The 2025 Busan Tabletop Gaming Con Was a Success

Last Sunday, November 30, was our first game con. I picked up Justin around 9am, and we arrived at the cafe just a little before 9:30. Richard was already waiting, as well as Jonathan (Kojaq) who I only had interacted with online before this. We got everything set up, and most players, and Peter the other morning GM, made it there by 10am when we were scheduled to start. But Kurt, the cafe owner, didn't show up until around 11 so we had to make due with water or drinks people brought in from outside for a bit. Kurt had given me the door code so we could get in early, if you're wondering. 

In the morning session, I ran Classic D&D, using the same dungeon from the previous Online Summer Con arranged by Amae's Seoul group. This party followed the same route at first, but had a TPK in their first encounter. Four carrion crawlers took out a party of five 6th to 8th level PCs. As they can, especially if the party only has a cleric as a caster. The players got new PCs from the pre-gen pile and set out again in a different route. They didn't have time to make it to the dragon, but they had a great time anyway. 

Just before the thief misses on a backstab and everyone fails their saves (the Dwarf is already down).

Richard's Call of Cthulhu game only had one character death, but that PC died, was brought back, and died again. 

Richard brought his King in Yellow robes.

 

I didn't hear of any PC deaths in Peter's Black Sword Hack game, but everyone said they had a great game. 

Justin's BSH character sheet

We took a lunch break, and more people arrived for the afternoon games. A couple of people also went home (or elsewhere, anyway) after the morning games. I was a player in Keith's Cyberpunk Red game, which was a lot of fun. I got to play the Solo (combat character), which is always nice. But our new player David (who played his first RPG ever in my morning D&D game) was the star of the show. Of course, Richard's PC managed to shoot Peter's PC in the back...twice! None of us died, though several gang-bangers and scumbags died at our hands. 

The start of the game, in our gang's alley base, dealing with druggies

Jonathan's Mothership game was really good, too, from what I heard. There were definitely some PC deaths as well. 

An alien gestated inside one of the PCs. You'll never believe what happened next~!

Both Scott's 5E game and Elyse's Pathfinder game went over time, but this is something they'd planned for, and the players were aware of this. Scott did have one PC death. Elyse runs a more story-forward sort of game, so no PC deaths in her game. She did a think where players started with blank, or nearly blank character sheets, and had to discover who their PCs were as they played. 

Scott's got a lot of style when he runs a game. We could hear lots of laughing and some shouting from them.

Elyse's players were all really intent on the story that unfolded. 

Then it was the dinner break time. Most folks went home (or elsewhere), but a stalwart few soldiered on through into the night. Peter, Richard, Elyse, Jada, Justin, and I were there the whole day. Keith and his partner CC stayed for evening games, too, but they weren't here for the morning session. 
 

Justin had his group (Jada, CC, Elyse) play board games including Whitehall Mysteries. They also played a few smaller games. Justin had planned to play 1775, a tactical wargame of the Revolutionary War, but I guess they never broke that one out. 

London was scoured for clues.

 

My evening game was Gamma World. Richard, Keith and Peter chose their mutants and set off to explore a ruined tower. They dealt with crumbling infrastructure, hungry mutants, friendly mutants, and at the top of the tower androids intent on capturing Richard's mutated ape PC. Keith dropped to negative HP twice, and Peter once. At the end of the game, Richard escaped with his companions' bodies, evading the androids to survive the horrors of Gamma Terra. We had a blast. 

Peter's altered human scout is down thanks to poisonous two-headed bat mutants. The espers are about to meet the androids. 

It was a long day, but very much worth it. And we plan to do it again sometime soon. Scott wants to do the next event in May. I'll be back home for my son's high school graduation that weekend, but I'll probably help with the organizational side of things as best I can. 
 

 

 

Prepared

The 2025 Busan Tabletop Gaming Con is in a few days (Sunday). I'm ready for the game. I'm running D&D in the morning, playing Cyberpunk RED in the afternoon, then running Gamma World in the evening. It's gonna be a full day. Luckily, my Monday schedule will be light on Dec. 1st. 

We're ready for the event. The cafe is prepared for us. I've got all the schedules and games sorted. Justin bought some supplies (name tags, extra pencils/paper/etc.).  I guess I could make a sign-in sheet to make things feel more official. But with fewer than 25 people involved, I don't think that's completely necessary. 

I ordered dice sets online, planning to give a set to each GM as a thank you gift or as a reward to their MVP player, whichever they chose. The listing said it was seven sets (49 pieces) and we originally had 14 games people were prepared to run, so I ordered two. They arrived yesterday and to my happy surprise, there were ten sets of dice in each pack. And we're down to only 9 game sessions, two of which I'm running. So enough for me to give each GM a thank you set and an MVP player prize set. And I'll have some sets left over to keep for another time. 

For my games, I've got a dry erase mat, some board markers, minis for the creatures in both my D&D and Gamma World games (close enough on the GW side) organized, adventures and pre-gen PCs printed. I tried to write up the adventures so I'd have minimal book references during the games, but I'll bring the rulebooks anyway. 

I'm ready for the first (hopefully annual) BTGC!  

On Track

 After a frustrating at times past 24 hours, we have our table rosters set for the 2025 Busan Tabletop Game Con. Nine tables open, and around 23 total participants. Small, but close to what we were shooting for. We had hoped for around 30 people to participate. Close. [I need to update the webpage game rosters, we had a few changes/additions during the day.]

Next Sunday, we'll be gaming it up. I'm running Classic D&D and Gamma World (4th). I was going to play in the Mothership game in the afternoon, but John M. didn't get anyone signing up for his evening board game, and we got a request from John D. to also join that game. I was gonna hop over into Cyberpunk Red, but then the last guy to sign up on the official form before I closed it wanted that spot, so I'll be free in the middle of the con. That's actually alright with me. I can troubleshoot any problems, take pictures to document the event (I'll probably do a write-up for the local expat scene mag Busan HAPS), and just get a bit of rest between my games. 

We're using the Discord server used for last summer's Daegu One-shot Extravaganza and also for the Online Summer Con. That ended up being a bit of a headache, because Rowan, who owns the server, and Scott, who is an admin, both know Discord functions way more than Justin and I. So they kept hinting at things we needed to do, saying it was simple - just watch/read a tutorial, and then letting us fumble through things until they had to step in and fix our mess. [Hence the past 24 hours' frustrations.] But we've got it done. We've got players all sorted with their GMs, and everyone has both a Discord channel on the server and a KakaoTalk (Korean version of What'sApp) group chat for their games. 

All my pre-gens for both Classic D&D and Gamma World are on my work computer, so I'll be posting them for players to look over and discuss over the next week. I also (on Friday) sorted through minis to get some suitable ones ready for Gamma World. Not all of them are the right fit, but close enough. Various D&D minis, cheap-o toys from Japan and the U.S., old MUSCLE wrestlers and Battle Beast toys... I think I will sort out minis for the D&D game as well. 

After all the organizing was done (and a few family errands), I sat down to consider my OSR Modern game design. I'm still tinkering with the Starting Occupations and class Talents, but I think I'm getting closer. I also made a list of things that probably need rules for resolution in the game (and could potentially be used to earn XP). Here's the list so far: 

What do people do in this game that require mechanics (and might earn XP)?

Movement (jump, run, swim, drive, climb)

Investigate/Gather information

Socialize/Intimidate/Bluff

Get permission/authorization/shopping

Sneak/infiltrate/avoid ambush

Drive/Travel

Hack Computers

Fist Fight/Sword Fight

Gun Fight

Car Fight

Chase/Escape

Sabotage/Destroy

Repair/Build

Heal/Treat Illness

 I plan to implement a set of Challenge Awards in addition to XP for combat. Since it's a modern setting, I want it to be able to implement genres where fist fights or car chases are more prominent than gun fights just as easily as those that do feature prominent gun fights/explosions. For Challenge Awards, I'm thinking 5% or 10% of the amount needed to gain a level for small goals, and 25% for large goals. 

And speaking of genres, I've got a list of adventure/encounter types that I want to give examples of in the book: 

Encounter/Adventure Types

Wandering Do-Gooders

Cops & Robbers

Special Forces

Hot Rodders

The Big Heist

Investigators

Explorers

On the Run

Home for Christmas

X-Treme Action

From Sea to Shining Sea

Out for Vengeance

The Conspiracy

All in “The Family”

 And while I mainly plan to keep things mundane (well, Action Movie heightened reality), I will have some notes on adding some fantasy/sci-fi to the game: 

Mundane, Paranormal, Supernatural, Sci-Fi

Setting the campaign tone. PCs are all normal (heightened reality) characters, but the world also contains: 

Mundane: heightened realism, but otherwise normal (Die Hard, Rambo, Dirty Harry, A-Team, MacGuyver, Cannonball Run, Murder She Wrote, Goodfellas, The Goonies)

Paranormal: cryptids, psychics, ghosts, aliens (X-Files, Lost, The Shining, Scanners, E.T.)

Supernatural: magic, monsters, demons, other realms (Interview with the Vampire, Stranger Things, Indiana Jones, Nightmare on Elm Street)

Sci-Fi: clones, aliens, high tech, superscience (Knight Rider, Blade Runner, Predator, V, Terminator, The Island, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure)

 This should give everyone an idea of where I'm going with this idea. 

 

 

 

 

You Don't Need to Use Them All

Two years ago, one of my players, Denis, was thinking about running a game. There was some light pressure from the group for him to give it a shot. He eventually settled on trying to run a Gamma World game, details here and here. 

That game never got off the ground. For Denis, he felt that there was too much pressure to compare to others in the group who have years or even decades of experience running games. 

At the English camp we were teaching at through most of August, several guys were asking Denis and I about our games (some are former players, some just curious about RPGs). Denis mentioned that one of the main reasons why he never got his GW game going because the random encounter tables seemed overwhelming. 

I instantly understood what he meant. Random tables like those in the books require the referee to be familiar with most of the creatures in the book. And with all the mutations in GW, that may make it overwhelming. If you only need to worry about a few monsters you've placed in a dungeon, plus whatever powers your players have for their characters, it's not as overwhelming. If everything in the book is on the table, it's a lot to deal with. 

I told Denis that he should try to run the game, but just drop random encounters. The look of relief on his face was noticeable. I think he had been in the mindset that the game has rules for this, so he needed to use them. But that's not true. 

You don't need to use all the rules to run a fun game. Especially when you're just starting out. I ignored lots of rules when I was just starting out as DM nearly 40 years ago. And the games were fun, and challenging. Once you are comfortable with the basics of the game, and with planning and presenting adventures, the more complex stuff can be added back in.

Back to the Grind, Plus Gamma World and Call of Cthulhu!

I'm in the final week of summer vacation. As a professor, I get a nice long summer vacation, but I'm actually usually busier during the vacation than during the semester. So I'm looking forward to things slowing down a little. Not too much, though. I've got a couple of composition (academic writing) classes this semester, plus a study I'm hoping to finish up by October for fingers crossed publication in December. But despite that, my schedule, and my boys' schedules, will be regular, so gaming should be more or less back on track. 

My TS&R Jade game has been going well. Yesterday, my boys and Denis were the only players, and they followed up on a rumor that took them to a location just beyond their abilities (if other players had been there, it likely would have been fine). But with some good strategy, a bit of luck, and negotiation, they managed to complete their objective (rescuing 3 kidnapped children from monsters) and only lost one henchman in the process. 

I haven't run Star Wars in a while. Steven, my younger son, has been asking when I will. And with the new Ahsoka series on Disney+ now, I'll likely fire up those Star Wars creative neurons and get something worked out soon. I need to get on the players, though. I gave them a bunch of leads after the last session, but the only feedback I've gotten so far was one player saying, "Yeah, any of those look fine." Gonna have to pester them a bit more.

Richard, a friend who played in my West Marches game back when I first started it up (as a 5E game), and who I've played with a bit in some of Dean's games, is starting up a new Call of Cthulhu game. We had a session 0 last Friday, and the first game will be this coming Friday. I rolled up a rum runner with a boat and skill at driving a car, so I'll be the party's wheels. We've also got a prizefighting boxer, an Italian anti-mafia spy, and an investigative radio reporter as our party. Should be fun!

On the play-by-post website I use (RPOL.net), I made a Gamma World game last October, but it's just been sitting there unused. I made a few last minute updates and changes (I'm running 1992 4th edition, but with some house rules and mutations from other editions/games, including some of the house rules I used in GamMarvel World a few years back) and opened it up for players. So far, I've had five players ask to join. Two of them are already rolling up their characters: a mutant webspinner (an insect) and a mutant armadillo. I'm hoping to recruit around 10 or 12 players, since RPOL games have a high attrition rate.

Oh, and my boys are still working on their airplane simulator! They've been working on 3D models this past week. If you want to support their efforts, please check out their GoFundMe page! Thank  you!

Adventure Prompts in ChatGPT

I was curious about ChatGPT. Lots of discussion about it in academic/education circles. As a second language teacher who does teach academic writing, this (and computer translation) are things I need to keep up on. 

But for my first foray with the AI text generator, of course I wanted to see how it could assist with adventure design. Here are two quick prompts I gave it (my prompts in bold, ChatGPT in blue):

Gamma World Adventure Module





Generate an adventure module for Gamma World 2nd Edition in the style of TSR modules.



Sorry, as a language model AI I do not have the ability to play games, but I can help you write an adventure module!

Here's an adventure module for Gamma World 2nd Edition in the style of TSR modules:

Title: "The Lost City of Nefara"

Introduction: In the post-apocalyptic world of Gamma World, rumors have circulated for years about a lost city of advanced technology and untold riches. Many have searched for the legendary city of Nefara, but none have returned. Now, the players have received a lead from a trusted source that could lead them to the lost city.

Objective: The players must navigate through the treacherous terrain of the wasteland and avoid danger from mutated creatures and hostile factions to find the lost city of Nefara and uncover its secrets.

Setting: The adventure takes place in a desolate wasteland, filled with mutated creatures, ruined buildings, and dangerous hazards. The lost city of Nefara is said to be located at the heart of the wasteland, protected by advanced technology and guarded by powerful mutants.

Encounters:

The players must navigate a treacherous sandstorm, avoiding sandwyrms and other dangerous creatures.

They will come across a band of raiders, who are searching for the lost city themselves. The raiders may offer to join forces with the players or attack them on sight.

The players will discover a hidden underground facility filled with robots and advanced technology. However, the facility is guarded by a powerful AI system that will not allow anyone to enter without proper clearance.

As they near the lost city, the players will face a horde of mutated beasts, including giant scorpions and fire-breathing lizards.

The lost city of Nefara is guarded by powerful mutants, who will challenge the players to prove their worth before allowing them to enter.

Conclusion: If the players are able to navigate the dangers and reach the lost city of Nefara, they will discover a city filled with advanced technology and untold riches. However, they will also uncover a dark secret about the city's past, which could have dire consequences for the world of Gamma World.

Note: This is just a basic outline of the adventure module, and it can be expanded upon as desired. The specific details and challenges can be adjusted to fit the players and their characters.





Generate a list of confidence schemes appropriate to the Star Wars universe.



Here's a list of confidence schemes that could be appropriate for the Star Wars universe:

Fake Holocron Scam: A con artist offers to sell a rare and valuable holocron to a wealthy collector, but the holocron is actually a fake.

Counterfeit Credits Scam: A criminal creates fake credits and tries to pass them off as legitimate currency, using the confusion of the war and the chaos of the galaxy to their advantage.

Bogus Military Contracts Scam: A fraudster claims to represent a powerful military organization and offers contracts to small businesses, promising a large payout in exchange for an up-front fee.

Illicit Arms Deal Scam: A confidence artist poses as a black market arms dealer and sells faulty or useless weapons to unsuspecting buyers.

Rogue Planet Scam: A swindler convinces investors to fund the development of a new colony on a "discovered" rogue planet, only to disappear with the funds once the investors have paid.

Artifact Smuggling Scam: A smuggler offers to sell valuable and rare artifacts, but instead delivers fake replicas to the buyer.

Fake Job Offer Scam: A con artist offers false employment opportunities to young and inexperienced individuals, only to steal their credits or use them for illegal activities.

Sabotaged Starship Scam: A scam artist offers to repair or upgrade a starship, but instead sabotages it, causing it to malfunction or crash.

Note: This list is not exhaustive, and these schemes can be adjusted to fit the specific story and setting of a Star Wars adventure.

_________________________________________

That's not bad. The Gamma World "module" lacks concrete details, and it's presented as a railroad. But it has a good set-up, progression, and ending with hook for further play. 

I could work with a skeleton like that and flesh it out. I would probably try more specific prompts in the future.

For Star Wars, I gave it a more general prompt, and it gave some good ideas that could be developed further. 

Now, this is not revolutionary. I could easily have come up with these ideas (or similar) myself. But if I were to run an impromptu game, and needed ideas quickly, this could be helpful.

So what do you all think?

Fiendish Gamma World Folio

As I mentioned a little while back, I went through the AD&D Fiend Folio for creatures that might work well in a Gamma World game. I was not disappointed. There are a lot of weirdos in there that I would probably never use in D&D but fit right in a GW game. 

The list of creatures that made the cut are: 

Achaierai

Algoid

Babbler

Blindheim

Bloodworm, Giant

Bonesnapper

Caterwaul

Clubnek

Dire Corby

Doombat

Dragonfish

Eye Killer

Fire Newt

Fire Toad

Frost Man

Garbug

Gorillabear

Gryph

Hoarfox

Jaculi

Kamadan

Mantari

Needleman

Osquip

Pernicon

Quaggoth

Qullan

Skulk

Tentamort

Thork

Tirapheg

Volt

Witherstench

 

I also decided, since I was statting up GW creatures, to add Slow Mutants, lobstrosities, and taheen from Stephen King's Dark Tower books. 

 

There were a few FF creatures that almost made it. I originally put them on my list to convert, but on a closer reading (or just on a gut feeling) decided not to include after all. These were the: 

Crabman

Death Dog (I used these too often in my D&D games)

Dunestalker 

Giant Strider

Meenlock

Quipper

Rothe

Stunjelly

Throat Leech

Umpleby

Vodyanoi

Whipweed

Witherweed

Gamma Folio

My friend Denis will soon be starting his Gamma World game. My sons and I, and Denis' daughter, all rolled up our characters for the game. A few more of the regulars still need to roll up theirs, but since Denis normally meets them online, I don't think they've done it yet. 

 Denis had the kids roll ability scores, then arrange them as they liked. Then he let them select mutations, but gave them defects depending on how many mutations they received. 

Anyway, so far, Renee (who played the Fairy Princess Goldie in West Marches) wanted to play a hippogriff (she's a Harry Potter fan*), so we discussed how to make that work. Horse with eagle/hawk mutations? Hawk or eagle with horse mutations? Anyway, somehow she has a hippogriff. I don't remember exactly what mutations she got.

Flynn, my older boy, rolled up another mutant raccoon. Atomic Raccoon (based on Marvel's Rocket of course) is shorter, has speed increase, mental blast, radar/sonar, and time suspension, plus bacterial susceptibility and periodic amnesia. 

Steven, my younger, rolled up a mutant cat (of course). And he named him "Iamashithole" and his mutations include regeneration, speed increase, weather control, and mental control. He has the fear impulse defect keyed to Fen (fish-men mutants). 

I rolled a Pure Strain Human. Since we were rolling and arranging to taste, and PSH are fairly weak, Denis let me roll 4d6 for each stat, not just for the three that normally get a boost. So Lothar has some pretty sweet ability scores (although PS is only 11, and MS is 12, everything else is 17+). With his bonuses to discovering artifact purposes and ability to command robots, I think he'll do alright. 

For fun, though, I later went on my Roll20 and rolled a random character, a mutant owl named Dr. Hoo. I got some decent ability score rolls, and then some mutations that pumped up a couple of them. In the end, he ended up with oversized brain (+4 Int and MS, +1 mental mutation), arterial weakness (defect), taller (3m tall! +2 PS), duality (nice!), teleportation, fear impulse (keyed to some sort of plant, Denis will decide), devolution, and heightened brain talent (+4 MS for defense only) as his oversized brain bonus mutation. Pretty strong. Denis took a look at it, and is wondering how balanced it will be. I have to admit, those random rolls probably gave me a stronger mutant than if I'd picked and chosen! Anyway, Dr. Hoo is my backup. I'll start the campaign with Lothar. 

In addition to Denis' game (2nd edition), I'm again working on ideas for a play by post 4th edition Gamma World game (I posted my barter table a while back). I've got an area map with settlements, ruins, and installations noted, and named, and found maps online or in my collection of old adventures that I can use for them. I've got the basic game set up on the site, but haven't started recruiting players yet. Real world was pretty busy the past few weeks. 

Last night, talking to Denis about Dr. Hoo, he mentioned maybe grabbing some creatures from D&D or other games to use. I told him it was a good idea. And today, I grabbed my Fiend Folio to do the same for my PbP game. There are a few FF creatures that I really like, and have converted to BX/BECMI stats for my games. There are a lot that are just too goofy for D&D. Some of those goofy ones (and some of the not so goofy ones) would make excellent mutants in GW, though. So I think I will spend some of my free time the next week or two converting Fiend Folio critters to Gamma World 4 stats. Should be fun! And will give experienced players a few surprises.

Twenty Quick Questions for Gamma World

Riffing off of this old post from Jeff Rients, some initial fodder to get my Gamma World setting going. Posting just the questions for now. I know the answers to some of these for my setting, but not all.

1. Where do I go to sell or trade this artifact that I found?
2. Where can we go to buy or trade standard equipment?
3. Where can we go to get armor or other gear custom fitted for this mutant I just befriended?
4. Who can I go to if I can't figure out the purpose of this artifact?
5. Who is the greatest warrior in the land?
6. Who is the richest person in the land?
7. Where can we go to get some mutant powered or high tech healing?
8. Where can we go to get cures for the following conditions: poison, disease, radiation, energy drain, mind control, hoops turned my spear into rubber?
9. Where are the local known ruins and installations that I could plunder?
10. Where can I find an alchemist, sage or other expert NPC?
11. Where can I hire mercenaries?
12. Is there any place on the map where swords are illegal, mutants are outlawed or any other notable hassles from Johnny Law?
13. Which way to the nearest tavern?
14. What mutants or robots are terrorizing the countryside sufficiently that if I kill them I will become famous?
15. Are there any wars brewing I could go fight?
16. How about gladiatorial arenas complete with hard-won glory and fabulous cash prizes?
17. Are there any cryptic alliances with sinister agendas I could join and/or fight?
18. What is there to eat around here?
19. Any legendary lost treasures I could be looking for?
20. Where is the nearest ruin or creature rumored to have lots of artifacts?

Fun with the Boys (Down Time 2)

Sorry Lance, still no novel innovations for "down time" in games. Just more quarantine fun. 

The boys and I grabbed my copy of 1st Edition Gamma World and rolled up some characters just for fun. I'm not gonna run it (it's a little too loosey-goosey, especially since I have the 4th edition rules which are not that complex, and 2nd Edition in PDF now which is better organized than 1st and simpler than 4th), but one of my players is considering dipping his toes in the refereeing waters soon with GW, and my 7 year old was itching to roll up a character. 

Well, my 7yo went first. He didn't roll so well for stats, and only got a couple of mutations, but I let him pick since it was just 1 physical and 1 mental, rather than rolling which made him happy. He rolled up: 

Popcat TV

Mutant Cat, MS 8 IN 11 DX 9 CH 7 CN 10 PS 13; HP 31, AC 7 (furs, shield)

Wings (fly speed 12), Mental Control over Physical State (ignore pain, heal x4, double DX, PS, speed for 5d10 rounds 1/week)

Then I rolled up  a humanoid (I rolled high for the two physical mutations, allowing me to reroll and ignore defects for #1, and just to select #2, while the mental mutation was a random roll): 

Del Hartman

Mutant Human, MS 17 IN 12 DX 9 CH 12 CN 8 PS 15; HP 20, AC 7 (furs, shield)

Heightened Strength (add 3 dice damage with physical weapons), Heightened Vision (see clearly up to 3km, infravision w/o drawback, ultravision), Mental Defense Shield (+4 mental defense, sense others with mental mutations within 30')

About the time I got done with that, my 14 year old came in and decided he wanted to roll up one too. He went with a mutant raccoon, and of course the dice loved him, although he did get a defect to balance things out:

Missile

Mutant Raccoon, MS 15 IN 14 DX 13 CH 15 CN 14 PS 10; HP 60, AC 3, Speed 9

Total Carapace (AC 4, reduce damage by 1/2, reduce speed by 1/4), Multiple Body Parts (+9 arms!), Wings (fly speed 12), Shorter (141cm tall, -1 AC bonus), Heightened Intelligence (+4 mental defense, -2 on artifact function discovery rolls), Poor Dual Brain (causes problems randomly)

The good thing about this edition is the simplicity. The character sheets are so simple. Char gen is relatively quick. The down side is that the rules organization isn't the best, and a lot of the mutation descriptions say things like "check with the referee for the effects of this" and just leave it up in the air. Of course, with later editions available to me, I can check to see how it has been done by others, but I think if I do run that GW game I'm thinking about, it will either be with the 4th Edition or a house ruled hybrid of 2nd and 4th (simplify where desired, use the more crunchy details when useful).

Bartertown

 I'm working up notes for a play-by-post Gamma World game. The home town will be fairly primitive, just having barely reached Tech Level II (early Bronze Age) but there are some definite Tech II and even a Tech III (Medieval) settlement nearby. Plus a market in the Tech III settlement run by Restorationists where artifacts can be bought and sold...the only catch being that the Tech III society is ruled over by the Knights of Genetic Purity. There is a trade town nearby as well, which takes domars (cash in Gamma Terra), but the home town will be only barter based. Junk from ruins will be a prime means of acquiring things, but time and effort also play a part. A day's food? How about you give me that shiny doo-dad you picked up in the ruins. Want a new spear? Plow my field for me.

I plan to have notes for important NPCs of what they have, what they need, what they want in trade. But for less important NPCs, or when the PCs want something I haven't considered, I made a Barter Table. Figured I might as well share it with you guys. Never know when this might come in handy. It could work for D&D or other games, too, really. Just replace junk with something relevant to the campaign.

Barter Table

	NPC Wants (roll 1d6):
Players Want:	1	2	3	4	5	6
Food (1 meal)	1 junk	1d3 junk	1d2 labor	1 service	1d3 goods	nothing
Water (days)	1 junk	1 labor	1 goods	clothes	nothing	nothing
Labor (1 hour)	1d3 junk	1 labor	1 creature	1 meal	1d4 water	nothing
Service (1 hour)	1d6 junk	1 bauble	1d3 meals	1d2 labor	1d3 goods	nothing
Clothes	1 junk	1d4 junk	1d2 labor	1d3 goods	nothing	nothing
Lodging	1d4+1 junk	1d6 labor	1d4 service	1 creature	1d3 meals	nothing
Goods (Tech I)	1d4 junk	2d4 junk	1d6 meals	1d10 labor	1d2 goods	nothing
Goods (Tech II)	2d6 junk	3d6 junk	2d4 meals	2d6 labor	2d6 goods	no trade
Goods (Tech III)	2d10 junk	3d12 junk	2d10 meals	2d8 labor	4d6 goods	no trade
Weapon (Tech I)	1d10 junk	2d6 labor	2d6 service	4d4 goods	1d8 meals	nothing
Weapon (Tech II)	3d4 junk	3d6 labor	4d4 service	1d3 creatures	3d8 goods	no trade
Small Creature	1d8 junk	1d6 meals	1d6 water	1 creature	2d4 goods	nothing
Medium Creature	2d8 junk	1d4 labor	1d4 service	2d6 goods	4d6 goods	no trade
Large Creature	3d8 junk	2d6 labor	2d4 service	1d6 creatures	4d10 goods	no trade

Junk: On average, 1 curiosity = 20 junk/5 baubles; 1 bauble = 4 junk; 

Labor/Service in hours; labor = physical work, service = mental work

Goods: 1 Tech III item = 10 Tech I items or 3 Tech II items. 1 Tech II item = 1d3 Tech I items

Nothing: free if NPC is friendly, will not trade if hostile; No Trade: will not part with item