Friday Faction: Dungeons & Dragons Museum

2024 marks the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, something that has been recognised and celebrated with any number of books and products. In addition to the Player’s Handbook for Dungeons & Dragons 2024, there was The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970 – 1977 and even LEGO Dungeons & Dragons, the former controversial, the latter fun. However, in all of the brouhaha following the release of The Making of Original Dungeons & Dragons 1970 – 1977, Wizards of the Coast—rather Hasbro International Inc.—published another book dedicated to the history of the world’s preeminent roleplaying game. Dungeons & Dragons Museum: Celebrate 50 years of the epic fantasy role-playing game promises to take us on a guided tour of Dungeons & Dragons’ history complete with rarely seen images, an examination of its evolution over multiple editions of the roleplaying game, and a wider look at its influence, such as on television series like Stranger Things and its expansion beyond the gaming table into computer games and big budget films.

From the outset, Dungeons & Dragons Museum feels like museum. It opens with a section called the ‘Entrance’ and from there, takes us into individual exhibits for each of the roleplaying game’s five editions. These are further broken down into various sections, almost like individual displays. In the ‘Entrance’, the reader is told about the beginnings of Dungeons & Dragons with ‘Roll for Initiative: The Origins of D&D’ which introduces both E. Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and the importance of the Braunstein wargame. This nicely illustrated with portraits of both men and of Chainmail, the forerunner to Dungeons & Dragons, each keyed with a decent description. It is followed by timeline which covers the broad history of Dungeons & Dragons and its publishers. There are some oddities here, such as describing the development of Basic Dungeons & Dragons as a splinter branch, but the timeline does acknowledge changes in the hobby as they affect the roleplaying game. For example, E. Gary Gygax leaving in 1985 when Lorraine Williams gains a controlling share of TSR, Inc. and the publication of the Pathfinder roleplaying game in 2008.

Each of the five editions of Dungeons & Dragons gets its own section, from Dungeons & Dragons, First Edition to Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition. Every edition gets its own ‘Knowledge Check’, an overview of the edition before Dungeons & Dragons Museum examines the developments which occurred during the period when the edition was in print and the developments which in turn affected Dungeons & Dragons during that period. For example, ‘Animated Dreams’ looks at the Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon of the eighties, followed by ‘Ware Identification’ which details some of the merchandise released in conjunction the cartoon series—both in the eighties and since, for the ‘First Edition’, whilst for ‘Second Edition, Dungeons & Dragons begins to find itself portrayed on screen in films like Mazes & Monsters and E.T. The Extraterrestrial, whilst Mazes & Monsters would contribute towards to the Satanic Panic backlash against Dungeons & Dragons that would see it undergo significant design changes that would not be undone for decades. This would continue for ‘Fifth Edition’ with the celebrity games portrayed on The Big Bang Theory and the games both played and underlying the various seasons of Stranger Things, and of course, not forgetting the influence of Critical Role.

This is where Dungeons & Dragons Museum is at its strongest. Whether it is discussing the first Dungeons & Dragons novels—Quag Keep by Andre Norton and Dragons of Autumn Twilight, the first part of the Dragonlance Chronicles by Maragret Weis and Tract Hickman—in ‘Read Magic’ and R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’Urden novels in ‘Legend Lore’, Bioware’s original Baldur’s Gate computer game in ‘City Secrets’, and even acknowledging the disasters of the original Dungeons & Dragons film from the year 2000 in ‘Aetherial Archive’, Dungeons & Dragons Museum is far batter at exploring the corollaries of the roleplaying game rather than the game itself. Indeed, none of the five editions receive more than a page each in terms of description and impact, and Basic Dungeons & Dragons barely warrants a paragraph beyond its description of being a splinter to the main game. Given how influential Basic Dungeons & Dragons has been in the hobby, especially in the last decade with the rise of the Old School Renaissance, it reads as being particularly dismissive. There are interesting points made, such as ‘Comprehend Language’ for ‘Second Edition’ which explores how the language of Dungeons & Dragons with terms such as ‘NPC’ and ‘XP’—Non-Player Character and Experience Points—and others have proliferated through computer games and out into the wider lexicon, but these are far and few between.

Physically, Dungeons & Dragons Museum is well written and presented. The artwork is all well handled and serves to make for an attractive looking book. That said, the book is not illustrated with rarely-seen images as its description suggests. Many of them will be familiar to even casual adherents of the roleplaying game and even those that are not, will have previously appeared in books like Art & Arcana: A Visual History.

Dungeons & Dragons Museum is not a book for the hardcore fan of Dungeons & Dragons—and certainly not the hardcore player of Dungeons & Dragons. The book focuses too much upon the peripherals over the core rules, so its discussion of the game play and how it changes from one edition to the next is all too casual. Yet it does showcase how Dungeons & Dragonss has spread across different media and influenced wider culture that has then influenced Dungeons & Dragons in return. Overall, Dungeons & Dragons Museum: Celebrate 50 years of the epic fantasy role-playing game provides a decent overview of Dungeons & Dragons in a broader sense as an intellectual property rather than as the roleplaying game, which gets pushed to the side.

1983: Gamma World, Second Edition

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

Published in 1978 in TSR, Inc., Gamma World introduced the roleplaying hobby to the post-apocalypse genre of surviving after the bomb and the fall of civilisation, although its progenitor, Metamorphosis Alpha had explored similar ideas, but set on a giant generation starship rather than the Earth. Gamma World, Second Edition was published five years later in 1983 and shifted the setting to a different part of the USA, inheriting and developing some of the mechanics, embracing the gonzo aspects of the setting even further, and presenting a new scenario. Gamma World, Second Edition is also a boxed set, containing the sixty-four-page ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ and the thirty-two-page ‘Adventure Booklet’, as well as dice and a large poster map. Gamma World, Second Edition was designed to be accessible and serve as an introduction to roleplaying taking as its model, Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules, the famous ‘red box’ edition designed by Frank Mentzer which began what is known as the ‘BECMI’ line. This consisted of Dungeons & Dragons Set 1: Basic Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 2: Expert Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 3: Companion Rules, Dungeons & Dragons Set 4: Master Rules, and Dungeons & Dragons Set 5: Immortals Rules. Yet Gamma World, Second Edition would not fully achieve its intended accessibility and introductory aims, primarily because of an organisation that although better than Gamma World, First Edition, was still not perfect, and because its rules, also inspired by Gamma World, First Edition, are not as easy and as easily presented as they should have been.

Gamma World, Second Edition, as described in the ‘Adventure Booklet’ takes place in a savage wasteland ravaged by radiation, biological agents, and chemical agents used in the ‘Social Wars’ of the early twenty-fourth century. The conflict bent and broke the very land itself, shattering parts of it and sending it into seas as less than one in five thousand of Humanity’s teeming billions survived and the mutagenic cocktail left behind twisted the genetics of every form of life on the planet—including man. Mutated men, animals, and plants twisted into new forms and gained wondrous new powers, both mental and physical. So now humanoid raccoons capable of generating illusions and repulsion fields and of telekinesis and telepathy scavenge for the advanced technology and weapons left behind by the Ancients, three-metre-high jack rabbits with chameleon powers and antlers serve as herd animals or mounts, and land sharks literately swim under the ground of deserts or deep snow using telekinesis, hunting prey. In the century-and-a-half since the conflict, societies have organised into tribal clans and feudal states, varying in their technology use, with highly technological enclaves rare. Found across these blasted landscapes, there are those that seek to forge a better world, though not always for the better… For example, the Knights of the Genetic Purity want to preserve the ‘purity’ of Humanity by wiping out Humanoids, The Iron Society wants to destroy all Pure Strain Humans, the Zoopremisists would stamp out all Humanoids and Pure Strain Humans in favour of Mutated Animals, and the Friends of Entropy would smash all life and mechanical activity! Others, like the Brotherhood of Thought, which fosters a sense of benevolence in all and the semi-monastic Healers who tend to the sick and the injured, seek a more positive future…

A Player Character in Gamma World, Second Edition can either be a Pure Strain Human, a Humanoid with mutant powers, or a Mutated Animal. He cannot be a Mutated Plant—unless allowed by the Game Master. He has six attributes—Mental Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma, Constitution, and Physical Strength—which range in value between three and eighteen. A Pure Strain Human does not suffer mutations of any kind, will find it easier to work out how artefacts operate, and be recognised by robots, security systems, and A.I.s as such, which sometimes means the Pure Strain Human will not be attacked by them or can even give them orders. He also has better stats and more Hit Points. A Humanoid can look like a Pure Strain Human, but if he has any physical Mutations that make him look different, he will not be recognised as a Pure Strain Human by robots, security systems, or A.I.s, which will thus not obey his orders and may even attack him. A Mutated Animal can never pass a security check and be recognised by robots, security systems, or A.I.s. He will probably have claws or a similar feature meaning he is better in unarmed combat, and like the Humanoid, will have a number of Mutations and may gain more if exposed to anything mutagentic.

To create a character, the player rolls four six-sided dice and discards the lowest for all six attributes. If the Player Character is a Pure Strain Human, the lowest die is not discarded for Intelligence, Charisma, or Constitution. However, the maximum that a Pure Strain Human can have for Intelligence and Charisma is a twenty-one, and eighteen for his Constitution. To determine the number of Hit Points for a Humanoid or Mutated Animal, the player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to the character’s Constitution, whereas eight-sided dice are rolled for the Pure Strain Human. A four-sided die is rolled to determine the number of Physical Mutations a Humanoid or Mutated Animal has, and then again for Mental Mutations, both types of mutation being rolled for randomly.

Name: Gronson
Type: Pure Strain Human
Mental Strength 14 Intelligence 14 Dexterity 08
Charisma 18 Constitution 18 Physical Strength 16
Hit Points: 78

Name: Neek
Type: Humanoid
Mental Strength 17 Intelligence 13 Dexterity 11
Charisma 10 Constitution 10 Physical Strength 15
Hit Points: 32

Mental Mutations: Dual Brain – Brain #1: Fear Generation, Heightened Intelligence, Will Force; Brain #2: Genius Capability (Mechanical), Telekinetic Arm, Teleportation
Physical Mutations: Regeneration, Vision Defect (Tunnel Vision)

It is clear that going from Gamma World, First Edition to Gamma World, Second Edition, the designers have not entirely solved the problem of a Pure Strain Human not actually being very interesting to play. It is a problem which besets post-apocalypse roleplaying games. Although Pure Strain Human has higher stats, more Hit Points, and can better interact with technology, both the Humanoid and the Mutated Animal receive mutations which make them different, sometimes difficult to play, but obviously more powerful and more fun. Some powers are limited by the number of times a day they can be used, but others are permanent, but they can be very powerful. It is also possible to roll for defect mutations, both physical and mental. Consequently, it is possible to create a Player Character with more defect mutations useful ones. In the long term though, the Pure Strain Human can find, identify, and use the artefacts of the Ancients. Gaining access to and using technology is not an intrinsic power though, and a Player Character Pure Strain Human has to go adventure to find that technology and the likelihood is that the technology will use a power cell and run out and… Plus this is exactly what the other character types will be doing, although not as handily as the Pure Strain Human. So, until such times as a Pure Strain Human can gain access to advanced technology, he is the ‘weakest’ character type.

The mutations can be what you expect and weird and wacky. So, a defect could be Attraction Odour, meaning the Mutated Animal or Humanoid exudes a fragrance that attracts carnivores, but he could have Death Field Generation which means he drains every living being within range of all but a single Hit Point, before dropping unconscious, antlers or horns that inflict damage, or Radiation Eyes that emit blasts of deadly radiation. In general, the more powerful a mutation, the more the roleplaying game places a limit on its use. Some do require further explanation or are super powerful, like Time Manipulation, which has the possibility of sending either the user or a target decades into the past or future, or Planar Travel, which opens a temporal portal to another plane. Its use is never fully explained.

Mechanically, Gamma World, Second Edition is quite simple. To have his character undertake an action, a player multiplies the appropriate attribute for the action by the difficulty factor, typically between one and five, set by the Game Master, and attempts to roll equal to or under it on percentile dice. That essentially is it and the rules do not go into any more detail than that. Combat is different though and works much like it did in Gamma World, First Edition and Metamorphosis Alpha. It uses three ‘Attack Matrixes’, one for physical combat, one for ranged combat, and one for mental combat. Each weapon has a Weapon Class, such as nine for a blowgun and fifteen for a Black Ray Pistol. The Weapon Class—the higher the better—is cross-referenced against the target’s Armour Class—the lower the better—and this gives a target to roll equal to or greater on a twenty-sided die. Armour Class represents the armour worn only as there is no Dexterity bonus to Armour Class. There are, however, modifiers from high and low Dexterity to attack a target, and from high and low Strength when determining damage for physical attacks. Many advanced weapons can be deadly. The Black Ray Pistol instantly kills an organic target!

The rules also cover Tech Level—either Tech Level I, Tech Level II, or Tech Level III, indicating a tribal, feudal/pre-industrial, or industrial society, respectively; movement and time; encounters and searching—the Player Characters will likely end up doing this a lot; and interacting with NPCs and recruiting NPCs. In general, the rules are straightforward, though they do feel influenced by Basic Dungeons & Dragons in places. The rules also cover the discover and use of artefacts.

As with Metamorphosis Alpha, the setting for Gamma World includes lots and lots of artefacts. These range from stun rays and laser pistols to energy maces and fusion rifles, from photon grenades and concussion bombs to mutation bombs and negation missiles, from plastic armour and powered attack armour to turbine cars and bubble cars, from energy cloaks and anti-grav sleds to atomic energy cells to pain reducer drugs and life rays, from light cargo lifter and ecology bots to security robotoids to warbots. Robots, bots, and borgs get their own section, and there are even some useful descriptions and details given of fixed machinery like broadcast power stations, rejuv chambers, and think tanks. There is, though, a distinct emphasis on weapons and armour to the equipment, all of which the player characters can find in various conditions and use—if they can work out how each device operates. Where Metamorphosis Alpha had the players describe and roleplay what their characters were doing to work out what a device does, in Gamma World, First Edition there were ‘flow’ charts. In Gamma World, Second Edition, there is a simple matrix for this. Each artefact has a complexity number and for every ten minutes a Player Character spends examining an artefact, both he and the Game Master roll a die. The Game Master adds her result to the complexity number, whilst the player’s result reduces the complexity number. Essentially, the player and Game Master are attempting to out roll each other, but the result is time consuming both in and out of the game.

Gamma World, Second Edition describes some sixty monsters of the post-apocalyptic future. From Androids (Thinkers, Workers, and Warriors), Arks (Hound Folk), and Arns (Dragon Bugs) to Yexils (Orange Scarfers), Zarns (Borer Beetles), and Zeeth (Gamma Grass), there are some entertaining creations and some favourites of the genre. For example, Badders or Digger Folk are anthropomorphic badgers with an evil disposition, the power of Empathy, and a penchant for raiding; Hoops or Floppsies are mutant rabbitoids who have the Mass Mind and Telepathy Mutations and the ability to change metal into rubber; and Perths or Gamma Bushes, whose flowers can emit deadly blasts of light or radiation. Plus, some thirteen Cryptic Alliances are detailed, including their Tech Levels, membership, numbers encountered, and secret sign along with their descriptions. These provide a ready source of potential allies and enemies for a campaign.

One thing missing from the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ are the roleplaying game’s tables. It turns out that these are given at the end of the ‘Adventure Booklet’. So, the table for rolling for Mutations, matrixes for attacks, poison, and radiation, encounters, weapons, and more, are all in the ‘Adventure Booklet’. These are designed to be separated from the booklet, but it is odd to have the rules necessary for character creation in a separate book well away from where they are actually needed.

The primary content in the ‘Adventure Booklet’ is the adventure ‘Rite of Passage’. It sets up the Player Characters as inhabitants of the small village of Grover, a Tech Level I settlement part of Clan Cambol in the remains of western Pennsylvania. To become adults, they must undergo a rite of passage in which they travel to the dead city of Pitz Burke and return with an item which will become their personal totem. In addition to the rite of passage, the Player Characters are assigned a special mission. This is to rescue three fellow clan members held hostage by a band of Carrin and Bloodbird brigands in the city. The Player Characters must cross part of Allegheny—which is nicely detailed in the descriptions of the region—and have encounters and make contacts along the way, including with the Lil, small, graceful humanoids with fairy wings. The Lil actually want the help of the Player Characters as they have a similar situation with their own also being held hostage. The Lil hideout—or Bramble—feels not dissimilar to that of James M. Ward’s ‘Paths of the Lil’, which originally appeared in White Dwarf Issue No. 16 and was then reprinted in The Best of White Dwarf Scenarios. The ruins of Pitz Burke are nicely detailed with particular attention paid to the locations that feature in the hostage plot ‘Rite of Passage’. It is a fairly tough adventure overall, and the Player Characters will want to find and determine how to use some arms and armour above the very basic they begin with to give themselves more of an edge. The Lil will help with this, which will go some way to addressing the initial powerlessness of the Pure Strain Human versus the Humanoid and Mutated Animal Player Characters.

The ‘Adventure Booklet’ also includes advice on running and creating Gamma World campaigns, which emphasises the need to have the Player Characters act with both societies and the Cryptic Alliances. The standing of a Player Character with a particular society or Cryptic Alliance is measured by his Rank with it. Rank affects a Player Character’s Charisma when interacting with the society or Cryptic Alliance and his chancing of obtaining or borrowing an artefact from the society or Cryptic Alliance. In order to increase a Player Character’s Rank with any one society or Cryptic Alliance, he must spend Status Points. These are earned for defeating NPCs, donating artefacts, successfully completing missions, and so on. Basically, what a Player Character would do on an adventure. They are the equivalent of Experience Points in another roleplaying game, but spent to acquire Ranks with a society or Cryptic Alliance. Indeed, Gamma World, Second Edition does not actually have Experience Points, it is not a Class and Level roleplaying game, and there is no way for a player to improve his character except through discovering better and better equipment and potentially, improving the equivalent of his social standing.

Physically, Gamma World, Second Edition is well presented, but not necessarily well organised. Everything feels just a little bit too crammed in, especially in the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’, so that finding particular rules is not easy and that is not helped by having the rules for the roleplaying game and explanations of how its tables are intended to work and the tables needed to run the game in a separate book. The artwork is all very good and the cartography, whether of the locations in Pitz Burke, or Pitz Burke itself, the Allegheny region, and the remains of North America on the roleplaying game’s double-sided poster map, are excellent and colourful.

—oOo—

Chris Baylis reviewed Gamma World, Second Edition in ‘Game Reviews’ in Imagine No. 7 (October 1983) and was positive throughout. “For a post nuclear holocaust role-playing game, GAMMA WORLD game has just about all the right ingredients, in the correct proportions. It is a very good introduction into the fantasy world of role-playing, and should seriously rival all other RPGs.”

Dana Lombardy reviewed Gamma World, Second Edition in ‘Gaming’ in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Vol. 8, No. 8. (August 1984), describing its redesign as being, “[S]o extensive it should be considered a new game ... Gamma World offers one of the more bizarre and hostile environments to role-play in.” and highlighted how, “[T]he technology is disjointed. You can have a dog-man with a spear fighting alongside a robot with a laser, allied against humanoids with pistols and swords.” Her conclusion was measured, stating that, “If you prefer more straightforward science fiction with known and approximately equal abilities and weapons, then Gamma World may not be for you. It’s a topsy-turvy world, where the average pure-strain human is hard-pressed to exist among plants and animals mutated by humanity’s wars. But if you like a challenge, and want to role-play something really different — Gamma World could be it.”

—oOo—

What stands out with Gamma World, Second Edition in comparison with Gamma World, First Edition is the effort to reorganise, codify, and clarify the rules and the setting and bring its presentation more in line with Basic Dungeons & Dragons and Star Frontiers. For the most part, the designers succeeded, although the ‘Basic Rules Booklet’ is just a bit too busy to be fully successful. Nevertheless, it is a far more accessible and easier to understand edition of the roleplaying game than its predecessor, all done with an eye by TSR, Inc. to make it appeal to a wider and more commercial audience. However, with that eye to commercialism, there is a corresponding reining in of the setting’s weirder, wackier elements, that though still there, are kept very much in the background. They would only creep forward and be embraced by later editions, most notably in the D&D Gamma World Roleplaying Game (or Gamma World, Seventh Edition) and arguably in what is its spiritual successor, Goodman Games’ Mutant Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game – Triumph & Technology Won by Mutants & Magic.

Often regarded as the definitive version of the roleplaying game, Gamma World, Second Edition is definitely the classic version and the version that introduced its post-apocalyptic setting and the post-apocalyptic genre to a wider audience.

1998: Alternity: Science Fiction Roleplaying Game

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

The publication of Alternity: Science Fiction Roleplaying Game in 1998 marked the return of TSR, Inc. to the Science Fiction genre. In its twenty or so years, the publisher had dipped its toe into the genre several times, hoping to find the success it had with Dungeons & Dragons in the fantasy genre, the most well-known entries being Star Frontiers from 1982, Buck Rogers XXVC from 1988, and the worldbooks like Bughunters, The Galactos Barrier, and Kromosome for use with Amazing Engine. Where those roleplaying games differed from Alternity, was that they were not generic, but instead had their own settings, whereas Alternity was generic. It was designed to provide a framework for Science Fiction adventures not just in the far future, but also adventures in then ‘here and now’. So Space Opera, gritty Cyberpunk, alien conspiracy, and so on. At its core were two books, the Player’s Handbook and the Gamemaster Guide. It is the former that is being reviewed here.

What is striking about the Player’s Handbook is that it is not just a guide and the rules to creating characters for Alternity. It is an introduction to the Alternity rules and the rules themselves as well as the guide and the rules to creating characters for Alternity. This is such that the Game Master will probably be referring to this rather than the Game Master Guide for the running of the game. The very first chapter of the Player’s Handbook even includes a set of ‘Fast-Play Rules’ which explains the basics of the game and gives some characters all in a few changes. After that, the Player’s Handbook settles down to explain Hero creation and its various elements, as well combat, equipment, arms and armour, computers, mutants, psionics, and cybertech. Not spaceship construction and planets—rules for those will have to wait until the Game Master Guide. Throughout, there are parallels to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, but these are quite light and although the roleplaying game is a ‘Class and Level’ or ‘Profession and Level’, there is greater flexibility in what a character can be within the rules in Alternity than there is in Dungeons & Dragons.

What is really striking about Alternity is the core mechanic. It uss polyhedral dice as normal—except oddly, not the ten-sided die—but any roll to undertake an action always involves two dice. One is the Control die, which is always a twenty-sided die. The other is a Situation Die, which can vary in size—although not a ten-sided die as the designers only wanted to use the platonic solids—and can either be a plus or a minus. When rolled together, the result on the Situation Die is applied to the result on the Control Die and the total compared against an attribute if a Feat Check or the total of an attribute plus skill if a Skill Check. The aim of course, being to roll equal to or under the target number. Results range from Critical Failure (a natural twenty) and Failure to Ordinary Success (under the target), Good Success (under half the target), and Amazing Success (under a quarter of the target). A typical Situation Die is +d4 for a Feat Check or a broad Skill Check, but +0 for a speciality Skill Check, the type of Situation Die and the number of Situation Dice can go up or down on the Situation Die Steps Scale.

For example, Doctor Walter Gallardo is conducting a comparative examination of legends of the peoples of two worlds in an attempt to draw parallels in their structure and so confirm his theory about their being connected. To confirm his hypothesis, Doctor Gallardo’s player wants to make a Xenology check. The target is 16 and since this is a Speciality Skill Check, he will be rolling +d0 for the Situation Die as well as the Control Die. The Game Master moves this down one Step to -1d4 as Doctor Gallardo gets a strange prickly feeling, which he puts down to intuition (in fact this is the artefact affecting his mind). So his player is rolling 1d20 and -1d4. On the Control Die, he rolls an 8, but on the Situation Die, he rolls a 4. The latter is deducted from the former to get a final result of 4. This is an Amazing success and the obsessed is able to make the connection between the two legends and the two cultures.

Later on when Doctor Gallardo goes to his head of department to get funding to follow up on his findings, he is faced with a more difficult task. For this, Gallardo’s player will roll the dice against his Interaction skill, which is a Broad Skill. This means that he will be rolling the Control Die and a +1d4 Situation Die. The Game Master states that the task is a difficult one and suffers a +1 step situation penalty, increasing the Situation Die to +1d6. Given that Gallardo’s Interaction skill is 10, this is a tough challenge, so his player triggers Gallardo’s Luck Perk. That requires a Will check, the aim being to get a bonus. Gallardo’s player manages to get a Good success, which gives him a -3 bonus to apply to the roll. Unfortunately, he rolls 14 on the Control die and 6 on the Situation die. Even with the bonus from the Luck Perk, there no way in which Doctor Gallardo is going to get funding to go off on a harebrained scheme to confirm the existence of ancient aliens...

A character—or Hero as he is known—in Alternity is defined by his Ability scores, Species, Career and Profession, Skills, Perks and Flaws, as well as various roleplaying attributes. The six Abilities are Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Will, and Personality, and range in value between four and fourteen for Humans, and slightly higher for some other Species. The base Species is Human, but five other Species are given—Fraal, Mechalus, Sesheyan, T’sa, and Weren—all of which feature in Star*Drive, the first setting for Alternity. Fraal are like the Greys, long-lived with psionics and a limited emotional range; Mechalus are cyborgs with an affinity for computers and technology; Sesheyan are bewinged humanoids capable of flight from a low tech world new to spaceflight who make good spies and scouts; T’sa are reptilian and fast, ever-cheery tinkerers; and the Weren are giant, furred, clawed tough warriors from a primitive culture with a reputation for zealotry. As well as notes on roleplaying for each species, each write-up includes details of their roles in contemporary, near-future, and far-future campaigns, giving both Game Master and player alike further useful information.

Alternity provides four broad Professions—or Classes—Combat Spec, Diplomat, Free Agent, and Tech Op, each a sort of archetypal character. Each provides a few simple benefits. For example, Combat Spec Heroes are faster and specialise in one combat related skill, so their Action Check for determining their initiative is increased by three and the base Situation Die for their chosen skill is -d4 rather than +d0. Diplomats start with contacts or resources and can purchase skills from another chosen Profession at a discount; Free Agents have greater resistance for one Ability and more Last Resort Points—the equivalent of Hero Points in Alternity; and Tech Ops receive extra Skill Points as they attain each Achievement Level.

Within Profession there are several Careers. So for Combat Spec there is Bodyguard, Law Enforcer, Spacehand, and so on, whilst for Free Agent, there is Explorer, Reporter, Spy, amongst others. These are guidelines only and the Game Master is encouraged to create more. They do not provide any particular benefit, each instead providing a ready package of skills to purchase and an equipment package. Skills themselves are either Broad or Specialised, so Culture is the Broad Skill, whilst Diplomacy, Etiquette, and First Encounter are the Specialised Skills. The Broad Skill needs to be purchased before any Specialised Skills can be taken and is always equal to the governing Ability. So for Culture, this is the Hero’s Personality Ability. Specialised Skills are bought in Ranks, the Ranks being added to the value Broad Skill. Perks and Flaws are advantages and disadvantages, whilst Attributes—Motivations, Moral Attitudes, and Character Traits are essentially roleplaying hooks and tags.

To create a Hero, a player selects a Species, Career and Profession, then divides sixty points between the six Abilities. Although every Hero receives some Broad Skills, the number of points their player is given to spend on skills is derived from a Hero’s Intelligence score. Unfortunately, this favours the Intelligence Ability over the other three Abilities, forcing a player to put points into that Ability when he may not necessarily want to play an intelligent Hero. This is a problem which Alternity shares with many generic roleplaying systems which favour Intelligence. Purchasing skills is probably the most complex part of the process, requiring a fair degree of arithmetic, again an issue with many generic systems. Another issue with the skills is the choice, there being an odd lack of social sciences. So no anthropology, archaeology, and so on, but plenty of hard and life sciences. Purchasing Perks and Flaws is easier as is selecting the various roleplaying Attributes.

Our sample Hero is Doctor Walter Gallardo, a physicist turned xeno-archaeologist who is obsessed with confirming the existence of a progenitor species which occupied and seeded known space with their current species. This began after he found an artefact, an amethyst bracelet that at first he thought would be a perfect gift for his wife, but upon latter examination was found to be worked through with an unfamiliar circuitry. When he began having strange dreams of worlds beyond known space, he soon realised that the artefact was the cause. He quickly bought his wife another gift, kept the bracelet for himself, and began researching both it and legends of the ‘ancients’. In the last year, his search has become an obsession, his wife despairing of both his focus and his loss of interest in his research at work.

Doctor Walter Gallardo

Species: Human Gender: Male

Profession: Tech-ops Career: Scientist

Rank 1

Abilities (Untrained)

Strength 8 (4) Dexterity 9 (4) Constitution 9 (4)

Intelligence 14 (7) Will 10 (5) Personality 10 (5)

Action Check 11

Skills

Strength

Athletics (8/4/2)

Dexterity

Vehicle Op (8/4/2)

Constitution

Movement (9/4/2)—Trailblazing 1 (10/5/2); Stamina (9/4/2); Survival (9/4/2)—Survival Training 1 (10/5/2);

Intelligence

Knowledge (14/7/3)—Computer Operation 1 (15/7/3), Deduce 2 (16/8/4); Life Science (14/7/3)—Xenology 2 (16/8/4); Physical Science (14/7/3)—Astronomy 1 (15/7/3), Chemistry 2 (16/8/4), Physics 2 (16/8/4); System Operation (14/7/3)—Communications 1 (15/7/3), Sensors 1 (15/7/3)

Will

Awareness (10/5/2); Investigate (10/5/2)—Search 1 (11/5/2)

Personality

Culture (10/5/2); Interaction (10/5/2)

Perks & Flaws

Concentration, Good Luck, Photo Memory; Alien Artefact, Forgetful, Obsessed

Roleplaying Attributes

Motivation: Discovery

Moral Attitude: Selfish

Character Traits: Logical, Curious

Combat in Alternity adds an interesting tweak or two to its mechanics. For example, initiative is determined by an Action Check, the result—Marginal, Ordinary, Good, or Amazing—matching the four phases in an Action Round and indicating when a Hero can first act. Similarly, damage has three degrees of success—Ordinary, Good, or Amazing—which match the outcome of the Skill Check made for the attack and each weapon has three damage ratings, one for each of the three degrees of success. Weapons can inflict stun, wound, mortal, and fatigue damage. So a standard 9mm handgun does d4+1w on an Ordinary degree of success; d4+2w on a Good degree of success; and d4m damage on an Amazing degree of success. Wearing armour does not require a Skill Check, but instead each type of armour has three ratings—Low Impact, High Impact, and Energy. Thus a Flak Jacket has a Low Impact rating of d6-2, a High Impact rating of d4-1, and an Energy rating of d6-3. The type of damage is matched against one of these ratings and the result of the armour roll deducted from the damage roll. The higher types of damage—wound and mortal—also inflict the lower type, with mortal damage being potentially fatal. That said, Heroes can withstand Stun and Wound damage equal to their Constitution scores and since they will be wearing armour which deducts a single die’s worth or so of damage and most weapons do a single die’s worth or so of damage, unless a Hero gets really unlucky, combat in Alternity has a high degree of give in it. Heroes can take a lot of punishment which gives the mechanics a certain cinematic feel. That said, the combat rules are all that well explained and a more detailed example of how combat works would have been useful.

Roughly half of the Player’s Handbook is dedicated to technology—computers, arms and armour, vehicles, and cybertech. This is governed by Progress Levels, the equivalent of Tech Levels in other Science Fiction roleplaying games. These run from Progress Level 0, the Stone Age, up to Progress Level 9 and beyond… Progress Level 5 represents the Information Age—the here and now, Progress Level 6 is the Fusion Age, the near future, and Progress Level 7 is the Gravity Age of the far future. Computers covers hardware and software as well as the Grid, the worldwide computer network, and hacking; future weapons include electrochemical or charge firearms which ‘charge’ and fire plasma rounds at high velocity, stutter or sonic weapons, lasers, mass weapons which throw short-lived singularities at targets, quantum weapons which fire subatomic particles, amongst others; and future armours include powered armour, body tanks, and displacer suits which shift and blur a wearer’s image. Overall, it is a decent selection arms, armour, and equipment, the authors having mostly succeeded in coming up with a few more options than the obvious laser pistols and sonic stun guns without necessarily being too over the top.

The vehicle rules cover vehicular combat in fairly short order, including spaceship combat. What is really surprising about this chapter is that it includes not one, but two fully worked examples, one of modern vehicle combat and the other of spaceship combat. Both are really useful because they are also the only examples of play in the book. Although there are single examples of the rules in use throughout the Player’s Handbook, the lack of fully worked example does hinder learning the rules of the game and it seems strange to not have any until four fifths of the way through the book. One notable addition to the chapter is a spaceship, including deck plans. The Trader-Class spaceship is not dissimilar to the A2 Far Trader of Traveller fame and it likely serves the same purpose in type of Science Fiction campaigns that Alternity is designed to handle. Straight out of the book it would serve as the base of operations for a group of Heroes in a near or far future campaign, though more starships would probably be needed.

Rounding out the Player’s Handbook for Alternity are further character (and genre) options—mutations, psionics, and cybertech. Although the mutations, such as Acid Touch, Dermal Plating, Hyper Dexterity, echo those of roleplaying games of TSR, Inc. past—such as Gamma World, there is not the wacky range of types and power levels present in the rules for mutations in Alternity. Instead, there are rules that allow them to be purchased much like Perks and Flaws as well as rolling for them randomly. Of course, there are far too few options, but that is to be expected from what is really the introduction to the roleplaying game, and really, it would not be until the release of the Gamma World Campaign Setting that this subject would be covered in any depth.

The treatment of psionics is also decent and feels quite balanced. Where mutations are abilities, Psionics are skills, listed under four the six abilities as per the other skills, which can be purchased by a fifth Profession, the Mindwalker. Various Mindwalker careers are given, from Biokineticist and Biowarrior to Psiguard and Telepath. Cybertech is the book’s last chapter and feels like the shortest and least useful. A Hero need only invest ten skill points into learning to use a nanocomputer and after that, he can have as much cyberware install as his Tolerance can withstand and he can afford. The list includes the BattleKlaw, Cyberoptics, Data Slots, and so on, but after the richness of the Muations and Psionics chapters, it feels a bit threadbare.

What the Mutations, Psionics, and Cybertech chapters do is actually quite a lot. In absence of worldbuilding rules and advice, rules for spaceship construction, and rules for creating alien species, is that they open genre options. Of course, they are options available to the Heroes in some settings, but they also allow the Game Master to create alien races, run campaigns involving them, and so on. Push the Mutations and Psionics rules in one way and Alternity could work as a low level superhero roleplaying setting, but pull it in another and you could do a world where mutants are hunted.

Physically, the Player’s Handbook is very late nineties, all sidebars and text boxes with rounded corners. Here these boxes are done in bright green, making them stand out against the white pages of the book, although not always easy on the eye. Done in full colour throughout, the book is not heavily illustrated, but does include some really nice illustrations in its pages. This being a TSR, Inc. book, the writing and editing is of course, professional.

One issue with the Player’s Handbook is that some chapters are better organised and presented than others. Certainly the later chapters are better and easier to read than those earlier in the book. As a consequence, the rules for things vehicle combat and mutations and psionics are better explained and in the case of vehicle combat, better shown in action, than the core rules themselves. Yes, it helps that the fast play rules are presented at the front of the book, but the lack of an example of play and of standard combat—as opposed to vehicle and spaceship combat—are a definite hindrance rather than a help. Nor does it help necessarily, that the section on personal combat is lumped in with the ‘Heroes in Action’ chapter, so that the rules for combat do not stand enough for the Game Master to run them with any great ease.

Re-examining Alternity twenty years on and it is difficult to really engage with it with any great enthusiasm. Certainly in the form of the Player’s Handbook what really stood out about Alternity was the core mechanic of the Control Die and the Situation Die—the latter being able to scale—which was as radical a design as TSR, Inc. ever attempted, and really was more quirky than radical. The rest of the roleplaying game is far from radical though, a fairly standard take upon the Science Fiction genre, but one grounded in Space Opera and cinematic Sci-Fi rather than hard Science Fiction. There are aspects of the mechanics that are well handled though, mutations and psionics, in particular. These show promise as to what Alternity can do in terms of genre and campaigns should the Game Master want to include them. In the meantime, the Player’s Handbook provides a serviceable introduction to a serviceable set of generic Science Fiction roleplaying rules, from which a good Game Master should be able to get a good game. Essentially TSR, Inc.’s last hurrah, it is left up to the campaign settings—Star*Drive, Dark•Matter, and Gamma World—to really showcase what Alternity: Science Fiction Roleplaying Game can do.

—oOo—

With thanks to Geoff Greenwood for his comments on the review.

1978: Gamma World

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

If Metamorphosis Alpha is the progenitor of the post-Apocalypse genre in roleplaying, then Gamma World is the father of the genre. For from its set-up—inspired by the fears of nuclear confrontation between the USA and USSR during the Cold War—would come not only another six editions of the venerable roleplaying game, but great many imitators. These range from FGU’s Aftermath and Palladium’s After the Bomb for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Fria Ligan’s Mutant: Year Zero and arguably, Numenera from Monte Cook Games as well as oddities such as SkyRealms of Jorune, originally published by SkyRealms Publishing. For all that history, there is still Gamma World, published in August of 1978, which makes it forty years old in 2018.

Like games of its vintage, Gamma World—a ‘Science Fantasy Role-Playing Game’—comes in a box. Notably marked with an asterisk and the note, ‘T.M. Reg. app. For’, the box contains a fifty-six page black and white rulebook, a large hex map of North America post the apocalypse, and a set of polyhedral dice. The map only shows the physical geography—coast, hills, mountains, rivers, and lakes—of the continent and is really awaiting the Referee to add to it with the details of her campaign. The rulebook is decently written and illustrated, many of the images having having achieved iconic status in the years since the first publication of Gamma World. For example, the image of the bewinged mutant hippo, leaping or flying over a wall, anthropomorphic rabbits armed with a rifle and a Luger pistol, and so on. One issue with the illustrations is that they are used to illustrate the book rather the monsters that the book lists, so the Referee will need to entirely rely upon their descriptions to get an idea of what they look like. (It should be noted that Gamma World, Third Edition and later versions illustrated each and every monster entry.)

Gamma World opens with a foreword by designer Tom Wham. After a quotation from Revelations, he notes that the advent of the atomic bomb has made possible the apocalypse mankind has so long been fascinated by and that in this world a few survivors cling precariously to life in this newly spartan world. Of the rules, he states that they flexible enough to do hard Science Fiction as well as Science Fantasy and simple enough to integrate with both Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Metamorphosis Alpha. Perhaps the most important point made here is that, “The rules are designed to provide a skeleton of a game campaign.” This approach is typical of early game design and it effect can be seen throughout the pages of the roleplaying game.

The past of Gamma World’s future begins in the early twenty-fourth Century. By then mankind had repaired the damage done to the planet during the twentieth century and advanced technologically enough to colonise other star system. Yet over self-identification with ‘special interest groups’ led to friction, entrenched opinions, violence, and finally war using weapons of mass destruction. Despite multiple  governments declaring martial law, the conflict escalated and oceans boiled, continents buckled, the sky burned with unnatural colours, and man, animal, and plant poisoned for generations. Some decades—perhaps centuries—later and humanity survives. Some remain intact, their genome unaffected by The Apocalypse, other exhibit curious mutations—beneficial and detrimental, whilst various animal strains have also mutated, gaining intelligence and mutations too. Many survive in tribes, eeking out a rough existence, knowing that perhaps the means for their survival, if not their survival, might lie in the ‘Deathlands’, the the remains left behind by Ancients ready to be scavenged. That is if the tombs and buildings of the ancients have survived intact, if the radiation and other mutagens have declined enough for the areas to be safe, and if the current inhabitants are not too hostile… Meanwhile, Cryptic Alliances—from the Brotherhood of Thought and the Knights of Genetic Purity to the Restorationists and the Zoopremisists—have their own concerns and objectives and they are unlikely to align with those of the tribe.

This is the default set-up for Gamma World, set during a period known as the ‘Black Years’. It is one familiar to each of the following editions of the roleplaying game and to a great many of its imitators. It casts the player characters as Pure Strain Humans, Humanoids (or Mutants), and Mutated Animals, members of a tribe, going out, exploring, scavenging, and working make their future secure. (Unlike in Metamorphosis Alpha, Mutated Plants are not available as player characters in Gamma World, although they can appear as NPCs or monsters.) Pure Strain Humans are more likely to recognised by, and thus can use, the technology of the past and held in a certain awe because of it. In game terms, they have a bonus to their Charisma to reflect this. Humanoids may well be recognised by the technology of the past to a degree, whereas Mutated Animals are unable to command the technology of the past, though they may still use some of it. Both Humanoids and Mutant Animals possess a certain number of mental and physical mutations. 

Each character type has the same six basic attributes—Mental Strength, Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma, Constitution, and Physical Strength. These are rolled on four six-sided dice with the highest three added together to give a result for each. Most of these provide various bonuses or penalties, depending upon the roll. Notably, a high Intelligence provides a bonus for working out how an artefact works, a high Dexterity a bonus to hit in combat, a high Physical Strength a bonus to damage in melee combat, and Constitution determines a player character’s Hit Points—a six-sided die’s worth for each point of Constitution. If a character is a Humanoid or a Mutated Animal, then a player rolls a four-sided die twice to determine how many mental and physical mutations his character has.

Quink – Pure Strain Human
Mental Strength 13
Intelligence 16 (-1 to Artefact Use)
Dexterity 15
Charisma 18 (Max. Followers 15; Morale/Reaction Adj. +3)
Constitution 11
Physical Strength 13

Hit Points 32

Ree’dily – Humanoid
Mental Strength 11
Intelligence 14
Dexterity 15
Charisma 13 (Max. Followers 5; Morale/Reaction Adj. 0/+1)
Constitution 10
Physical Strength 11

Hit Points 36

Mental Mutations: Force Field Generation (Once per day, 5d6 points of protection for one hour), Telekinesis
Physical Mutations: Attraction Odor (Defect – Attracts carnivores), Weight Decrease (Defect – Slowed by a quarter) , Heightened Smell (Cannot be ambushed from upwind, follow day old trails, distinguish odors at 60 ft.),  Taller (7 metres tall, -5 to hit/+5 damage in physical combat)

Porkus – Mutated Animal
Mental Strength 14
Intelligence 12
Dexterity 06
Charisma 11 (Max. Followers 4; Morale/Reaction Adj. 0)
Constitution 17
Physical Strength 18 (+3 Damage Bonus)

Hit Points 70

Mental Mutations: Planar Travel (Open a door to other plane once per week), Epilepsy (Defect – 25% chance of paralysis before combat), Life Leech (Drain 6 HP from all in a 6 meter radius)
Physical Mutations: Heightened Strength (+3 dice of damage to physical attacks), Regeneration (+20 Hit Points/Day), Body Structure Change (Defect – Completely Hairless)

Just generating three sample characters showcases the main problem with post-apocalypse set roleplaying games—humans are boring to play. In comparison, the mutant character types get powers and defects that make them special from the moment a player rolls the dice. He will always have these or similar powers, so there is always something amazing or interesting to do. Now humans—in the form of the Pure Strain Human—have an advantage in the setting in that they are recognised by the technology of the Ancients and so can gain access to it and use it more readily than the other character types. Gaining access to and using technology is not an intrinsic power though, and a player character Pure Strain Human has to go adventure to find that technology and the likelihood is that the technology will use a power cell and run out and… Plus this is exactly what the other character types will be doing, although not as handily as the Pure Strain Human. 

In the write-up of the Pure Strain Human the designers state that, “The PSH character could be considered the “weakest” character type in GAMMA WORLD.” The problem is, that until such times as a Pure Strain Human can gain access to advanced technology, he is the ‘weakest’ character type. Arguably, this is a problem that very few post-apocalypse set roleplaying games manage to solve. In the meantime, the mutants get to play with wacky powers and defects…

One notable change from Metamorphosis Alpha is that in Gamma World characters can acquire Experience Points and so can grow and improve. Experience Points are awarded for killing enemies, for discovering and working out the functions of artefacts, and for outstanding actions. Gamma World is not a Class and Level game, but instead offers a universal Experience Point table with thresholds which double each time, starting at three thousand points. Each time a character earns enough Experience Points to pass a threshold, his player rolls a ten-sided die and is awarded a random bonus, either an attribute increase or a combat bonus increase. It is pretty basic, but it works.

Mechanically, Gamma World focuses on combat, hazards, and artefacts. Combat in Gamma World takes its cue from the earlier Metamorphosis Alpha in that every weapon falls into a category or a Weapon Class. The Weapon Class is cross referenced with the target’s Armour Class to determine the ‘to hit’ roll needed. Armour Class is descending, starting at AC 10 for no protection and dropping to AC 1 for powered attack and assault armours. Weapon Class 1 weapons includes clubs, hammers, lances, maces, and spears, Weapon Class 7 weapons are robotic tentacles, and Weapon Class 16 weapons are fusion rifles, micro-missiles, and mini-missiles. Most basic combat situations are covered, including combat against aggressive plants and robots. Mental attacks are handled by comparing the Mental Strengths of both attacker and defender to determine a target roll and success. Surprisingly, there are rules for fatigue for long fights—wield a physical weapon for too long and a combatant tires and the comparative Weapon Class of the weapon drops.

The mechanics for handling poison and radiation use matrices or resistance tables, comparing a character’s Constitution with the strength of the poison or radiation intensity respectively. The effect of a poison ranges includes nothing, damage dice rolls, or death (or paralysis), whilst the effects of radiation includes nothing, damage dice rolls, a mutation, or a chance of a defect or death.

As with Metamorphosis Alpha, the setting for Gamma World includes lots and lots of artefacts. These range from stun rays and laser pistols to energy maces and fusion rifles, from photon grenades and concussion bombs to mutation bombs and negation missiles, from plastic armour and powered attack armour to turbine cars and bubble cars, from energy cloaks and anti-grav sleds to atomic energy cells to pain reducer drugs and life rays, from light cargo lifter and ecology bots to security robotoids to warbots. There is a distinct emphasis on weapons and armour to the equipment, all of which the player characters can find in various conditions and use—if they can work out how each device operates. Where Metamorphosis Alpha had the players describe and roleplay what their characters were doing to work out what a device does, in Gamma World there are ‘flow’ charts. There are three of these, one covering the discovery of operation of pistols, grenades, UV goggles, and so on, the next offensive armour, robots, and rejuv-chambers, and the third, environmental cars, think tanks, broadcast power stations, and so on. Here the Referee places a marker at the start of the flowchart, rolls a die in response to whatever the character is doing to determine how the device works, and moves along the flowchart according to the die roll, narrating the results as necessary. A character might find himself going round in circles or hurting himself or a companion, or he might work it out with a few rolls and some good descriptions. The charts are fairly simple, but their like would appear in future editions of Gamma World as well as most famously, in S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, the Science Fiction/Fantasy crossover module for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.

Gamma World includes some forty-five monsters, a mix of mutated animals, such as the empathic, but evil Badders and the leaping Hoops who can turn metal into rubber; mutated plants, like the crep plant with its death field generation amongst other mutations and the horl choo with its poisonous spines it can shoot out; and the simply weird, such as the sep, a burrowing land shark, and the yexil, a large flying creature with a lionesque head and orange furry wings and a love of eating manufactured clothing! All of these creatures are tough, for even the single creature with a Hit Dice of one appears in groups and the lowest single Hit Dice for any monster is three. Most have many more. None of these creatures are specifically illustrated, but some of the illustrations will be familiar from later editions of the roleplaying game.

At the start of the game, combat is particularly deadly. This is because they are armed with melee and missile weaponry a la Dungeons & Dragons that inflict relatively little damage and are likely to face foes with lots of Hit Points. Of course, this is slightly offset by the fact that the characters also have plenty of Hit Points and that some characters—Humanoids and Mutated Animals—may have dangerous and deadly mutant powers. Over time, this power balance will change as the player characters acquire working technology and keep hunting for energy cells needed to power it. In the long term, this power balance has to change as the Pure Strain Human very much needs the technological edge to compete alongside the Humanoids and Mutated Animals against the deadly flora and fauna of the Black Years.

In terms of setting, the ‘Black Years’ of Gamma World are lightly drawn. There is an explanation of the events which led up to the apocalypse given in the introduction and a short description of each of the thirteen Cryptic Alliances that have arisen since. These provide possible motivations for NPCs—and in some cases, the player characters—and potential elements around which a Referee can build a plot. The various types of terrain to be found across the radically changed world of Gamma World are examined and a sample region, a hexcrawl, is provided to show the Referee how to set up a campaign and a campaign starter is a given as a hook. This is the classic coming of age scenario in which the player characters are sent out to explore the nearby region and hopefully return with an artefact as part of their ‘Trials’ for adulthood, which has since appeared in many subsequent editions of the roleplaying game.

Physically, Gamma World is cleanly presented and much better presented than Metamorphosis Alpha, which in comparison felt cramped and difficult to use. That said, the contents Gamma World could have been better organised so that background elements could be together, the rules together, and so on. Thankfully, many of the roleplaying game’s tables are reprinted at the back of the book for easy reference as they are otherwise slightly awkward to find. Included alongside these reference tables is a set of monster and treasure listings. The latter is particularly useful since it lists ordinary artefacts to be found in the Tombs of the Ancients. 

Gamma World does not have the feel of a roleplaying game designed for the beginning player or Referee. It feels like a roleplaying game designed for those already familiar with other titles like Dungeons & Dragons or Metamorphosis Alpha, as the advice is fairly light and the Referee is very much expected to create and set-up a region, or hexcrawl for her players to explore. This only serves to bring home the doom integral to the genre, for what better place to base that hexcrawl on than the region or city where the Referee and her players live? The advice for doing so is perhaps a bit light by modern standards, but later editions of the roleplaying game would address this by providing more background and an actual scenario.

Gamma World does have an odd tone to it. On the one hand, it is quite gritty and deadly, but on the other it can be quite gonzo with its weird creatures and the bizarre combinations of mutations and defects a character can have (see the earlier characters for their combination of mutations as an example). The weirdness quotient also goes up as characters suffer from radiation and undergo new mutations and defects and then throw in a lot of big, often lethal weapons and you have a swirling melting pot of weirdness… Of course, those big, often lethal weapons and the armour to protect against them are absolutely necessary because Pure Strain Humans need them to counter the power imbalance between them and the Humanoid and Mutated Animal character types.

Overall, Gamma World feels a bit threadbare, as if there should be more to the world than is given. That though would come in later editions of Gamma World. Yet, all of the elements are present to play the game—and all the Referee has to do is create a region of her own and let her players go roleplay… Gamma World has all of the irradiated bones upon which a Referee can flesh out a campaign of her own and it is upon those bones upon which later editions of Gamma World would go on to add flesh of their own.

1996: Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

By 1996, the Roleplaying industry was in the doldrums. Primarily this was due to the effect of the first collectable card game, Wizards of the Coast’s Magic: the Gathering. Its popularity meant that the sales of other games, such as RPGs, suffered, whilst other publishers focused their attention of replicating the success of Magic: the Gathering instead of on either their existing games or on developing new games. Certainly the year 1995 will not be remembered for any RPG of note, but 1996 would be a whole other matter as would the years that followed in the lead up to the end of the millennium. Released at GenCon that year, Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game, the first RPG from Pinnacle Entertainment Group, heralded a renaissance in the hobby and the industry that would last until the release of Dungeons & Dragons, Third Edition and into the d20 System bubble beyond.

Famously inspired by Brom’s cover for the then-unreleased Necropolis: Atlanta, a supplement for White Wolf Publishing’s Wraith: The Oblivion RPG, the setting for Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game combined two genres—horror with the wild west. Specifically it described an America in its centennial year, 1876, with the appearance and then spread of horrors at Gettysburg on July 3rd, 1863, having served to prolong the Civil War and permanently divide the United States of America into the United States of America and the Confederate States of America with great swathes of disputed territory between them. In the years since, evil has spread across and infected the land, literally altering it be a darker, twisted place; monsters and other things stalk the land, including hostile Indian spirits, undead gunslingers, and strange cults; and magic has returned, practised by the Blessed, Hucksters, and Shamans. The Blessed can call upon Miracles to do the work of the Lord, Shamans bargain with spirits for magical favours, whilst Hucksters have learned the real secrets of Hoyle’s Book of Games to cast ‘Hexes’ that they hide behind hands of playing cards. In the West, earthquakes shattered much of California, throwing much of it into the Pacific and in the process creating the badlands known as the ‘Great Maze’ and exposing rich seams of a mineral known as ‘ghost rock’. Despite the fact that it seems to moan when burnt, ‘ghost rock’ is used as a fuel to power a rash of amazing new gizmos—many of them designed by Mad Scientists, from gatling guns and steam wagons to rocket packs and elixirs of healing. The discovery ‘ghost rock’ also drives a race to connect the East to the West, both in the North and the South, in a series of ‘Great Rail Wars’. Meanwhile, Federally sanctioned Pinkerton agents and Texas Rangers now prowl these territories searching for the horrors that threaten ordinary folk and their respective governments alike.

Deadlands is a game with plenty of secrets, the most well-known being that a player character can return from the dead as one of the Harrowed. Difficult to kill and capable of developing unnatural powers, a Harrowed constantly fights with the evil spirit that reanimated him for possession of his undead body. This though only comes into play should a player character be killed and have the strength of will to return from the dead. More basic character options include Wild West standbys such as Bounty Hunters, Cowpokes, Gunslingers, Indian Braves, Marshals, Muckrakers, Prospectors, and Saloon Girls, whilst the ‘Weird West’ additions include the Huckster, the Blessed (those able to cast Miracles), the Shaman, and the Mad Scientist.

The character creation process in Deadlands is slightly complex. A character has ten Traits or attributes. His Corporeal Traits are Deftness, Nimbleness, Quickness, Strength, and Vigor, whilst his Mental Traits are Cognition, Knowledge, Mien, Smarts, and Spirit. Each Trait has an associated die type—four-sided, six-side, eight-sided, ten-sided, and twelve-sided, and a Co-ordination, an associated number, typically ranging between one and four. Combine the two and the player has a number of dice that he rolls when his character is undertaking an action, for example, three eight-sided dice if the character has a Deftness of 3d8 and wants to shoot at some varmint. In addition, a character has Aptitudes that represent skills, talents, and trades, such as Fannin’, Shootin’, Teamster, Trackin’, and so on. These are rated between one and five and use the same die type as Trait that the Aptitude is associated with. So the character with a Deftness of 3d8 uses eight-sided dice for all associated Aptitudes, for example, Shootin’ and Speed-Load.

To create a character, a player draws twelve cards from a standard deck of playing cards, discarding two. Any two cards can be discarded bar draws of two and Jokers. The former grants or penalises the character with the four-sided die type, whilst the Joker grants the character the twelve-sided die type and an obligatory dark backstory devised by the player and the Marshal together, although a Mysterious Past table is included in the book for the Marshal. The suit and number of each card determines the type and number of dice for each Trait. So for example, ‘4 of Diamonds’ gives a Trait of 2d6, whilst the ‘Jack of Spades’ gives a Trait of 4d8.  Once generated, a player assigns them as he likes. In addition, a number of secondary stats are derived from the various Traits, notably the number of points to assign to Aptitudes, from the character’s Knowledge, Smarts, and Cognition die types. A character can also have up ten points’ worth of Hindrances, the amount spent on Hindrances generating a corresponding amount with which to purchase Edges.

Our sample character is Sister Henrietta, an Amish girl whose family was slaughtered by a creature that she cannot recall. The only survivor, she was blamed for what had happened and driven out of her community. Now she travels the disputed territories preaching against and fighting evil when she finds it. She also preaches the word of God and regularly performs at Prayer Meetings all over the West.

Corporeal Traits
Deftness 4d10
Shootin’ 2, Speed-Load 2
Nimbleness 3d8
Climb 1, Dodge 2, Horse Ridin’ 1, Sneak 1
Quickness 4d4
Quick Draw 2
Strength 1d6
Vigor 3d6

Mental Traits
Cognition 4d8
Scrutinise 2, Search 1, 
Knowledge 1d10
Area Knowledge (Home County 2), Language (English 2, German 2), Profession (Theology 2)
Mien 2d8
Persuasion 2, Tale-Tellin’ 2
Smarts 1d6
Spirit 4d12
Faith 3, Guts 2

Wind 18

Hindrances
All Thumbs (2), Loyal (3), Self-Righteous (3)

Edges
Arcane Background (Blessed) (3), Brave (2), Light Sleeper (1), Reputation (1), The Voice (Soothing) (1)

Equipment
Double Action .45 Peacemaker revolver, fast-draw holster, box of ammunition, gun belt, speedloader, horse, saddle, saddlebags, $38

Miracles
Exorcism, Inspiration, Lay on Hands, Protection

To undertake an action in Deadlands, a player rolls the dice for the appropriate skill. For example, if Sister Henrietta has to shoot one of the Walkin’ Dead, she rolls her Deftness/Shootin’ Aptitude (2d10), whereas if she wants to work out if said Walkin’ Dead is using the possessed six shooter that she and her posse have been tracking, the Marshal—the term for the Game Master in Deadlands—might have her roll her Cognition/Shootin’ Aptitude (2d8). In either case, the player rolls the dice and counts the best result, attempting to beat a Target Number set by the Marshal, ranging from Foolproof (3) and Fair (5) up to Hard (9) and Incredible (11). Beat the target and the character succeeds, but by beating the Target Number by five, he can get a ‘Raise’, and by beating it by ten, he can get two ‘Raises’. Each Raise improves the success of the skill attempt. ‘Raises’ are made possible because dice in Deadlands explode and become Aces, enabling rerolls to increase the total.

Combat in Deadlands builds on these basic rules, but uses the deck of Playing Cards, known as the Action Deck, to determine initiative order and a Quickness roll by each participant to find out how many cards they draw and thus how many actions they have. Cards and thus Actions can be held until a player wants to act in a round, whilst Red Jokers enable a character to interrupt another character or NPC and Black Jokers force a character to discard his highest other card and a reshuffle of the Action Deck. Rules allow for Drawing a Bead, Fannin’, Shootin’ from the Hip, two-gun action, the Rifle-Spin, and so on. When a character takes a hit, he loses Wind, but can also suffer Wounds to various parts of his body.

Every character also starts each session with three Fate Chips. These come in three colours. White chips allow a character to roll an extra die on Trait or Aptitude checks, whilst Red chips let him add an extra die to the highest die rolled on a check at the cost of allowing the Marshal to draw a Fate Chip of his own. Blue Fate Chips act like Red chips, but without the benefit to the Marshal. Both White and Red Fate Chips are earned when a player does anything clever or when his Hindrances make his life difficult, but Red chips can also be handed out when a character finds important clues, defeats a minor opponent, and so on. Blue chips are handed out for exceptional roleplaying, discovering a critical clue, or for defeating a major villain. Fate Chips can also be converted into Bounty Points which can spent to improve a character’s Traits and Aptitudes.

Beyond these basic rules are the rules for the ‘Weird’ things that the characters can do in Deadlands as Hucksters, Blessed, Shaman, and Weird Scientists. In each case, the character makes the appropriate Aptitude roll—for each Hex for the Huckster, Faith for the Blessed, Tinkerin’ for Mad Scientists, and Ritual for Shaman, but after that, the mechanics work differently for each Arcane Background. Hucksters need to draw from the deck of Playing Cards and assemble Poker hands to improve spells—better Aptitude rolls provide more cards. For example, with a single Pair, the Huckster can use the Corporeal Tweak Hex improve a target’s physical Traits by a single step, that is from one die type to the next. Two Pairs grants two steps, a straight three steps, a Flush four steps, and so on. Similarly, once a Mad Scientist has concocted a theory and devised a blueprint, he draws cards and attempts to create Poker hands, with better hands not only indicating that he has successfully built it, but improved its reliability and build time. In comparison, the Blessed simply has to have his Faith roll beat the Target Number for each Miracle and a Shaman needs to perform Rituals that will generate sufficient Appeasement Points that will allow one of the spirits to grant the Shaman a favour.

Each of the different Arcane Backgrounds gets its own chapter in the rulebook and what is interesting about this is the placement of these chapters, along with one devoted to the Harrowed and another to Fear in Deadlands. They are in the middle section of the book labeled ‘No Man’s Land’, between ‘Posse Territory’ and ‘Marshal’s Territory’, for the players and the Marshal respectively. These two sections are specifically written for the players and the Marshal, and whilst the Marshal has to read all of the book, the players only need to read ‘Posse Territory’. It is only if he wants to play a character with an Arcane Background that a player needs to read the appropriate chapter in the ‘No Man’s Land’ section.

As well as learning how a Arcane Background works, a player will also discover the dangers inherent to casting Hexes and building weird devices. Whereas the Blessed are in danger of losing their faith and the Shaman can anger the spirits, the Huckster and the Mad Scientist are dealing with ‘dark’ powers and when such dealings go wrong, madness and insanity can ensue… Each chapter also explains the life of the Huckster, the Blessed, and so on, giving some nice cues as to how each fits into the divided America of 1876 and thus be roleplayed.

Further secrets are explored in the ‘Marshal’s Territory’ section. Primarily this concerns the background to the events leading up to 1863 and the forces behind it, the Reckoners, but it also details various Abominations that the Posse might encounter, such as Dust Devils, Gremlins, Hangin’ Judges, Night Haunts, Tumbleeds, and more. Beyond the secrets,  the ‘Marshal’s Territory’ includes tips and advice on running the game and structuring adventures; on the role of fear in the game—important because essentially, the Reckoners are trying to increase the levels of fear whilst the player characters or Posse are working to reduce it by defeating horrors; and on beyond fear, on handling dementia in the game.

Physically, it is surprising just how light Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game feels in the hand. In comparison with contemporary RPGs and their density in terms of content and page count, Deadlands is lighter in terms of background and content. This does not mean that the book omits anything needed to play the game, but rather that the book is economical with its content. It is also well written and the editing is good, but the artwork does leave something to be desired. The black and white illustrations are fine, even excellent in capturing the pulp horror of Deadlands, but the full colour artwork, though suitably lurid, is somewhat murky.

There is a great deal to like about Deadlands. It is an enticing setting with a combination of genres that made it a commercial and critical success. In particular, in 1997 it received the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game and for Best Graphic Presentation of a Role-playing Game, Adventure, or Supplement of 1996. A second edition would follow in 1999 with adaptations written for Steve Jackson Games’ GURPS and Wizards of the Coast’s d20 System both being released in 2001. Two spinoff RPGs, Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Deadlands: Lost Colony were released in 1998 and 2002 respectively, but neither were as successful. Several other games, such as the miniatures wargame, Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars and the Collectible Card Game, Doomtown would also be released, all based on the Deadlands setting.

Yet despite its popular and critical acclaim, Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game is not a perfect game. The problem lies with the mechanics, because as thematically appropriate as they feel, they are nevertheless often cumbersome and clunky, with dice and Playing Cards and three—sometimes four—different coloured Fate Chips. Indeed, having three types of Fate Chips just complicates the game, as does having a different ruleset for each of the four Arcane Backgrounds. Fundamentally though, there is a disconnect in the mechanics between a character’s Traits and Aptitudes since the two are never rolled together and Aptitudes have a more direct application in the game than Traits do. In fact beyond providing the die type for its associated Aptitudes, each Trait has relatively little effect on a character and thus even lesser effect on his Aptitudes. Instead Traits only really come into play when a character lacks an Aptitude, in which case the associated Trait is rolled and the result halved. At the same time, a character has too many Traits all doing variations upon the same thing. Thus Deftness, Nimbleness, and Quickness are all variations upon a character’s dexterity, whilst Cognition, Knowledge, and Mien are variations upon his intelligence.

Given these issues it is no wonder that Deadlands Reloaded, essentially the third edition of the game which would itself win the 2006 Origins Award for Roleplaying Game Supplement of the Year, would use the Savage Worlds system. This would be appropriate given that the Savage Worlds rules are actually derived from the mechanics used for Deadlands: The Great Rail Wars, the miniatures wargame about the construction of the transcontinental railways that also won the Origins Award for the Best Science Fiction or Fantasy Miniatures Rules of 1997. The result, was a slicker, faster, and slightly cinematic version of Deadlands with more options within its pages and more background and in the decade since its publication, various supplements including three campaigns—The Flood, The Last Sons, and Stone and a Hard Place.

Another issue with Deadlands is that it was never a living roleplaying game in that its background and timeline never really advanced. The second edition of Deadlands reset the game’s starting date to 1877, whilst Deadlands Reloaded reset it to 1879. The sequel RPGs, Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Deadlands: Lost Colony, advanced the timeline into the near future and far future respectively. Deadlands: Noir, set in New Orleans in 1935 is a a more recent sequel. Nevertheless, between 1879 of Deadlands: Reloaded and the 1935 of Deadlands: Noir, the Marshal is on his own as what happens in North America. As to what happens in the rest of the world in the setting of Deadlands, the Marshal is given even less information. This leads to a more parochial issue—that Deadlands is a very American-set RPG which does not concern itself with the rest of the world. Now this is not really a design issue, but rather a desire to learn more about the setting in general and desire is actually given a nudge in the background given in the original rulebook, which mentions that as of 1871, Great Britain had it issues of its own in both Africa and India that prevented it becoming too involved in the ongoing American Civil War. Which begs the question, what were those issues?

Ultimately, there is the controversial question of how Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game deals with the issue of slavery, especially given that its Civil War is ongoing in 1876. It deals with it in a simple fashion, by having Confederate South abolish it as an institution in 1864, essentially to provide more manpower for the ongoing war with the northern states, to gain support from Great Britain, and negate the moral high ground held by the North over the issue. Further, the focus of the game is upon the ‘Weird West’ rather than the South and only in a later supplement, Back East: The South, do the game’s designers explore the issue, or rather the reasons for its abolition, in further detail. Essentially, the authors avoid the issue in Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game and that is understandable both because of the potential controversy in addressing the issue and because it is not what the RPG is about. This does not mean that the Marshal and his Posse cannot address the issue themselves, but in hindsight, perhaps Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game could have included a disclaimer about the subject of slavery as well as racism in the core rules, especially that it is possible to have both Black characters and White characters from the South in the game.

At the heart of the success of Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game is its superb melding of the horror and Wild West genres that make the game extremely easy to buy into, pick up, and play. This is despite the cumbersome nature of its rules—as thematically appropriate as they are. It is a formula that Pinnacle Entertainment Group would try and repeat with Deadlands: Hell on Earth and Deadlands: Lost Colony, but not with the same success, at least not critically. As the original of this trilogy, Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game remains the most powerful and most accessible of the three.