Savage September on DriveThruRPG

I broke down a bought a couple of items I've been eyeing for a while. I've included the game blurbs below from DriveThruRPG.

Weird Wars 2 - In the horror of war, dark things rise, and World War II is history's greatest conflict. The Japanese stalk the jungles of Southeast Asia. Carriers battle in the South Pacific. Tanks trundle across North Africa. Planes duel over England. The Nazi blitzkrieg conquers most of Europe with a genocidal madman at the controls. Prepare to battle the evil of the Axis powers and the hideous things that rise in their wake. This isn't just war-this is Weird War!

Weird War II contains everything you need to run horrific World War II adventures with the Savage Worlds game system: new powers, Edges, Hindrances, weapons, vehicles for all the major powers, an Adventure Generator, dozens of Savage Tales, new monsters, and an operational-scale Plot Point Campaign that ties it all together.

And . . .

Achtung! Cthulhu - Keepers and Investigators Guide [BUNDLE] - Achtung! Cthulhu is a terrifying World War Two setting, fully compatible with the Call of Cthulhu, Sixth Edition and Savage Worlds roleplaying games. This is the Investigator's Guide, with everything players need to create and run character's in the late 30's and 40's.

Discover the secret history of World War Two: stories of amazing heroism, in which stalwart men and women struggle to overthrow a nightmare alliance of steel and the occult; of frightening inhuman conspiracies from the depths of time; of the unbelievable war machines which are the product of Nazi engineering genius – and how close we all are to a slithering end! The Secret War has begun!

The investigator's guide includes a whole kit-bag stuffed with:

• New occupations, skills, equipment, and backgrounds from across Europe, the British Commonwealth, and the United States

• How you can keep the home fires burning, become part of the Allied war effort, or risk everything by joining the partisans to bring down the Reich from within!

• What life was like serving with the various military forces and on the Home Front

• An array of historical and fictional material to help you create exciting player characters and NPCs

• A background generator, designed to help you find out what dark secrets your past contains…


The Keeper's Guide is a full-blown tome of dark knowledge, including:

• Allied and Nazi forces & intelligence agencies

• New rules and strategies for World War Two combat & survival

• Key characters & vile creatures

• New tomes, secret weapons, artefacts & equipment

• Occult organisations and Mythos-based missions

• Full rules for use with BOTH Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition AND Savage Worlds in one book!

In fact – There’s a whole Shoggoth’s worth of Cthulhu villainy, enough for any Keeper to have his investigators dead, insane or running for their lives in no time! The Keeper’s Guide to the Secret War is the essential Achtung! Cthulhu wartime reference for any Keeper or fan of the Cthulhu Mythos.

Requires the Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition or Savage Worlds Rulebooks to play.

Savage Worlds Freebies, A Kickstarter, and Chupacabra Con

We have two free products, a Kickstarter, and a Con to announce.

Visionary Comics produced a new web comic titled What A Man's Got To Do written by Pinnacle Entertainment Group's own Matthew Cutter. The 67 'page' work gives a nice taste of Deadlands for any of you unfamiliar with Pinnacles Weird West setting. You can also find a large number of Deadlands product reviews on this blog.

The second free product is a primer for PEG Inc's newest setting, The Last Parsec which corresponds to the full product's Kickstarter. The primer discusses the foundational aspects of the setting such as travel, communications, races, governments and corporations. Like the comic above, it's only a taste of the setting but would make a good handout for your players.

The Last Parsec was inspired by the Shane Hensley's play of TSR's Star Frontiers. I loved that setting. We played everything they published for it and then some. For more information, check out The Last Parsec design diary PDF.

The Kickstarter for The Last Parsec is well underway. At the time of this writing is is $30,000 over goal with 380 backers. Pinnacle handles Kickstarters in a very smart way but this isn't unusual for PEG. They know their audience well and found a way to fund additional content for their settings before release. I always pick the $35 level which gives the PDFs but I'm tempted to go print with this one.

So, big things are a comin'.

Speaking of which, I'll be at Chupacabra Con running a few sessions including one on Savage Saturday night. Come on out if you can. The guest list includes some Savage heavy hitters:

• Cam Banks
• Clint Black
• Daniel Burrow
• Shawn Carman
• Jamie Chambers
• Jeff Dee
• Preston DuBose
• Brian Engard
• Sean Patrick Fannon
• Emily Foster
• Sean Hanson
• Malcolm Harris
• Shane Lacy Hensley
• Kenneth Hite
• Steve Kenson
• Geoffrey Kuhns
• Diesel LaForce
• Robin D. Laws
• Steven S. Long
• Caitlin Mills
• Cory Mills
• Jason Morningstar
• Kevin G. Nunn
• Donna Prior
• Jennifer Rehnay
• Michael Satran
• Ross Watson
• Ed Wetterman
• John Wick

We look forward to seeing you there.

Ennie Voting Is Open

Please take time and go to the Ennie voting site to show your appreciation for your favorite games.

http://www.ennie-awards.com/blog/the-2014-ennies-voting-booth-is-now-live/

TftST choices are:

• Best Adventure - The Sense of the Sleight-of-Hand Man (Arc Dream Publishing)
• Best Art, Interior -Deadlands Noir (Pinnacle Entertainment Group)
• Best Cartography - Deadlands Noir Map: New Orleans & Hexaco (Pinnacle Entertainment Group)
• Best Electronic Book - Shaintar: Legends Unleashed (Evil Beagle Games)
• Best Family Game - Hobbit Tales from the Green Dragon Inn (Cubicle 7 Entertainment)
• Best Free Product - Super Powers Companion Villain Supplement (Pinnacle Entertainment Group) followed by Rocket Age - The Lost City of the Ancients (Cubicle 7 Entertainment)
• Best Miniatures Product - Weird Wars Rome Enemies of Rome Figure Flats (Pinnacle Entertainment Group)
• Best Setting - Deadlands Noir (Pinnacle Entertainment Group)
• Best Supplement - Deadlands Noir Companion (Pinnacle Entertainment Group)
• Product of the Year - Deadland Noir
• Fan's Favorite - Pinnacle, Triple Ace Games, Cubicle 7

You can check out all the nominees on DriveThruRPG for preview.

Vote early, vote often :)

Nova Praxis for Savage Worlds Kickstarter - 2 days left

Nova Praxis for Savage Worlds Kickstarter Updated: Last 7 hours
It's funded and only 2 days left for add ons!

by Mike McConnell of Voidstarstudios

Review by Derek Brown, Savage Duck

UPDATE: Nova Praxis has had it's Stretch Goals reset so many more are already achieved ! With 7 hours to go, at $11k+, the following Goals are DONE: the Augmented PDF, GM Screen, Ghosts in Darkness (adventure) Work Hazards (alien/creature book), and Nova Praxis Cards (custom Init Cards that will be released on DriveThruCards). Evolved backers will get all the stretch goals for free! 

My Kickstarter addiction comes and goes largely based on Savage Worlds settings offered. Two are ending this week, the first of which I'm writing about now: Nova Praxis. A Savaged Trans-Human SF setting originally released for Fate, Nova Praxis gives us a setting for post-earth post-singularity evolved humanity taken to the stars.

a few more points from Void Star Studios:

…a relatively "hard sci-fi" setting that takes place in the aftermath of a short lived technological singularity. 

…an exploration of the tropes of transhuman sci-fi. Mind uploading, resleeving, AI characters, and body augmentation. 

…an exploration of the societal impact of a reputation based post-scarcity economy. 

…a game in which players play characters who know how to slip between the cracks of civilization and perform the jobs their patrons would rather keep off the books.

... a setting full of conflict. The Houses wage a secret Shadow War against each other, purist and transhuman ideologies erupt in violence, and apostates lash out against the oppression of the Coalition government.

...home to railguns, powered armor, star ships, security drones, bipedal war frames, swarms of nanomachines, kill-sats, and the horrors of accelerated evolution gone wrong.

New Art: Olympus. Received last week to give us some mind candy and get things percolating.

Since the launch we've received an "alpha" edition to begin the crowd sourced approach to editing...and a fun jump into the setting. Nice! In that alpha edition's first paragraph is a link to a preview that, it turns out, is also linked on the main Nova Praxis Kickstarter page but was well hidden as a graphic. Here's a short-cut if you're looking on the main KS page, it's the large "Download a Preview" graphic just above the Stretch Goal section.

Also, Sean Patrick Fannon is involved and helping with this Kickstarter. He talks about it on his May 18th Vlog.

A little preview from the alpha cut:

Apotheosis - The main thing that sets Nova Praxis characters apart from characters from most

other sci-fi fiction is a process called Apotheosis. When it comes to PCs, whether or not you are Apotheosized is a huge deal.

States – Instead of different races, characters exist in different States.  They are:

• Pure – You are a normal human. Roughly 70% of people are still Pure. You can choose to undergo Apotheosis and become Sleeved or a SIM, but you can never again become Pure.
• Sleeved – You were once a normal human, but you decided to undergo Apotheosis. You may now transfer your mind into different artificial bodies called “sleeves”. Sleeves can be biological, or synthetic. You can choose to become a SIM.
• SIM – You underwent Apotheosis, but have not sleeved into a new body. You essentially exist as a disembodied AI. You can choose to become Sleeved.

For those of us familiar with the "trans-human" genre, I think getting "Sleeved" will be a blast. I can also see the SIM aspect leading to some wild adventures. If this all sounds interesting to you, jump in. If this is your first trans-human SF setting, it should be a good one. 

Lastly, this KS project takes an interesting tack with the "print" edition being thru DrivethruRPG's print on demand. At my level, I'll get a coupon for the book (pdf) but I'll pay an additional $7.50 to $16.50 to get a softcover print edition and then shipping. 

Stay Savage!

Virtual Table Top Interview - Savage Worlds Crept In

Gaming Ballistic interviewed R. K. Athey (aka The Savage Troll) concerning Virtual Tabletops and MapTool.  It was a wide-ranging discussion about communities, products, and Chaos Lord Zack.

Mobile Google Docs for Play-By-Post

I posted in a previous article how to use Google Docs (Drive) for a play by post game. For some reason, I expected people to post at their desktop. I was wrong. Almost everyone used a mobile device of some sort.

I'm organizing the game by Acts which contain Scenes which contain Rounds. I do one Drive document per Scene with the Rounds as Headings so I can generate a table of contents for easy navigation on a mobile device. Images use a sub-heading so they show up in the ToC as well. The players 'follow link' to any particular section.

First thing I had to figure out was how to take a screen shot. Don't laugh. I've never had to do this before. On my Note 2, I went to Settings->My Device->Motion and checked 'Palm Swipe to Capture'. To take a screen shot you act like you're going to karate chop your phone on one edge of the screen then swipe the edge of your hand from left to right or right to left. It takes some practice.

I then edit the photo in my favorite image editor, Sketch. It allows me to easily draw arrows and annotate. I can't say enough good things about that simple but powerful tool.

So, first thing I asked them to do is make sure they have Drive, Google+, and GMail.

I had previously shared the Drive document but it wasn't all that obvious to new users how to find that. 

The next problem was adding comments. Again, not that obvious to new users of the Drive Mobile App.

The results of this is a Savage Worlds game using MapTool. The maps are small on the screen but Drive allows a pinch motion on the image to expand for exploration.

I'm pleased with the results of using Drive on a mobile device. My only complaint so far is that when pinching the image above you often enter edit mode which covers some screen real estate with the touch keyboard.

Using Google Docs for Play-by-Post

Recently I started a new Savage Worlds play-by-post (PbP) game utilizing the Science Fiction Companion. I've attempted this a few times but have run into problems. Basically people don't want to create another account on any of the PbP sites and not everyone is on Google. My solution is to utilize Google Docs (aka Drive) with a link that allows folks to comment.

Comments can be activated one of two ways.

Method 1
1) The first is to select a region of text.

2) Next, right click on that selection to bring up a pop-up menu and select 'Comment'.

3) A box will appear on the right side of the document to let you enter however much text you like.

Method 2
The second method involves using the Google Docs Menu.

Place your cursor in the document you want to discuss. Select 'Insert' from the main menu, then 'Comment'.

The comment box will appear as in step 3.

I'm going to give this a try. Ideally the characters will comment on the section of test. For rounds I'll put in their initiative order then let the comment on the character's name. I'll then 'Resolve' the comments as I continue the narrative inside the doc.

I'll post back here to let you know how it goes.

Savage Worlds Science Fiction Companion and The World of Grey

Pinnacle Entertainment Group released the Science Fiction Companion to an eager audience looking for Savage adventures in the far future. It contains new races, Edges and Hindrances, Setting Rules, gear, cyberware, and numerous new races and creature. It also includes rules for players and Game Masters to create their own robots, power armor, vehicles, starships, walkers.

PEG packs a lot into 98 pages making it will worth the PDF price of $14.99. I was curious how well it handled custom settings. I recently released a science fiction novella titled World of Grey and was curious as to how well the ships, characters, gear, and races of that book translated into the new rule set.

Ships

The Green Dawn is a Seminole class Assault Scout that exists somewhere between the Medium and Large ship types presented in the SFC. It but most closely matches the Medium template. I inferred a bit between the two sets of stats.

	Medium	Green Dawn	Large
Size	8	9	10
Acc	45	43	40
TS	600	550	500
Climb	2	2	1
Toughness	25	27	30
Armor	6	6	7
Mods	25	27	30
Crew	5	15	50

I used our Ship Builder spreadsheet from a previous post to generate the Dawn. Here's the result.

Ship Name	Green Dawn
Size	Medium/Large
Acc/TS	43/550
Climb	2
Toughness	27(6)
Mods Remaining	2
Crew	15
Energy Store	200
Cost	$26,540,000.00
Systems	AI, Atmospheric, Deflector Screens, FTL, Hanger, Sensor Suite Galactic, Shields, Targeting System,
Weapons	2XLight Lasers (2X Linked), 2XMedium Lasers (2X Fixed and Linked), Torpedo 1XLauncher with 8xLight (1X Fixed),

The Dawn has the characteristic of Large ships in that it can take a maximum of 2 wounds per attack due to air-tight compartments. It also has a Marauder Drop Shuttle attached to the airlock behind engineering. Its meant to sneak past detection, survive a landing, and provide some direct fire support of the Hellhound squad.

Ship Name	Marauder Drop Shuttle
Size	Small
Acc/TS	50/700
Climb	3
Toughness	20(9)
Mods Remaining	0
Crew	1
Passengers	10
Energy Story	25
Cost	$3,165,000.00
Systems	AMCM, 2xArmor, Atmospheric, Deflector Screens, Passenger Pod, Sensor Suite Planetary, Shields, Stealth,
Weapons	1XLight Lasers (1X Fixed), 1XHeavy Slug Throwers,

Sarge's Hellhounds encounter a Slug ship during the story. Slugs are technologically advanced. I manifested this by giving them 50% more mod spaces on Blasphore's ship.

Ship Name	Blashphor's 'Freighter'
Size	Huge
Acc/TS	35/400
Climb	0
Toughness	35(8)
Mods Remaining	27
Crew	300
Passengers	0
Energy Story	500
Cost	$89,280,000.00
Systems	AMCM, Deflector Screens, FTL, Sensor Suite Galactic, Shields, Tractor Beam,
Weapons	8XLight Lasers (8X Linked), 4XSuper Heavy Lasers (4X Fixed and Linked), Torpedo 2XLauncher with 16xLight 4xHeavy (2X Fixed),

The slug ship used 20 of the mod spaces for this adventure with two superstructures. You'll have to read the story to find out what they were. 

So, with a little GM fiat, I was able to represent the ships fairly well using the base rules. The SFC applies a logarithmic curve to ship sizing so getting exactly what I wrote took a bit of fudging.

Characters

Next, I tried to interpret the characters.

Doc is a cyborg who was once a doctor at a colonial hospital. An attack left a third of her body destroyed. I was interested to see how she would translate. Here's how she turned out as a seasoned character.

Doc
Agility	d8	Parry	4
Smarts	d8	Toughness	8(2)
Spirit	d8	Charisma	-2
Strength	d12	Pace	6
Vigor	d8
Hindrances
Mean	Minor	–2 to his Charisma for ill-temper
Quirk	Minor	Flares cybereye during conversation
Vow	Major	To protect the Dawn
Bad Luck	Major	1 less bennie per session
Edges
Cyborg	Doubles Cyber Allowed
Healer	+2 Healing
Ace	+2 Boating, Driving, Piloting - Can make craft soaks
Skills
Driving	d4+2
Fighting	d4
Healing	d8+4
K – Astrogation	d6+2
K – Biology	d6
K – Electronics	d6+2
K – French	d4
Notice	d6+2
Persuasion	d4
Piloting	d10+4
Repair	d4
Shooting	d4
Throwing	d4
Cyber
3xStrength(6), 1xAgility(2), Improved Vision(1), Improved Hearing(1), Trait Bonus -Piloting(1), Healing(1), Piloting(2), Knowledge (Electronics)(1), Knowledge (Astrogation)(1)
Gear
Smart Suit, Laser Pistol, Comlink, Personal Data Device

Races

Arvins are a race of lagomorphs (rabbits) from the planet Arv. They've been conquered a number of times so being taken over by the Federation was nothing new. In fact, they considered a real step up from being conquered by the Kurr, who used them as game animals.

What most races call cowardice, Arvins see has just plain common sense. They are one of the few non-human races that are seen throughout the Federation.

• Fleet Footed(+1) - Arvins have a base pace of 8 and a running die of d10
• Enhanced Hearing(+1) - +2 to hearing based Notice Checks
• Leaper(+1) - Doubles normal jumping ability.
• Night Eyes (+1) - ignores penalties for bad lighting
• Yellow (-2) - All Fear checks made at -2

Conclusion

I was able to easily convert my fictional universe from World of Grey into Savage Worlds. I was quite impressed by how little work it took. All the concepts seem to flow easily into the the new ruleset.

Science Fiction Companion Ship Builder

I created a quick spreadsheet to help you design custom ships for the new Savage Worlds Science Fiction Companion much like the one I did for Space 1889: Red Sands.

It has protection and validation rules in place to keep erroneous data to a minimum. Let me know if you find any bugs. You can find the spreadsheet on drop box.

Thus Far I've enjoyed the Science Fiction Companion a great deal. Hope to have a full review out soon. In the meantime I'm going to give a shot at transferring characters, races, and ships from World of Grey into Savage Worlds.