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[Savage Worlds] New GM to SW and Sundered Skies...
- Thread starter Is_907
- Start date
Is_907
First Post
While I like the idea of Sundered Skies, and would enjoy playing/running it, it just doesn't quite fit what my group wants. Since there's just four of us, and two are more casual gamers, we want to make sure we scratch the right itch as closely as we can.
We want more steampunk-y, and more pirate-y.
Thinking more Firefly with steampunk skyships.
Anyway, if anyone on here is running Savage Worlds and blogs about their game, let me know and I'll follow you. Or find me on G+ and let me know to add you back.
We want more steampunk-y, and more pirate-y.
Thinking more Firefly with steampunk skyships.
Anyway, if anyone on here is running Savage Worlds and blogs about their game, let me know and I'll follow you. Or find me on G+ and let me know to add you back.
Relique du Madde
Adventurer
Steampunk is only a description. All you need to run steampunk is a bunch of wierd science characters, zeplins, victorian technology/flavor and a story that deals with corporatism/merchantilism and the advent of technology and its effect on society.
Bookwise, maybe the Pulp toolkits , Rippers, Deadlands, or any similar settings for equipment.
I've been planning on running a Gaslamp fantasy game in the PBP forums. It's still in the planning phases (due to world building).
I'll add you to my g+
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Is_907
First Post
Yeah, so far I'm mostly just reflavouring adventures from Pirates of the Spanish Main to be in the sky and to include the standard steampunk elements.
I'm going to skim some of the Rippers and other setting adventures to see if there's anything useful for me later on.
I've been planning on running a Gaslamp fantasy game in the PBP forums. It's still in the planning phases (due to world building).
I'll add you to my g+
Cool! Looking forward to hearing about that PbP game (and maybe applying?) and seeing you on G+.
SteelDraco
First Post
I'm about to start up a new Deadlands game that I'll be blogging about at http://steeldraco.wordpress.com. It's going to be a Deadlands adaptation of Chaosium's Masks of Nyarlathotep campaign, with sort of an exploratory side focus. The PCs are employees of the Tombstone Epitaph, helping write a gazetteer of the world after the chaos that's been going on. To that end, they're going to have a zeppelin and a crew of other Epitaph employees. Should be fun.
AngryMojo
First Post
I should probably do this. I came up with a campaign about six months ago, and it's kind of taken a life of its own. We started by playing the descendants of the bad guys in the final war of good and evil, and wound up creating an entire society through courage, grit and blood. We just jumped to the next generation of heroes, with the PC's now playing their old character's kids.
Fun times, I'll tell you that.
Is_907
First Post
That sounds awesome. Definitely would like seeing after-roleplay reports of that.
I don't always blog about RPGs, but when I do, I prefer Savage Worlds... random(blog); expect a post about my upcoming SW game(s) soon.
Rel
Liquid Awesome
Been away from ENWorld the last few days but saw that Henry mentioned me in this thread. A lot of ground has already been covered but I'll chime in on the issue of SW doing Fantasy well. I feel like I have something to say about it since I wrapped up the big finale of my year-long Savage Worlds Gothic Horror Fantasy game on Wednesday night.
I came away feeling like it was the best campaign I've ever run and I've been GMing for 30 years now.
I do think SW has a certain "feel" to it that is supported well by the rules. I think "cinematic" is a reasonable word to describe it. I might also call it "mid-fantasy" when applying it specifically to that genre. And for a different job then I might use a different tool.
For example (and this is just one of many I'm sure), I'd tend to use 4e D&D if I wanted "high-fantasy" and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for "low-fantasy" (what we often call "grim & gritty"). But for that middle road I think Savage Worlds does great.
It has a much flatter curve than D&D does, which I really like. The numbers get bigger as you move up through the ranks. But they don't get 4 or 5 times bigger over the course of a campaign.
This also has the benefit of eliminating one of my least favorite things about D&D, which is the "magic item treadmill". The few (total of 6 or 7 over the course of a year) magic items that the PC's accumulated in the game I just ran were very heavy on flavor and very light on mechanics.
Also I really love the spell system. I love the fact that it gives you generic spells and expects you to supply the flavor. It doesn't give you a default flavor that you can then re-skin. It forces some creativity and ownership of your trappings. And it's amazing how you can use a relatively generic spell to get tons of flavor. I totally want to brag about one example from my campaign...
So one guy shows up when they're making characters and says, "Gothic Horror Fantasy, huh? Can I make a Werewolf?" So I thought about it for a minute and said, "Sure! Here's how..." Basically he just took the Boost/Lower Trait spell with some modifications. In exchange for it only raising a trait, only certain traits and only being able to be cast on himself, I let it have a longer duration. So basically any time he wanted to "wolf out" he would wolf out in specific ways. He might raise his Strength or Fighting. He might raise his Vigor and therefore Toughness. Or he might simply wolf out and raise his Notice, explained by his keen Werewolf senses.
That was all we had to do to get this really cool character concept implemented was give him a single spell. As the campaign went on he picked up a couple other spells like Quickness and Healing, again with the limitation that he could only use them on himself due to his "Werewolf Trappings". But it took something incredibly generic and flexible and made it amazingly evocative because of just adding that bit of flavor.
Mostly I just love that it has such lean mechanics. It's a very tight game, generally with one fairly obvious way to adjudicate most situations. That makes it very easy to run with little or no preparation or to adapt when your players take the game in unexpected directions. The fairly rough "granularity" of monster stats also makes them very easy to make up on the fly or to run without flipping open any rulebooks.
It's funny that I'm posting about this today because I've been cleaning out my gaming stuff and trying to purge or give away games that I don't need anymore. I have a stack of Rolemaster books eighteen inches high thanks to the fact that that system has a rule for everything. And yet I ran a year's worth of awesome SW games with two small books (Explorer's Handbook and Fantasy Companion). I dig that level of efficient fun.
I came away feeling like it was the best campaign I've ever run and I've been GMing for 30 years now.
I do think SW has a certain "feel" to it that is supported well by the rules. I think "cinematic" is a reasonable word to describe it. I might also call it "mid-fantasy" when applying it specifically to that genre. And for a different job then I might use a different tool.
For example (and this is just one of many I'm sure), I'd tend to use 4e D&D if I wanted "high-fantasy" and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for "low-fantasy" (what we often call "grim & gritty"). But for that middle road I think Savage Worlds does great.
It has a much flatter curve than D&D does, which I really like. The numbers get bigger as you move up through the ranks. But they don't get 4 or 5 times bigger over the course of a campaign.
This also has the benefit of eliminating one of my least favorite things about D&D, which is the "magic item treadmill". The few (total of 6 or 7 over the course of a year) magic items that the PC's accumulated in the game I just ran were very heavy on flavor and very light on mechanics.
Also I really love the spell system. I love the fact that it gives you generic spells and expects you to supply the flavor. It doesn't give you a default flavor that you can then re-skin. It forces some creativity and ownership of your trappings. And it's amazing how you can use a relatively generic spell to get tons of flavor. I totally want to brag about one example from my campaign...
So one guy shows up when they're making characters and says, "Gothic Horror Fantasy, huh? Can I make a Werewolf?" So I thought about it for a minute and said, "Sure! Here's how..." Basically he just took the Boost/Lower Trait spell with some modifications. In exchange for it only raising a trait, only certain traits and only being able to be cast on himself, I let it have a longer duration. So basically any time he wanted to "wolf out" he would wolf out in specific ways. He might raise his Strength or Fighting. He might raise his Vigor and therefore Toughness. Or he might simply wolf out and raise his Notice, explained by his keen Werewolf senses.
That was all we had to do to get this really cool character concept implemented was give him a single spell. As the campaign went on he picked up a couple other spells like Quickness and Healing, again with the limitation that he could only use them on himself due to his "Werewolf Trappings". But it took something incredibly generic and flexible and made it amazingly evocative because of just adding that bit of flavor.
Mostly I just love that it has such lean mechanics. It's a very tight game, generally with one fairly obvious way to adjudicate most situations. That makes it very easy to run with little or no preparation or to adapt when your players take the game in unexpected directions. The fairly rough "granularity" of monster stats also makes them very easy to make up on the fly or to run without flipping open any rulebooks.
It's funny that I'm posting about this today because I've been cleaning out my gaming stuff and trying to purge or give away games that I don't need anymore. I have a stack of Rolemaster books eighteen inches high thanks to the fact that that system has a rule for everything. And yet I ran a year's worth of awesome SW games with two small books (Explorer's Handbook and Fantasy Companion). I dig that level of efficient fun.
What about something like Beasts and Barbarians (possibly using either Moscow Connection's gritty dial, Clint's lethality dials, or the Deluxe edition's dials) for grim and gritty?
Weren't you an RM author?
Even though I don't play RM anymore, I still get use out of my books as inspiration and Campaign Law for world building.
A
amerigoV
Guest
Something that grabbed me in the SWEX when I got it was about making NPCs. It basically said NOT to build them ala the PC rules. Just give them what you want and get back to working what matters - the plot/setting.
After many years in 3.x, that was the breathe of fresh air and it basically sealed the deal.
Awesome!
If you are not already, go hang out at PEGINC.com. Them Savages is the nicest bunch of people on the Internets.
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