DM: Matt
The Party:
Chewy Sweatyhair (Rick): Empath/Entropic
Jerry Fungi (Bryan): Fungoid/Plastic
Pebble Bushyhead (Misty): Plant/Pyrokinetic
The Module:
This was a special session for Halloween. Yeah, yeah, it's January, but we had a hard time getting everyone together. This was a module that I designed. The gimmick (I always have a gimmick) is that instead of using tokens or minis, it uses pieces of candy to represent the monsters. Whatever you kill, you get to eat. I wrote the module using a generic universe, so it was easy to convert it to Gamma World. For those interested in running it themselves, I've posted the generic version of the module in this blog.
The Characters:
Per the suggested rules, I had the players roll their characters randomly, from all three sources (the basic Gamma World
set, Famine in Far-Go
, and Legion of Gold
). Bryan was a Fungoid/Plastic, so he was basically a rubber mushroom. Misty was a Plant/Pyrokinetic, so she was a burning bush (you know, there's a cream for that). And Rick was an Empath/Entropic, so while he could feel your pain, he was also often the cause of it.I packed a bunch of D&D and Star Wars minis so they'd have a variety to choose from. I had a decent mini for Bryan's Fungoid - a D&D Myconid Guard. For Misty, we used a D&D Blackwoods Dryad (I don't seem to have a mini of a flaming plant, sorry). Since neither of Rick's mutations really affected his appearance much, I told him he could look like whatever he wanted... so he picked Chewbacca.
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| A typical-looking party... for Gamma World. |
The first encounter was against a bunch of chocolate-covered zombie minions (Hershey's Kisses) on the factory floor. At the end of the first round, a large chocolate golem (Reeses Cup) burst out of one of the vats and joined the battle. They PCs out the minions pretty quickly, after which defeating the golem wasn't that hard.
The second fight was against four Fruit Imps (Starburst) in the break room. Jerry developed a temporary flight mutation, which he used effectively. Of course, the enemies could fly as well, so it's not like he could just hang back and blast them from safety, but it still turned out to be a useful ability.
I ran the third encounter a little different than in the original module. The storage/shipping room now contained only one monster, a large golem (Reeses Cup). When he was defeated, he split into three smaller golems (Reeses Minis). During the battle, Chewy used an Omega Tech item which put all three Lesser Choclans to sleep... and put himself to sleep as well. This made wrapping up the battle fairly easy, even if it did backfire on Chewy a bit.
In the final battle, I used a large plastic Hershey's Kiss to represent the Demon Boss. He was joined in battle by two more chocolate zombies and two more lesser golems. Pebble had acquired an Alpha Mutation which allowed her to fly, and a successful overcharge even let her hover. So she stayed above the enemies' heads firing ranged attacks at them. Early in the battle, Chewy tried to overcharge a power and ended up stunning himself. It was save ends, but he failed to save about seven times in a row, making him miss most of the encounter. But the boss had problems of his own. His only ranged attack was an encounter power, and the PCs managed to stay where he couldn't reach them in melee.
Afterthoughts:
The candy gimmick was a big hit with the players. I hadn't DMed in a good while, so it was hard getting back into the swing of it. Sometime around the second encounter it looked like the enemies were doing too much damage against a three-person, level 1 party. So I nerfed a few of the monsters on the fly, mostly by "forgetting" to use certain powers.
This was my first time running a Gamma World session, and it was a lot of fun. However, the Alpha Mutations and Omega Tech cards make it a lot harder to predict how combats are going to turn out. A perfectly balanced encounter can suddenly become a breeze when a player draws the right card, or it can become a nightmare when that same player fails an overcharge attempt. But that's part of what makes it awesome.
Pictures:
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| When Chocolate-Covered Zombies Attack |
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| Product shot! |
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| Fruit Imps in the break room |
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| Chewy gets put to sleep by his own Omega Tech |
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| The final boss |
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