Gamma World HQ

[dunlaing]

It sounds like Gamma World D20 is bad (seperate from the "D20" part even). What would Gamma World HQ look like?

Would you define Homeland keywords? Would there need to be Mutant and Mutated Animal species keywords? What else would need to be done and what would need to change?

[Scripty]

If I were going to do a Gamma World-HQ setting, I would write up keywords for Mutants, Pure Strain Humans, Stock Humans and the rest of the lineup of typical GW "races". It might also help to have a few "cultures" in mind when you're working on this, perhaps starting out with an area of land roughly the size of Dragon Pass with a number of different groups in the area all vying for something (land, water, gas or some other). This allows you the freedom to define personality traits and culture based abilities for the area in which you have chosen to focus without saying "all Pure Strain Humans in GW are like this", etc. etc.

You would also need to do a number of Occupations based loosely on what's available in HQ. Honestly, you *could* stick pretty closely to what's written in HQ and cover a lot of ground. I might also suggest using something akin to the Classes listed in Star Wars (minus the Jedi of course). You could create occupation entries for Fringer, Scoundrel, Scout, Soldier, Noble, etc. etc., and find a fairly comprehensive list for the types of characters your players would need for a GW game. As far as monsters go, you can just pull the really odd ones out of the D&D Monster Manual and use them (with some tweaking and selective name changing, of course). You could base an adventure around a group of Pure Strain Humans sealing off part of their shelter against an infestation of Psionic Kobolds. Woohoo!

You would also need rules for firearms. On other threads/forums, I have heard the suggestion that firearms should increase the level of defeat in combat by 1. I think that's fair and deadly enough, so I might go with that. But, YGWMV.

Then there's the mutations, which are, IMO, the easiest by far to handle. I'd treat them as Affinities/Feats, akin to Capt. Spaulding's description of how he uses Superpowers in his Supers-HQ game. Cybernetics works pretty well as Affinities too. So, there's really no need to bother with the other forms of magic UNLESS...

(and this is what got me in trouble with my cyberpunk setting)

you want to add color to your particular Gamma World. You don't really need Theism in GW, IMO, so you can keep Affinities/Feats to mutations/cybernetics. But, you could use Animism to create shamans in the setting. Perhaps, stock humans (or even mutant clans) are Animists. You could use Liturgy and Churches to represent cults devoted to the cthuloid gods. Perhaps, Pure Strain Humans are cultists? What else do they have to do down in their fall-out shelters? I'm not sure how you would work Wizardry/Sorcery in there but, if you were going for a high-Fantasy Gamma World akin to the high Fantasy Cyberpunk of Shadowrun,  you could easily add Wizardry or Sorcery to reflect a return of magic to the world. You could also use Sorcery to create pockets of cult-like groups akin to the bad guys in Lord of Illusions.

One of the fun things about using HeroQuest in other genres that I've found is that I spend more time on the culture of the area and playing with ideas about how to bring different elements to my setting and spend less time statting out creatures, NPCs, etc. Of course, Homelands, Races, and Occupations will require a significant amount of work up front, but the end result is, to me, much more satisfying.

Please post what you come up with. Most of my conversions, save Bloode Island and Midnight, are in "notes" format. As an aside, I've found that you *can* run HQ by "notes" format, as long as your players aren't real sticklers.

[RaconteurX]

It sounds like Gamma World D20 is bad.

There is a little game called Darwin's World which is essentially Gamma World with the serial numbers filed off. It is actually very well done, with a touch more realism to its post-apocalypse setting. Though I generally abhore d20, I heartily recommend it.

[Mike Holmes]

To jump to Gamma World's defense, much of what people are saying is "bad" about Gamma World, they'd say is also "bad" about Hero Quest. That is, I'd take a look at it first yourself before deciding that you want to use another system.

OTOH, you may find that it's objectionable for your own reasons, in which case, I think that HQ would do wonderfully for the setting. At last, that crock about starting all the players in the same little village will have some mechanical meaning! :-)


Following up on Scripty's ideas:
The "groups" that you set up should be the same groups that are presented in Gamma World (what were they called, "Cryptic Alliances"?). That is, just like you're required to be in a Secret Society in Paranioa, your group afiliaton would give you your cultural slant; given that I'd advocate a limited geographic area like Scripty does, I'd think that each group would be represented in one enclave or area, anyhow. Archivists holed up in the abandoned factory, the animal supremacists in their forest hideaway, etc. The heavy-handedness of such groups would be perfect for the tone of play, IMO. So, instead of Lunars vs Heortlings, you get the technophiles vs the tech-haters etc.

So this is the cognates from HQ to GW:
Occupation----Occupation
Homeland-----Alliance
Magic-----Mutant Type (PSH, Mutant Animal, Mutant Plant, etc).

More complexly, you could have Homelands with Alliances being the cognates for Religions. That would be fun in that players would have incentives to get into such groups. Hmmm...

You would also need rules for firearms.

Disagree. Just bonuses to ability depending on potence. Or, if really nasty, handle them like magic items. All tech will be this way, anyhow (Medkit 15W).

(Guns do less damage than swords for the most part, empirically. Guns are just much easier to use effectively.)

I'd stay away from actual magic. Psionics are already present, and are canonical to the setting. Thundarr the Barbarian, OTOH....

Mike

[Scripty]

Disagree. Just bonuses to ability depending on potence. Or, if really nasty, handle them like magic items. All tech will be this way, anyhow (Medkit 15W).

....

I'd stay away from actual magic. Psionics are already present, and are canonical to the setting. Thundarr the Barbarian, OTOH....

Mike

Agree on the first point (unless you're intending to have a gritty, deathladen version of HeroQuest). Disagree on the second one.

Of course, YGWMV, but who could resist adding Animism and Cults to Gamma World? I certainly couldn't.

[dunlaing]

What do you think of this idea for an Occupation keyword:

Scrounger
  Find Cool Stuff
  Sneaky
  (anything the character finds)

So the scrounger only gets two free abilities (which should be much less than any other occupation), but anything he finds he can pick up at 18 instead of 13. So if your warrior finds a Vibro-sword, he gets to cement it at 13, but if my scrounger finds a Vibro-sword, I get to cement it at 18.

I like the idea of Cryptic Alliances being keywords, but I'm not sure that Homelands aren't useful also (all of the PCs would get the Alleghany homeland keyword, while some PSHs they run into later might have the Pittsburgh keyword).

Also, what about this idea for Mutations:

Pure Strain Humans get no mutations, but they get Resist Radiation, Command Computers and Androids, and Hale and Hearty at 17 for free.

Mutants get to pick 5 mutations at 17.

Mutant Animals get to pick 5 things. They can pick mutations (which are at 13) or traits that their animal has (which are at the values given in Anaxial's Roster or Heroquest).

[Scripty]

I think that's a great start. But I might consider rethinking the "Find Cool Stuff" ability, if only because I don't gel with the idea of equipment having variable ratings. I think a Vibro-Sword should be a +3, +5 or whatever, across the board.

Alternately, you could have "Find Cool Stuff" be an occupational Talent, such that the Scrounger could find obscure items more easily.

For instance, if a Soldier were looking for an energy pack in a Wasteland area, you might assign the resistance to his search at 3W2. It's just not all that likely he'll find anything close to what he's looking for. On the other hand, the Scrounger would face a resistance of 14. This makes the Scrounger immeasurably useful without changing the HeroQuest rules for equipment.

Just my two cents, but I think you're off to a great start with the setting.

[dunlaing]

I think that's a great start. But I might consider rethinking the "Find Cool Stuff" ability, if only because I don't gel with the idea of equipment having variable ratings. I think a Vibro-Sword should be a +3, +5 or whatever, across the board.
<snip>
...This makes the Scrounger immeasurably useful without changing the HeroQuest rules for equipment.

I wouldn't say that I'm changing the HeroQuest rules for equipment. I was thinking of the Vibro-Sword as working the way a Magic Weapon would in HeroQuest. If you found, say, a magic greatsword in Glorantha and cemented it, you'd get a greatsword (+5 tool bonus) with an ability Magic 13. (hopefully the ability would be more evocative than that). At least, that's what playtesters and such on the mailing list have said. I thought it would be interesting if there was a keyword that gave you that ability at 18 instead of 13, but didn't give you much else.

[Scripty]

Ah, I understand where you're coming from now. That's cool. I was thinking of artifacts like a VibroSword or Slug-Thrower as just normal equipment, not magical items on their own. That's where the divergence occured.

It's cool if that's the direction you want to take it. I'm still a bit iffy on it though, if only because I don't see the need to differentiate one generic Slug-Thrower from another. Now, if that slug-thrower had a nightvision scope on it, that's a different story, IMO...

In other words, I can see where your approach would be great, but I also see where it could unnecessarily complicate basic equipment. If *every* artifact that is found HAS to be treated as a magic item, it seems to me that differentiation could suffer. Does *every* ancient knife have to be made of some special metal like adamantium in order to meet the magic item prerequisite? Certainly items like a laptop or a flat screen TV could be considered *magical* in the setting, but how about finding just an old revolver?

Like I said, I could see this approach working in a number of instances, but it seems problematic if it has to work in all of them. Of course...

YGWMV...

[RaconteurX]

I just picked up the d20 edition of Gamma World, and I think it is fairly decent (it is certainly a vast improvement over the Alternity version). It uses d20 Modern as a base, but does include rules for  using D&D 3.5 instead by porting over the various "classes" (Scout, Examiner, Esper and Enforcer) from the final TSR edition of the game. I think Darwin's World handles certain things better, but the focus on in this new edition on Community definitely jibes with a HeroQuest conversion.

The nanotech, biotech, cybernetics and psionics sections are all well-conceived, although I would have liked to see them fleshed out a bit more. For the price tag ($34.95 US... thank goodness I bought mine at a convention discount), Gamma World seems a trifle light-weight at first but, as a long-time GW fan, I wasn't too concerned. Of course, the Earth Alliance Fact Book for Mongoose Press' Babylon 5 RPG (which I also bought this weekend) was about the same size and price, so I don't have much room for complaint. :)