Gamma World HiBRiD Campaign Completion…Now What?

Now that we have finished up our Gamma World/HiBRiD game here in our house, I will be running a new genre of RPG with meine Kinder: Fantasy!

Why Fantasy? 

It started with the review I did of Green Ronin’s Dragon Age. As I mentioned briefly in that review, there is no magic system for HIBRiD. With that inspiration, I created a playable workaround, but never was presented with the opportunity to test it under fire. I finished the conversion, published it on the blog here, then set it aside, waiting for the subject to present itself once again.

The fantasy genre came back to mind with the Troll Lord Games twitter feed I follow. They posted about how much fun they had a Gary Con, a convention I wanted to run a HiBRiD game at this year, however, I had nothing really prepared (I am looking to run a HiBRiD fantasy game there in 2018, by the way). I once again set it aside, figuring I would playtest the module after the 2017 GenCon game had come and gone.

The final straw occurred last weekend, when we finally finished our year-long Gamma World HiBRiD game. During that game, my son wanted to launch a fireball at the main fortress of the bad guys, though he only had the pyrokinetic blast aspect, which would not cover the area he needed to cover. When he asked why it wasn’t an aspect, I explained it was “out of genre”, which sparked a whole discussion of the subject of genre with the kids. I realized they needed to experience it to understand it. So the embers were lit…the Johaansen family would finally enter the realm of fantasy roleplaying.

 No HiBRiD Fantasy?

With the decision made to change genres for our next game, a major decision lay before me: which game? Of course, the answer would normally be HiBRiD of course, but not in this case. Why not HiBRiD, you ask?

First and foremost, HiBRiD is fast, furious, and cinematic. The game, however, was originally designed with post-fantasy settings with the ability to extend into the fantasy setting if the game went that way. We could extend the HiBRiD rules and indeed play into the fantasy genre, but I wanted to provide a bit less familiarity to the kids to give a feeling on uncertainty and really bring the genre to the forefront. That takes it off the table as the primary game system.

Additionally, having cut my teeth on D&D like most players my age, I have a certain nostalgia for D&D. I tried other fantasy games in my younger years, such as Rulemaster, Mythus, Runequest, MERP, and Warhammer, but none of them held the feel and charm of the BECMI, 1E, and 2E versions of the original D&D. I even tried to keep an open mind and actually ran a 3E game for 2 years! But I missed the way the old games felt when played. The clunky simplicity and flexibility of the old school systems are unique and not really present in many of the more slick and efficient games of today, HiBRiD included. I wanted to introduce my kids to the genre and the old school feel of the games that I loved. I wanted them to experience a Vancian spell system that was not streamlined with the combat system, which was different from the system of turning undead. Such systems are streamlined and uniform in HiBRiD; I wanted them to feel a difference and experience tabletop gaming in a new way.

Finally, D&D is a classic; a brand with name recognition. When you say you “play D&D”, even lay folk understand in some sense what you will be doing and it is easier to find players. Familiarity with D&D would (and will) help to nurture my kids’ growing interest in the hobby I love so much by finding them people to play it with. If my kids say they are inviting their friends over to play “a version of Dungeons and Dragons”, their parents know what to expect. If my kids say they are inviting their friends over to play “HiBRID”, that makes it a bit of a barrier to entry, as their friends’ parents may not understand what their kids are going to be doing with their afternoon!

So which version?

I originally planned on introducing them to D&D the way I was: by using my old books BECMI, 1E and 2E books/PDFs. The overwhelming, response, however, was less than stellar. My oldest kids decided they want something “new”, not the “old stuff” dad pulls from the shelf of his collection or prints out from PDFs on his “weird Linux computer”.  So the old books were no longer an option, and I found myself looking at what is currently out there.

I tried 3E as a one-shot on three occasions, using the 2006 Dungeons and Dragons Basic Game boxed set from Wizards of the Coast. They liked the figures and premade maps, but were annoyed by several of details by the game mechanics (natural 1s and 20s do nothing, tracking movement), the incomplete nature of the characters that made them feel limited, and the fact that there was only one adventure, so playing that again was off the table. I could also, in good conscious, not let them play 3.XE, 4E, 5E, or Pathfinder as feats are the absolute worst thing to hit HiBRiD-style as well as any roleplaying…EVER! And, as you all also know, there is also only a finite set of conditions that would ever lead to me playing Dragon Age or use Green Ronin’s Adventure Gaming Engine, so though simple, that was out as well.

So what's left? 

The Final Verdict

To get the old school feel that I want my kids to experience, then, I decided to turn my attention to the host of other Old School Revival of RPGs, hoping one would float to the top. I have over a half a dozen of them (OSRIC, Basic Fantasy, Hackmaster Basic, Hackmaster, Labyrinth Lord, and Castles and Crusades). Of these, Castles and Crusades is definitely what 3E should have been. It shreds the complexities of the 3E pathway, but has all the original BECMI simplicity. It uses the 4e Gamma World ascending armor class that dovetails perfectly with the HiBRiD defense rating/Armor Value system, and both games have drop-in compatible damage systems which will make the transition for my kids seamless. (If anyone wishes, drop me an email or a tweet and I will write a complete 4-part review like I did for Dragon Age and Tiny Horsies.) It also is compatible with my HiBRiD monsters as well as all my old D&D material, so I can introduce them to all the wonderful things that I grew up with and learned to fear…and loathe…and love…(rust monsters, carrion crawlers, umber hulks, purple worms, magic mouths, magic missiles, et cetera) as well as the weird things sprouting from my own games (cyanobacters, LiRAs, Underwater Alligator Men, Jotuns, just to name a few...).

Like always, we will, of course, be tacking on the Ite' Gaming Engine, just to kick up the heroic machoness a peg or two (10 points for everyone). This will also keep a familiarity with the gaming style they are comfortable with as they make their foray into the new genre.

Stay tuned for further developments from the world of HiBRiD and our return to my Ara Knochen game world reborn…Who knows? This should be interesting to see if the kids take to a new game system or if the kids’ desire to continue with the system they have grown up with will finally lead to the creation a magic system for HiBRiD once and for all.