I’ve probably mentioned somewhere in the past that I’ve run a lot of Gamma World over the years. And I’ve got my favourite editions for various things. Third edition (with Googly Eyes) has been a perennial favourite of mine. And the googliest. Seriously, check out the physical mutation chart on page 40:

Only thing missing is Googliest Eyes, which was included in the Errata as an Epic Level Mutation. The defect chart (not shown) is stuff like “Eyes, hardly googly at all”, “Eyes so googly you can’t control them” and “Misshapen Googly Eyes”.

(The lengths I went to make this dumb joke image… Buying the 3e Gamma World PDF from DTRPG, stripping the no-password encryption so I can edit a page from it in Photoshop, digging up the right font (Garamond) and size (9.5pt), adding a blurry 1 pixel black glow to the font to give it the same look as the scanned image, then printing and photographing the page… once I decide on a dumb gag, nothing can stop me!)

When it comes down to it, the bashed-together mess that is Gamma World 3e (above) has my favourite resolution system. 2e remains a favourite because of the streamlined play and nicely formatted version of 1e as the base structure. 4e and 3e have “mutation scores” which I love. But for character creation, nothing will beat D&D Gamma World.

For online play, I think I would take the initial character creation of D&D Gamma World, add in the mutations from 3e or 4e Gamma World (with their mutation scores) so we aren’t dealing with the “mutation deck” in an online environment, and no matter how much I love the 3e resolution system, swap over to using the Black Hack for resolution because of how easy it is.

Or maybe mash together a weird Gamma Terra character creation system for Troika!

Probably not surprising to most people, I’m also obsessed with Gamma World maps. Especially this map of Gamma Terra from the 1e boxed set. It begs to be drawn on. It is on a nice heavy paper with significant tooth to it, has all these cities, rivers and mountains marked on it, and that’s it. It BEGS to be drawn on.

So I printed off the version in the 1e PDF on ledger paper to try it out, but it just isn’t the same. I think this is something I’ll have to get printed by a professional print shop before I attack it with pens and markers. Or just say “screw it” and start drawing on the one copy I own (shown above) from my 1e boxed set.