Inspired by Billy Longino’s recent postings and drawings for his Metamorphosis Alpha game, my own love of Gamma World, and a recent playthrough of the Old World Blues DLC for Fallout New Vegas, I present the R-AN (NorthCott) Sociological Research Domes.

I picture using this map as the starting point for a classic Gamma World campaign – where the players roll up level 1 characters with medieval level technology and equipment. But instead of the usual “coming of age” adventure…

The party members wake of one morning in their usual medieval village feeling like everything that happened up until now was something of a dream. Then they discover that they are the only living beings left, everyone else in the village has died leaving only the (3 to 6) adolescent members of the community who have been trained to defend the village against invaders, but not to fish or hunt. Turns out they are all wearing strange headgear that allows the research AI to manipulate their visual cortex (in order to hide the fact that they live in a dome from them) and that reduces their INT stat by 1/3. With the AI crashed, it still provides the INT reduction, but no sensory overlays. All the villagers? Well built robots / androids that trained them, raised them, and now do nothing. It’s time to get out of this dome before the food runs out.