Wrapping my head around Gamma World - Part 1

Something working out in the back of my mind for a little bit now is where and how technology is recovering within Gamma World and what each group in the world would have access too at a given time. Before getting into the meat, this post is more stream of conciseness and very surface level thoughts than a tailored post with more thought and energy put into place. 

Image taken from: Fallout 4 Power Armor Wallpaper Hd (walpaperlist.com)

I know this is weird, but due to my training in the fields of STEM and History; I find the setting of Gamma world interesting since it is a cross between Science Fiction and Fantasy. In one area, you can have Fallout styled Power Armor stomping through ancient ruins and in another area you can have Conan and Red Sonja type characters battling monsters and plundering ancient treasure from the same kind of ruins that the Power Armored adventurer was combing through a few weeks earlier. 

Image taken from: Assis Leite - Conan and Red Sonja Color Sample 1 (artstation.com)

This sort of intersection of Technology and fantasy is interesting and had me thinking and looking at what this sort of world might look like. As mentioned above, there is basically these two extremes that can exist in Gamma World, you have Fallout standing beside Conan/Sword and Sorcery with each existing within the same general area within the larger world. What makes it interesting is that the middle ground honestly looks like something out of the Ring of Fire Series or from the film Wizards. 

Image taken from: Amazon.com: 1632 (Ring of Fire Series Book 1) eBook: Flint, Eric: Kindle Store

Image taken from: Wizards (film) - Wikipedia

What I mean by that is Gamma World is a setting where with enough luck, the Party can run across a working Pickup Truck or a set of working motorbikes in the middle of a cluster of Feudal Kingdoms, they can suddenly become some right off the cover of these novels. Alternately, the DM can set up the World to be a time after the world as recovered from the Shadow Wars with pieces of technology being reversed engineered and created again (to a much lower degree than prior to the Shadow War). 

I've recently been able to get ahold of Famine in Far-Go and I'm gonna read through that since just leafing through the Module has given some insights on what Gamma World is like as intended to be like by the writers and designers. If nothing else, it'll be a good read.     

  

  

Vault 49ers: Gamma World 1e Campaign Prep - The Basic Start

Running a Gamma World Campaign has been an idea I've been rolling around in my head for a while now, but with me getting a copy of the POD version of Gamma World I have really dug into prepping a full campaign. I want to talk a little about the premise of the game. 

Below is the basic Overview that the Players will see before the game will start. 

Basic Overview

Welcome to 2320, roughly 300 years since the world went nuclear and was blanketed in nuclear waste and ash. You are one of the newest students from the Pre-War days to be let out of the Freezer-chests, the world isn’t a whole lot like the one you remember. 

The world is a blasted wasteland now that is crawling with monsters, mutants and anything that wants to either eat your soft hide for breakfast, or turn you into their latest “Volunteer” to work their land. 

The whole reason why you’ve been let out is because your freezer timer is up and you need to be pulled out less you turn into a real meat-popsicle. Best make the most of your time here on this… brown earth now. Vault 49 had kept you alive long enough, time for you to do the rest.

In essence (and in my Fallout inspired beginning with the players waking up in the Vault), I hope this provides a summary of what Gamma World is like from my understanding that is presented within the original rulebook. I wrote this in the tone that basically the PCs are the players themselves (or at least a character similar to the player)  and they are having to be given a fast and dirty update on the world and is pushed out into it.  

Below is a look behind the curtain on my end of being the DM.  

Initial Start of Campaign

The campaign will kick off with the PCs waking up in Vault 49; a massive underground bunker built under UNCC Campus where much of the Student population and those living in the area around it were housed and placed into cryo-sleep. 

PCs will be greeted to a blasted out world filled with Monsters, Mutated Humanoids, and Mutated Animals crawling through the ruins of the Old World… Our world for those that decided to do a Self-Insert of themselves.

After being evaluated by Doctors and Medical Bots, the PCs will be asked if they seek to work within the confines of the old University Area or go out into the wider world to find Tech and fight monsters. The NPC they are talking to will stress that they have plenty of staff currently in the central compound and Adventurers (or Prospectors) are needed.

To dissect my thoughts, the central DNA of the game is ripped right out of Fallout 4 (and the Fallout Series in general) in that the PCs are start out inside of a Bunker and leave the safety of Cryo-sleep for the wider, stranger and much more dangerous world that our world has morphed into. The "Vault" that they PCs come out of is located under the grounds of the College me and my players go to. 

The choice to allow the PCs to be self-inserts (or at least mirrored version of the Players) is to allow the use of their basic knowledge of the local area which we all have traversed in real life. The choice will hopefully make things enjoyable since the players can call upon their own knowledge to work around given situations. 

In addition, the choice to set the game localized around UNCC (and thus the greater Charlotte Area) is also kind of fun since I get to turn everything in the area onto it's ear with Gamma World logic. 

In the next couple of posts I'm likely gonna try to get into the actual world and what is going on in the local area.