Let's talk Gamma World & Gamma Terra for a moment. Gamma World can take ordinary Dungeons & Dragons characters into a world of primitive saverage & sorcery. And my preferred poison for this rpg is the vaulted second edition of Gamma World with the Larry Elmore artwork. And while Mutant Future & Mutant Crawl Classics both have excellent emulations of the classic game. So last night I spent on Gamma Terra thanks to a friend of mine out West with a Guinness and I've got some thoughts on these venerable tomes of post apocalyptic adventure.
I did a bit of horse trading with a friend out West for some tables and campaign help for a bit of Gamma World stuff he wasn't using. What I got surprised me was the fact that I got a first and second edition Gamma World rule book and the Ruins of Pitzburke
The Ruins of Pitzburke is one of the most iconic and dangerous places you can send a group of PC's in Gamma World. This place is a mix of ruins, death lands, mutants, madness, robotic horror, and more meant that your little party of adventures could be swallowed up by the ruins without even a second thought.
And if you think that your Mutant Future PC's would fair any better in Pitzburke, I took a party of Mutant Future rpg players through the ruins and the whole affair was a total party kill. The ruins were designed to keep the Gamma World game campaign going for a long time to come. I've taken Boot Hill PC's and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition parties through those ruins and the though the results varied there were some interesting adventure campaigns.
What makes this such an iconic adventure is the fact that the Ruins of Pitzburke essentially teaches the dungeon master both the fine art of stocking the ruins, NPC encounters, NPC factions, and Cryptic Alliances. Not to mention the numerous natural and radiation hazards of the Pitzburke setting. But still this was for me an essential setting for post apocalyptic campaigning almost as much as Keep on the Borderlands and In Search of the Unknown is for B/X Dungeons and Dragons. In the past I've run this adventure and placed the whole thing in a valley on Carcosa just to mess with player's minds. They weren't amused by that turn of events especially when they realized just what this meant for their community in the long run. But that's another blog post.
There are several pieces of free gaming goodness that have made running the ruins easier and can spice things up for an experienced group of players:
The Ruins of Pitzburke is one of the most iconic and dangerous places you can send a group of PC's in Gamma World. This place is a mix of ruins, death lands, mutants, madness, robotic horror, and more meant that your little party of adventures could be swallowed up by the ruins without even a second thought.
And if you think that your Mutant Future PC's would fair any better in Pitzburke, I took a party of Mutant Future rpg players through the ruins and the whole affair was a total party kill. The ruins were designed to keep the Gamma World game campaign going for a long time to come. I've taken Boot Hill PC's and Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 1st edition parties through those ruins and the though the results varied there were some interesting adventure campaigns.
What makes this such an iconic adventure is the fact that the Ruins of Pitzburke essentially teaches the dungeon master both the fine art of stocking the ruins, NPC encounters, NPC factions, and Cryptic Alliances. Not to mention the numerous natural and radiation hazards of the Pitzburke setting. But still this was for me an essential setting for post apocalyptic campaigning almost as much as Keep on the Borderlands and In Search of the Unknown is for B/X Dungeons and Dragons. In the past I've run this adventure and placed the whole thing in a valley on Carcosa just to mess with player's minds. They weren't amused by that turn of events especially when they realized just what this meant for their community in the long run. But that's another blog post.
There are several pieces of free gaming goodness that have made running the ruins easier and can spice things up for an experienced group of players:
- One is Kellri's 100 Gamma World Events available down the right hand side of his blog under downloads
- The second is a break down of the various editions of Gamma World and conversion to Mutant Future available on the Mutant Future Wiki
- A nice version of the Pitzburke map so if you already own this map it makes things very nice for a tablet or lap top.
- This topic on Dragon's foot has some damn righteous 1/2 Edition Gamma World ideas and material
I might also suggest downloading Mutant Future unless you've got collector's cash because Gamma World is going for one hundred and fifty dollars on Flea bay. Catch you all in the ruins until next time.
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