The Apocalypse May Be Rescheduled

By Stephane Gaudry (Flickr: Demolition of the ECVB power plant) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

People who know me know that I like post-apocalyptic things. I loved Jack Kirby's Kamandi and OMAC (if you don't think that OMAC was post-apocalyptic you need to reread the comics), and as a kid I watched Thundarr every week. I even run Rifts every week (even though I would argue that setting is more like a post-post-apocalypse, sort of like Unhallowed Metropolis).

You're probably all wondering why I'm saying this. It is only because I've been working on the Swords & Wizardry Field Guide for City of Clocks, and I have a couple of other projects in the queue. Having all of this to keep me busy, of course, means that my brains keeps telling me that I need to write an RPG in homage to the first edition of Gamma World. Not a retro clone, we have plenty of those. More like a game that starts from the point of being the old Gamma World game, but adding some bits and pieces to it. Obviously there would have to be magic, because there's a magic-user in Thundarr. I would use the various D20 SRDs as the starting point for the work, and reconstruct the parts of the old Gamma World game that I like under the OGL.

I like the fact that the game was classless, for example. It was pretty ballsy of TSR at the time to not just rebuild D&D and slap a "science fantasy" label onto the game. But it also has that old school sensibility that I like, where the rules are the starting point and characters develop through play, and the actions of their players.

How long will I be able to hold this off? I don't know, but I'm planning on being strong.