The Phoenix II: Van of the Future!

 Found this groovy van online and it makes me think it make a great Gamma World or Star Frontiers "team vehicle".

Here's another cool one, but not a Phoenix, per se. Still has that Adventure People/Playmobil vibe to it:

You really shouldn't have eaten that expired mutagen tablet...

1d20 of Ick:

1. Eye tendrils, flailing all the time
2. Back scales (2"-3"), itchy and molting
3. Constant wheezing from your new, tiny "throat mouth"
4. Sideburns, running down neck, shoulders, ending at wrists (hopefully)
5. A slippery ooze between extremities that won't go away, even with washing
6. Extra teeth! Between your toes...
7. Shoulders begin to bubble and swell into large sacks of leaky, too-sweet smelling fluid
8. "Everything is normal!" say the tiny faces that appear where your kneecaps used to be
9. Iguanna tail sprouts, greens up nicely, turns brown and dies...on an endless cycle
10. Roll twice on this table, if you get #20 both times, you lucked out--no mutation!
11. Knees now bend the other direction, walk like a chicken (add +2 to your move if you roleplay a headbob for the rest of the session)
12. The person on your left gets to pick any two from this list for you
13. Heel hooves! Which are hooves. On your heels.
14. Fancy colored fish fins line your cranium and spine; also, constant dry mouth for some reason
15. Polydactyly protrusions overcome hands, constantly wiggling
16. Gurgling a pungent slime when attempting to make persuasive arguments
17. Narwhal tusk! You know that's a tooth that protrudes through your face, right? 
18. An ankylosaurus tail bursts out the back of your pants---pray you have the abs, back, and calf muscles to counter the added mass
19. Pheromone firestorm gives you a massive +5 Charisma bonus, any NPCs you encounter follow you around for 1d10 rounds
20. All of the above (you poor bastard!)

Happy Halloween!

Relive 80s neon-punk with Metaman

METAMAN from Boombros on Vimeo.

Another cyberpunk-themed goodie. Between this and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon--AND JB's World War Borg project--I'm this close to starting a cheesy cyborg project. Even have a Pintrest board of appropriate visuals set to go.

So--Gamma World? Mutant Future? Or new X-plorers setting?

GAAAAH!

MUST FOCUS ON RAD ASTRA.....CANNOT LOOK WAY FROM SHINY CHROME NOSTALGIA.

Archie Bronson Outfit has your next campaign setting all ready to go...

Set in the same universe as Multinauts, methinks.

Gamma World Video Game in the Works from Atari

Note: this is a re-post from Gamma World War.

Official Game Title and Logo

No, that's not a headline from 1980, though an old cart on the 2600 would be awesome! In fact, this is for realz, according to a post I just read thanks to our friendly neighborhood Sniderman (Savage Afterworld, a blog you should already be reading). Gamma World Alpha Mutation, was demoed at the E3 video game show last week. Sounds like photos of the game demo were not allowed (play report links below), but it apparently holds fairly true to the most recent D&D 4E incarnation of the game--including picking two origins for your mutation. I wonder if there will be a randomizing option?

It's being called a "third-person shooter", I guess that's over-the-shoulder/birds-eye type of play. One thing I love about video games is the ability to play cooperatively and it sounds like GW will include that aspect, supporting 2-players on the console and an additional 2 online.

No release date yet, but it sounds like it's going to be published for Playstation and XBox. One possible "downer" it's being developed by the same team that did the recent Daggerdale D&D game, which has drawn some pretty "mixed" reviews to say the least.

Snidey's already did a bang-up job in his post on the game setting--which I won't duplicate here--but I did track down a few other goodies from a fact sheet on Game Tactics:

Explore Gamma Terra: Take on a variety of perilous missions through a variety of regions of gamma terra, from ruined cities to barren wastelands and beyond, the collision of multiple realities has created a world as exotic as it is deadly.

The Quick and the Dead: Gamma world delivers the depth of an RPG and the action of third person shooter. Quick reflexes and split second decisions are just as important as effective character design.

Lone Wolf or Death Squad: Take on missions solo or join up with friends to tackle the challenges of the Gamma Terra. Play with two players locally or up to four players online.

Evolve Your Character with Alpha Mutations: Gamma World’s character customization system allows players to actively develop their character in almost unlimited ways.

Discover Omega Technology: Powerful technology from other dimensions can turn the tides and preserve your hero’s life… for now.

Conduct Weapons R&D: Scavenge the environment for parts to create new weapons, armor, tools and more. Your ingenuity is your edge in this fight for survival.

So what are your feelings about seeing the beloved GW rendered in polygons?

Cool? Not your thing?

Play reports:
Gamespot
OMGN

More coverage:
Team XBox
Gamertell

How many encounters per game?

Actually got to PLAY in a "mini" game of Gamma World on Saturday (I'll cover that later). The game was about 4.5 hours long (it went about 90 minutes over it's planned time) with six players, plus the GM. However, we didn't finish one of the encounters.

In fact, we only had two total (GW on the 4E engine is pretty high on the crunch. Surprise!). Both were rather long--one wilderness, the other indoor. Anyway, it got me wondering what everyone else considers a "good number" of encounters in gaming.

Now I know this is casting a wide net based on individual experience, game preference, and gameplay style, BUT here goes:

How many encounters do you typically, uh, encounter per gaming session? What do you consider ideal? 

To the comments!

On my way to Gamma Terra!

Got my dice and my rulebook, ready to go! The Gamma World Mega Event starts today over at Source Comics and Games with a character generation kick-off. I'm REALLY looking forward to playing this summer. I've had exactly one chance at playing Gamma World so far so it will be great to get in some regular gaming. I'll post a recap here on Exonauts and on Gamma World War. If I get to play in an ongoing campaign, I'll post regular updates over at GWW.

In other news, I did some tidying of the pages and resources on this blog so it should be much easier to find stuff. A quick rundown:

• X-Plorers - this was up already, but in case you hadn't looked there for a while, all the X-Plorers related stuff I'll be working on can be found quickly through here. Plus links to outside resources.
• Exoplanets - here's some links mixed in with a long list of stuff that now has it's own page. Plus links to any related posts here an on Threads of Adventure.
• Comics - another one that had it's own page for a while, but now more links and resources are listed, plus a general re-sorting.
• Other RPG Worlds - these great campaign-specific blogs (all homebrew!) have been on Exonauts for a while, usually on the sidebar. Previously listed as "Tameless Worlds". If you've got a suggestion for more, let me know. I prefer to list them according the name of the planet/world. :)
• Other Sci-Fi Resources - as you might imagine this is everything else, though I took some time to re-sort.

Many of these are pages aren't yet alpha-sorted, but I hope to get to that eventually.

Hope everyone is enjoying the weekend in their corner of the blogosphere.

Expiscor Eternus!

It's the End of the World and I Feel: Fine-VF 8.5

Sorry, that's a bad comic grading joke. Anyway, tomorrow is a big day! Not only is it the End of the World™, but it's also SpringCon here in the Twin Cities. I'll be there of course, geeking out with the rest of those left behind. In recent years I've spent more time chatting with the guest artists. To me, that's really the reason to go. If I buy stuff, it's usually a commission sketch.

Oh, and check out the End-of-it-All poll I posted on Gamma World War. Should be exciting!

Gamma World Mega Event in the Twin Cities

My Friendly Local Gaming Store, Source Comics and Games, is holding a Gamma World shindig the first week in June. It will of course be the latest rendition of the rules based on the 4E D&D system. Given how much fun I had last time I played, I plan on attending.

It's not often that GW gets love here in St. Paul / Minneapolis, so I'm glad to spread the word.

Character creation has been set:

Saturday, June 4th from 12:00 PM to 6:00 PM
In the Source's gaming room

Here's a link to the event page with more info soon:

2011 Source Mega Summer RPG Event: GAMMA WORLD!

More Players Wanted / Welcome / GM's Needed!

Click the image to see official event page

More info posted by the Source:

• http://sourcesummerrpg.forumsland.com (has the most updated info)
• Email coordinators Amy and Tabor

UPDATE: Just got an email from one of the organizers saying there's a sign up sheet at The Source to play every night of the first week of June (except Wednesday and the following Saturday). A WEEK OF GAMMA WORLD!!!


Note: This is a re-post from the Gamma World War blog.

Quick Update on X-plorers and Other Projects

I figured it's been a while since I've given an update on X-plorers. The player's guide portion is finished and submitted to Brave Halfling. I'm nearly finished making the edits to the referee's section. I'd hoped to get it to him sooner, but life, my job, alien viruses, and what-have-you, etc. All I can say is that John Adams has the patience of a saint!

He's been posting art and updates over at BH, you really should check it out. Both he and fellow editor Bill DeFranza have put up with my constant delays, but there's a light finally at the end of the tunnel. I'll be posting more about X-plorers in the coming weeks.

On another note, last fall I went to go try out the new Gamma World D&D setting at my FLGS, Source Comics and Games. (Hold the groans!) Truth be told, I was in love. Yeah, the rules are on the crunchy side, but I fell hard for post-apocalyptic mayhem. Visions of broken moons over a ruined metropolis filled with mutants a la Thundarr danced in my head.

And then it hit me like a gamma ray blast! Blame it on watching too many documentaries on the History Channel....

"GAMMA WORLD"
+ 
WORLD WAR = 

Hey look, another idea for campaign/blog/project I barely have time for! Seriously though, I had no intentions of crowding the blogosphere with more "stuff". Blogging just happens to fit the way I think and sort out ideas. I can't help it. Maybe I need to join a support group.

Here's a quick thematic description, which I won't go into here. It's specific enough that I wouldn't want to weigh down Exonauts with all the posts (though there already is/will be some crossover mainly for archiving purposes). It also began to turn into a nice little repository of gamma resources. Anything/everything I could find that I thought might be useful, I dumped into it.

So it was gonna be my secret, unlisted blog that I only worked on when I had the time. At least, I thought it was off the grid until a sneaky one-eyed OSRian spotted and began following me. (Help!) And when James over at Grognardia declared May was for Gamma World, my resolve weakened, so now the felinoid is out of the bag.

Anyway, it's a fun little side project at the moment and the banner is terrible--but that's homemade for ya. If I win Powerball tomorrow I'm having custom art made. That's like 6th or 7th on the lottery-winning list after making my own Gamma World movie.

So there you go. It's just a little irradiated sandbox of my very own. Feel free to grab a rusty shovel and dig in!

Random Fun with the Junkulator!

Oh man, this thing is awesome! You'd think that a guy like me who loves random tables of junk would have heard about the JUNKULATOR from CriticalHits.com. IT'S FULL OF WIN!

It's been around a while, so I apologize for my geekgasmic gasps of joy if you're already familiar. If not--basically, it's a web script generator that will spit out random junk finds for a post-apocalyptic/Gamma World setting. You can set it for 1d4+1 pieces or just a single piece of junk. There's also options for item condition and PICTURES!!

Here's a few snapshots of stuff I "found". Click to embiggen:


Aw, man, the things you can do with an intact rototiller and a stained whirlpool!!

It's a riot, give the Junkulatator a whirl!

Vintage Mars Attacks Card Scans!

If there's a patient zero in post-modern America that fed the "gamma strain" into the pop culture mileu, the Mars Attacks collectible cards are a prime suspect.

Here's a few juicy scans posted on Flickr (hat tip to Boing Boing, BTW) of the set, as released in the 60s. They were, of course, the guiding inspiration behind Tim Burton's 1996 film.

Enjoy!

Friends of Starship Warden: Gamma World Creator Jim Ward is Very Ill

I'm a bit behind the curve on this, but still wanted to pass along that Jim Ward, author of Metamorphosis Alpha, the original Gamma World, and one of TSR's founding editors has fallen seriously ill and is in need of some help. His family and close friends have set up a website to help alleviate some of the cost of his care. From the website:

He has been diagnosed, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, with a serious neurological disorder. The gaming world came close to saying goodbye to yet another of the pioneers of RPGing several months ago. The experts say that Jim's condition is treatable and manageable, but will remain very serious forever.

Jim is very, very slowly recovering; every day is a new skirmmish with the disorder. He still suffers from acute bouts of dizziness and a pervasive lassitude due to bodily energy issues.

While Jim and his family are fortunate to have some health insurance, the co-pays are mounting at an alarming rate, having hit five digits some while ago and showing no signs of abating any time soon.

Having had a grandmother treated there for Alzheimer's, I can vouch that the Mayo Clinic provides amazing neurologic care. If you've enjoyed any of Mr. Ward's fine work, this Thanksgiving weekend would seem to be an ideal time to visit Friends of Starship Warden and share your appreciation.

Is "The Lost Future" SyFy's Foray into Gamma World?

Either I don't watch enough TV (that hardly seems possible!) or this is bound to be so bad that they didn't bother promoting it. But the SyFy Channel is premiering a new movie-of-the-week that skirts very close to Gamma World territory. It stars Sean Bean (of LotR fame) as a primitive tribesman living among civilization's ruins. Check out the trailer and this blurb from IMDB:

A group of post-apocalyptic survivors, struggle to survive in a world where jungles and forests and primeval wetlands and deserts have obliterated civilization. They staunchly face genetically mutating beasts and mysterious diseases in an attempt to re-establish the human race as masters of Earth.

SyFy's webpage is even more sparse on details, but I did spot a mention that the mutations are caused by a disease, rather than nuclear radiation or the happy-black-hole-maker.

Here's another preview (which looks hokey/generic):


Ah man, I'm sorry you had to see that. (And I doubly apologize for SyFy's atrociously obnoxious vid player). But the trailer looks slightly more GW-like. Might be worth checking out for some B-movie fun. For me, it's going to have to wait until it's replayed since I'll be seeing Skyline Saturday!

• Official SyFy page 
• IMDB page

My trip to Gamma Terra...

Here's a pic I took of the event poster, in where else? The bathroom (no lie).

Saturday, I attended the Gamma World release event--Gamma World Game Day--at the Source Comics and Games (my FLGS) here in the Twin Cities. It's been about a year since I've played D&D 4E, and I have to say I felt really rusty. In fact, I'm sure I annoyed some of the other players, but in my defense I played the "newb" at the table so I ended up with several people helping me along with some of the crunch.

The Source held two sessions (11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m.) each running about four hours. Since I'd been offered tickets to go see the Gopher game in the morning (they lost--surprise!) I went to the latter. After signing up, I was placed at a table with four other players (three of whom who were pals) and another fellow. They all seemed like nice guys, the three who knew each other seemed to be regular--or at least non-novice-- 4E players and had things down pat. We all began as 1st Level PCs. Our little A-Team of mutants consisted of:

• Chitter-Chitter: a rat swarm in humanoid form that had psionic powers and wielded the Skillet of Justice™
• Catnip: a feline plant who later acquired a Heavy-lift Harness (think Ripley in Aliens)
• Frank: I misheard his origin, but I think he was an enhanced human of some kind with a hoverboard and and fantastically high mechanics skill
• Kenshiro: again, chargen was somewhat chaotic, but I think he was made out of rock or metal, he swung a brick flail
• Zeke the Beak: a giant hawkoid who swung a full-sized mailbox and a harpoon gun, and donned armor made of salvaged ironing boards

I played Zeke. Here's a rendering:

Zeke's stats (with modifiers:
STR: 18 (+4)
DEX: 14 (+2)
CON: 16 (+3)
WIS: 16 (+3)
INT: 10 (n/a)
CHA: 7 (-2)
HP: 28 / Bloodied: 14
Zeke had a Nature skill with a +4, which came in completely useless as he had a habit of rolling natural 1's. Oh, and being a hawkoid, he could of course fly his speed (6).

AC: 18
Fortitude: 14
Reflex: 13
Will: 14

The demo module, "Trouble in Freesboro" has five encounters. *Spoiler!* We started outside on a lonely highway and came across some porkers (humanoid pigs) and a swarm of radioactive birds which proved down-right tough to kill. That encounter lasted forever. Later we sauntered over to a research lab where we fought some bots on a rooftop and made our way into the main event (thus skipping two encounters).

There has already been plenty of reviews of the material included in the new set, unboxing videos, and plenty of discussion, so I won't rehash, but I will tell you my initial impressions. For ease, I'll just bullet:

• First off, we'd all purchased our own booster cards as required by WotC and the store, though the GM was a swell guy and I want to say he'd have been lenient and let us share or borrow a few from his deck.
• As we all know, 4E is heavy on the crunch, and that's not diluted in Gamma World, however it does play a bit faster and looser. For instance, stats on single and two-handed weapons are listed without going into every permutation thereof, my two-handed mailbox was just as as deadly as say a two-handed parking meter.
• I'll admit, I'm an idiot sometimes, but I was annoyed that the character sheet and stat blocks for powers (in the manual) are an overcrowded nightmare. Half the time I couldn't tell what I was looking at, let along what blank I had to fill in. Being an idiot in a rush to complete his character didn't help.
• We did roll quite a few skills that (if it were an OSR game) we likely didn't need to roll for. Frank's mechanic skill (padded through bonuses and some equipment he'd acquired) often ended up in the 30+ range. Yet the GM had him roll his mechanics skill at least three times--twice to defeat door locks.  After a while the GM did relent, again, in the interest of moving things along. I wish this were less a GM-style issue, and more encouraged by the rules themselves.
• Damage in GW is insanely brutal, with many rounds running like a live-action cartoon of carnage. While fun, we  were warned early and often that we may have to roll up new PCs.
• The prospect of chargen during the game seems ridiculous to me since it took so long in the first place. The GM had his hands full with the five of us rolling up shiny new PCs. Even with 4E players using a photo copy of the armor and origin tables, it took nearly 40 min. While it would go much faster once you knew what you were doing, each origin has it's own inherited powers so you'd better be familiar with the book if you want it go faster. I had my own solution.*
•  Apart from these, I'm actually a big fan of the random booster cards. They were definitely the stars of the show and made for an exciting game overall. Early previews of the game had criticized it with more power-boosting/munchkining, but since the game's main strength is its outlandishness (and frankly, it's point) I see this as a benefit.
• Alpha mutations make up not only your origin, but play a big part from encounter to encounter.  
• Omega tech is likely far too powerful for OSR tastes, being plentiful in the way of a deck each player can collect, and having the ability to be "overcharged" to enhance performance, but often limits it to single or limited use.
• All in all I had a lot of fun and I'd play again, though it's quite apparent that so much of the game is sucked up checking rules. This seems like it would be the case for anyone (GM or PCs) learning a new game though, so might not be a big issue in the long run.

Adventure-wise, I don't even know that it would be worth while to recap the whole debacle because it was insane!  Here I thought my giant birdman slapping people around with a mailbox would be the life of the party--but the scene stealer was Catnip climbing up the side of the lab building in the load harness by punching holes in the exterior wall. Even better was his descent down a stairwell that, uh, didn't go so well for the stairs.While we ended up with Catnip and Kenshiro down to 1 and 2 HP respectively, our claim to fame was becoming one of the few groups that day to have all PCs make it the end alive. Quite the feat when you figure that despite the harsh combat, the GM didn't pull any punches.

While all four of the guys playing were great roleplayers, Frank's player sort of became the default "leader" tracking initiative, helping move things along, and knew his rules (even helping the GM) and this made for a better, smoother game experience.

In the end, Zeke flew away with:

• 420 XP
• A downed robot's head, which he sported as a hat
• A kalidoscope that which he eventually traded with Chitter-Chitter for a pair of swim goggles

The Source received a few extra copies of the module and by the end of the night they gave a few to interested parties, such as myself, which was much appreciated! I'd ordered the game online and it arrived at home the day I played (fate!) so I was pleased as punch to dig into the material.

While it would have been nice to have them included in the box, I had the chance to pick out my own set of "irradiated die", pictured above with the Freesboro module.

In any case, I think any group could improve on some of the crunchiness. *To save time I snapped a photos of the powers for my giant (origin 1) hawkoid (origin 2) powers on my smartphone rather than write them all out in a mad dash (which I tried and ended up not being able to read my own scribbles). It was a handy workaround for looking up powers on the fly.

Zeke's favorite tactic was to "deliver the mail" using Brickbat.

Zeke was careful not to use the shriek too often since his buddies were often too close to enemies in combat.

If you've got any curiosity in checking out a 4E game, GW would be a great place to start. I'll reiterate what I've read from others that I can see it as a nice interim game between regular campaign sessions. Just be sure to roll up plenty of PCs beforehand--hell, that's half the fun!

Resources:
A list of the booster cards Alpha (mutation) and Omega (technology)
Overviews of origins and character generation
Overview of gear
Maps

Peek inside that Gamma World 4E Box

Go on. You know you want to. You're curious like all the rest. Yeah, it's 4E.

But still.... 

I'm not posting pics here because Robot Viking is the superspy in this story.

Geek Cinema: Spaceships and Mutants: Two Nights of Cheese-tastic Joy!

Next week is going to be a blast because I'm venturing out into the cine-verse to see two wonderfully over-imaginated / under-funded sci-fi flicks. The first is DESTINATION: OUTER SPACE, (I feel like that title should always be in caps), a locally produced send-up of schlocky sci-fi from a bygone age.




From the film's website:

During a test flight of Earth's first faster-than-light-speed rocket, an incident occurs that throws test pilot Captain Mike Jackson (originally introduced in 2008's "Cave Women on Mars") halfway across the galaxy! Lost in deep space, Captain Jackson must use all his wits and derring-do to find a way back to his beloved home world. A film unlike any other, "Destination: Outer Space" is full of excitement and otherworldly adventure that includes mysterious alien planets, robotic lifeforms, beautiful space pirates, alien creatures hell-bent on galactic domination and much, much more!

So there you go--it's got everything a geek could want! If you're local, the film premiere's at the Heights Theater on Tuesday, May 25, at 6:30 p.m.


Next on the film-going agenda....
Is a film I've neither seen nor heard of before. And I can't. Freakin. Wait.

The movie is Italian, but the poster in Spanish was the raddest.

It's called 2019 After the Fall of New York, but based on the poster and the trailer below, they should just re-title this: Mutant Future: The Movie.



From IMDB:

After a nuclear war, society breaks down into two groups, the evil Euraks and the rebel Federation. A mercenary named Parsifal is hired by the Federation to infiltrate New York City, which is controlled by the Euraks, to rescue the only fertile woman left on Earth.

The film is apparently in both English and Italian, (it's original title is Dopo la caduta di New York, just to make things more confusing). Here's the original poster, which is obviously, also totally bitchin.

This one's showing at the Trylon Microcinema, which has quickly become my favorite new theater--you might recall my posts on their Ray Harryhausen series a few months back. Anyway, this new series titled "Trash Film Debauchery," (seriously, is there any wonder why I love the Trylon so?) is all about cheesy sci-fi from the 80s, and the moment I read the synopsis for 2019 I was hooked.

2019 is showing the very next night on Wednesday, May 26, at 7:00 p.m. If you see a grown man hopping up and down and giggling like a tribble on ecstasy, feel free to say "hi", but for your own safety you may want to keep a healthy distance!