Wolfpack48
Hero
This was the Greyhawk set I first purchased. It certainly had a feudal structure, but the world was largely open, and you could mold it to your own needs.
SWADE is the --ahem-- pinnacle of Savage Worlds design. It looks and plays great, and the book is easy to use as a reference during play. Most importantly, you can run Rebellion era Star Wars straight out of the book with little effort (a key litmus test for me).Like many people I have spent years looking for ‘my game’, and I eventually found it in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. With just over 200, graphic novel sized, pages it does so much in one book. Whenever I look over the book to remind me of something specific I see so many other tools and options pop out and inspire cool encounters or scenes that could happen in my game, irrespective of whether it is fantasy, modern or sci-fi. It is pulp at its heart, and that is my preferred default, but it can also do more gritty and more heroic with the application of optional setting rules.
The non-human psychology essays for how long lived races like Dwarves and Elves might view the world in Apocrypha Now are absolutely brilliant.I judge things by how "useful" they are at the table (that is, how many useful tables, rules etc are in it) but also how much it fires my mind and fills it with ideas and inspiration. In no particular order:
View attachment 351057
View attachment 351058
Both of these sourcebooks filled with tons of useful mechanical bits and lore and ideas spilling out of every page. I don't use them all the time but every time I do it gives me so many great ideas and fills me with a desire to play in the Old World.
The sword and sorcery thing is revisionist history by people wanting to carve out a niche for the setting so that WotC will want to reprint it. Which is a noble goal, but the idea that the Great Kingdom or the Shield Lands -- both core parts of the setting, which was even originally referred to as "The Great Kingdom" -- are sword and sorcery is definitely ahistorical.Total Aside: I never played Greyhawk. When people talk about it now, what is often said is that it is more "sword and sorcery" compared to FR's high fantasy feel. But this cover absolutely does not give me S&S vibes. This is straight up Arthurian.