a robot, I have built in armor of 2) so it was hard to see just how effectively it works, but the rules are fairly simple. Armor reduces damage up to its value. Once damage goes above its value, it's depleted until you can repair it. The wording in the rule book was a bit confusing, but in actual play it was alright.

The fact that the DM doesn't roll for very much is a bit annoying for me, though. I'm not the sort of gamer that thinks, "Man, I wish I was rolling the dice more often!" So maybe I'm not the target audience. But after over three decades of games where the GM rolls to hit and saves for the monsters, this seems a bit meh to me. I mean, it allows for your ability scores to replace a separate AC number, but why not just let the DM roll?

So I have a few areas of dissatisfaction, but in general, the game went smoothly, character creation was easy and straightforward, and leveling up at the end of the session was no problem either. I can see now why so many people like the system. Maybe I'll give it a go as DM sometime. Or even make my own variant...