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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MrMyth" data-source="post: 5349748" data-attributes="member: 61155">If I'm completely misreading your question and telling you stuff you already know, um, apologies in advance. But I believe this is how it works:  Gamma World uses two elements in card format: Alpha Mutations and Omega Tech.  Alpha Mutations represent random fluctuations in reality that alter the characters. These fluctuations typically change from combat to combat, though they can flux during combat itself, or the use of them could even backfire.  Omega Tech represents treasure the party finds - powerful items of alien tech, from advanced human civilizations, etc. Laser swords, ray guns, jet packs. While they can last for multiple combats, such tech is unreliable and could break down after any fight (though one can occasionally salvage something useful from the remains.)  Now, note that both of these elements are designed to be both random, and also regularly changing. Now, you could provide these benefits by rolling on random 'mutation' and 'tech' tables - but the card format tends to be a quicker way for the DM to just deal out some random mutations/treasures, and have players discard the old ones when they go away. (Rather than writing down and then erasing new abilities every combat.) So, that's the premise behind the cards themselves. You don't, however, actually need to buy any boosters to play the game. The game comes with a full deck of 80 cards (40 Alpha Mutations, 40 Omega Tech), which should easily provide you with what you need. If players don't have any cards of their own, everything gets drawn from the DM deck without a problem.  However, boosters exist. From what I can tell, the boosters all contain random cards from a seperate 120 card deck, so you won't have any overlap with the deck that comes with the game.  Why would you want to buy boosters? A DM might pick them up simply to have even more random results. A player might pick some up and build their own mutation and tech decks to randomly draw from - there are some rules for this (to prevent people from just stacking up on their favorite cards), and even then, you might sometimes have to draw from the DMs deck anyway.  So, booster decks are available to enhance the game. Investing in them, as a player, might provide a small boost in your power level (in that you will be drawing items and mutations you are already a fan of), but I suspect the benefits will be minor at best.  How will this be integrated into other games? From what I understand, some card expansions are already being planned for D&D. I think I've heard of Fortune cards (which would provide random events during combat to liven things up), and possibly Item cards (which really are just another way of randomizing treasure.)  At its core, there is relatively little difference between using these cards and just rolling on random tables to have stuff happen or to generate items. The cards are, obviously, more expensive, but also provide the benefit of convenience - it simply is quicker to shuffle a deck and pass out some cards than to have everyone roll on a table and write things down.  None of these approaches requires booster packs to play the game. Gamma World comes with plenty of cards on its own. D&D Fortune cards and Item cards will be purely optional - if a DM wants to use them, they can, and if not, they can either avoid such randomness or design random event tables as desired.</blockquote>

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