[I was considering posting some Gamma World materials I created back in the mid-'90s - 1st edition, of course! - when I realized I already had scanned and posted the maps. (Oh, my dear memory, how age has taken its toll on you.) So, to lend context to the NPCs and creatures I'm going to scan and post, here's that original post from The Early Days of the Rust Monster blog:]
Ah, Gamma World - how can you not love a game that has anthropoid rabbits and land sharks?
In the nuclear afterglow of yesterday's post, I got to thinking about the game - specifically, about the RAFM miniatures that inspired my first Gamma World campaign, if only via an ad in Dragon magazine. (You remember that little periodical, don't you?) I did some digging around, and finally found the ad in question. The miniatures were called "The Outcasts," and included such brilliantly named characters as "The Vicar," "Pinky the Eunuch," "Scary Mary," and of course, "Pongo Gutbag." (And given how inexpensive they were, I could kick myself for not sending away for them.)
I spent so much time ogling over these in the mid-80's that when I finally got around to running a GW campaign - albeit a brief one - in the mid-90's, it was only natural that I should include The Outcasts. The first few (and, as it turns out, only) game sessions of the campaign revolved around Pongo Gutbag and his band of flunkies. The PC's were recruited to infiltrate Gutbag's palace and retrieve an artifact. I thought I'd share with you the maps I made for the Massive Overlord's palace.
Page 1: An overview of the palace grounds and immediate environs, complete with mutated rice paddy and nuke-pear orchard:
Page 2: Detail maps of the out-buildings:
Page 3: Detailed map of the main building:
Page 4: The Thing What Lives in the Moat (if the nasty, irradiated water doesn't get you, this certainly will!):
FWIW, a quick look around the net shows that most of those RAFM figs are available through ebay for under $4 a model, which is pretty good by modern standards. You might have trouble finding them all at once and the big set with the litter-bearers is rarer and more expensive, but there's nothing stopping you from belatedly grabbing a set even though they're OOP AFAIK.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dick!
DeleteFWIW, you might also try emailing RAFM and asking about the figure range. I've had some luck in the past asking them for something that wasn't in their current catalog only for them to discover they had some in the warehouse from decades ago. In one case they even found a useable mold and added the model back to their current line. That was a long while back (15 years now) but it wouldn't shock me if they're still sitting on some mid-80s packs they've long since forgotten about. Been around a long, long time now, RAFM has.
DeleteMan, this takes me back! I had completely forgotten about these figures, but the names instantly brought me back. I remember being intrigued by those names from those ads in Dragon and wanting to know more about them. Thanks for reminding me about them!
ReplyDeleteLove that you still have some of your old maps and drawings, just like me.
Not sure if you remember because it was ages ago, but when I first started blogging, one of the first things I did was post some old Gamma World Encounter Tables that I'd created because my first copy of the 1st Edition Gamma World set I bought from a friend back in the early 1980's was incomplete - he'd ripped out several pages at the end of the book (including all of the Cryptic Alliances and part of the Encounter Tables) for some reason. One day while looking at the lists, I realized the numbers didn't match up, so I grabbed a spiral-bound notebook and wrote a bunch of encounters to fill in the missing numbers. I converted the stats to Mutant Future and posted them all.
Here's the link to Part 6, but that post has links to Parts 1-5 if you're interested.
Thanks for the link, Martin! Checking those posts out right now...
DeleteGreat post! I remember that add! I made Scary Mary an NPC in my old campaign, seems like she got obliterated by a laser before the players even learned her name. LOL
ReplyDeleteLOL - thanks, Bill!
DeleteAh, the sad and sorry lot of the game master - to have our cool NPCs die anonymously at the PCs' hands...