UncleBear Media

For anyone who knows me online, you might be surprised to hear that Risus is not the only system I have ever used (although it is where most of my RPG time is spent these days:  Risus: TOTM and Risusiverse).

I have been playing since my friend bought a D&D boxed set around 5th/6th grade (around 1980).  We weren’t too terribly interested in a “one system to rule them all” approach. We sought out and bought games just because they looked interesting. We because game collectors of a sort – rarely ever really getting a chance to play all of these games much past the character creation stage.

For my guest posts, I thought that it might be interesting to provide an outline of game mechanics that were used in some of these games.

Once upon a time, TSR came out with a nifty generic science fiction system called Alternity.  Alternity used a simple d20 die mechanic that used alternate dice to provide situational modification.  In simple terms, you’d roll a d20 and another dice (plus or minus another dice to your roll depending on what step you are on -d20 to -d4, +d8, etc.).  Rolling lower is better here.  So, if you get a good modifier, you might be rolling d20 and subtracting out a d8.  If you’re having trouble, you might be rolling a 2d20 and adding in a d12.

Alternity had more going for it than a nifty dice mechanic.  It had an evolved approach to classes, hit points, etc.  And like good “dead” systems, there is still a large variety of fan support available at alternityrpg.net.  You can even download the original Fast Play Rules.  Well worth checking out if you haven’t before.

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• Guest Post: Gaslight Demons Virtual Book Tour by Gloria Weber
• Shuffle Up and Deal: A Guest Post by Larry Bullock
• The Anything RPG Companion: Guest Post by Larry Bullock

Starring:
Vin Diesel … Toorop
Michelle Yeoh … Sister Rebeka
Mélanie Thierry … Aurora
Gérard Depardieu … Gorsky
Charlotte Rampling … High Priestess
Mark Strong … Finn

A few decades in the future, a mercenary named Toorop (Vin Diesel) accepts a contract from a Russian mobster, Gorsky, who instructs him to bring a young woman only known as Aurora (Mélanie Thierry) to New York. In order to reach his goal, Gorsky gave Toorop a variety of weapons as well as a UN passport that has to be injected under the skin of the neck. Toorop, along with the girl and her guardian nun Sister Rebeka (Michelle Yeoh), leave the Noelite Convent where they lived and cross Russia to reach America.

Reviewers: VS, PITs (“Paladins In Training”) #1, 2, & 3

VS: 1 pointed ear.
I actually “watched” this twice. The first time through I fell asleep just after Toorop picked up Aurora. I chalked it up to stress relating to all that is going on in my life (see recent blog posts for more info). After watching it a second time and getting all the way through, I noticed a very marked cynicism towards organized religion. This I expect from Hollywood so that isn’t enough turn me off of a movie. There is an overall cynical worldview throughout the film.

What turned me off was that this film had too many questions that needed answering. Why can’t Toorop go to America? Why does an organized religion need to manufacture miracles? What caused Sister Rebeka to swear off violence since she seems to be so good at it? The ending seemed to be awfully convenient.

The director’s cut, according to IMDb, is 161 mins. The version on DVD is 90 mins. Maybe the missing 71 minutes answers some of these questions maybe it doesn’t. I wasn’t sufficiently impressed with this flick to buy an eventual Director’s Cut edition DVD.

Note to Vin Diesel fans: he sports stubble throughout most of the flick and proves that he needs the bald head. Vin Diesel with hair is just another gravelly-voiced actor.

PIT #1: 0.75 pointed ears.
There was a plot? Great cinematography does not justify watching this movie.

PIT #2: No pointed ears.
I lost interest in this flick early on and went to play Motorcycle Madness on Facebook.

PIT #3: 0.5 pointed ears.
At least there was no kissing.

Overall Rating: 2.25 pointed ears (out of 8). Rentable, don’t bother purchasing this until it hits the discount bin.

The film may have been an abysmal failure but the setting is quite useable. The near future of Babylon AD assumes that the corporations have taken over, advertising is everywhere. A little extrapolation of current events, the collapse of the global economy, and a bit more high tech is all that’s needed. The concept of the Toorop’s Character can be plopped into nearly any setting. He’s a pirate and can dropped into any Pirate adventure with just a change of weapons.

Play Toorop as a disillusioned Browncoat, looking for profit wherever he can find it and desperately avoiding The Alliance and again the character can be played as is in a Firefly game. The Stargate SG1 season 3 episode “Dead Man’s Switch” dealt with an intergalactic bounty hunter after SG1. Toorop would fit nicely into a campaign based on this episode.

Toorop: Heroic
Agility: d8, Smarts: d6, Spirit: d6, Strength: d8, Vigor: d8
Pace 6, Parry 8, Toughness 6
Edges: Combat Reflexes, First Strike, Nerves of Steel
Hindrances: Code of Honor, Enemy of the Major Power in your campaign, Outsider
Skills: Fighting d12, Notice d10, Shooting d12, Streetwise d8, Driving d8, Guts d6, Survival d6, Riding d4
Gear determined by setting, but be sure to include lots of weapons.

The character of Sister Rebeka, a woman with obvious training in the martial arts, who has dedicated her life to her religious beliefs, is also transportable into most settings.

Sister Rebeka: Veteran (due to her time being cloistered)
Agility: d10, Smarts: d8, Spirit: d8, Strength: d4, Vigor: d4
Pace 6, Parry 7, Toughness 4
Edges: Danger Sense, Strong Willed
Hindrances: Heroic, Pacifist, Loyal
Skills: Persuasion d12, Fighting d10, Notice d12, Streetwise d6, Survival d10, Riding d6

Aurora is more problematic as she is basically a MacGuffin with lines. She’s the Governor’s daughter in a Pirates game. She could easily be from the same Alliance program that turned out River Tam in Firefly. She’s a young girl with the knowledge of the Ancients in Stargate SG1. Note: in the movie she is pregnant, this does not necessarily need to figure into your campaign.

Aurora: Novice
Agility: d6, Smarts: d8, Spirit: d8, Strength: d4, Vigor: d4
Pace 6, Parry 2, Toughness 4
Edges: Arcane Background (ability to read minds), Attractive
Hindrances: Clueless, Curious, Quirk (asks inappropriate questions at inappropriate times)
Skills: Healing d8, Persuasion d10, Notice d8, Investigation d8

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• Dr. Checkmate's Ode to Savage Worlds
• Savage Worlds Character Assistant
• Impressions: Shaintar for Savage Worlds

I was nervous. I’ll admit it. I’ve gamed with people my own age. As a high school student I gamed with the local college group. I’ve gamed with my kids. I’ve GMed for family sessions, but I had never before GMed for anyone else.

The local youth center has wanted to have an open game night for some time. I volunteered to by THE adult in charge and supervise the activities. I figured most of the kids would play pool, ping pong, or foosball. PIT #1 suggested that Daddy run an RPG game for the teens that night. Sure, why not? My kids seemed to enjoy it when I ran Pirates of the Spanish Main at home. I agreed to be the GM for this new game group. Now I just needed to decide what game and system to run.

I personally have the core rules for PotSM, Stargate, Serenity, GURPS and Car Wars (I know CW isn’t technically an RPG but it’s close). I decided on Stargate as I had already done a lot of work “Savaging” that universe. I prefer the Savage system as it is easy to use and very versatile. The PITs were ecstatic; I knew I had three players for sure.

I had my sparse notes, my 5×7 dry erase board, my bag of bennies and I thought I was ready to go. The inaugural night was canceled due to weather. The next Sunday at church I had 2 other teens express disappointment that game night had been canceled. I was informed that at least five other teens were anticipating the game. Five additional teens, my three kids, eight people? I began to panic.

The next week I developed out my sparse notes as I wanted this to be something special as some of these kids were experienced gamers and some were complete newbies. I took advice from many of my online buddies about what I needed to do and really got as prepared as I could.

I developed my own GM screen so I wouldn’t have to thumb through the Savage Explorer’s Edition for combat rules. I bought a larger dry erase board. I photocopied off character development rules so we wouldn’t have to pass around the rulebook. Friday night came and I set up the table for eight people and my GM seat.

6:30 came and went and no one other than my kids had shown up yet. My nervousness increased. 7:00 arrived and teens started streaming in through the door. They kept coming. I had to set up another table. Eventually I had eleven young people ages 10-17 all looking to me for answers. We started character generation at 7:15.

I learned three things from my first non-family GM event:
1. Character generation takes more time when there’s more people, even with a simple system like Savage Worlds.
2. Even with all the work, I still wasn’t as prepared as should have been
3. Teenagers have crazy imaginations (I thought I was strange)

Yet even after an hour and half of character generation, we got started and played the introductions. The kids had a blast. I had fun as well. I’m looking forward to getting to the actual game.

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• D20 on Stairs: Guest Post by Larry Bullock
• Points of Light: Guest Post by Thomas D
• Get in a Group: Guest Post by Thomas D

One barrier for busy people desperately wanting to game master new games is the time it takes to learn new rules. I can barely keep up with my current campaign planning, yet I would love to play and GM many different systems. So, what can you do? Here are a few tips for finding a way to grok new games.

1. GM A Friend

Learning while you GM is going to happen for any new game. This part of the learning curve puts game groups to sleep though, and is going to turn your glorious new RPG into a one-shot when your group votes down a second session.

Instead of GMing a group, hold a few one-on-one sessions with a hard core friend you can call up and say, “Hey, let’s play this new game for a couple hours.”

Photocopy the essential rules, such as character creation or combat. Give the copy to your friend and game it out. It’s fun learning with a buddy as you discover and share new things at the same pace. You don’t have the pressure of keeping several players – and several player types – entertained.

For best effect, isolate certain parts of the rules and game those out a few times. Combat arenas are perfect for learning melee. Galaxy races are great for figuring out ship movement. Olympics are super for skill systems.

2. Play With An Experienced GM

Find a group who’s playing the game you want to learn. Ask to fill-in for absentee players, or to play NPCs, or to just play for a few sessions. GMs passionate about their favourite game always love to recruit new fans. If they know you can only commit for X number of sessions, they can write you into their plot, and even plan a dramatic exit or give you a special story role.

Use meetup.com or one of the online RPG registries to find groups playing your game. Spread the word. Ask around in blog comments and in forums.

3. Play Online

Speaking of the intarwebs, another option is to find an online game to join. You can quest for real-time play with software, try forum games, or join a PBeM. The benefit is you have experienced players helping you figure out the rules and the inevitable ambiguities or weird situations that come up.

4. Ask For Help Online

As you read the rules, keep pen and paper handy and write down all your questions. Swing by the publisher’s website or fan forum and ask away. People enjoy helping.

5. Create A Custom GM Screen

Right-brain GMs look away for a minute. Okay, left-brainers, go through the rules and type out the important charts, make cheat sheets, and create important tables. Print out. Glue to cardboard.

While having this info at-hand will help you during the game, it’s most important benefit is as a tool for absorbing the game rules. By typing stuff in and understanding what you’re putting up on your screen, you’ll learn a lot of the basics. You’ll also learn what type of information is available in the game book.

I also find this method gives me a great mental framework to put all the other rules I learn into. Carving all the facts and factoids into your screen provides a rough skeleton of most major and many minor mechanics important to the game. Everything else is just detail.

6. Create A Bunch Of Characters

Create at least one character for each PC class, type, or archetype.  This gives you multi-ball play. First, you learn the rules for character creation. This makes answering player questions easier as well. And it gives you a stack of pre-made PCs to make that first session a “dive-in and get your dice rolling” experience.

Bonus points for copying the characters and leveling them up or advancing them a few times. What you have now is a cast of NPCs. Just add personality.

7. Build A DM Binder

Anyone else have a stationery fetish? Just like building your own screen, this exercise helps you digest the rules. In your DM binder put various reference sheets that you make, photocopy, or print out. Add in setting information, story information, and session #1 plans.

8. Read Actual Play

For those who aren’t aware, several game forums and websites offer actual play reports from players and GMs who play a game and write-up their account of the session. Sometimes dry, sometimes awesome, these reports often fill you in on how a game plays out, including rulings and exceptions. Google story hour or actual play plus your game name.

9. Read The Errata First

This is a weird tip, but give it a try. Publishers often post updates and corrections to their games for free on their website. Download and print. Read first. Not only is this sometimes a great way to get an overview of the game, but it ensures you learn the correct rules first, shaving some re-learnin’ time.

In addition, I often get lost in high-concept parts of rulebooks. Errata often focus on extra rules and rulings. They cover what to do in specific situations. The exact and grounded nature of errata based on minutia makes it easier for me to get examples and see where the authors are going with certain mechanics.

10. Play With Yourself.

Ahem. Create a few NPCs and have at ‘er. No one is tapping their feet waiting for rules lookups. There isn’t five people grabbing for the sole rulebook. It’s a nice, easy, safe way to figure stuff out at your leisure.

You can do several encounters at your own pace, such as a test combat after work every day for a week. Test plays let you flag the important pages and help you navigate the book. If you are using a published module, work through that with a group of characters. Not only do you learn the rules but you learn the adventure too.

11 Attend Conventions

Google for the closest gaming conventions. Contact the organizers and ask if anyone is running your game. Sometimes they’ll put a callout for you on their website. If you call early enough you can guarantee a spot in any listed games you want to learn. Bring water and deodorant, and you’re golden.

* * *

Johnn Four is desperate to learn several new games, including Mutants & Masterminds, Savage Worlds, Burning Wheel, GURPS Transhuman Space, Dark Heresy, Aces & Eights, Reign, Dread, and…..sigh. He looks at his shelf of unplayed games and shakes his fist at the sky.

Check out his new GM Advice blog at CampaignMastery.com. Recent posts include My Campaign Planning Cycle and DM Tool: Scrabble Tiles for Your Minis & Battlemats.

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• How to Screw with the Players–Part I: Guest Post by G. Kinslayer
• Confessions of a Noob GM – Guest Post by Steve Nibbelink
• Get in a Group: Guest Post by Thomas D

When Dungeons & Dragons 4^th Edition was being marketed, one of the terms they came up with was “points of light”. This turns out to be a very good metaphor for the gaming community in our town (and yours probably). Scattered across our fair metropolitan village are little clusters of gaming activity, insular groups that meet each week. Little points of light. Unfortunately, game groups break up, people leave the group, campaigns go unfinished, stories half told. An then there are gamers, lost in the darkness.

What I’d like to do is get rid of the points of light and make a web, where if one game dies, people know how to meet other gamers, get into another game, and continue the fun. Somehow, I became a community organizer and, like I’ve mentioned in the previous post, I’ve creating a personal gaming revival where it seems like I’m doing more gaming now than I did back in the college years.

You’ll have to do some work. Straight up, it’s work. The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it. There may be some financial costs attached as well. There’s a lot that goes into creating a gaming community, but the most important thing to do is this: host a regular gaming event.

Let’s look at that statement. Host a regular gaming event. Host. As in, you’re the one that is going to organize the event. You’re the one that’s going to advertise the event. You’re the one that’s going to be bringing everyone together, setting the tone for the event, and making sure you get everyone into a game of some sort – even if you don’t get to play. I’ll come back to the Host thing in more detail in a bit, but let’s focus on the last half of that statement.

It has to be a regular event: monthly, fortnightly, weekly, whatever. It has to occur at about the same time so when the event starts to take off, people can anticipate the event and plan for the event. When you’re in your regular game group playing your ongoing Burning Wheel campaign, the date you meet can shift around based on the player’s real life schedules: we’re meeting this Saturday, but we can’t meet next because Tim is working, but Friday night might be fine, then the Tuesday after… When establishing a recurring event that stays at the same day on the calendar, people start planning their schedules around the event. More people will come to a regularly scheduled event than one that jumps around the calendar, even if they don’t make it to every single event that is held.

It has to be a gaming event: there has to be a game that is played. Back when the local D&D Meetup Group met for just a social lunch hour, the one comment I noticed frequently mentioned is that attendees were disappointed that we didn’t actually play a game. Your first event may be difficult because you’re hosting and don’t know how many people will be attending. It’s best to get people to agree to run a short game at the event while you’re still in the planning stages. Also, because we’re talking RPGs, at each meeting you’ll want to get people attending to commit to running a game at the next meeting. This does two things: it lets the attendees know that yes, there will be gaming going on at the next meeting; it gets the GM committed to show up and run an adventure – the GM knows that there are people counting on them to show up and run an adventure. This motivates the GMs to return.

When you host the event, you have to do planning, advertising, and holding the event. Planning means you need to find a space for the event. Our organization was lucky to find a place with a free community room (well, free when we first started). You may have to hold the event at a local game store. You may have to find a coffee shop that wants to hold events. You may have to rent space (and there are ways to alleviate that cost by charging admission or soliciting donations – make sure to tell the attendees this money is to help pay for running the event). Either way you do it, you want to see if you can get an ongoing commitment for a recurring event. That is, make sure you can keep that space on your group’s specific game night for the next few months.

Advertising can be free. Post about the game event in those Yahoo! and Google groups I mentioned last time. Post about it in your city’s Livejournal community. For a bit of low cost, print up a few flyers and ask the local game stores (and the place that is hosting the event) if you can leave them there for their customers.

Holding the event means you must get there before the event is scheduled and make sure the area is ready for the event. If this means re-arranging tables and shooing out people from your reserved room, re-arrange and shoo. (I clear out the room of non-attendees by saying that we’re about to have a gaming event at this very location and you’re more than welcome to join us, but it will be pretty loud. That usually gets them moving. Some people even stay and join in on the fun.) Holding the event means you must reset the space to how it was when you got there. If the attendees leave trash, you throw it away. If you moved tables and chairs around, you move them back.

As the host, you also have other, important duties. You must, must, must greet everyone who comes in. Use real names, not Thogdar the Orkslayer. (If possible, bring some “Hello, my name is” badges.) You will probably get the meeting part started. You’ll have to get everyone’s attention and welcome everyone to the event. It’s a RPG event, so you’ll have to let everyone know who is running what. You’ll have to remind everyone how long you have the space for. You’ll have to remind everyone to please clean up after themselves so you don’t do it, and to also remind people to patronize location you’re in for drinks and food purposes, if the place sells stuff. Remember, your event is a guest in the location. Treat the location nicely and they’ll like having your event there. Above, I mentioned how the location my organization holds events in used to be free. Because our events were good guests, we were able to negotiate a very nice rate when they started charging.

You will also need to encourage attendees to give you contact information for an announcement list or direct them to a website where they can sign up. When you advertise the next event, also e-mail the announcement list. This way you’re targeting people that have shown interest in your event. When they leave, thank them for coming and remind them that next week/month/whenever, we’ll be doing it again.

Oh yeah. The most important thing you have to do at the event is make sure that everyone gets in a game. If this means you don’t get to play, you don’t play. If this means you’ve got to run an adventure on the fly and teach a game system to complete strangers have never played a role-playing game before, that’s what you do. Everyone who shows up gets to play.

Our first gaming event (here I’m looking at the monthly general gaming event my organization holds) started with less than a dozen people. We now pull in approximately three dozen people on average during the course of the six-hour event. That monthly gaming event has been officially going on for just under two years. Our largest event was our one-year anniversary event with well over 50 people, our low attendance number was eight, in the heat of the summer over a holiday weekend during our first year. Our RPG event regularly brings in two dozen people, about half of which are returning attendees. Our largest event had 56 people (the D&D 4e Release Party). Our lowest was on January 3^rd – right after the holidays and when the students from the University were on break – with 16 people.

If you keep having the event on a regular basis, the event will keep growing. Soon you’re starting to see word of mouth – not your advertisements – bring in people to the event. That’s when you are making a community, that’s when those points of light start looking like a web.

In the comments: readers discuss game day events they’ve been to, what works, what doesn’t.

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• D20 on Stairs: Guest Post by Larry Bullock
• Get in a Group: Guest Post by Thomas D
• Points of Light, Gleemax 2.0, and Me

On some RPG podcasts I listen to, the hosts invariably get feedback about surrogate gaming. That is, gamers who don’t get to play anymore, want to, but don’t know how to get back into gaming. So they listen to podcasts that talk about gaming to fill that desire. It’s a spot I was in a few years ago: the halcyon years of college gaming were long past, friends married and moved off, and soon the circle of potential gamers I knew shrunk down to my wife. These days, it feels like I’m in too many games. There’s my twice-weekly gaming group, two monthly games I’m in, plus another monthly game event. Not only that, but I’ve been invited to join three or four other games that meet weekly or fortnightly, but I’m just too busy with my other gaming. How did I move from the land of surrogate gaming to just plain gaming? I built a gaming community.

In this article (and the next), I’ll tell you how to get into a game and how to create an actual gaming community.

Just so you know, I live in a metropolitan area with a population of about 1 million, the city itself has about 550,000 people. There is also a university and a military base in town, two factors that in theory have a lot of gamers, but oddly they don’t have a large presence in the local gaming community. We have two game stores (defined as “game stores with a good focus on role-playing games”) and several stores that sell games (defined for my purpose as “game stores with maybe a rack of RPG books, but whose main focus are other types of games like board games or CCGs”).

The first thing you’ll want to do to get into a game is check your local online resources.

Meetup.com is a great resource to find groups in your area. A quick look at my city’s page shows there are nearly 200 groups in area. (The town I grew up in with a larger population? 15.) Drill down into Hobbies and look for Roleplayers, Dungeons & Dragons, Shadowrun, Live Action Role Playing, or other similar terms to see if there is a group in the city where you live. As of now, there are 287 Roleplayers, 287 D&D, 97 d20 Gaming, 19 Shadowrun, and 45 LARP meetup groups. Assuming there isn’t a group in your area, you can always start one. Join the group, introduce yourself, and try to attend more than one meeting.

Attending more than one meeting is the key here. It’s been my experience that unless there are activities planned for the meetup, people will simply show up once and not return. Back when our local D&D Meetup was going on, it was a meet and eat event: we’d all get together, have lunch, talk, and that was that. The events I attended had a huge turnover with new attendees each month and very few returning attendees. If this happens with your meetup group, you want to attend multiple meetups to keep meeting new people and potential gaming friends.

Visit the Yahoo! groups RPG section and search for your city’s name, plus terms like “role playing games”, “RPG”, and the like. (The URL is http://games.groups.yahoo.com .) With over 53,000 groups in the RPG category and knowing that even dead groups stick around for a while, it may take a while to slog through the results. A local area search brings up 29 results, several of which are for local groups to coordinate schedules. Luckily, my local area has three different Yahoo! groups that are general gaming (although I strongly suspect the members at all three are the same). Join the groups, look through the recent postings, start a conversation. Do the same thing at Google’s groups directory (http://groups.google.com).

Is there an organization in town that already hosts game nights? Google, my friend.

After checking the online resources, visit the local game stores. This may be difficult to do. I had tons of excuses why not to set foot in a game store: the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons runs the store, only nerds without any social skills play games in tight little cliques, the store will stink of desperation and loserdom. None of which was true. Yes, you will come across some people with awkward social skills (My experience with other gamers tends to have me think of us as “introverts pretending to be extroverts”. Your XP may vary.), but there are people just like you in those stores – absolutely normal people that just want to make some friends with other gamers and have fun playing games. Absolutely normal people visit those stores. Absolutely normal people leave contact information up on the LFG board. Leave yours, take some information down. Become a gamer at the store and meet more people.

If you get hits from your “I want to start a game”, meet at a neutral location. Attending a meetup.com event usually is in a safe, neutral space, like a game store or a coffee shop. You don’t have to worry about inviting strangers over to your house or going to a strange house; everyone goes to a nice, comfortable location and actually meet each other. You can find out if you like each other and if you are interested in the same style of play.

If you attend enough of these monthly groups and provide discussion on your local area’s mailing lists, you will start meeting other absolutely normal people and eventually get into a game.

In the comments: readers post other resources I missed.

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• D20 on Stairs: Guest Post by Larry Bullock
• Points of Light: Guest Post by Thomas D
• Confessions of a Noob GM – Guest Post by Steve Nibbelink

I can not with straight face and clear conscious call this a review. That word implies a certain objectivity that I lack.

First off, I am aware that the game has it’s flaws. Amongst the small group with whom I have such discussions the dice as traits thing is not well liked. For me it is a quaint and lovable rule, but also a little tedious behind the GM screen. I think if I was going to go back to rules hacking I would start with a “one die to rule them all” approach to Savage Worlds. This causes a whole bevy of problems of its own though and anything that reduces the Fast, Furious, Fun factor is apt to not pass muster.

When I was first exposed to it my thoughts were something along the lines of, “cool! finally a justification for all my dice,” but in practice, I really don’t need more than say three of each and I don’t need a d20 at all!*

And die pools are right out; plenty of good die pool systems I could run instead if I really wanted to.

On a related note, d4 to d12 (or d4-2 to d12+2) doesn’t allow for a whole lot of granularity. You’re basically talking about all traits being on a scale of 1 to 5. Even some how making it a scale of 1 to 10 would be an improvement. No, I’ve no idea how to implement such a change, nor do I have much interest in doing so. More work means less FFF. See the pattern forming here?

Fixed difficulty of 4… except when you’re in melee. Annoying. I’ve thought about turning Parry into a modifier rather than target number, but I’m not sure it’s worth the effort.

Lastly, I like me some laundry lists of skills. That would be my favorite thing about Palladium (a system I dislike) and Chaosium (a system to which I am merely indifferent): skills, skills, and more skills. This brings me to the exception to one of the praises I’ll get to in a moment: increasing the number of skills in the game is one of the few things you can do to upset the interlocking rules of this game. In a d20 game you change a rule here or there and it creates ripples that touch almost every other sub-system in the game. In SW this is much less so, but increasing the skill list messes with the character generation and the value of experience points. to me, that’s a big enough splash to make it, once again, not worth the effort to “fix.”

Now in praise of the system it has a really marvelous learning curve. Once everyone gets the hang of the wild die and all the exploding dice play moves along very quickly.

I always encounter a little resistance to the initiative system, but once people see it in play or draw their first joker the resistance fades.

The Common Knowledge rule gives me some mechanical leverage to encourage some detail in character backgrounds.

The system can withstand a lot of abuse. You can import rules and hack existing rules and it will still run smoothly. None of those “do these bonuses stack with these bonuses” sort of problems created by power creep expansions here. Maybe this can be boiled down to page count, maybe not. I had a perfect example of this in my head at one point, but I have completely forgotten it now.

One. Ten dollar. Core book. Enough said about that.

Unique and quirky settings available both from Pinnacle and licensees. Deadlands, RunePunk, Necropolis, The Ravaged Earth, & Daring Tales of Adventure just to name a few.

Marvelous fan support both on and off the official forums of Pinnacle and the previously mentioned licensees.

The system supports minis with out requiring them.

No pay to play online support.

I loves it. Bumps and all. Go buy it, please.

* I’ve multiplied the fear effect table by 5 for a d00 table instead of d20.

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• Savage Settings: Customizing Your Savage Worlds
• Why Savage Worlds is Heir to 3rd Edition
• Savage Worlds Character Assistant

For the next couple of weeks UncleBear will be taken over by guest bloggers. I’m taking time off from the site to deal with some personal and professional issues. Guest will include some familiar names from both this site and other blogs, some VIPs in the gaming community, and some names you may not recognize but are talented and worth reading none the less. Site maintenance will be in the capable hands of (in no particular order) Cameron Goble, Hypnoangel, Golgotha Kinslayer, and Doctor Checkmate. They can be reached via email, collectively, at DireAdmins UncleBear com.

I’m incredibly grateful to all of the folks who have volunteered to pitch in. I just got a promotion at work and am brain-fried from crash-course technical training, my wife is seriously ill and may end up on permanent disability, and something had to give until I get things under control. I’ve kept his site going for over 12 years and didn’t want to see it go dark, out of respect to loyal readers if nothing else, so I’m happy to have so many friends willing to help. I’m also happy to afford guest bloggers the chance to pitch their own blogs, podcasts, games, and so forth.

If you’re interested in being a guest blogger, just Register on the site (at the bottom of the left-hand sidebar) and send an email to the Dire Admins. They’ll be reviewing and scheduling posts. Anything roleplaying-game related will be considered.

Thanks everyone, and enjoy the variety and change of perspective in the days ahead!

Berin Kinsman
The Dire King
UncleBear.com

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• Guest Post: Gaslight Demons Virtual Book Tour by Gloria Weber
• Gaming in a New City: 01
• Reporting from RinCon

The first question is why would a respected ‘net blogger like Berin allow a nobody like me to guest write for his blog? I’ve been contributing to the Dire Café for nearly two years and have met with generally favorable comments from the regulars there. The next question is why do you want read what I’ve written? I played RPGs pretty extensively in High School and then fell out of the hobby. I got back into it shortly before I found Berin’s website. I have some unique insights as a veteran gamer but a relatively new GM.

I had picked up a couple packs of the Pirates of the Spanish Main CCG to play with my children. The boys loved the game but the daughter wasn’t as enthused. She did, however, like the idea of pretending to be a pirate. As a result when Wiz Kids announced the PotSM RPG, I broke down and bought a copy. The kids loved it. I enjoyed my first taste of GMing. My daughter has since expanded her RPG experience to a group of friends outside the family. We also recently started a game night at the local youth center.

Most of my guest columns will be about a novice GM’s experiences with his newly formed group. I’ll also write about how I’ve “savaged” any one particular setting as the Savage ruleset is the platform we prefer. Occasionally I’ll also write a review on one of the movies in my DVD collection and how I’d use that movie in a gaming setting.

My family will be mentioned prominently in my columns and just so you know who I’m talking about…

Vulcan Stev, age: 40-something. I have played D&D, PotSM, Car Wars, Star Wars, James Bond, Champions, and whole slew of other things that I can’t remember right now. I have GMed PotSM, Stargate, Firefly and Car Wars. I enjoy comic books, Star Trek, James Bond and most other things “geeky” in nature.

Mrs Vulcan-Stev, age 40-something. Isn’t a geek. She will go along with the family for some flicks and occasionally plays games with the family to spend time with them. If she gives something a positive review that’s saying something about the likability of the item in question. Her game of choice is The Sims for the PC.

Paladin-In-Training (P.I.T.) #1, age 17 (F). Likes: SF, anime, romance. She’s the girl I wish I could’ve dated in high school (no funny jokes here). Her tastes in movies are remarkably similar to mine. She is a chip off the old block. She plays D&D, PotSM, Stargate, and Firefly.

P.I.T. #2, age 14 (M) Likes: Action-Adventure, comedy, and some SF. He’s not as into SF as his older sister but I haven’t found a movie yet that he wouldn’t watch. He plays PotSM, Stargate, and Firefly. He also enjoys his Gamecube

P.I.T. #3 age 10 (M) Likes movies. will watch anything and everything. He rates his movies on the number of stunts and things that blow up. Kissing (or other related “icky” stuff) always degrade his rating of the movie. He is the main reason we originally bought PotSM as pirates are his main fascination at this stage of his life.

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• In a Wicked Age
• I've Got One – A Talent for Tunnels & Trolls
• RPG Blog Carnival: D&D and I, Part 2

The entrance to the Savage Worlds setting of Slipstream is via a black hole, so I got a wild hair to rent Disney’s 1979 turkey, The Black Hole. I saw this flick in the theater when it was first released and didn’t like it, and I hadn’t seen it again since. Thirty years later, I still feel the movie is poorly paced, tedious, and just plain boring but the plot is right out of a 1950s scifi movie or vintage Doctor Who. Just because the movie is crap doesn’t mean that the good bits can’t be mined for use in a roleplaying game. I did a little research on the movie, and that only reinforced that fit. To get around the fact that characters seem able to breathe in space, the producers stated in interviews that in addition to all the space debris, the black hole add attracted an atmosphere. Bad science… but it’s exactly the same bad science of Slipstream!

This is intended as either a first adventure, or a prequel, for the Slipstream setting for Savage Worlds. It begins before the characters are transported into the Slipstream, and ends with their arrival there.

Spoilers follow. If you haven’t seen the movie and want to see it first, stop now. Familiarity with the movie is sort of required for this to really make any sense.

continue reading…

Like

Unlike

More from unclebear

• Doctor Who RPG: The Last Doctor
• Unholy Night: A Christmas Adventure
• Impressions: Houses of the Blooded