DM Question Gamma World- Alpha Flux WTF? Advice needed.

[Goonalan]

We rolled up some characters for a one-off game of 4th edition based Gamma World and we had a bit of spare time so we decided to play a simple one-off encounter just to see it work.

In game when a player rolls a '1' on a D20 (for any d20 roll in an encounter) they suffer an 'Alpha Flux'- basically they discard their Alpha Mutation card and then pick another form the deck. Which is all well and good but in the course of one combat encounter (maybe seven rounds of play), with multiple attack area effects, skill checks and saving throws etc. the players managed to roll '1' nine times- one guy changed his card three time in the same round.

The result was the players didn't use any of their Alpha Mutations, or at least most of them didn't (only two did)- two of the five players decided not to even read their cards- not because they're bad, or even that they don't like the system, it's just there were plenty of other things going on in the fight...

Do people have a house-rules for this? If so, can I hear some?

As an aside we're going to play through 'Steading of the Iron King' next week- there seems to be a lot of Omega Tech stuff given out, I realise these items are one-shots (subject to a roll), but there seems to be one per player for almost every encounter, or thereabouts. In fact I've just been back and scanned the scenario and a party that makes its way through all 8 encounters will draw 40+ Omega Tech cards over the course of the adventure.
That seems a little like over-kill, too many- we're on mid-Paragon level in our 4e main campaign and sometimes the card/power situation is a little fraught. I understand that Gamma World is a different kettle of fish- I get the idea is use your tech when you get it, or so it seems- but 40+, eight extra items each plus the ever changing Alpha Mutations, it seems a little meh.

Again any suggestions of how this has worked out for you, or else how have you house-ruled it?

The rest of the encounter was lush, the Tech and Mutations thing could be just a blip, but the guys were/are enamoured by their PCs already- the card thing just seemed to be tacked on.

For info the party includes-

Major Blat- a genetically engineered super-soldier human/cockroach armed with a giant saw-toothed pizza cutter; Cockroach/Engineered Human combo.

Tesla Van Der Graaf- a 3rd grade paunchy forty-five year old mustachioed glasses-wearing science teacher dressed in a padded tron suit who thinks he's a super-hero, armed with a compressed air bolt gun; Electrokinetic/Telekinetic combo.

Doofus- a dumb all-knowing Yeti, armed with a road sign and flinging icicles, wearing an freezer plant/air conditioning unit on his back; Yeti/Hypercognitive.

Tiger Woods- a giant plant who drives a golf cart and is armed with a flag pole and golf clubs; Plant/Giant combo.

&

Slim Pickings- a vultureoid hells angel armed with a shotgun and a samurai sword; Hawkoid/Gravity Controller.

All rolled at random, with no changes or swap-outs; as I say above the players were just in fits playing these guys, the card issue seemed to be the only thing that stuck out as difficult, or else a little silly- well not silly, silly is generally a good thing- just less fun.

I don't want to ditch it if I can make it work, and fun, so...

Suggestions, we start the scenario next Wednesday or Thursday (25th) so I'd appreciate any ideas before then.

Cheers Goonalan.

 

[Radiating Gnome]

It's been a while, but my recollection of the gamma world stuff was that it was meant to be silly, wild, and wooly. Messy, even. More of a break you enjoy between serious D&D campaigns than a long-term option of it's own.

Given that, these chaotic elements you're talking about seem pretty much in place, but there's no reason not to house rule it if you want to.

Maybe if a player rolls a 1 in an encounter they draw a new alpha mutation card at the end of the encounter -- so they keep their existing card through the encounter, and you only deal with one new draw per PC for a given encounter.

-rg

 

[Goonalan]

It's been a while, but my recollection of the gamma world stuff was that it was meant to be silly, wild, and wooly. Messy, even. More of a break you enjoy between serious D&D campaigns than a long-term option of it's own.

Given that, these chaotic elements you're talking about seem pretty much in place, but there's no reason not to house rule it if you want to.

Maybe if a player rolls a 1 in an encounter they draw a new alpha mutation card at the end of the encounter -- so they keep their existing card through the encounter, and you only deal with one new draw per PC for a given encounter.

-rg

Thanks for that, we get the one-off thing- we're going to be playing it like fools anyway.

The card thing in the one encounter we played was just too messy- as in people (and these are guys that have been playing the game for a good few years, and at high level) just chose to ignore the cards in the end, and that was without the Omega Tech extras.

The Alpha Mutation card gets replaced at the end of the encounter anyway- that's the existing rule, as in 8 encounters in the scenario and a different mutation each time, with the change card every time you roll a '1', and some monsters have auras that increase that chance (I think the Gamma Moth has an aura in which Alpha Mutations occur on a roll of 4 or less). Well, it all means with both decks in play the average PC is going to pick up a minimum of 16 cards in the scenario (and more if they roll a '1').

Cheers Goonalan

 

[scourger]

We played quite a bit of Gamma World 4e a couple of years ago - 3 adventures worth. I recall that we did not use Alpha Flux as much. We just let the characters keep their original Alpha Mutations. The Omega Tech was not a problem, but I think I had them draw just one card as a party where indicated; so there wasn't one card per character. But, I only had 2 player characters - the rest were followers.

I think it is a great game and a nice simplification of the 4e rules. The issue we had for long-term play was that the characters were too random without real choices during advancement. In other words, it was not crunchy enough (not enough fine granularity of options) for the players. If I run it again to play out the 2 remaining modules (Famine in Far-Go & Legion of Gold), I would cross it with Omega World d20 to give the players more options & advancement choices. Otherwise, the players could bring 4e fantasy characters into the Gamma World (but we didn't really groove on 4e). Or, Gamma World characters could follow 4e classes & advancement - there is a sort of class advancement in one of those expansions; but it is a little too little and a little too late.

You could even ditch the cards altogether, but it will weaken the party quite a bit. I believe the game is very playable without the cards. Or let the players choose their Alpha Mutations. Or, if they want to increase their investment, have them buy their own cards to draw new Alpha & Omega power ups. The individual deck building was supposed to be part of the game and could have been a money maker for the publisher.

 

[Goonalan]

Thanks for that, I think we're going to play another 'test' encounter using maptools sometime over the weekend, try out a few things and see how they play.

And thanks for the write up about the game in general- we're playing this as a one off but I've got hold of the two expansion kits so if it goes well, and is fun, then we may return to it.

From reading the rules in the last week I can see what you say about the lack of crunchiness, strangely I had the opposite thought to you- how about dropping a Gamma World team in to a 4e, or better still a 3.x edition scenario. I'd love to DM a group through some of the Goodman Games DCCs 3e scenarios. Something to think about for the future.

Cheers Goonalan.

 

[RangerWickett]

It's Alpha Flux, right? So their mutation exists in a superposition of multiple possible mutations at once. If your players are having a hard time caring about a mutation that might go away, say that every time they roll a 1 they get an EXTRA mutation, and they can use both until the end of the encounter. That way any new mutation is sure to stick around for a few rounds, making it more worthwhile to pay attention to.