Gamma World, Gathox and Mutant Miniatures!

My recent Gamma World post got some great feedback, and got me thinking D&D is fun, but I need more mutants, guns and lasers in my life, uhmm I mean my games!
I see the Gamma Knights supplement is available in print now, over on DrivethruRPG, I didn't really use the Gamma Knights supplement that much in my Gamma World Campaigns, it has some rules for incorporating power armor into your games and also includes a boardgame option (which I never played). I am encouraged to see this in print however, in the hopes that eventually the entire Gamma World library will be made available again in print, many of my treasured Gamma World books are literally falling apart and look like they came straight from the apocalypse. 

In other news, while I haven't posted about minis in awhile, I love collecting and gaming with miniatures. Post Apocalyptic miniatures (especially weird mutants) can sometimes be a challenge to find, I recently spotted some cool 28mm miniatures over on the Badger Games site.  Some cyclopean gun toting warriors (Clopsen Troopers)

 These would be perfect for some mutant warriors or could be great to use at Kermen if you are playing Gathox Vertical Slum. In fact I can see using Gathox with Gamma World, a mobile giant slum slowly walking across the wastelands. Could make for a really fun and interesting location in your Post Apocalyptic Campaigns.
Oh and the Post Apocalyptic Rat Mutants are wicked cool! 

More Gamma World related posts will be coming soon! 

Quake Alley Mayhem

Awhile back I mentioned Gathox Vertical Slum a cool RPG/Setting for S&W Whitebox and other OSR games. I've since picked up the product in print, and I think it is a truly interesting, unique and Gonzo setting (and I mean Gonzo in a good way here).

     Recently the game's author, David Lewis Johnson sent me the first published adventure for this game; Quake Alley Mayhem. I don't do many reviews on my blog, and I tend to not do unsolicited reviews. However, I am a fan of David's work and had planned on picking this product up anyways.. so with that out of the way let me jump into the review.

     Quake Alley Mayhem is a tournament-style module set in the vertical slums of Gathox! Even though I've been gaming since '79, I've never played a module in an actual tournament. Sure I played the heck out of the original Slave Lords, Giants series and other classic modules that had tournament options, but I've never played a tournament module in an actual tournament. So I will be evaluating this module as more of a one-shot adventure for your group or a possible adventure to add to your Gathox Campaign.  

     The book is about 40 pages, with 24 (or so) pages of adventure, 7 pages of pregens, and a few pages of tables and other items.  It is for 3-6 players of 1-3 level. 

The overall look and layout.

      The black and white text, is crisp, clean and easy on the eyes. I find it easy to read and follow, something I've had issues with in products from other companies.  However, I have to say the pre-gen character sheets in the back are a challenge for me to read. Some sort of crazy font/look was done on the character sheets that for me and my Glaucoma are not pleasant or easy to read. However, this was only done for the character sheets, and not for the data on the sheet. The rest of the book is in an easy to read format.
     I've been a big fan of David's art for awhile and even commissioned him to do a character portrait several months ago (great work). The art in Quake Ally Mayhem maintains his standard of quality. I do wish there was more of it in this product. Not that it is short on art, I just like his style and want to see as much as possible. I would have loved to have seen character portraits of the pre-gens.

The Adventure.  (might have a few spoilers...)


     As I mentioned this is designed as a tournament module, a timer features as a big part of the adventure and at certain times ground shaking things happen... I think this is a cool and interesting feature and would be just as fun in a non-tournament setting. 
SPOILER ALERT!
 The basic schtick of the adventure is that the characters are part of a gang sent to go do something... However, campaign notes are included to allow a pre-existing Gathox group of PC's (maybe a group that already played through the starter adventure in the Gathox core book) to play through the adventure. 
The adventure is overall pretty trap heavy, at least in my opinion. So if you or your players don't care for traps, then you may not enjoy this module. The traps fit the setting and the adventure and I found them to be interesting and appropriate. With that said, for an OSR-based game, this looks like a pretty lethal adventure. I estimate a pretty high PC body-count to get through this adventure. There is even a warning to that effect in the adventure.  This works perfectly for a con game, with a bigger group of players, steadily getting whittled down as they get closer to the end. A DM running it for his home group as part of a campaign might want to do some tweaking or warn his players, or just run with it to reinforce how nasty, brutal and short life can be in the slums of Gathox. The module indicates it is for 3-6 players for 1-3 level. A party of 3, 1st level characters had better use some outstanding tactics, luck and skill to get through this unscathed. But it would be loads of fun in the meantime.

Conclusion
If you enjoyed Gathox Vertical Slum then you need to get this product. Quake Alley Mayhem is a fun adventure to unleash at a con to show people how wild and crazy adventuring in Gathox can be.  Or if you are already running a Gathox-based Campaign a challenging adventure to unleash on your players. Without the Gathox setting book, this product will not be as useful, but you could still adapt it to a strange urban sci-fantasy setting. If I can work a Con into my crazy schedule, I can see myself running this to introduce people to the wonderment and bewilderment that is Gathox Vertical Slum. Otherwise, I'll be working it into the next Gathox Vertical Slum game that I run.

I hope David continues to put out products for Gathox Vertical Slum, it is a one of a kind Gonzo setting that you can use with your OSR system of choice.

Good Gaming! -B.B.

Chuck Norris Scenario Generator

John Stater of the Land of Nod blog suggested the fun notion of -"When doing modern games, adapt scenarios from Chuck Norris movies. Just enough plot to make the scenario work, but gonzo enough to be fun at the table."

I thought this was a fun idea to go through the Chuck Norris movies and work up a random scenario generator for some action gaming!  Who knows with a little work you could even  adapt this to different genres. I think I'll tweak it just a minor bit and use it for my upcoming Gathox Vertical Slum games : )

Enjoy!

Chuck Norris Scenario Generator

Locations- Roll a d4 for the number of key adventure locations then a d20 for specific locations (keep duplicates!).

1 Jungle

2 Ruins

3 Casino

4 Wasteland

5 Desert

6 Warehouse

7 Houseboat

8 Run-Down House (in the middle of nowhere)

9 Dojo

10 Bar

11 Diner (that overcharges outsiders)

12 Restaurant (Chinese!)

13 Wrecking Yard

14 Prison Camp

15 Terrorist Training Camp

16 Guerilla Base

17 Back Alleys

18 The Institute (Mental Hospital + so much more!)

19 Abandoned Theater

20 Abandoned House

Missions (roll a d6 for the central mission of the scenario, ACTION is the key concept of the scenario!)

1 Rescue POW's

2 Quest for lost Treasure

3 Defeat Foe (roll on the foes table)

4 Save Old Teammates

5 Save Hostages

6 Save the Damsel in Distress

Foes roll a d30 (what do you mean you don't have one!?!)

1-3 Enemy Soldiers

4 Savages

5-6 Guerrilla Forces

7-8 Terrorists

9 Genetically Altered Sociopath

10-11 Assassins

12-14 Drug Gang (roll on the Drug Gang Table)

15 Mexican Bandits

16 Gang of Horse Thieves

17-18 Crime Syndicate

19-20 Gangsters

21-22 Martial Artists

23-Crooked Cops

24 Ninjas

25 Crazed Serial Killer

26 Cultists Religious Zealots

27 Supernatural Being

28 Militants

29 Hit Men

30 Neo-Nazis

Drug Gang Table (roll a d6)

1 Drug Runners

2 Asian Drug Gang

3 Gang of Iranian Drug Dealers

4 South American Drug Cartel

5-6 Vicious Drug Gang

Potential Friends & Allies (roll a d12)

1 Prowler Robot

2 Pet Wolf

3 Loyal Canine Sidekick

4-5 Ex-Army Buddy

6 Sympathetic Priest

7 Old Mercenary Friend

8 Missionary

9 Inscrutable Woman of Mystery

10 Holy Man

11 Martial Artist

12 Friend on the Force (Cop)

  

Additional Story Elements

1-4 Illegal Drugs!

5-7 Illegal Weapons

8 Treasure Map

9 Cobra Venom

10 Cursed Scepter (optionally roll a d8+1 for the number of pieces)

11-12 Potential Romantic Interest

So making some random rolls let's see what we get..

2 Locations, rolled a 17 for a Back Alley and a 3 for a Casino..so this will be an urban adventure

The Key mission is a 3... to defeat a Foe..rolling to determine the foe I rolled an 11...Assassins!

For potential friends and allies I rolled a7 for an Old Mercenary Friend...

under additional story elements I got a 9 Cobra Venom!!  Cause you know Chuck Norris was once bitten by a Cobra and five excruciating days later the cobra died!  : )

Anyway this looks like assassins are working out of the Casino, killing targets in back alleys across the city. Our player(s) are brought in to deal with the issue, an old mercenary buddy provides some intel on the location and may even help with the final fight. But then in the final battle it is learned the master assassin is a master of Cobra Venom Style Martial Arts! Will our heroes prevail!!  : )

Summer of Gaming and Exploring Gathox!

Greetings all!
I haven't posted in quite awhile. I've actually been doing a good bit of gaming. I finished grad school and this allowed my school enforced hiatus from gaming to finally come to an end. I spent a good bit of the summer actually playing in several games. I've been in an ongoing 5E Curse of Strahd Campaign that currently has us around 4th level or so. I was able to play in an awesome Labyrinth Lord Mini-Campaign that was loads of fun. I've also taken up the DM mantle after quite a long time and have started running a 5E home-brew campaign. I've even tried my hand at a bit of minis painting (well mostly terrain) and I've had loads of fun. I think I've gamed more this past summer than in the past four years combined!  As a result this blog has not been updated in quite awhile. With some store credit, I picked up the Starfinder core rulebook, OMG! that is a huge book! Yikes! The art and layout is impressive, but it is taking me awhile just to read it!  That combined with all the 5E gaming I've been doing of late has me finding myself yearning for more OSR goodness in my gaming rotation, Christian's Labyrinth Lord mini-campaign was rules-lite but oh so fun. With the OSR in mind, I picked up a recently released product Gathox Vertical Slum.

I was able to read a few early drafts of this product and have had a few exchanges with the writer/artist David Lewis Johnson (a great artist by the way!). The PDF (print version is due out any day now) is a fun, imaginative and rather Gonzo setting. Based on the White Box rules, but you should be able to adapt it to most old school rules. You will need a copy of the rules system of your choice to play it, in order to complete character generation.
Here is the official blurb for the game,

"Welcome to Gathox Vertical Slum, a far out, gonzo science fantasy campaign setting for Swords & Wizardry White Box Edition and other classic tabletop role playing games.

Aliens, mutants, spellslingers, and hardened criminals struggle for dominance in a lawless city built upon the back of a wandering, world-hopping godling. Inside this tome you’ll find:
* A fully mapped and fleshed out Vertical Slum, stuffed to the gills with greedy factions, hook-laden NPCs, and seedy locations.
* A new gangland system for running domain-level games at level 1.
* 43 fully illustrated strange and inimical monsters to spring on unsuspecting players.
* New classes, skills, ability checks, hirelings, and gear for players to work their will across the mean streets of the Great Spire.
* A vertical dungeon introductory adventure to test the skills and resourcefulness of new and seasoned players alike.
* Over a hundred lavish interior illustrations by D.L. Johnson.
* Five pieces of interconnected chapter fiction contributed by Josh Wagner."

I'll be reading this one a lot more and hopefully give it a run soon. I may even try to run it as an online game. Christian showed me how much fun it can be to play via hangouts, so I'm thinking this setting with White Box (or maybe B/X) would be fun.  More to come...