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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Biohazard" data-source="post: 1217719" data-attributes="member: 15086">Well guys, I've been studying my Gamma World Player's Handbook for a week now, and I wanted to share a few thoughts.  I keep wanting to write a formal, structured review for rpg.net, but I know I'll never get around to it.  So please indulge my rambling blatherings as follows:1. The Introduction, "The World the Gamma Subunit Made" is pure poetry.  On the level of prose alone, it is extremely well-written, including its various narrative shifts and writing styles for individual voices.  "Humanity has this remarkable gift for inventing terms for hypothetical things and then treating them as real" (10) and "the human race invented its way into the return of mythology" (10) are but two examples of this superb writing.  This sure ain't Rifts, dudes.2. Chapter Five, "Comrade, Nemesis, Mystery," also stuck in my mind.  When we are told that "the eating of human hands (removed, ideally, from still-living humans) is an important ritual in ark culture" (190) or that "Only a suicidal madman would attempt to shoe a brutorz" (194) or that "Hoops are carnivorous.  Their mouths are lined with rending teeth, and their fur is often matted with the dried blood of a recent kill" (198) or that "A death machine is a demigod enslaved by a worm: This is why they have gone mad" (207)--well, let's just say that I knew I was in Gamma World heaven.  3. Part of the problem I think many people have had in approaching this book is that its tone doesn't mesh well with their own preconceptions of what Gamma World should be about.  The original GW was a product of the Cold War, and its emphasis on radiation and nuclear annihilation fit perfectly with the mood of late 1970s Western culture.  This new game is equally a reflection of its time: DNA manipulation, nanotechnology, biotechnology, "uplifting", genetic engineering--it reminds me of the recent work of David Brin or even the Transhumanist movement.  But if you don't like that, you won't like the game.  I for one really enjoy the darker tone of the game.  I think it's a common misconception that Gamma World was always a "wacky, gonzo-fun" game.  Folks, GW isn't Paranoia.  It isn't Monty Python.  Even so, if you desire a more wacky game, check out the illustrations on pages 29 and 37, to name but two examples.  Or play Omega World.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /> 4. It's hard to write comments like this.  On the one hand, if you are too critical, people call you a troll.  (Always easier to call someone names than respond to their arguments.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> ).  On the other hand, if you gush too much, people call you a fanboy.  So let me give my gripes: the proofreading, as has been said before, is terrible.  What bugs me is if I can sit down with this book at Starbucks and read through it over my coffee and find tons of typos, why couldn't the game designers? 5. Another thing that bugs me is what I perceive to be the unnecessary complexity of the mechanics.  In particular, the rules for nanotechnology and psionics made my head spin.  Maybe I'm just not very bright, or maybe I need to spend more time with it, but it really irritated me that the designers felt the need to create completely new, and somewhat arbitrary, mechanics for things that, in many instances, are already dealt with in d20 Modern.  6. Black print on grey pages does not make for a pleasant reading experience.  Many were the times when I found myself squinting and peering closer to the page as I rubbed my temples to alleviate a headache.  7. The character creation overview (21) doesn't mesh well with d20 Modern's character creation process.  I found myself doing way too much flipping back and forth and finally tried to write out a long list of how to blend the character creation process between the two books.  Then I found myself asking, "Hey, why am *I* doing this? Shouldn't the *designers* have done this for me?"8. Unlike some people who have posted here and at rpg.net, I really like the art in this book.  It seems like typical White Wolf artwork, which is, IMHO, a good thing.  I just wanted more of it.  Too many pages without illustrations.9. This morning I found myself wondering if the whole project isn't dated before it's even begun.  As we all know, d20 Future is coming out early next year, presumably with its own rules for nanotech, biotech, mutations, etc.   Makes me wonder why S&S didn't wait until then and work with WotC in the meantime to make the game based on d20 Future instead...I guess what I'm wondering is, when d20 Future comes out, will folks still want to play a Gamma World based on d20 Modern?10. Don't like it? Build your own Gamma World.  Here's the recipe:(a) Take one copy of d20 Modern Core Rulebook.(b) Stir in beasties from d20 Menace Manual (but call them "mutants" instead of "monsters").(c) Add mutations from Omega World, toning them down if you want a more balanced game.(d) Add technology from GURPS Biotech, GURPS Ultratech, and GURPS Robots.(e) Call it "Gamma World", and go nuts.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />  Am I glad I bought it? Absolutely--especially since I traded a guy for his copy and so didn't really pay anything.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />   But as for the future of this product line, I'm not so sure.  But thanks to the versatility of d20 Modern, it probably doesn't even matter.  Comments?</blockquote>

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