Just got Gamma World and Machines & Mutants

[Psychic Skeksis]

I just turned 33 the other day, and my mother-in-law, bless her, bought me two RPG books I've been wanting since they were first announced: Gamma World Player's Handbook and Machines & Mutants. In spite of the negative reviews I've been reading I asked her to get me these books without having flipped through them myself. Gamma World was a childhood love and I was tripping on nostalgia.

Boy, am I disappointed.

Grey pages with black text, clunky, inconsistent mechanics, terrible editing and proofreading, and minimal amounts of equipment, mutations, and psionic abilities.

These books are aesthetically disappointing, poorly designed, and mechanically unsound. As I was reading through them I found myself saying--over and over--"Well, I'll just house rule that..." Eventually I realized that my house rules were longer than the book itself.

Bummer.

Kids, the moral of this story is: never buy an RPG book sight unseen--even if you *did* receive it as a gift. Needless to say, I'm not telling my mother-in-law about this...but I *will* sneak down to my FLGS and trade these in towards the purchase of OGL Horror.

[Now I know why no one's discussing Gamma World, either here on on the Wizards boards...]

 

[Darrin Drader]

Kids, the moral of this story is: never buy an RPG book sight unseen--even if you *did* receive it as a gift. Needless to say, I'm not telling my mother-in-law about this...but I *will* sneak down to my FLGS and trade these in towards the purchase of OGL Horror.

Personally I didn't find the Gamma World rules all that bad. Of course I'm still waiting for my copy of Mutants and Machines. However, if that isn't your cup of tea, I'm fairly sure you will be happy with Darwin's World. For 40 bucks you get a book that is almost 400 pages long, 100% D20 Modern compatible, and very well done. Its a little more in the spirit of Fallout, though it has a healthy dose of Mad Max and just a touch of old school Gamma World. I highly recommend it.

 

[lp]

Yup have to agree about darwin's world 2 kicking ass and chewing bubblegum.. by far the most well fleshed out, interesting, and useful rpg product I have ever gotten my paws on.

RPGObjects is quickly becoming my main squeeze..

 

[Lalato]

I didn't find GW all that bad. Sure, I expected better editing, but I didn't think the rules sucked all that much. Now that I've actually played a few sessions, they aren't distracting in any way.

 

[Acid_crash]

After playing a one shot of DW2 and then attempting to play a session of GW I am firmly a believer of the first and won't play the second, for all of the above reasons already mentioned.