Shaintar?

[Tanek]

Long time lurker here.

I just saw that there is a kickstarter ongoing for fantasy world named Shaintar. The little bit I read about it intrigued me somewhat and I was kind of wondering if anyone here has played Shaintar and what they think of it?

Has anyone tried it with a system different than Savage Worlds? It seems like it would work pretty well with 4th Edition, Pathfinder, or, maybe, the upcoming 13th Age.

Thanks in advance for any input!

 

[amerigoV]

Here is a review of the Shaintar Legends Arise book that I did. This book (electronic and eventually print) was finished just before the Kickstarter and covers a good part of what the setting is and the Savage Worlds crunch from Novice to Veteran (if you are a Savage, you know what that means. If not, what are you waiting for?!!?!? Get Savaged!).

As for running it in something other than Savage Worlds - easily. Many of the archetypes are direct D&D ports. The one thing you need to think about is the Savage Worlds does not succumb to the Christmas Tree of magic items that D&D does. So you would ever pick up an adventure for Shaintar (I think some may be part the KS) you are not going to find a bunch of +1 <insert items> lying around. There is plenty of magic, but its more along the lines of you getting a cool magic sword and using it the rest of your PC career and not trading it in every 3 or so levels. But that is a system difference, not a "world magic level" difference.

So here are my thoughts:

-=-=-=-=-

It’s a great time to be a Savage!

Many of us Savages are converts from the 600lbs gorilla (well, maybe 300lbs now) but we still want some good fantasy gaming. Savage Worlds does Fantasy quite well, but it is different than D&D. Many Savage Settings have a twist to them – Wild West, but Weird; War, but Weird; Fantasy, but Weird. But now we Savages have a trifecta of Savage Fantasy Settings that are more in line with some of our traditional roots. If you want Conan, go play Beasts and Barbarians. If you want something Greyhawkish with a Dark Fantasy angle, play Hellfrost. If you want good-old Forgotten Realms-like epic high fantasy, the re-release of Shaintar is here!

I have never done a formal review on-line so I will just tell you what I see:

1. Up front know this book is for Novice through Veteran PCs/games – there is more to come based on a Kickstarter for Heroic and Legendary.

2. Good vs. Evil. This is not a wishy-washy world. Its pretty much North vs. South – the North is bad and the South is good. You know who to kill. Its classic heroic fantasy – there is not much gray other than in the name Grayson’s Grey Rangers – and they are undeniably a “good” organization! Any gray in the setting is there for you to unravel then win the day with your heroics.

3. Personally, I found it easier to read the history in the GM’s section (which did not seem to have any spoilers) before reading the Omnibus section up front. The Omnibus is a bit of a fire hose of information whereas the roll of years seems to be in more digestible chunks.

4. Your fantasy gaming material is still useful. All the fun modules and ideas that you have collected over the years likely will slide right in with only modest changes. For example, the Lonely Keep = B2 Keep on the Boardlands. And, of course, the Tomb of Horrors fits in any game world.

5. A history where players have an impact. I have played in a couple of Mr. Fannon’s convention games and know that those games do impact the world. If you read the roll of years you can see where player characters have impacted the history of the world. This may be a good or bad for you, but it is there.

6. Some solid Savage crunch. There is enough new to help strengthen the setting without just being a bunch of crunch dumped in to fill pages. I particularly liked some of the expanded magic mechanics. You can combine spells and put conditions on them (triggers, for examples). When thinking about the Savage Worlds core spells with trappings you can replicate about 80% of D&D spells. His enhancements gets one to 95% (and that is a hard climb). There are also some very good additional crunch that helps build those classic fantasy archetypes (ones sees some of these combat edges in Hellfrost and Solomon Kane, so they are well tested concepts)

7. An alternate gear/treasure system. I have not looked at this in depth, but it looks to give us GMs that are too old/busy to track every gold piece and reasonable method deal with this stuff.

8. Some of the Usual Suspects, but some Unusual ones as well. You have the standard fantasy fare – stubborn dwarves, flighty (and even flying) elves, and versatile humans – but you also have some fun new races. Goblins, Ogres, and Dregordians (lizard folk, sans dragonboobs) are a few new races. At convention games, I noticed Ogres and Goblins are fan favorites these days. The best part is the Goblin replaces the Halfling/Gnome PC. Anything that gets rid of Gnomes is a good thing in my book, but YMMV. There are 11 playable races in all.

9. There are a set of campaign frameworks. There are two Gray Rangers frameworks and one Unchained (freed slaves trying to topple the Empire). In spirit, they are much like a Plot Point campaign from other Savage products, but they are a bit lighter. They are arranged as 10 or so linked chapters for your campaign with one or two paragraphs of description. Enough to get you going, but GMs will need to put flesh and a bit of gristle into them.

10. The bestiary is solid in size and serves to fill out a nice array of typical opponents that are iconic in this world, such as the Builders and the Childer (part demon creatures). I especially liked how some iconic monsters have been linked together based on if they have fallen into Darkness. For example, you have your run of the mill Ogres. The Childer version is the Minotaur. Similar with orcs and hobgoblins. A nice spin on some old fantasy favorites.


In thinking about this product, there is one thing I would request that gets into any revision or into the Kickstarter – a couple of pages on tips on running Savage Worlds for epic fantasy. As I mentioned in my opening, Savage Worlds does fantasy very well, but differently than D&D. Tips like using a lot of Extras, keeping Wild Cards to a minimum, and make sure not every opponent is high Parry/High Toughness/Hardy are good ones. I think of any Savage Worlds product this might be one that draws a higher number of us ex-D&Ders and tips on making Savage Worlds shine for this kind of setting would be invaluable.

 

[Tanek]

Thanks, Amerigov, that was very helpful!

It does bring up some other questions for me though; do you think that Shaintar is well-suited for long-term campaign play of say 5+ years? It looks like the books are, and will be, right with lots of information and juicy tidbits, but will it be enough? (Yes, I love running long campaigns. )

The crunchy stuff that the author is adding to the Shaintar books; does it help the setting come alive or does it just add prep and/or gameplay time with no benefit? I love crunchy stuff that adds to the setting, but if it's just going to add time without any benefit I'll stay away.

Thanks again!

 

[amerigoV]

Thanks, Amerigov, that was very helpful!

You are quite welcome!

The two questions are tough to answer as everyone's playstyle is different. So I'll give some qualifiers as I go along:

It does bring up some other questions for me though; do you think that Shaintar is well-suited for long-term campaign play of say 5+ years? It looks like the books are, and will be, right with lots of information and juicy tidbits, but will it be enough? (Yes, I love running long campaigns. )

I will admit of the fantasy settings I listed in my review, Hellfrost is the one has my fancy as my tastes tend to be more dark fantasy than pure heroic. So I am not going to tell you I have run or played in huge long Shaintar campaigns. But I support it because Savage Worlds needs a couple of traditional fantasy options for us old-time D&Ders. We have done a campaign, I have played in con games and read the setting.

That said, how much you get out of this does depend on how you run/develop your games. I mentioned there are 3 campaign frameworks. These frameworks could be 10 sessions in total or 10 sessions each. If you are a Patherfinder AP kinda GM (and this will apply to any Savage Setting), then the material may look sparse to you. The campaign frameworks are the Cliffnotes of a campaign arc (do they still make Cliffnotes? Boy I am getting old). If you are the kind of GM that just needs a spark of an idea and can develop reams of material than Shaintar will provide you tons of sparks and details that you can weave into your story.

Maybe the best way to put it is that its Forgotten Realms in style of fantasy, and more Greyhawk in the detail provided. So lots of room to maneuver.

One thing to keep in mind even if you are an AP kinda of GM - this is a traditional heroic fantasy setting. If you can put something in Greyhawk or FR, you can probably put it here and then sprinkle in the Shaintar details.

The crunchy stuff that the author is adding to the Shaintar books; does it help the setting come alive or does it just add prep and/or gameplay time with no benefit? I love crunchy stuff that adds to the setting, but if it's just going to add time without any benefit I'll stay away.

Thanks again!

I can really only answer this in a Savage Worlds perspective. The material does two things

1) Savage Worlds is a generic system. Savage Worlds will never feel like D&D, but it does fantasy very well in its own way. Some of the crunch elevates the core system to run fantasy more smoothly and dials things up a notch.

2) The other crunch does help define the world. There are racial edges (think feats) that allow players to emphasize the difference between the different races. There are other edges that add to your interactions in the world.

Savage Worlds runs a balance between crunch and speed of play. So SW will always feel lighter than 3e/4e/Pathfinder. If there is crunch for something, its intended to be worthwhile and noticeable. From a SW perspective, the added crunch helps the game/setting without being filler.



If you want a preview of all this, you can get the players guide for Legends Arise for $5 (or may be "pay want you want", I think it got changed after I got it). I will warn you the Omnibus is a fire-hose of information. I found the roll of years in the DM section (obviously not included) provided a better framework of what is going on. But it will let you know if the world is rich enough for you to run long campaigns.

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/109403/Shaintar-Legends-Arise-(Players-Guide)