[Gamma World] Gamma World Survival Horror House Rules!

Like it says on the tin.  Some conversion rules to make Gamma World play more like Resident Evil, Dead Space, System Shock, and Aliens.

These rules are a work in progress so hopefully expect a second part with more stuff.

Edit:  Thanks to Xiw on #tinypewtermen (Irc.synirc.net) for some mistakes I made and some inspiration and opinions that got me to tweak and improve my initial version!

Gamma World House Rules Document

Healing Surges: Once per 24 hours including at least 6 hours of rest outside of combat players may heal all HP damage. In combat once per day PCs may heal ¼ th (rounded up) HP damage as a Standard or Move action. At level 4 and 8 PCs gain 1 extra in Combat ¼ HP surge.

Other Effects: Negative effects that are normally “Save Ends” now stay on the target but may be avoided as normal using a Combat surge or automatically removed via the Full option.

(Note special abilities or items can allow for extra saves or surges as well.)

Combat Stuffs:

Weapon Reloads: Weapons that have ammo now have a “Reload” action. Reloading a weapon is either a Move or Attack action. This does mean you can shoot your guns as much as you want now.

(Optional: weapons with ammo have a condition. Every extra time it is fired roll a D10. If the roll equals or beats the condition points of the weapon it degrades by 1 point. Repair is then needed.)

Weapon Range: Weapons now have a range. At Short the weapon's hit modifier is added to your roll. At Medium it is not. At Long the roll is now -5.

Aimed Shots: Aimed Shots are an extra -5 to hit but if successful are counted as a critical hit (max damage) or if something with a weak point or multiple locations (like a Romero styled zombie say..) that is hit and rolled for damage as appropriate.

Critical Hits: A normally rolled Critical Hit also counts as an Aimed Shot as the firer's choice.

Weapon Special Abilities/Upgrades:

Indirect Fire: Indirect Fire shots are 15 AC if target/target square is visible, 25 if not visible. When the hit is a miss, for every point missed the shot 1 square in a random direction, ½ if going back towards the firer. (Round up) Scatter roll is 1d10 with 1 back towards firer, numbers go clockwise with 10 being a “dud” shot. When a Hit is rolled the shot hits the target square/target but it scatters d4-1 if indirect. (Again, a 10 rolled for direction is a dud even if you scatter 0 range on an Indirect spot.)

Cone Attack: Cone Attacks ignore cover bonuses for Hit rolls. Range is distance weapon fires. Shot is reduced 1 die in damage per square after the second. No Long/Med/Short ranges.

Multifire : May not be used at Long Range. Requires weapon to be held 2 handed. Uses multiple rounds of ammo. (Roll 1d4 shots used) If main target is hit, any adjacent targets take half damage regardless of AC. Target's cover AC is reduced by 1 step. (Partial is cancelled, Full becomes Partial.)

Multifire weapons may be fired on “Single” shot mode but lose all multifire bonuses and penalties. (So you no longer waste multiple shots or have to fire 2 handed unless the weapon itself requires it. And you know, you get Long Range!)  As long as you have 3 rounds in the weapon you can still go Multifire and if you roll a 4 for shots just count it as having been 3.

Antitank (#): Antitank weapons ignore DR equal to the (#) value.

Heavy: Heavy weapons may only be fired if the firer has not moved at all including Shifting. If the firer does move it may be fired at half normal range values and it is -5 to hit.

Melta: Melta weapons are ½ normal weapon type range with Antitank +5 and ½ normal ammunition, rounded up. Stacks with Antitank.

Laser: Laser weapons are +2/4/8 range, +1 To Hit, ½ ammo capacity rounded down.

Flamer: Cone Attack doing Fire damage. No To Hit rolls required but targets evade on a 11+ roll with their Dex bonus added to the roll. Targets hit take 5 Ongoing Fire, Save Ends. No Cone Damage Dice reduction. All targets in a straight line take the hit, adjacent squares to the line take half damage with no Ongoing Fire.

Red Dot Sight: +1 To Hit rolls, target may either use AC or Reflex, whichever is higher.

Sniper Scope: If firer doesn't move, weapon gets +2 to hit and +4/8/16 to range.

2 Handed: Requires 2 hands to fire, otherwise -5 to hit.

Blast (#): Hits target square full on, surrounding squares take ½ damage. (#) is size of the blast.

Armory:

Pistols:

Light: Range: 5/10/20 Damage: 2d4 Ammo/Clip: 9 To Hit Bonus: +3

Medium: Range: 7/14/28 Damage: 2d6 Ammo/Clip: 7 To Hit Bonus: +2

Heavy: Range: 8/16/32 Damage: 3d4+1 Ammo/Clip: 6 To Hit Bonus: +1

Carbines: (ALL 2 HANDED)

Light: Range: 9/18/36 Damage: 2d6 Ammo/Clip: 24 To Hit Bonus: +3

Medium: Range: 11/22/44 Damage: 2d8 Ammo/Clip: 20 To Hit Bonus: +2

Heavy: Range: 13/26/52 Damage: 3d6+1 Ammo/Clip: 16 To Hit Bonus: +1

Rifles: (ALL 2 HANDED)

Light: Range: 15/30/60 Damage: 2d8 Ammo/Clip: 8 To Hit Bonus: +3

Medium: Range: 20/40/80 Damage: 2d10 Ammo/Clip: 6 To Hit Bonus: +2

Heavy: Range: 23/46/92 Damage: 3d8+1 Ammo/Clip: 4 To Hit Bonus: +1

Machine Guns: (ALL 2 HANDED, HEAVY, MULTIFIRE)

Light: Range: 25/50/100 Damage: 2d10 Ammo/Clip: 20 To Hit Bonus: +3; Antitank 2;

Medium: Range: 30/60/120 Damage: 2d12 Ammo/Clip: 16 To Hit Bonus: +2; Antitank 3;

Heavy: Range: 32/64/128 Damage: 3d12+1 Ammo/Clip: 12 To Hit Bonus: +1; Antitank 4;

Shotguns:

Sawed Off: Damage: 4d6 Ammo/Clip: 2 To Hit Bonus: +1; Cone 5

Hunting: Damage: 5d6 Ammo/Clip: 2 To Hit Bonus: +2; Cone 7; 2 Handed

Combat: Damage: 6d6 Ammo/Clip: 8 To Hit Bonus: +3; Cone 9; 2 Handed

Slug Ammo: Shotguns may be fitted with “Slug” rounds that turn the Cone range to Medium, with Double that Long, and NO Short range. Slug rounds fire like normal guns and ignore Cone rules. Slug shots are also -2d damage dice. (So a Combat Shotgun with Slug would have -/9/18 for range, and do 4d6 damage/

Incendiary Ammo: As Slug but damage dice is HALVED from the normal Shotgun damage, and the shot is Fire damage, adjacent targets take half damage. 3 Fire Ongoing, Save Ends.

Flamers:

Light: Damage: 3d6 Ammo/Clip: 10; Flamer Cone 6; 2 Handed

Heavy: Damage: 3d8 Ammo/Clip 6; Flamer Cone 10; 2 Handed

Heavy Weapons: (ALL 2 HANDED, HEAVY)

Grenade Launcher: Range: 10/20/40 Damage: 2d6 Ammo/Clip: 6 To Hit Bonus: +1; Indirect Fire; Blast 2

(ADD SPECIAL GRENADE TYPES)

Bazooka: Range: 18/36/72 Damage: 2d10 Ammo/Clip: 1 To Hit Bonus: +2; Antitank 5

Box Launcher: Range: 20/40/80 Damage: 2d12+2 Ammo/Clip: 4 To Hit Bonus: +1; Antitank 10; 

Gamma World: My Houserules

Over at Arkham Asylum in Norwich CT there has been a couple rumblings about me doing a demo of the game.

I wouldn't mind doing one at all because I really like the game and how goofy you can run it, or with some tweaks its more of an X Men type game.  Or Rifts.  Or Fallout.  (And for a Fallout game, tell me this isn't THE BEST MUSIC EVER for its late 50-early 60's feel:  )

While my actually running the game and what silliness level I would do depends on the potential players and what they want, the following house rules are ones I would probably use no matter what:

1: Origin Rolling:  In Gamma World you normally roll for two origins, with a double roll (made nearly impossible with the expansions that add in even more origins) on the chart equaling Enhanced Human as one of them.  For my house rules, players may choose one or both origins at a starting XP penalty of 125 each, or 250 for Enhanced Human and you MUST roll for the second origin.  Players selecting one of their  two origins must choose it FIRST then roll for the second one.

2: Ability Scores:  In Gamma World your first origin is your primary and the second is the secondary. (NO WAY!)  Your origins give you an 18 in its' ability, and the secondary a 16.  Normally you roll 3d6 in order for the other 4 abilities.  BEFORE ROLLING, players may choose to assign the 4 rolls as desired, and instead of 3d6 roll 1d8 and add 8.  (Meaning instead of a spread of 3-18 you have a spread of 9-16 and choose what to put where.)

3: Alpha Mutations:  Normally you draw a single card and deal with it.  But normally your Alpha Mutation changes every time there is an Alpha Flux or an Extended Rest.  This is a little too random for me so here is what we will do:  At creation the player draws THREE cards from the deck and chooses ONE.  Outside of an Alpha Flux or other in game effect that would cause a Mutation change this is your PC's power.  When something comes up that would make you draw (Extended Rest changing being removed.), you can instead burn a Healing Surge and keep your power.  Draw 3 select 1 also happens for your level 4 and 8 choices.  There is NO power draws outside of Flux type events or character generation.

4: Player Mutation and Tech Decks: These are BANNED unless the player chooses at creation to instead of building a 7 card deck, build an 8 card. The DM at start gets to draw and KEEP a card.  If you are going to be a degenerate munchkin paying 4 dollars for a package of 8 blind buy cards you must pay the DM for this right.  By giving the DM one of them.  Tip your friendly neighborhood Dungeon Master.  (At DM's discretion other gifts such as booze, candy, toys, or helping them clean up after the game could be accepted as well.)

5: Keeping your Omega Tech even when you shouldn't:  Normally an Omega Tech item either degrades or goes Tubby Bye Bye when used.  If you REALLY like your new toy you may choose to keep it upon receiving it (aka you make the choice THEN AND THERE, no waiting) you PERMANENTLY sacrifice 1d3 Healing Surges and its yours for the life of the PC.  If for some reason you have no Surges left to sacrifice after the roll,  (Like your PC has 2 Surges total and you roll a 3 meaning you now have -1 Surges) your PC is now unable to use ANY Omega Tech cards at all.  This also means you LOSE all Omega Tech you previously owned instantly.  It serves you right for being that greedy with your toys.  Outside of permanently sacrificing Healing Surges to keep an Omega Tech card, failing an Omega Charge roll works as normal.

6: Gun ammo:  Normally in Gamma World you get ONE shot with any gun or ammo type weapon, and if you use it a second time in an encounter its out of ammo permanently till your PC can somehow find more.  This is sort of silly.  Instead of a heavy accounting of ammo now you have the PC's level in shots per encounter PERIOD.  No overshooting.  Whenever the PCs go to any place capable of salvage or to purchase more ammo the DM will tell you how much it will cost (or time wasted, probably spent in Healing Surges for the day) to stock back up on ammo.  Whenever a 1 is rolled to hit with an ammo weapon it has run out of ammo for the encounter, AND until the character can find some reloads.


7: BE A MAN: Roll for everything by the book and accept whatever you draw for your Alpha mutation and start with 250 bonus XP.  If you choose this bonus you may not expend surges to keep an Alpha, but may sacrifice 1d3 to keep an Omega Tech.  You may also never use a player deck of either, and never get to draw 3 take 1 at level 4 and 8 either.

8: D&D Essentials Races for an Origin: These may be chosen and counted as Enhanced Human either in rolling or taking a 250 XP starting penalty for creation.  Any abilities of the D&D race that are not applicable to Gamma World are ignored but otherwise the race works as listed.

The above I think makes for a slightly less ridiculously random game with a more stable Gamma World Earth as opposed to one where everything and everyone seems to change what they can do constantly.

Random Boosters: Talk about DUMB Daniel!

Consider this both a minor rant and an explanation about how such blind buy bits are silly.

I have photos for many interesting reviews and unboxings but I have been lazy.

Plus Carlin the Bishop needs to be leveled up because Michele the Elf Sorceress is too fragile for level 10 in Wizardry Tale of the Forsaken Land.

(One run on Level 8 and Carlin goes from 1-10 and can now be promoted to a Bishop.  10 more levels of grinding plus many runs to the spell component store and he will be way better than any silly Elf mage girl.  Because he is GEORGE FREAKING CARLIN.  Heck he is still 4-5 levels lower than Michele since this pic was taken and he has nearly 80 more HP.  And can cast Priest AND Sorcerer spells.)

Now for those of you who don't know, random boosters, or "Blind Buy" packaging is beneficial for the manufacturer and the retailer who doesn't have to worry about multiple SKUs (Store Keeping Units) of product that may or may not sell, and can in fact cause extra sales as customers chase that one magic Rare or Super Rare that the product may have, ending up with multiples of items that probably wouldn't sell that much on their own.

And in some cases its sort of a Christmas package every time you open one of these packs up.  The feeling of "What's in this one?" can be silly addictive.

Yet in the end its a screwjob on us, the consumer.  Like those Lego and Mega Blocks minifigure packages.  I REALLY want the Lego Vampire.  But I am NOT gonna take the risk on 4 dollar a pack baggies in the hope of getting him.  (A 1 inch tall Lego minifig for 4 bucks?  BLOW ME.  That's a rip off!  Now 2 bucks?  I'd buy that action like I am Harold AND Kumar and the bags contain some "green".)  Now the Mega Bloks ones are much cheaper at 2.50 a pack.  Yet I keep getting the same damned Rare figure, the Pink Hayabusa Halo Samurai dude.  And some poor kid is gonna be hoping for one and my dumb luck means he keeps getting some lame Common rated figure.  And I am stuck with a bunch of pink samurai in powered armor.  Which is only something you want if you are an RPGnet or Scans Daily poster.  

And this is what happens.  In some cases (like the Mega Blocks Halo figures) the AMOUNT of goodies you get almost make up for looking for that one bit you want by sheer value compared to buying the same product if it was open buy.  Yet you have other cases such as Magic where the Super Rare equivalents are all but NEEDED for certain decks especially if you play competitively or you buy singles where a SINGLE IN PRINT TRADING CARD THAT COSTS PENNIES TO MAKE GOES FOR 20-100 DOLLARS OR MORE BECAUSE THEY MAGICALLY MADE LESS OF IT.

This is a hose job and a companies' way of telling you, their loyal customers that you can go "hug" yourself.

Now some games sort of have run with this for years like Magic, the collectible miniatures games that all have pretty much bombed out, and so on.  

Sadly, its starting to infect RPGs and Boardgames too.

Today we will be investigating this F A S.  (Wargame Dork tries to avoid R rated language so you can just guess for yourself what the letters stand for.)

Plus it covers some information on games I plan on reviewing fully later on anyhow.

First off is D&D Gamma World.  See in Gamma World they came up with this card based gimmick for mutant powers and "Omega Tech" which is basically Magic Items in a fantasy RPG.

The game comes with 40 card decks of these powers and magic items.  In gameplay the players draw from these decks when they find gear or random crazy events happen which change their mutant power for this fight.  

(While this is kind of weird it does sort of fit Gamma World's GONZO AS HELL setting and feel, it can be houseruled to be a little less random.)

However, players can build their own custom mini decks with card stacking limits to do more what they want and be less random.

So your players can buy multiple packs of these cards all randomly set out of the 120 available, with the nice foil packaging helping create ever bigger landfills of garbage and getting people to spend more money on RPG products as opposed to just buying a single rulesbook or box set and being done!

HOW WONDERFUL.

And that's what you get.  A logo back and a trading card of text.

But what makes this worse?

EACH 8 CARD PACK IS FOUR DOLLARS MSRP.   50 CENTS A PLAIN TEXT TRADING CARD.  

They aren't even foil or have pretty pictures on them!  

Its a SCAM.  

Oh, and online these 4 dollar packs cost 3 bucks.  A 16 card pack of Magic the Gathering with foils and super rares and other fanciness?  2.75 from the same store.  Yeah.  Same company and its not even competitive with the same product type!

And its probably the biggest thing keeping many people from investing in Gamma World.  Many folks have said they don't even like the preset 40 card decks in the main box.  This just makes things worse.  It even means some players can have an edge on the game over others by dropping silly amounts of money.

Thankfully the only place I know who has the boosters so far hasn't seemed to sell a single pack.  Sadly, it probably won't teach WOTC anything.  And it could possibly kill Gamma World again. 

What's sad is the whole card deal could have been dropped for abilities and items in a book with a random roll.  But instead its a new dumb way to create landfill clogging foil wrappers and throws off game balance.

A shame.  Also I probably wouldn't allow the boosters at all.  Unless I was bribed first.  If you are silly enough with money to buy booster packs just to be better in an RPG you can buy my coffee for the entire campaign.  And I loves me coffee.  And its gonna COST you.  Lattes from Dunkin's.  That's right.  The delicious beverage I don't buy because its stupidly expensive and mini mart coffee is usually as tasty is what you would have to do as penance for being both a powergamer and a consumer whore.

Ok.  Now let's move swiftly along to the boardgaming section.

I have discovered this neat new boardgame from Columbia Games called Wizard Kings.  It is part of their block wargame series where you have painted wooden blocks with unit stickers on one side, making for a neat "Fog of War" thing going on.  I got the first edition box with 2 complete armies for 30 dollars.  The current edition gives you 8 blocks and rules for every army for 50 MSRP (40 online).

Well in first edition days if you wanted new armies you got this for 12-15 dollars:

See?  A nice VHS type clamshell case containing the following goodness:

Your faction's army card with unit quick reference and spells on one side, fluff on the other.

And your COMPLETE army, with a carefully thought out and hopefully well playtested array of all your faction units, and 3 appropriate "Chaos Mercenary" units.  28 pretty wood blocks and stickers.  Plus there is room for a few Werebeast Mercenaries, which can be stickered on any of the faction color blocks for either shoring up your faction's weak spots, or possibly turning one faction into a Werebeast only army.    (The vagaries of how you assign and balance the Werecreatures per faction is an annoying bit in either edition.  2nd edition only makes this worse, but we will get to that!)

(Yes that weretiger has exposed nipples.  On the upside it doesn't have exposed bits described in the "Anita Blake" books.  *Shudder*)

So the 1st edition Wizard Kings gave you 28 preassigned blocks for 15 MSRP.  A little over 2 dollars a block.

Now in 2nd edition its only 10 bucks for 21 blocks, and they are all compatible with 1st edition and vice versa outside of a few bits from the 2nd edition rules.   Roughly the same core price, 2 bucks a block!  It also allows for bigger forces for monster games with expansion mapsets.

Cool huh?  

NOT SO MUCH.

(One upside in spite of my flash obscuration is better art on the box and stickers.  And of course bonus sideboob!)

They keep the same VHS clamshell case, albeit with a generic cover.  While with 7 armies this provides nice organized cases for each, as is the wont of random boosters you need way more than that to comfortably cover things:

(We get blocks colored for every faction!  And a baggie you can use to hold the contents for one HELL of a party, albeit one illegal in most states and countries.)

See that?  You get a whopping TWO random stickers for each of the 7 factions, and 7 stickers you can place on whatever faction you want, possibly breaking the game if you really want your Elves to be super bad asses, or just don't care about any sort of theme whatsoever.  Amazons with a giant werecreature army?  Whatever you want!  DAMN YOU BALANCE AND THEME.  DAMN YOU TO HELL YOU GODDAMNED DIRTY BALANCE AND THEME!

Now as we figure each 1st edition faction box contained 25 faction pure units, and the 2nd ed core set has 8 units per faction this means you need at MINIMUM ignoring rarity and the chaos of assortment 9 boosters to have 26 faction pure blocks per faction.  Even if you just want to play Orcs and get your WAAGH on or Amazons because scantily clad warrior women make you feel funny like that time you climbed the rope in gym class you have to drop close to a 100 bucks when before it was 15 bucks.

Oh sure it might be around the same price if you want to collect every army or have big massive hordes to supplement things but its really sort of hosing.

And that's the problem with blind purchase products.  It damages gameplay balances and punishes the customer, especially one on a budget, giving the people with more money than sense an extreme edge.

Yet in the long run, most people don't have unlimited funds, and losing to the WIN AT ALL COSTS guys just isn't fun, leaving the powergamers to play ever decreasingly small groups as more and more people just give up, and no new players have any desire to even try, eventually killing most games.

Remember, even Magic only survives because of its MASSIVE playerbase and the game variants which tend to bring the "Mr Suitcase" players into check.  (Blocks of legal cards, booster drafts, ect.)

How many other collectible games continue to thrive without such restrictions, or even with?

Really not many.  After Magic you have what?  Yu Gi Oh for the kids, and Heroclix on a weird form of zombie popularity.  Most everything else has either died or gone into the FFG "Living Card Game" sort of fixed release expansions.

The sad fact is though, its such a positive short but fast and easy profit setup for retailers and manufacturers that I doubt it will ever go away, even if otherwise promising games can be damaged irreparably by it.

An Adventure Series Idea for Gamma World

See as I have mentioned there is this D&D Encounters program going on at some funnybook stores.

Many folks are intrigued about Gamma World and would like to play an Encounters suite for it.

I have come up with an idea for a series for it and want to share my ideas with you all.  Its silly, its goofy, but its Gamma Worldy.  Plus with a few tweaks it could be even more ridiculous or much less silly.

Here goes!

I need some thoughts on a D&D Encounters like Gamma World idea I came up with.

It might be a bit TOO silly and ridiculous so I need some sounding boarders.

The basic setup:
The PCs have to first protect a village of friendy Dragon Quest like Slimes who live in a Santa's Village type amusement park. (There used to be one in New Hampshire IIRC. Post apocalpytic New Hampshire seems like a goofy enough place for a set of encounters..) From the Nazi Bunnypeople. (Forgetting their proper name.) Who will be commanded by Supreme Grinchinfurher Hans von Hoppitus and his WW 2 vintage German tank.

It involves fighting off said WW2 tanks, monsters in radioactive sewers, and helping to find parts to power giant animatronic Christmas robots and Winnebago that has AT AT type legs and crab arms. To fight the Nazi bunnies. Also a giant factory with evil nanobot mecha gets involved somehow.

First arc involves PCs being somehow in the Slime Christmas village when the Nazi bunnies attack and they have to fight them off. 

They will then be hired to go and see where the baddies were coming from, finding a camp with big ass artillery guns being set up which will blow the village to bits.

This being Gamma World the PCs will probably want to help the Slime Village as opposed to letting the eternal sounds of Christmas music and incredibly twee Slimes be destroyed. A frontal assault will be shown not to work as the bunnies have already set up trenchwork and minefields. 

Returning back to the village they will be informed of an old sewer system that leads from underneath the town and heads in that direction towards an old sewage treatment plant that the Slimes are afraid of because it is a place of technological terrors. (Foreshadowing!)

Obviously the sewers become a little dungeon crawling with various critters, toxic waste causing all sorts of fun terrible things with failed DEX checks, and maybe even opening a storage cache and finding a horde of animatronic 2 meter tall penguins that could possibly be used to help smooth out the area. Out of control noise making penguins that will act like wind up toys do and only vaguely go in the direction they are pointed.

Finally sneaking from the sewers brings them right inside the bunny camp and they destroy the artillery before the Supreme Grinchinfurher Hans von Hoppitus and his WW 2 vintage German tank show up. Will he act like Colonel Klink on a sugar high? Oh yes he will. 

(You see Hans HATES Kitty Cats. The Slimes being annoying friendly and nice are friends to the kitties and have many cats roaming around their village. Hans does not like this. And all that Christmas music pisses him off. Thus he will destroy this collective of holiday cheer and kittens.)

However tanks are slow and Hans is dangerous but incompetent so they have time to prepare for his potential next attack.

The lead scientist of the Slimes, Doctor Blobby (see my character build a couple pages back) has an idea. There is an old Winnebago in the parking lot amongst a few other automobiles. With some of the animatronic parts both found in the sewer storage area and around the park he MIGHT be able to build a mecha to fight off the tank. But he will need bits from the Treatment Plant.

The PCs then go to the plant and fight off some AI robots who have turned it into the Lite Beer version of every mechanical terror fortress ever and recover the parts Doctor Blobby needs.

The final battle will have the PCs holding off the bunnies till Blobby can finish his machine.

MECHABAGO. The Winnebago with AT AT like legs and a pair of giant crab claws. 

They will be fighting off troopers in this final battle as a WW2 tank commanded by a psychotic Nazi bunnyman is fought off by a Winnebago with legs and crab claws. Both machines end up going kerplunk and the Grinchinfurher and his cyborg minions who drove the tank (leads to a new adventure perhaps?) must be finally stopped before they escape to plan more anti kitty things.

Gamma World. This game amuses me already.

I will do a better review and overview when I get around to it, but using an online character generator, it made me THIS:

Introducing: Doctor Blobby, the Blob of SCIENCE!

Blobby was a friendly Slime who liked to engage in Slime races and other bouncy related Slime activities.  His day job involved working with a Doctor West on experiments as an assistant.  You see Blobby had graduated from Slime College and was thus smarter than your average Slime and his toughness made him quite resistant to the random explosions and tentacle zombie outbreaks that were the result of most of Doctor West's experiments.

But one day Blobby when fighting back yet another angry tentacle zombie intent on doing tentacle-y things to Doctor West's rather attractive girlfriend he accidentally got stabbed with a syringe full of the strange green glowy goop that makes said zombies.

He grew from a small Slime into a large one.  (He is now about 1 meter tall in normal form, though he expands to twice that if he needs to block laser beams and such from hitting friends.) A radioactive one.  But he still does his science bits on his own now as an explorer.  You see now whenever he takes damage, parts of him fall off (don't worry he grows his slimeness back!) as delicious Slushie bits.

Doctor West was getting a little ticked that his girlfriend was playfully slapping Blobby and then licking and or sucking off the tasty frozen beverage residue created.

So Blobby left to explore the world, his mother and father giving him a Clydesdale horse "Cloppy" and a nice Transformers branded play tent he uses as the saddle.

Blobby enjoys researching SCIENCE wherever he goes, bouncing about as Slimes are wont to do, and meeting new friends.  He uses his powers of Gravity Control to do SCIENCE.  He plans on eventually turning Cloppy into a hybrid of Clydesdale and Pterosaur.
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I am not sure what kind of paint WOTC staffers were huffing when they came up with the dual origin system for this game but I kind of love them for it.  With a little creativity you can make such wonderfully silly characters as the one above.