Years ago, my friend Nick came into the room all excited, holding a copy of Polyhedron. He flipped the magazine open and told us about Omega World, a post-apocalyptic roleplaying system where you randomly generated your character, and would probably die really quickly.

We played, and it was hilarious.

Wizards of the Coast did a very smart thing by releasing the D&D Gamma World box set. You get the same wonderful randomness of the original Omega World supplement, only amped up.

The story goes that the Large Hadron Collider finally worked, and when it did, it collapsed the multiverse. Now, facets of a bazillion dimensions are smashed together in our own, resulting in a bizarre, fluctuating reality that your characters call home.

In ends up very much like Max Max plus Ninja Turtles.

You roll dice to determine your powers, stats, and even equipment. You can then pick what size weapon and armor you get, then — the best part — what it is. For example, I took a one-handed light melee weapon, and decided it was half of a pair of pruning shears. I also chose heavy armor, which I determined was made fr0m a melted car hood.

My character — randomly generated — had very similar psychic abilities to my friend Cody’s character, so we decided we were twins. We palled around with a highly radioactive fellow who shot lasers from his eyes, fighting mutant pig-men and monsters from the wasteland.

Just before I had to go, a couple of our other friends showed up, and we made them characters. They ended up with a giant electric bear and a sentient swarm of clams.

Gamma World is delightfully silly sci-fi fun. As Nick observed, it’s made for the kind of roleplaying you started with, if you were anything like my group: goofy, violent slapstick. It’s a great excuse to kick back with some friends and play out some improv comedy.

The rules system is based on D&D 4th Edition, which I’m not as familiar with. Even so, everything from character generation to combat is easy to pick up, once you figure out the math for all your bonuses. Is it just me, or are there more numbers to add together than in 3.5/Pathfinder?

Many thanks to Nick for running the game. Can’t wait until the next one.