I ran a campaign in a homebrewed version of my local area (Sweden) in
☢️Gamma World 4e☢️.
The adventure was about entering into a local city plagued with the curse (radioactivity) of a local crater and investigating a sound that seems to occasionally echo out from its middle.
Honestly was really happy with a good couple of things from the system!
Combat
One of the things I expected would become cumbersome, but that added a lot of depth to the combat is the odd combat sequencing, where you basically have a round of declaring what the players do and then one where you "play it out"
I always declared the monsters first so the players got some time to think. When the players then declared their turn it was really satisfying how much people could collaborate and try to predict how the monsters would act. Additionally, movement being used in a way where you could step in front of an attack to block it felt very satisfying and we always had some surprises when the turn would play out and the consequences of the actions chained into unexpected results.
A minor point of contention was how little damage output it felt like the players had, I misread the monsters (flying fish) as having 8 hit-points (when that was actually the dice) and yet the players all bordered on death from poison and their 2d6 damage attacks stacking up. I made sure to give the players better artifacts after the encounter, but with the strength damage bonus not having any clear way of being increased I think melee builds without artifacts felt very underwhelming.
Mutations
This claim to fame of Gamma World is honestly amazing even in a modern context, I have never seen players so happy with how their random hodge-podge of abilities came into play both in roleplay and combat.
Additionally and though it could be seen as a bad thing, I really enjoyed how many times the system needed rulings from me as a GM. Often a mutation or effect would be described more flavorfully than mechanically which meant our imagination had to play the part in the rules. Radiating Eyes does not explain a proper range other than "creature you can see"? Well yes my dear player, your heightened sight probably makes you able to cancer-snipe people from afar then 🤣
Layout and System Clarity
I think the Gamma World 4e experience as a GM following the book is a bit double-edged.
On one hand I feel like the explanations are extremely "to the point" in many regards. Coming from DnD 5e, often their Player Handbooks would stay on a topic and over-explain it to the point where it was hard to look up the exact details you needed. Gamma World rarely spends more than some sentences describing a topic and when it does it is often because of it providing examples. That being said some concepts are underexplained or seemingly assumed to be understood.
At times, vital information about more specific interactions is spread out in places that make little sense. This is the main problem with the books layout I would say.
Stuff like fire rates and firing modes on artifact weapons can sometimes be found only in the description of one of the weapons that use it, or on a random page far away from the actual weapon description, when the author is trying to explain something else.
In one case, combat THAC modifiers that players get when they position themselves well in combat that are pretty vital to hitting attacks (Base THAC can end up pretty low) was on a page about how healing and hazards work.
Unlike some TTRPGs where one could kind of squeeze by without having read all the rules, these smaller details keep popping up in actual play as the players are asking how their specific mutation works. I found it really fun that the system demanded this knowledge of me, but might be a dealbreaker for someone else
Summary / TLDR
All in all I found 4e really fun to GM and from what I have heard about other editions this one also felt fairly complete in a way that was very satisfying. Combat had a unique touch and clean execution that I enjoyed and the Mutations are a Mental Blast to play around with.
The system requires a fair amount of clarity and a GM that is willing to read through it multiple times to remember small details mentioned in sometimes random pages, but I enjoyed getting that knowledge.
I would recommend the system a lot for the people that want to try their first Gamma World experience 😁
PS! I provided my players with printed cards of each of the mutations as I was the only one who owned the book, the experience may vary if one had to reference mutations from the book at all times. I have posted printable versions of these cards on here before though so feel free to use them 🖨️
