Tabletops at PAX
I got a chance to play two real tabletop games at PAX, both of them ending with World, by some chance.
Gamma World
Gamma World is a new setting slash ruleset for D&D 4e. I was under the initial assumption that it was a traditionally post-apocalyptic setting, but in reality it’s more of a wacko-crazy post-apocalypse world. The idea is that the walls between various universes break down, so all sorts of weird things bleed over into the normal world, setting it into disarray. This gives rise to all sorts of mutant powers and mixed up realities and monsters. It seems like there’s just as much room for a Beholder as there is for a mutant angry bear.
The demo scenario was pretty fun; we were a group of misfits living in a slum before getting accosted by the minions of this “new earth” cult that wanted to wipe anything technological off the face of the planet.
Character creation
Creating characters was swift and easy, which is great since all the WotC premade characters we’ve had for game days kind of suck. You roll 2d20 and get primary and secondary class types. I was a Pyrokinetic/Rat Swarm. This manifested as a mass of sentient, miniature flaming foxes named Firefox. A little awkwardness since anyone ending their turn next to me took 5 fire damage, but it was fun to imagine all my teammates running out of the way. Ash got to be a Telekentic/Doppleganger and was having a blast throwing up clones of herself all over the place. The rest of the party was rounded out with a Giant Doppleganger, a Seismic Android, Speedy Yeti, and some kind of cockroach man.
Instead of going through twenty books and a million different options all the variety comes from your mutation and gear decks, packs of cards supplied by the GM or through player-bought booster packs. You get a few standard powers from the classes you roll, but everything else changes over time, which makes you eager to use them before you lose the opportunity. Similarly, gear has been distilled down from long lists of various armors and weapons to just ‘1h weapon’ or ‘2h ranged gun’. Something that was done in Burning Wheel that I liked, allowing various kinds of swords or maces to be flavor rather than a mechanical choice. My intention was to have Firefox’s 2-handed heavy gun be a catapult that the foxes managed to lug around, which would lob a bomb with one little fox attached to light it in mid air. Alas, I never got to use it.
Combat
Simplified! Too many little rules in 4e, I feel, and it’s one of the reason I have been less inclined to play it. It felt pretty straightforward in Gamma World. Some of the major changes:
- No more second wind as a standard action. It’s a minor that recharges half (or a quarter? I forget) of your HP.
- All the bonuses are just level. No level/2. Which is nice, since it seems advancement peters off around level 10. By then I’ll want to try some new cool combination.
- No healing surges. A short rest simply refills your HP.
- Action points are gone.
Overall it seemed like it went a lot swifter than any of the 4e games I did. Skill challenges seemed to be basically the same, we got a fun one getting past the Dance-Bot 9000 guarding an old amusement park at the base of the Space Needle.
Apocalypse World
Indie game set in a post-apocalyptic future with bad ass characters doing cool things. It’s set up for sandbox play and has a pretty simple conflict resolution system. This is the one indie I had wanted to play since I heard there was a group demoing such things. I’m a sucker for post-apocalyptic settings and stories, so it’s kind of a shoe-in for me. One thing is for sure, this is an R-rated game.
Characters
Instead of a complex class or skill system, everyone picks a player book. This has everything you need for creating the character, playing the character, and what you can do. It’s a combination rule book and character sheet. I got to play the Brainer, which is described as a creepy mindfuck guy who can pull your brain’s puppet strings. (Quite literally, one of the brainer moves is ‘in-brain puppet strings’.) There’s a lot of other playbooks too, our game had a Hardholder (essentially the town owner), Skinner (social character/fixer), Angel (the medic), and a Maestro’D (special preorder book I wish I had, like a club owner or person who puts it all together).
We skipped over a little bit of character creation, where you set up history with your fellow apocalyptic people. But reading that in the rulebook sounds fun, and it’s a key component of character development.
Gameplay
First things up, the very different part of AW is that the MC (gamemaster) never rolls dice. As the MC you get a list of moves, and some guiding principles, but it’s your characters that have fate in your hand when the dice roll. From what I have read, this really frees you up to create a fun world. The other part that was enjoyable was a lot of the story and setting development is handed over to the players. It seems that a good MC will often ask the players for things.
From a player perspective this kind of put me on the spot. We all lived in a blown out Costco, but when asked why no one went out to other areas I answered “giant wolves”. Kind of a cop out. I’m not used to story games, but want to be.
There’s also a point that Apocalypse World does not shy away from: sex. Each character playbook lists a special move that happens when they have sex, most often with another PC but sometimes with NPC. Depending on the group I think this can be a big deal, or it might not be. I bought the rulebook and it really doesn’t give it any treatment over and above the other moves. However, it’s a game about the characters, their relationships, and a shitty world where there’s not a lot of good, so the possibility adds another dimension to it.
Hackability
Already seen a bunch of hacks for AW, which is cool. The system really lends itself to it, and the last chapter of the rulebook digs into some of the principles and mechanics. I’m interested in a particular variant, Dungeon World, which mixes up D&D tropes with Apocalypse World rules and ideas. It’s got custom playbooks like Bard, Ranger, Fighter, and swaps out basic moves (like ‘go aggro’) for ‘hit it with a sword’.
Really looking forward to playing some Apocalypse World, will just have to find a group for it. It flows nice and the player-interactivity will help keep attention at the table. Our story from the demo was really fun to play in, and all made up on the spot.
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