gamma world and rifts

WingedWeasel

Hello all!

I am posting with a recommendation question. It's been a while since my group has played a pen and paper rpg and they are seemingly getting that itch. Normally our game of choice is rifts or some other palladium game. However as many would imagine the rules have given me reason to not ever want to play a tablettop rpg ever again.

My question is would gamma world suffice as a rifts replacement? The settings seem similar enough that it would suit the tastes of the group thematically without me hating myself fighting the skill rules.

The only complication is we'd be doing play by post.

Tl;Dr we wanted to do a steampunk tmnt campaign, but the skills are turning into abomination of epic proportions. Would gamma world work better?

Infidel

The new Gamma World is based on 4e which is a much more streamlined and for the most part consistent system of D&D. It's balanced fairly well.

I wouldn't say that it is really ideal for PbP, but as you can see on the boards, it is used successfully for such. Gamma World should function much the same.

OptimusZed

I will say, as a bit of a Rifts aficionado, that Gamma World isn't going to "feel" like Rifts. It's going to be a hell of a lot easier to run, and you can probably make up the difference via roleplay, but the feeling of raw superhuman power just isn't going to be there. If that's not a problem for your group, then it should work just fine.

I would just let people pick their character types and reskin them into Rifts-appropriate analogs. And maybe rework the alpha mutations stuff a little bit, so your Juicers aren't spontaneously developing Bio-Manipulation that is gone by the next combat.

WingedWeasel

This dropped off the front page pretty quick. thanks for the input guys, I think I am going to take the plunge if I can get the stuff relatively cheap.

Question for you OptimusZed, when you say the "power" isn't there is it because the PC's are going to need to plink away at things or what do you mean exactly?? I am not opposed to that since for this particular campaign we went with TMNT and Other Strangeness to do exactly that, tone some things down. I mentioned rifts a few times more to explain the experience most of the players had, the other 2 of the PC's have never played pen and paper before.

I'm confident in everyone's RP abilities but less so in my own GM'ing so that's why I was looking towards gamma world maybe as an easier way to manage things.

OptimusZed

I mostly mean that Gamma World (at least this edition of it) exists on a pretty flat plane, in terms of PC power. Rifts on the other hand is a steep slope that starts at Vagabond and ends at some point after Juiced-up Mind Melter Cosmo Knight. If what you're actually looking for is something more akin to TMNT, it should work just fine. And be much easier to DM to boot.

Infidel

Yeah, I didn't get the impression that he was looking for the power creep really, just a feel.

Which you can easily adopt from Gamma World and change the look and feel of it from there.

WingedWeasel

Sounds like I probably have a winner then. Thanks everyone!

Victor Von Dave

WingedWeasel wrote: »

My question is would gamma world suffice as a rifts replacement? The settings seem similar enough that it would suit the tastes of the group thematically without me hating myself fighting the skill rules.

If you're interested, this is one of the things (combining Gamma World and Rifts) that I've been doing on my blog Ménage à Monster.

Here's what I've got so far:
Random Encounters: Gamma World and Rifts(general rules and fluff changes to make Gamma World jive better with the world of Rifts)
Random Encounters: More Gamma Rifts(this first 10 Omega Tech cards in a series of 30 I'm making that bring magic items into the Gamma World game to emulate Rifts better)

There's nothing specific about play-by-post in there, but I thought it might be useful to you.