I recently became a player in an ongoing zombie campaign using the "Savage Worlds" RPG system. I'd heard a lot about this system in various reviews and from gaming colleagues, so I was eager to experience it as a player with a view to possibly using it in the future as a gamesmaster.
The first thing I noticed was how easy and intuitive the system is. The game is played with a variety of dice. The die indicates a level of skill and is rolled against a target difficulty of 4. For example, I might have a skill represented by a D6, or a higher level of skill in something else for which I'd roll a D8. A success would be a roll of 4 or above. Also, as a player character, I roll a D6 alongside any roll I make and get to choose whichever is higher. If I roll the maximum number possible,I get to roll again and add the number to my previous roll. Initiative is handled with a regular deck of playing cards.
This all works really well and makes for a fast-moving game. As a GM that tends to struggle with combat systems this is very appealing to me as an option for future games. I usually have large gaming groups and my sessions lean to action-adventure, so it's definitely time for me to try something that fits better with that style.
From a character perspective, you have "Edges" (feats or special characteristics) balanced out by "Hindrances" (ongoing penalties or tendencies towards danger). Again, very simple and it translates nicely into actual gameplay. The game encourages heroic,risky,headfirst playing, which is my preferred way as a player.
Savage Worlds has had a number of interesting settings published, all which take a genre and add a spin to it. "50 Fathoms" takes the pirate genre and transports the players to another world, one which is drowned and has a "Jules Verne" feel to it. "Slipstream" is pulp 1930s style science fiction, much in the vein of "Flash Gordon" and "Buck Rogers". My personal favorite is "Rippers", a Victorian Steampunk Gothic Horror game that blends "Van Helsing" and "The League of Extraordinary Gentleman".
Finally I must mention "Realms of Cthulhu", the Savage Worlds setting for a game I've been running for years. What strikes me is how great this system would fit one of the more pulp,epic campaigns like "Masks of Nyarlathotep". The characters would have a much greater chance of surviving till the later stages of the campaign and the action sequences could be fantastic. I can easily imagine this adaptation being my game for 2014.
I highly recommend trying this if you want a generic system that lends itself to fast and furious games.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Sunday, June 23, 2013
Dungeon World - The Ranger and his Rat
In the latest session of +Michael Bay's Dungeon World campaign, the group returned to the gritty business of doing dirty jobs for sneaky characters down in the harbor.
I didn't really feel that my Mage character worked out for me, so I took the opportunity to play another class that I hadn't tried before, the Ranger. I'd played alongside that role in the past but wanted to give a different spin on it.
The inspiration really for me came from the Wildlings in "Game of Thrones". Rather than play the classic Ranger,a hunter and survivalist much in the mold of Aragorn, I wanted to do a Ranger that was much more of an urban character.The city in this campaign has an extensive network of tunnels and sewers, so I decided to make a Ranger that was an expert in that environment, a tunneler and sewer scout, the man who literally takes the dirty jobs that no-one else wants to do.
Looking through the list of available animal companions, I chose the rat. It was perfect as a sewer companion and very much the animal representation of what my character was all about. I named my character "Jonah", and in a nod to "Fawlty Towers", the rat was named "Basil".I made a tweak to the character in a step away from the conventional Ranger weapons, typically the bow and short sword. Instead I opted for a set of darts and a dagger, again to reflect the environment in which he operates.
The session itself was tremendous fun and in a group that featured a Fighter, Thief and a Mountebank, we were in all kinds of trouble very quickly! The Ranger was great fun to play, much more than the Mage. I think this was personal preference in that I had a better understanding of my character concept and what he was trying to do. Also, the combat and exploration aspects of the game were much easier with this class.
The rat companion was a great touch, adding some humor to the game, though he was genuinely useful...the final showdown would have seen my character die if it hadn't been for the precious extra points of damage that Basil inflicted on the fearsome beast from below.
All in all it was a nice change of character concept for me, and I look forward to playing the Ranger and his Rat again.
I didn't really feel that my Mage character worked out for me, so I took the opportunity to play another class that I hadn't tried before, the Ranger. I'd played alongside that role in the past but wanted to give a different spin on it.
The inspiration really for me came from the Wildlings in "Game of Thrones". Rather than play the classic Ranger,a hunter and survivalist much in the mold of Aragorn, I wanted to do a Ranger that was much more of an urban character.The city in this campaign has an extensive network of tunnels and sewers, so I decided to make a Ranger that was an expert in that environment, a tunneler and sewer scout, the man who literally takes the dirty jobs that no-one else wants to do.
Looking through the list of available animal companions, I chose the rat. It was perfect as a sewer companion and very much the animal representation of what my character was all about. I named my character "Jonah", and in a nod to "Fawlty Towers", the rat was named "Basil".I made a tweak to the character in a step away from the conventional Ranger weapons, typically the bow and short sword. Instead I opted for a set of darts and a dagger, again to reflect the environment in which he operates.
The session itself was tremendous fun and in a group that featured a Fighter, Thief and a Mountebank, we were in all kinds of trouble very quickly! The Ranger was great fun to play, much more than the Mage. I think this was personal preference in that I had a better understanding of my character concept and what he was trying to do. Also, the combat and exploration aspects of the game were much easier with this class.
The rat companion was a great touch, adding some humor to the game, though he was genuinely useful...the final showdown would have seen my character die if it hadn't been for the precious extra points of damage that Basil inflicted on the fearsome beast from below.
All in all it was a nice change of character concept for me, and I look forward to playing the Ranger and his Rat again.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Trail of Cthulhu - "Bookhounds of London"
Every so often you find a roleplaying game or setting that just gets you as a player or gamesmaster. It fits you like a glove in terms of the atmosphere,theme or mechanics. I've experienced that over the years with games like "Call of Cthulhu", "Kult" and "My Life With Master". I also felt it when I ran games in the "Ravenloft" setting for AD&D 2E.
Now I've found another in Pelgrane Press "Bookhounds of London", a campaign setting for "Trail of Cthulhu" written by Kenneth Hite. The setting is London in the 1930's. The players are somehow connected with a bookstore that deals in occult books, and this serves as a backdrop for drawing them into deeper mysteries and a lot of trouble. The 1930's brings the pressures,and opportunities, of Depression era economics. There are plenty of dilettantes who have fallen on hard times and have very rare and dangerous books to sell, along with an audience of buyers who may well be cultists or satanists.
There are new options for character occupations too. A player could be the bookstore keeper who owns or manages the store, the character who is effectively the party leader. There's the book scout, the "street" character who trawls through junk sales to find that special bargain,by fair means or foul. Then we have the catalogue agent (think of Johnny Depp in "The Ninth Gate"), the private investigator who represents a specific dealer. Of course, given the pressures of supply and demand, we also have the forger.
The group create the bookshop together at the start of the campaign and can invest some of their points into the shop itself, to provide it with the chance of having just the right book when they need it. This alone would provide plenty of story hooks. When you add in the new occupations, there is tremendous potential for character-driven storylines.
The background material on London is superb, lots of maps from the era are included and guidelines for evoking London. There are also three "types" of London suggested, and I'm already struggling to choose one, so I'll let the group decide. There is "Sordid" London, which is along the lines of "From Hell". "Arabesque" London is the labyrinthine world that Sherlock Holmes knows well. "Technicolor" London is more akin to the world of Dennis Wheatley and Hammer horror, full of vivid colors and wealthy satanists.
This will be my first run of "Trail of Cthulhu" as well, though some colleagues tell me that me my games are already closer to it in spirit than "Call of Cthulhu". This starts in August, so do look for gameplay reviews and summaries later this year.
Now I've found another in Pelgrane Press "Bookhounds of London", a campaign setting for "Trail of Cthulhu" written by Kenneth Hite. The setting is London in the 1930's. The players are somehow connected with a bookstore that deals in occult books, and this serves as a backdrop for drawing them into deeper mysteries and a lot of trouble. The 1930's brings the pressures,and opportunities, of Depression era economics. There are plenty of dilettantes who have fallen on hard times and have very rare and dangerous books to sell, along with an audience of buyers who may well be cultists or satanists.
There are new options for character occupations too. A player could be the bookstore keeper who owns or manages the store, the character who is effectively the party leader. There's the book scout, the "street" character who trawls through junk sales to find that special bargain,by fair means or foul. Then we have the catalogue agent (think of Johnny Depp in "The Ninth Gate"), the private investigator who represents a specific dealer. Of course, given the pressures of supply and demand, we also have the forger.
The group create the bookshop together at the start of the campaign and can invest some of their points into the shop itself, to provide it with the chance of having just the right book when they need it. This alone would provide plenty of story hooks. When you add in the new occupations, there is tremendous potential for character-driven storylines.
The background material on London is superb, lots of maps from the era are included and guidelines for evoking London. There are also three "types" of London suggested, and I'm already struggling to choose one, so I'll let the group decide. There is "Sordid" London, which is along the lines of "From Hell". "Arabesque" London is the labyrinthine world that Sherlock Holmes knows well. "Technicolor" London is more akin to the world of Dennis Wheatley and Hammer horror, full of vivid colors and wealthy satanists.
This will be my first run of "Trail of Cthulhu" as well, though some colleagues tell me that me my games are already closer to it in spirit than "Call of Cthulhu". This starts in August, so do look for gameplay reviews and summaries later this year.
Sunday, June 9, 2013
Delta Green - "Bang"..the Campaign Finale
Yesterday was the final chapter in my Call of Cthulhu "Delta Green" campaign. It was a five part story played with a truly great group (including +Tony Reyes and +Michael Bay ).
It was a short gaming session, lasting perhaps two hours, but it achieved what I wanted from it. The goal was to have a simple adventure that would give a solid ending to the campaign while also tying together the conspiracy threads from the previous sessions.
The basic story for this chapter involved one of the characters receiving a letter from the near future,from himself.The message told him that there'd been a nuclear incident arranged by Majestic 12, blamed on Delta Green operatives who were now being hunted down by Presidential decree. The message had instructions to record a conversation at a hotel between two of the leaders of Majestic 12, and to "take them out" before the nuclear incident could happen.
The group spent considerable time weighing up their options and trying to agree on a plan. A further revelation, was that Agent Selene had forged the letter from the future, something which she didn't share with the group. The group split between those doing surveillance in the hotel and some outside in vehicles. Some of the operatives had explosives in place.
There were several big reveals and twists along the way to total destruction of the hotel room. One was that MJ-12 was divided,with two leaders wanting to make money from selling alien technology, their plan being to blame a rival leader for the nuclear explosion and frame him as the Delta Green leader. Another was that the explosion was caused by the linking of two portals, tied together in the hotel room. One portal led to the nuclear plant, the other led back in time to the church in Fredricksberg.The explosions triggered by the team in the second chapter of the campaign to kill the Tindalosion Hound had literally blasted through into the present, firing from one portal into another and triggering the nuclear disaster. Some of the players had stepped into the church itself and faced instant death, the others managed to escape.
The final scene had two of the escapees,including Agent Selene, meeting the new leader of Majestic-12 and the President.They reveal themselves to be Yith observers who have been pulling strings the entire time to analyze human decision making. Selene is now possessed by a Yith and her first task is to forge a letter in the hand of a team mate, which will be sent back in time to see how it plays out...
I really enjoyed running this and introducing much of my own material.It was the first time I'd run a tightly focused short campaign with a distinct beginning and end, which I think was more satisfying for everyone involved.It's definitely the format I'll be using for future games.Time to prepare for "Vampire:The Requiem" and "Trail of Cthulhu".
It was a short gaming session, lasting perhaps two hours, but it achieved what I wanted from it. The goal was to have a simple adventure that would give a solid ending to the campaign while also tying together the conspiracy threads from the previous sessions.
The basic story for this chapter involved one of the characters receiving a letter from the near future,from himself.The message told him that there'd been a nuclear incident arranged by Majestic 12, blamed on Delta Green operatives who were now being hunted down by Presidential decree. The message had instructions to record a conversation at a hotel between two of the leaders of Majestic 12, and to "take them out" before the nuclear incident could happen.
The group spent considerable time weighing up their options and trying to agree on a plan. A further revelation, was that Agent Selene had forged the letter from the future, something which she didn't share with the group. The group split between those doing surveillance in the hotel and some outside in vehicles. Some of the operatives had explosives in place.
There were several big reveals and twists along the way to total destruction of the hotel room. One was that MJ-12 was divided,with two leaders wanting to make money from selling alien technology, their plan being to blame a rival leader for the nuclear explosion and frame him as the Delta Green leader. Another was that the explosion was caused by the linking of two portals, tied together in the hotel room. One portal led to the nuclear plant, the other led back in time to the church in Fredricksberg.The explosions triggered by the team in the second chapter of the campaign to kill the Tindalosion Hound had literally blasted through into the present, firing from one portal into another and triggering the nuclear disaster. Some of the players had stepped into the church itself and faced instant death, the others managed to escape.
The final scene had two of the escapees,including Agent Selene, meeting the new leader of Majestic-12 and the President.They reveal themselves to be Yith observers who have been pulling strings the entire time to analyze human decision making. Selene is now possessed by a Yith and her first task is to forge a letter in the hand of a team mate, which will be sent back in time to see how it plays out...
I really enjoyed running this and introducing much of my own material.It was the first time I'd run a tightly focused short campaign with a distinct beginning and end, which I think was more satisfying for everyone involved.It's definitely the format I'll be using for future games.Time to prepare for "Vampire:The Requiem" and "Trail of Cthulhu".
Monday, June 3, 2013
Vampire:The Requiem - "Danse Macabre" Supplement
I'm preparing for a short campaign using the new upcoming version of "Vampire:The Requiem" and got hold of one of the last major supplements released for the current version, "Danse Macabre".
This is more than a player or chroniclers guide. It's a collection of ideas and concepts for how to strip down and rebuild "Requiem" itself,boasting some great ideas, at least one of which I'll be leveraging for one of the core stories threads I have in mind.It also touches on other games in the "New World of Darkness" series.
The first thing the book does is to offer "Requiem" in three tiers or scales of game:Coterie,City and Global. This is very much along the lines of "Hunter:The Vigil" and offers scope and options to the game. The "Unknown Armies" RPG does the the same. Each of the covenants are interpreted at each tier, the global versions have different names and of course different agendas, with new roles that the characters can play. I think this makes sense especially for "Vampire", given that the characters can potentially live for a very long time. As they grow more powerful with age, they may well get drawn into a higher tier of the game.
The covenants are revisited with some nice bullet points presented to explain why a player might want to choose each one. Some are reinvented, "Ordo Dracul" for example is rehashed as "Brides of Dracula", a motorcycle gang! There are some new ones, one in particular (no spoilers for my players) will definitely be an important part of my campaign.
New rules are presented for social conflict, lessons clearly learned from the highly rated "Requiem for Rome" setting. Speaking of which, the Roman supplement,along with this one, are proving to be very influential on the new version of "Requiem" and it's fun to see how those ideas were already taking shape. The book ends with advice on how to run "Requiem" with different themes, such as "Noire".
Overall this is a superb supplement and one that convinced me to go with "Requiem" rather than "Masquerade". I just have to avoid spoilers now, as it's given me some outstanding material to throw at my players in August.
This is more than a player or chroniclers guide. It's a collection of ideas and concepts for how to strip down and rebuild "Requiem" itself,boasting some great ideas, at least one of which I'll be leveraging for one of the core stories threads I have in mind.It also touches on other games in the "New World of Darkness" series.
The first thing the book does is to offer "Requiem" in three tiers or scales of game:Coterie,City and Global. This is very much along the lines of "Hunter:The Vigil" and offers scope and options to the game. The "Unknown Armies" RPG does the the same. Each of the covenants are interpreted at each tier, the global versions have different names and of course different agendas, with new roles that the characters can play. I think this makes sense especially for "Vampire", given that the characters can potentially live for a very long time. As they grow more powerful with age, they may well get drawn into a higher tier of the game.
The covenants are revisited with some nice bullet points presented to explain why a player might want to choose each one. Some are reinvented, "Ordo Dracul" for example is rehashed as "Brides of Dracula", a motorcycle gang! There are some new ones, one in particular (no spoilers for my players) will definitely be an important part of my campaign.
New rules are presented for social conflict, lessons clearly learned from the highly rated "Requiem for Rome" setting. Speaking of which, the Roman supplement,along with this one, are proving to be very influential on the new version of "Requiem" and it's fun to see how those ideas were already taking shape. The book ends with advice on how to run "Requiem" with different themes, such as "Noire".
Overall this is a superb supplement and one that convinced me to go with "Requiem" rather than "Masquerade". I just have to avoid spoilers now, as it's given me some outstanding material to throw at my players in August.
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