Quote from: DavetheLost;967804Gamarauders was a standalone boardgames, Gamma Knights was the GW 4e supplement.

But Gamma Knights[/I] wasn't about giant monsters battling each other and it didn't have a comic book with game material in it, while Gammarauders was and did.  I'm pretty sure that Omega was talking about the latter and just completely screwed up the timeline.

Note that he also said:

Quote from: Omega;9676824e brings in the stupid naming system which they tried to extrapolate from older monster names and then apply to just about everything to the point it starts sounding really stupid when applied to monsters, locations, etc. This one takes the slapstick to new levels in some of the material.

That was Kim Eastland's Gamman language, which was used in third edition modules, not fourth.  And was, ironically, probably more of an attempt to make things more "realistic" than anything else.  (The lexicon appeared in a mid-1980s Dragon magazine with notes about why he came up with it and how he intended it to be used.)  Fourth edition went back to the old tried and true "mangled and misremembered" naming convention so popular in post-apocalyptic film and literature.

So I'm honestly not sure what Omega is talking about.  He complains about Gammarauders, which was released four or five years before fourth edition, while third edition was an active product line.  He complains about Eastland's Gamman language, which was a third edition thing (and was an attempt to make things more serious, not goofy).  He complains about the "wild and wahoo" line, which was one line in a section of the introduction to fourth edition explaining different approaches GMs could take to the game (and it held up neither as preferred or better).  None of the fourth edition materials that I have could be described as slapstick at all, let alone as taking it "to new levels".

Use 1e if you want crazy gonzo mutants with death rays fighting mutant camels with wings and goggles.  Use 4e if you want a more sober apocalypse with automatic rifles and hand grenades.  I'm not sure when it was introduced but the idea that a lot of the super tech stuff was brought by aliens who tried to stop the wars and instead caused the final war, has always made sense to me.

Quote from: David Johansen;967821Use 1e if you want crazy gonzo mutants with death rays fighting mutant camels with wings and goggles.  Use 4e if you want a more sober apocalypse with automatic rifles and hand grenades.  I'm not sure when it was introduced but the idea that a lot of the super tech stuff was brought by aliens who tried to stop the wars and instead caused the final war, has always made sense to me.

Why do I have to choose? I can have crazy goggle-bedecked mutant camels with magma blasters and mullets and be utterly sober about it.

I know the aliens were a thing in Alternity Gamma World, which had a lot of ideas I liked and was last edition I actually bought.

Maybe when people say "4e Gamma World" the really mean the Gamma World game using D&D 4e mechanics, which was not the 4th edition of Gamma World.

Quote from: Dumarest;967822Why do I have to choose? I can have crazy goggle-bedecked mutant camels with magma blasters and mullets and be utterly sober about it.

If you can run that game and have it be serious and sober I want a seat at the table.

Quote from: DavetheLost;967861If you can run that game and have it be serious and sober I want a seat at the table.

I'll hold you to that.

I think it's somehow very appropriate that a game about mutation has had so many different systems, some wildly different from each other.

That last edition (The one that used D&D 4 as it's base and tried to be a party game you could just play out of the box) was a fucking barrel of monkeys and could have been a breakout hit if Hasbro put some back into promoting it.

Quote from: David Johansen;967821Use 1e if you want crazy gonzo mutants with death rays fighting mutant camels with wings and goggles.  Use 4e if you want a more sober apocalypse with automatic rifles and hand grenades.  I'm not sure when it was introduced but the idea that a lot of the super tech stuff was brought by aliens who tried to stop the wars and instead caused the final war, has always made sense to me.

Fourth edition wasn't really an automatic-rifles-and-hand-grenades edition, though.  In terms of setting assumptions, established background, and stuff like that, it was closer to the first and second editions, with some of the excesses reined in and the weird edges filed smooth.  In all of those editions, humanity attained a "Golden Age of sci-fi" level of technology (lasers, plasma guns, death rays, powered armor, commonplace robots, highly advanced artificial intelligences, etc.) and then destroyed itself in an incomprehensibly brutal final war in which continents buckled, seas boiled, and all that good stuff.  The first and second editions assume a primitive-to-medieval starting location for characters, while fourth edition starts further into the future and assumes an early modern (flintlock era) one.

Third edition teased the possibility that the final war was actually aliens destroying us, a theory supported by the existence of powerful crystalline weapons with unique properties, and also a crystalline alien base (complete with crystalline flying saucer) in the pack-in solo adventure.  According to the rules, different characters begin the game with access to different technology levels.  Pure strain humans start with access to modern (20th century) technology, while mutated humans start with medieval technology, and mutated animals start with primitive.

The alien invasion angle was quietly dropped in Kim Eastland's "Cities of Man" adventure series, and instead he did something novel.  While the materials for other editions tended to root the action in actual, specific places (Lake Geneva, Fargo, Pittsburgh, Yellowstone, the Indiana-Illinois Border), Eastland created a setting with its own geography, language and naming conventions that he could strip of all references to actual locations.  Strictly speaking, the new monsters in his adventures were mutants, but he tended to play up the alien and bizarre in an attempt to create something more like a self-contained fantasy world.

It didn't work for me, but I at least understand (and I guess on some level appreciate) what he was going for.

But based on what Davethelost said and a look at fifth edition's cover, I'm guessing that the one with a background alien war and an assault-rifles-and-grenades vibe is fifth edition.  (And wow, the goatee, trench coat, and ruined Seattle backdrop positively scream 1990s!)

I'll throw out that the Mutant Epoch supplements and adventures are really good idea mines for people looking for GW inspiration (albeit a -bit- more horror focused perhaps).

I'm not familiar with 4th edition Gamma World (or 4th edition AD&D either). Or any edition of Gamma World, for that matter. But I'd rather not use a D&D-derived system. If I see a cheap (or free! ) copy of 1st or 2nd, I think I'll check it out. Those darn music videos have given me a ton of ideas for a game. I suppose it wouldn't have to be Gamma World, though, but the only other post-apocalyptic game I know about is Twilight 2000, which is a whole other direction.

Just to clarify, fourth edition Gamma World was published in 1992, and has nothing to do with D&D 4e.  

The fourth edition of Gamma World is probably the most D&D-influenced of all the TSR versions (there are classes with class progression), but all versions are heavily influenced by D&D.  For example, in each edition, you're going to get 6 D&D-derived attributes (physical strength, dexterity, constitution, mental strength, intelligence, and charisma, although fourth edition adds senses) determined in familiar ways (usually 4d6 and drop the lowest).  Every version uses experience points to quantify character progression, just in different ways.  All versions except third use d20 for attacks.  All versions have armor class (and it's descending armor class in the first two editions).  There are plenty of differences, too, but all of the TSR versions are derived to varying degrees from D&D.

(Edit: And, to be clear, I'm talking about 1st through 4th editions.  Fifth uses Alternity, sixth d20 Modern, and seventh a variation of D&D 4e, I think.)

Quote from: GameDaddy;967742Originally Published in 1952, Starman's Son by Andre Norton was the actual inspiration for Gamma World. In later printings, this book would be renamed Daybreak 2250 A.D.

I would publish a lot more more RPG stuff concerning Gamma World, but this new bbs code website upgrade for the RPGSite is f*&^%* broken, and I keep getting an error message

"Non-English characters are not accepted"

I used a special parser to strip out all the non-english characters, but the BBScode this website is using, stubbornly refuses to recognize my post. I suspect this is some new scam from the hollyweird DRM crew to control when I'm copying and pasting links and such, and they have no business trying to figure out copyright law for me, without my explicit consent, and in a direct contravention to my FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS TO FREE SPEECH.

PUNDIT FIX YOUR F*&^%^ UP CENSORED WEBSITE!

Dude, I have no fucking clue what you're talking about. What non-english characters were you using?

It's happened three times to me.  Once there was a trademark symbol that I needed to remove from an excerpt, the other two times it was weirdly enough extra lines of spaces.  When I tightened up the posts by deleting any extra spacing leftover it took the quote.

Quote from: san dee jota;967946I'll throw out that the Mutant Epoch supplements and adventures are really good idea mines for people looking for GW inspiration (albeit a -bit- more horror focused perhaps).

I'll second that. The Mutant Epoch puts out some really excellent material with a lot of system-free ideas. I think the system itself does a decent job of grasping the spirit of the early Gamma World editions. It can be a tad grimdark. But that is fairly easy to ignore if you choose. I think the system could run a good Judge Dredd setting or even cyberpunk. It lacks netrunning rules but I see that as a feature, not a bug.

Quote from: The Scythian;967997Just to clarify, fourth edition Gamma World was published in 1992, and has nothing to do with D&D 4e.  

The fourth edition of Gamma World is probably the most D&D-influenced of all the TSR versions (there are classes with class progression), but all versions are heavily influenced by D&D.  For example, in each edition, you're going to get 6 D&D-derived attributes (physical strength, dexterity, constitution, mental strength, intelligence, and charisma, although fourth edition adds senses) determined in familiar ways (usually 4d6 and drop the lowest).  Every version uses experience points to quantify character progression, just in different ways.  All versions except third use d20 for attacks.  All versions have armor class (and it's descending armor class in the first two editions).  There are plenty of differences, too, but all of the TSR versions are derived to varying degrees from D&D.

(Edit: And, to be clear, I'm talking about 1st through 4th editions.  Fifth uses Alternity, sixth d20 Modern, and seventh a variation of D&D 4e, I think.)

Don't forget Omega World!

I've never run a Gamma World campaign or a D&D campaign without adding in at least one cross-system adventure. Mutants and magic powers just mix up so well.

The 1992 edition is my favorite and its similarity to D&D was one of those reasons. It had some basic classes and skills and had great 'races'. Just so much variety with mutant animals, mutant humans, pure strain humans and mutant plants. I think you could even use the system to run a basic supers game. It is my 'go to' system. I also like the base 18th century tech level vibe. Start play with black powder guns and end up with  plasma blasters!