Featured Links: December 2009 Edition

http://savagebloggersnetwork.blogspot.com/

My only beef with the SBN is that there are not sufficient filters. Everything from every blog RSS, whether related to Savage Worlds or not, posts in the feed. This decreases its utility for me substantially. But, it remains a good place to find new blogs by people with which I have at least one game in common.

http://www.peginc.com/forum/index.php

I think I can say with confidence that these are far and away some of the best forums around. I really only prowl three or four of the Savage Forums, but most, if not all your questions about the game or any of its settings will be answered quickly and courteously! It is refreshing to say the least.

http://www.peginc.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=20646

This thread in particular is a great place to start looking for inspiration. It formed the basis of my links page here, and at some point, I need to round up the blogs I’m missing and update my links page here.

http://shawntionary.com/clockworks/

This is a webcomic based on and inspired by an actual Savage Worlds game. There is a lot to find here, but I’m planning on devoting a month to Clockworks at some point in 2010, so for now, I’ll leave it at, “Read the excellent web comic!”

 

Necessary Evil can do good deeds

I have tried to do… something… with the default setting and plot point of Necessary Evil, but both times it has fallen flat. The first time player conduct contributed to me ennui with the system, the second time my heart just really wasn’t in it. And, there were some “niche protection” issues amongst the players. As a world-builder sort of GM, there just wasn’t enough about the powers in the setting material. Star City is marvelously sketched out, but beyond that and the alien invasion… there isn’t anything there to sink my teeth into.

I suppose part of that is in comic books and cartoons it is the heroes that get the spotlight treatment. It is only the world that they interact with directly that gets fleshed out. We don’t need to know anything about the CIA or KGB if Nick Fury is an Agent of SHIELD. Nor do we need to know anything about HYDRA beyond what appears in the panels that are in ole Nick’s title.

Necessary Evil takes inspiration from a number of eighties comic sources and succeeds admirably in its task, but with the focus on the villains, there isn’t a lot of the meat one might normally expect from a supers setting. Then only organization you really get a glimpse of is the Omegas and that’s pretty minimal, too. The only product I have to compare NE to is RunePunk. I dig RunePunk. I’m not overly fond of the ends that the plot point reaches, but it’s really easily modified to better suit my tastes without rebuilding from the ground up. The hook adventures aren’t even all that railroady, which is an accomplishment.

This is one of the places that NE falls down as far as I’m concerned. The first adventure is presented in such away as to negate player choice. In my humble opinion. But, the plot point as a whole allows for a lot more leeway, even if I dislike the Secret Wars direction they took the finale in. While as equally functional as the RP plot point, I didn’t like the beginning or the end much at all. And, these two seeds needed much more than cosmetic changes for me to find them workable.

But, this is turning into a review. yuck.

NPCs should not have to be precision engineered

NPCs should not have to be precision engineered. One of my constant refrains about d20 is that I don’t run it on account of the onerous prep time. I’m told I worry too much about the detail, and I do not dispute that. But, d20 has a lot of interconnected fiddly bits. It’s, for wont of a better term, precision engineered. Like a fine watch or a European sports car. I don’t need either of those. I don’t even want either of those. OK. Maybe the watch, but that isn’t important right now.

So, I spend way too much time selecting feats, padding out skill lists, checking saving throws, and on and on. The minute I pick up a d20 book I get caught up in that oh so popular delusion that there is game balance between the GM and the players, and I can’t stop myself. I could use pre-made stuff… But, I just can’t bring myself to do it. The players might never know it’s not my work, and I might shemp it a dozen times before I feel like it’s getting old, but it still won’t be… mine.

It’s also entirely possible that this is silly. I accept that.

Savage Worlds doesn’t try to balance the GM with the Player. It recognizes that it is not the job of the rules set, but that of the GM. A good GM doesn’t kill his PCs… Unless, they do something that gets themselves killed. The GM controls the environment, not the test subjec… I mean players! What it does a good job of is balancing players against players. Something that even the most finely engineered class based systems all seem to drop the ball on somewhere along the line.

“Is he going to do anything Savage, or should I just move on to the next article here… jeesh…”

That’s a fine question from the third row! Yes I am!