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Artifacts Overview in Gamma World 1st Edition
In Gamma World 1st Edition, the PCs are living in The Black Years in the devastation’s aftermath wrought by the organization known as The Apocalypse. Because the Shadow Years before were devoted to wholesale destruction, weapons, armor, and military items are scattered throughout Gamma World. Then there are the many devices that are in the non-military category laying about in abandoned homes, old stores, ancient factories, and other forgotten facilities. These strange objects are known as Artifacts.
Seeding the Campaign with Artifacts
There are two ways a GM can go about filling their world with artifacts.
The first way is the easy way. Pick the artifacts you want from the various tables to have in a certain area and note that. However, if you want to plan or don’t feel like thinking about all the artifacts needed in the campaign, roll percentile dice on the Artifact Category Table, then roll under the specific sub-list indicated.
The Artifact Matrix
Because the PCs may well be the first species of their kind since the aftermath of the Shadow Years sparked worldwide mutations or human, animal, and plants, they do not know what the many varied devices they find are because they themselves did not exist. What we know as a toaster would be a fascinating mystery to them. A smoke detector would be just as interesting as an M16 Assault rifle. These are all artifacts.
One of the unique and fun mechanics of Gamma World 1st Edition is the what I like to call the Artifact Matrix. Technically, it’s just called a chart, but that’s boring.
The Artifact Matrix allows PCs to discover what an artifact can do, and how it operates. When a PC finds an artifact, they will not know what it is or what it can do unless they already have something similar. Modern day words will have no meaning to the PCs as most of these artifacts are rare and their names are different depending on what community the PCs are in.
In Gamma World 1st Edition, there are three artifact matrices. These should be consulted based on the type of artifact being researched. Each matrix gets bigger and more involved as the complexity of the artifact increases. Having a high Intelligence allows a PC to subtract 1 for every point of Intelligence above 15. However, there is a penalty of +1 for every point below 7.
The matrix is for the GM’s eyes only, and this is where they get to flex their descriptive muscles.
GM TIP: It’s highly recommended to have a detailed picture of the object nearby so you can give accurate descriptions of what the characters see, hear, taste, touch, or smell with the object they are researching.
Researching Artifacts
Researching artifacts, or artifact examination, in Gamma World 1st Edition is a simple process. The PCs start at S on the artifact matrix (Start) and are trying to get to F (Finish). They roll 1d10. The GM looks at the result and refers to the artifact matrix. If it advances the PC positively towards the F box, the GM can give a detailed clue to help them figure out the artifact’s function. Once the PC reaches F, they have discovered the purpose of the device and how it operates.
The GM should keep track of where the PC is at on the matrix. Each arrow has a range of numbers. Rolling within this range on 1d10 indicates the next place on the matrix the PC will move to. This represents how close or far away they are in their research. An arrow pointing to the same position they are in means no progress has been made.
Certain squares will have instructions in them. Some of these tell the PC to go back to a square marked with a certain letter, indicating a loss of progress. If a skull and crossbones result is obtained, the PC has hurt themselves with the device, if it’s at all possible.
Every turn the PC spends on the Artifact Matrix lasts 12 minutes in game time, with five turns equaling an hour. They may spend as much time researching an artifact as they like. However, if they stop or are interrupted in the middle of their research, they must start all over.
Once a PC has successfully researched an artifact, the GM must roll on the Artifact Condition Table to see if it will function after lying around in the world for who knows how long. Optionally, the GM can do this during the artifact seeding stage.
Example
The Artifact Matrix is on page 31 of the original Gamma World 1st Edition core book, and page 32 of the PDF version.
Let’s say our Gamma World 1st Edition character, Miribaldo Kentac, is trying to figure out an artifact he and his company have come across in a building. We’ll assume he is a part of the team I mentioned in the first section of seeding the building. They went into where there were two vehicles. One was a hot-air balloon, and the other was a flit car. Miribaldo is trying to figure out this flit car. If you look at the Artifact Matrix, you’ll see that a flit car falls under Chart B, which is the middle matrix.
Next, I look at his Intelligence score. He has a 12 which means he gets no modifiers to his rolls on the Artifact Matrix. Figuring out an artifact can take some time depending on the how you roll. It may take a character hours or days to figure it out. For this example, Miribaldo will work on this for an hour which is five rolls (each roll is 12 minutes of game time).
Looking at chart B, Miribaldo’s player rolls 1D10 and roll an 7. 1 to 7 moves him over to Box A on the matrix. As the GM, I would give him a clue what something on the flit car looks like. Good start.
They would roll again. This time they roll a 3, which is a good roll since 1-5 takes us to Box B on the matrix. Progress. So I would give them another positive clue.
Roll three gives us an 8. On the matrix, you can see the arrow for 4 to 10 has them stay in the place they are at, so he doesn’t make any progress, and I inform the player of that in a description. Two more rolls before the hour is up.
The next roll is a 4. That does the same thing and keeps him from making any progress. It’s clear that he will not figure this out in an hour. But he will keep going.
The last roll is a 9 which, once again, keeps him stuck on the same problem for over a half hour of game time. Now we’ve got a full hour into this and he is stumped at this point on how the thing works. But he won’t give up and will come back to it when he gets a chance.
SIDE NOTE: There is no table to determine the number of artifacts that should be seeded in an area, so that is an arbitrary judgment the GM needs to make.
PLAYER TIP: Your GM will not (or should not) tell you what the device is in our modern terms. You are encouraged to come up with your own name for the device based on the information your PC has about it from what the GM has given. Even if you have a picture and know what the device is from our time, your PC does not.
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