Advanced Savage Worlds?

To be upfront and absolutely clear, the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is not necessary to run Savage Worlds. It is not, in the traditional roleplaying sense, a guide to being a Game Master. All the advice that the Savage Worlds Game Master needs to run Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, or ‘SWADE’, is in the core rulebook. If it is not a traditional guide to being a Game Master for Savage Worlds, what then is the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide? This is the book for the Savage Worlds Game Master who wants to go a bit further than simply running the game for her friends on a week-by-week basis. The book is a collection of articles divided into three categories—guides to world building and writing content for Savage Worlds, running the game in situations other than at home, and advice on tweaking the game here and there, plus a handful of anecdotes that capture how fun Savage Worlds is to play and run. Published by the Pinnacle Entertainment Group, the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is written by the publisher’s members of staff as well as freelancers and Game Masters who have writing and running Savage Worlds for more than a decade.

The World Builder and Game Master’s Guide opens with ‘World Building’, the first of the two articles on world building and writing content for Savage Worlds. The uncredited article explores how a Game Master might go about creating worlds and settings of her own. It is not extensive article—indeed whole books have dedicated to the subject—but it does boil the process down to a handful of questions such as what makes this new world special and exciting? What is its genre? Or as in the case of so many worlds for Savage Worlds, its genres? It suggests summing this up in an elevator pitch before discussing the various elements that make up the setting. Naturally, this is done through the lens of Savage Worlds, so it looks at Edges and Hindrances, various types of adventure, and of course, Plot Point campaigns. These are Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s signature campaign format, providing a means to tell a big story in a setting, but also explore different aspects of the setting as well. Backed up with the ‘Pinnacle Style Guide’, this is a solid introduction to world creation, especially for Savage Worlds. Beyond this, the Game Master will likely want more detailed advice.

Some of that does come in Richard Woolcock’s ‘Turning Ideas into SWAG’. This gives advice on how the prospective author can create his own content and then publish it as part of the Savage Worlds Adventurer’s Guild, Pinnacle Entertainment Group’s community content programme. It covers first principles in terms of the working process, structuring the setting and the wordcount, editing and proofreading, playtesting and feedback, and so on, all the way up to making it available as Print on Demand, marketing the release, and even setting a price. The specifics do relate to Savage Worlds as you would expect, but there is advice here too that applies to any of the community content programmes that feature on DriveThruRPG. Combined with the first article in the supplement and the ‘Pinnacle Style Guide’, and this is a good introduction to the process of getting published.

Jodi Black’s ‘Savage Worlds For All Ages’ is the first of two articles which look at running Savage Worlds under different circumstances. As its title suggests, this one looks at the challenges of running Savage Worlds and gives tips on how to prepare a game, run a game, and keep player interest in a game going for different ages, from six years old to sixty-five and older, as well as groups of mixed ages. There are houses rules for each age group, such as for players aged six and up, awarding Bennies for good manners, initiative run in seating order rather than drawing cards, and the need for ‘wiggle breaks’ when the players get restless, as well as suggested plots. For example, making them feel epic in terms of scope for those aged between fifteen and twenty-five who have more time for this sort of game. Accompanied by the author’s guide to running a game club at her school, this is the best article in the supplement, applying to any roleplaying game and not just Savage Worlds. Of all the articles in the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide, this should be freely available.

The other article on running Savage Worlds under different circumstances is ‘Building Your Tribe’ by Chris Fuchs and Chris Landauer. This charts their establishment of the Rocky Mountain Savages, a team of Game Masters that run Savage Worlds at conventions. There are numerous teams that do this, not necessarily for single games or just Savage Worlds, and some actually handle the demonstration games for various publishers. At conventions, these groups and their Game Masters have become part of the public face for the publishers in question, such as the Rocky Mountain Savages for Pinnacle Entertainment Group. It is not just a guide on how to create and run a team of semi-professional Game Masters, but also how to run games at conventions and how to play in games at conventions. The latter gives the article a surprising third strand to its advice, but one that has a broader application than the other two strands since most roleplayers are more likely to play at a convention than be the Game Master or set up a Game Master group. Nevertheless, despite the limited application of the other advice in the article—an aspect common to the supplement as a whole—this is all good advice.

Despite it not being a supplement of general advice on running Savage Worlds, there is still advice to do so in World Builder and Game Master’s Guide. This starts with Owen Lean’s ‘Risks & Reversals’, which is all about the benefits of risk in a game, that essentially, it makes it exciting and whatever the outcome, often memorable. Together with its discussion of ‘reversals’, the joy of going from success to failure and back again as a situation changes, the article throws a bucket-load of examples at the reader, all taken from films with which he is very likely familiar—Pirates of the Caribbean, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and so on—that illustrate both situations. He neatly scales this up from scenes to adventures and campaigns to show how reversals work on that bigger scale. The scaling up continues with ‘High Powered Games’ by Tracy Sizemore. This examines the power progression in Savage Worlds, from Player Characters rising in power vertically initially and then horizontally as their power broadens in application before offering advice on how to use the rules and mechanics of Savage Worlds to adjust to the play and lethality of high-powered play. This includes setting a Wound Cap to limit the amount of damage a Player Character will suffer, but also using the Gritty Damage Setting for deadlier games. It also looks at the unpredictability of the core mechanic to Savage Worlds, how the dice results can swing wildly from one roll to the next, potentially causing disappointment and excitement from one round to the next, and how that can be managed. Suggestions include creating non-combat goals, making villains complex and interesting to give them a role other than wanting to destroy the Player Characters, and so on. There are numerous options and ideas here which support both high-powered play and high-end play.

In ‘The Long Game’, Shane Hensley charts the history of how Deadlands came about and its development over the years, and how the game has been kept fresh since its publication in 1996 and how a Game Master’s campaign can be kept going. Lastly, World Builder and Game Master’s Guide, ‘Anecdotes’ offers not just a selection of stories and memories as the title suggests, but further advice on a variety of differing aspects on running Savage Worlds, such as ‘The Art of the Celebrity Con Game’ by Ed Wetterman on running audience participation games with celebrity players, Sean Patrick Fannon on ‘Running the Big Game’ with eight to sixteen players, and recording and making available your game play with Jordan Caves-Callarman’s ‘Savage Steaming’. None of these sections of advice is bad and some of it is useful, but not one of them is an ‘anecdote’, not one of them is story, and labelling them as such is an annoyingly misleading misnomer. Lastly, Clint Black gets ‘Under the Hood’ and discusses ideas on how the Game Master and player might tweak their Savage Worlds game, bringing the supplement to close with the broadest of advice.

Physically, World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is well presented, easy to read, and a nice-looking book.

Ultimately, the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is not a book that is essential for any Savage Worlds Game Master. There is no denying that there is plenty of advice within its pages, but it is too specialised to be of general use to the average Savage Worlds Game Master. For the Game Master looking to do more than run the game for her friends, then the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide has the possibility of being useful and have the advice that she wants—and if so, then it is useful, it is good, it is helpful. Otherwise, the World Builder and Game Master’s Guide is too specific and too specialised for the average Game Master’s needs.

2003: 50 Fathoms

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

50 Fathoms: High Adventure in a Drowned World was the second Plot Point setting to be published by Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment and the second campaign to published. Like the first, Evernight, it was published in 2003 and introduced both a complete setting and a campaign, in this case, a Plot Point campaign. A Plot Point campaign can be seen as a development of the Sandbox style campaign. Both allow a high degree of player agency as the Player Characters are allowed to wander hither and thither, but in a Sandbox style campaign there is not necessarily an overarching plot, whereas in a Plot Point campaign, there is. This is tied to particular locations, but not in a linear fashion. The Player Characters can travel wherever they want, picking up clues and investigating plots until they have sufficient links and connections to confront the threat at the heart of the campaign. In 50 Fathoms the threat consists of a trio of Sea Hags who are downing the world of Caribdus, literally under fifty fathoms!

50 Fathoms: High Adventure in a Drowned World begins with the dark history of its doom. The Sea Hags were once three witches in Ograpog, condemned by King Amemnus to death by drowning from the rising tide. With their dying breath, they cursed Caribdus, the land itself, to drown as they were, and so the rains began and the seas began to rise, flooding the land and forcing the inhabitants of Caribdus to either take to the seas or retreat to ever smaller islands. Caribdus is home to several different species, all of whom have learned to adapt to the changed world. These include the Atani, weak, but winged humanoids who can fly; Doreen, semi-aquatic hunters and nomads, who fell prey to the vicious Kehana when they were forced to flee their drowning island; the walrus-like Grael, strong, but both slow and slow-witted; the cruel and callous shark-like Kehana; the squid-like Kraken whose home is the last of their fleet of their navy’s Great Ships and who have an affinity with elemental magic; the Red Men or Half-Ugak, massive and brutish, unworldly and unwise; and the Scurillians, mean-spirited crabs with an eye for detail. (It should be noted that Half-Ugak are the product of rapes by the Ugak, which twenty years on from the publication of 50 Fathoms, does put the species on a par with the half-Orcs of Dungeons & Dragons.) There are no native Humans on Caribdus, the nearest being Masaquani who always iconically embody their body shape, in form and personality. The choices offered here all lend themselves to a very non-traditional fantasy.

However, there are plenty of Humans on the world of Caribdus. All have come from Earth, caught in a terrible storm and led by the Maiden to the world of Caribdus, sometime between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century—that is during the Age of Sail. Privateers, pirates, explorers, officers, soldiers, marines, merchants, sailors, surgeons, whalers, and more have made their way to the Drowned World and made it their home. Called ‘Visitors’ by those native to the new world, they have been arriving for the last thirteen years, initially caught in the Flotsam Sea, a slowly twisting, sinking whirlpool fouled by a morass of green debris, jutting timbers, and the bloated corpses of things that that could have been human or they could have been something worse. The lucky ones escaped to make a new life, the rest drowned in this sodden aquatic quagmire. Some Visitors have taken up their old lives on this new world, including many pirates, priests continue to practice their faith and have spread among the natives, whilst Torquemada directs the Inquisition against those who practice the elemental magic of Caribdus. Besides the Inquisition, the British East India Company and the Spanish Guild operate trade cartels across the Thousand Islands. Others take to the new world adapting to it and adopting new lives and aims—treasure hunters and salvagers sail and dive on the new sea bed to find the riches lost to the rising waters, ship’s mages take up the study of elemental magic, able to protect and propel the ship depending upon the elements studied, whilst dreaming mastering all four elements, and Questors, perhaps the bravest, most noble of this world seek for a way to end the rain and the reign of the Sea Hags.

A Player Character in 50 Fathoms looks like a standard Savage Worlds Player Character. This is indicative of how little has changed between editions of the roleplaying game, such that were a Game Master to pick up the current rules the differences are minor. The rules and setting content can really be divided between those that would fit a historical style of game set during the Age of Sail and those that fit the fantastical world of Caribdus. Edges and Hindrances such as Arrogant, One Arm, Close Fighter, Master & Commander, Merchant, and Rope Monkey would all suit a historical, mercantile, nautical, and piratical campaign, whereas Kraken Bone Sword & Armor, Elemental Mastery, and Mark of Torquemada, all integral to the setting of 50 Fathoms. Similarly, the rules for goods, trading, and selling, weapons, ships and sailing, fighting below deck and crew upkeep, and so on, would work in a historical campaign. The weapons include cannon and firearms, noting the problems with having wet powder, gaffs and hooks, whilst also including the Jumani Chain, a fearsome Masaquani pirate weapon consisting of a chain shot with extra links to turn it into a deadly flail. Armour is typically donned only prior to battle as should the wearer end up in the water, there is a greater chance of him drowning. When worn in water, its armour bonus acts as a penalty on Swimming rolls. Boats and ships range in size from the humble dinghy and the wave rider to the galleon and the man of war—only Black Beard and the ‘Hero of the High Seas’, British Admiral Nelson Duckworth command one of the latter vessels. The rules for ship-to-ship combat are written as an expansion to the core rules and bolt on easily enough since Savage Worlds was always designed to scale up from traditional parties of Player Characters to relatively small skirmish battles which can be run as miniatures battles, keeping the players involved in both, of course. The rules barely run to a page-and-a-half in length, so lean towards being run as part of the narrative of the roleplay, rather than as full miniatures rules. There is also a list of pirate lingo.

The main addition in terms of the rules and the setting of 50 Fathoms is for ‘Elemental Magic’. Earth magic is used to help grow crops, speak with and control mammals, mend ship’s timbers, and so on, whilst fire magic is used for destructive purposes. Water magic is used to heal, make sea water drinkable, and control the many beasts of the ocean, and so Water Mages are valued aboard ship, whilst Air Mages are the most highly valued as their magic move vessels even when becalmed, calm storms, speak with avians to find land, and toss aside enemy missiles! Mages in the setting initially only study one type of elemental magic, but can study the others. Doing so is difficult as elemental spirits are jealous and actively impede the casting of all magic. This lasts until the Mage has mastered all four elements and becomes an Archmage, able to balance the four elements. In game this is represented by a Mage taking the Elemental Mastery Edge, once for each of the other three elements he needs to study. 50 Fathoms also includes fourteen new element-themed spells and a list of all of the element-themed spells in the rulebook at the time.

There is a short gazetteer of surviving lands and locations of Caribdus, known as ‘The Thousand Isles’, but the setting is really described in the section for the Game Master, called the ‘Captain’s Log’, which takes up two thirds of the book. This presents the world of Caribdus and the background to the campaign in more detail as well as describing the various surviving and interesting places. Many of the have a symbol attached them, which indicated that the location has a Savage Tale attached to it. For example, in the lawless pirate town of Brigandy Bay, almost anything can be bought and sold at the Black Market. Amongst the more exotic merchandise can be found a treasure map for $1000. Allegedly, the map shows the location of one of the dread pirate L’Ollonaise’s cache. It turns out the map is true and leads to the Savage Tale, ‘L’Ollonaise’ Vengeance’. Not every location has an attached Savage Tale, some have more than one, and some require a certain entry to be rolled on a table. The advice for the Game Master covers the types of the adventures that the Player Characters might embark on, including carousing, pirating, privateering, salvaging, and trading, and includes both tables of subplots and booty, but the meat of the campaign consists of some forty-one Savage Tales, ranging in length from a single paragraph to several pages in length. The ‘Encounters’ chapter at the end of the book includes all of the major NPCs and monsters that the Player Characters could run into as part of the campaign.

The campaign itself begins with ‘Maiden Voyage’. This is the opening Savage Tale and places all of the Player Characters as the crew aboard a small sloop. At the end of the Player Characters are invited by an NPC to continue into the events of the second Savage Tale. This is ‘Tressa the Red’ and it is marked with a skull and crossed weapons to indicate that the Savage Tale is part of the campaign against the Sea Hags. There is a total of eight of these and together they form the spine of the 50 Fathoms campaign. However, they cannot be played in linear fashion as there are typically Rank requirements for each one, and in order to acquire sufficient Experience Points to go up in Rank, the Player Characters will need to explore and adventure elsewhere. This gives the chance to learn more about the world and its dangers as well as the nature of the threat they face. This is where the Plot Point format comes to the fore because the Player Characters are free to travel wherever they want and, in the process, discovering more of the world and potentially triggering more Savage Tales contained in the ‘Captain’s Log’. Play then is very player driven and the players have a lot of agency in what their characters do and where they go. This does mean that the campaign is episodic in nature rather than having a great linear plot and this more open structure means that the campaign is easier to prepare and run since it plays through location by location rather than by plot.

The Savage Tales themselves will take the Player Characters back and forth across the Thousand Isles. They will find themselves conducting jail breaks, searching the Flotsam Sea for artefacts, facing down legendary pirates—including Blackbeard himself, who is, of course, immortal, diving on wrecks on the sea floor, fighting ghost ships, going whaling, acting against the opium trade, going bear hunting, and even facing down an invasion from under the sea in dingy Dunich! There is a wide array of Savage Tales in 50 Fathoms, all of them different and all of them offering a variety of excitement and adventure. Beyond that, the 50 Fathoms Companion expands upon the gazetteer in 50 Fathoms and adds another forty Savage Tales. Many of these can be run as part of the 50 Fathoms campaign or specifically after it, and include a a mini-campaign of its own. 50 Fathoms: Fire & Earth also adds another mini-campaign.

Physically, 50 Fathoms is well presented, and the illustrations are suitably practical, nautical, and scurvy! The book is done in greyscale throughout, but that would have been standard for 2003. The map of the Thousand Islands is perhaps a bit small to be used with any ease.

50 Fathoms: High Adventure in a Drowned World combines pulp sea-going action and mystery with pirates and fantasy for a great campaign. It is as still as a fun and exciting as it was in 2003 and it still stands out as one of the best of the Plot Point campaigns from Pinnacle Entertainment Group.

Extracurricular Esoteric Endeavours III

The publisher 12 to Midnight has developed its horror setting of Pinebox, Texas through a series of single scenarios written for use with Savage Worlds, the cinematic action RPG rules from Pinnacle Entertainment Group. In July, 2014, following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the publisher released the setting through a particular lens and timeframe, that is as students at East Texas University. Over the course of their four-year degree courses, the students undertake study and various academic activities as well as having a social life, a job, and even an annoying roommate. Then of course, there is the weird stuff—ghosts, werewolves, vampires, and more… The challenge of course is that the students have to deal with both, but need to grow into being able to cope with both.

The ETU or East Texas University setting is fully supported by Degrees of Horror, a complete plot point campaign that builds and builds over the course of Study Group’s four-year degree courses. A plot point campaign differs from a standard campaign in that it is a framework of scenarios that advance the plot around which the Game Master can fit and run single scenarios not necessarily pertinent to the campaign’s core plot. These can be of the Game Master’s own design or bought off the shelf—several are available for the setting. The plot points are triggered under certain circumstances; it might be because the Player Characters visit a particular location or because of an action that they have taken. In Degrees of Horror the plot points are also built around areas of academic study and the year in which the Player Character student—or Study Group—are currently in. What this means is that in Degrees of Horror, the Study Group will encounter the first notions of the outré things to come in the first term as Freshmen and both the campaign and the Study Group’s investigations will come to fruition as Seniors at their graduation. However, what happens if the administration and the Dean at the university become aware of the Study Group’s activities? What if the Study Group manages to deal with a threat, but manages to bring outside attention to the strangeness going on at the university in the process and the Dean wants the members of the Study Group out of the way? The Dean cannot expel them, because that would arouse more attention, so what can he do? Well, he can send them abroad. Abroad where they will be out of harm’s way! Abroad where there are no supernatural dangers! Abroad where they cannot get into trouble!

East Texas University: Study Abroad offers not one, but four options for the Study Group which wants to see foreign climes and the Game Master who wants to take her campaign elsewhere—if only for a little while. The options include Costa Rica, Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Each chapter includes background and history for the country, cultural differences, descriptions of the institutions where the Students will be studying, a number of Savage Tales (or scenarios) which the Game Master can run over the course of the Semester that the Study Group spends there, and full stats for all of the NPCs, monsters, and other threats that the Students will encounter as part of their investigations. One major cultural difference which is highlighted in each of the four countries is the lack of access to firearms, which may or may challenge some players and their characters in addition to the change in setting and culture. Of course, an East Texas University campaign is unlikely to use all four of settings in East Texas University: Study Abroad, so for those that go unused, the Game Master has a ready supply inspiration for Savage Tales of her own and the monsters to go with them. The anthology already includes a selection of fellow exchange students from around the world which the Game Master can include as NPCs alongside the Player Characters.

The anthology opens with Costa Rica. Geographically, this is the closest to Texas, and culturally it feels not dissimilar too—though of course, there are plenty of differences. The Students will be studying at the Tejas Learning Campus which turns out to be a secret outpost for the Sweet Heart Foundation, one of the major villains from Degrees of Horror. The isolated nature of the campus means that its research can be conducted away from prying eyes and the local cryptids, including Chupacabras, are suitable for both study and experimentation. These are not the only local cryptids that the Students will face, but they are the primary ones. All too quickly, the Students will discover why they have a newly and very recently appointed counsellor as their guide, have both a black dog and white dog stalking them, take one or terrible field trips, and discover quite why it is not a good idea to visit the local town alone—especially if you are female. Whilst there is a good variety of Savage Tales here, they still feel connected to the plots the Students left hanging back in Texas, almost as if they never left. Several of them could easily back to Texas, or at least the south west of the USA without too much difficulty, which cannot be said of the other three Foreign Exchange settings.

The Italy trip takes the Students to the northern city of Turin. Here they will find The Egyptian Museum, the Lombroso Museum—the Museum of Criminal Anthropology—which houses numerous remains of criminals and ‘madmen’, so is likely home to numerous ghosts, and of course, the Shroud of Turin. There are plenty of secrets too, mostly in the extensive network of tunnels below the city. Both museums feature in the first two Savage Tales, whilst the third takes the Students into the tunnels below the city. With just the three Savage Tales, all of them decent, the chapter feels somewhat underwhelming, but in fact, there is a lot here that the Game Master can develop herself, especially as there are several villains which the chapter does not make use of.

The horror in the Poland chapter is definitely Slavic and Jewish in nature—the Morowa Dziewica (murrain maiden), an old crone which bears the plague; the Dybbuk, or those possessed by a spirit; the Upir or ‘peasant’ vampire; and the Rusalka, spirits of women who lead others to their deaths. The Students will encounter one or more of these whilst studying in Białystok in the cold north east of Poland. Again, there is a lot of background and cultural detail here, but instead of sperate Savage Tales, this supports a mini-campaign consisting of five Savage Tales. The strangeness starts almost straight away, with an attack by a fellow student with a surprisingly explosive temper and creepy encounters at a puppet theatre, both of which bring the Students to the attention of certain interested parties, some who want their help, some who do not. The last three Savage Tales focus on the campaign, an investigation into a series of missing persons cases, which includes more than the one option for defeating the villain, one of which amusingly mundane. As a chapter and mini-campaign, the Poland chapter is a pleasing diversion away from the main campaign back at East Texas University if the Game Master is running Degrees of Horror.

The last chapter in East Texas University: Study Abroad is set in merry olde England at Ascalon University near the village of Uffington. The village, once the home of poet John Betjeman, is real even if the university is not, but the chapter incorporates plenty of the local features and history into its setting and accompanying Savage Tales. After a trip from Heathrow to Uffington, which not only highlights the fun of travel in the United Kingdom, but which is also literally beset by Gremlins, the Students settle in only to discover that death and strangeness has followed them! Like the Poland chapter before it, the Savage Tales in the England chapter before it builds towards a mini-campaign, but of course grounded in British folklore, legends, and the poetry of John Betjeman. It is perhaps not quite as focused as the campaign in the Poland chapter, but once it gets going, it has a sense of the bucolic and the ethereal to it. Again, this is a pleasing diversion away from the main campaign back at East Texas University if the Game Master is running Degrees of Horror.

Physically, East Texas University: Study Abroad is well presented and well written. It needs a slight edit in places, but the artwork is excellent and the maps clear and easy to read.

East Texas University: Study Abroad is solid addition to the East Texas University campaign setting and diversion away from the events of Degrees of Horror. Its use is limited though. The Game Master is unlikely more than one or two of these in an East Texas University campaign, but the anthology can be used in serval ways. As a diversion, but still with links back to the main campaign back home, as in the Costa Rica chapter; as a diversion of unconnected adventures as in the Italy chapter; or as separate mini-campaigns, as in the Poland and England chapters. The Poland and England chapters are the more engaging of the quartet, the Poland chapter in particular. Then of course, whatever that the Game Master does not use, she can draw from for inspiration for her own campaign, and there is always scope to develop further Savage Tales and drop them into the chapters as needed. Certainly, both the Poland and England Chapters could be developed into longer campaigns if the Game Master wanted to do so.

A Fourth Savage Starter

It has been almost a decade since the previous edition of Savage Worlds was published, but following a successful Kickstarter campaign, Pinnacle Entertainment Group released an updated version, Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, or ‘SWADE’ in 2019. Originally published in 2003 and derived from Deadlands: the Great Rail Wars, the simplified skirmish rules for use with Deadlands, what Savage Worlds is, is a generic roleplaying game which promises to be ‘Fast! Furious! Fun!’. The RPG focuses on action orientated, cinematic style play, with the player characters able to take down mooks or Extras with ease, but always having a fight on their hands when they face any villains, either minor or major. The system is also designed to handle skirmishes between multiple opponents, so that the players can easily engage in small-scale wargaming as part of a campaign. It is capable of handling, and in its time, has handled a wide variety of genres and settings, including fantasy and pirates with 50 Fathoms, gritty fantasy with Lankhmar: City of Thieves, horror and the Wild West with Deadlands, ancient military horror with Weird Wars Rome, college and horror with East Texas University, pulp sci-fi with Flash Gordon, and more.

A character in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is a known as a Wild Card because he brings in a degree of unpredictability to a situation. He is defined by his Attributes, Skills, Edges, and Hindrances (disadvantages), with both Attributes and Skills defined by die type—four, six, eight, ten, or the twelve-sided die. The bigger the die type, the better the Attribute or Skill. Edges include Attractive, Brawny, Gadgeteer, and Two-Fisted, whilst Hindrances include All-Thumbs, Clumsy, Heroic, or Mild-Mannered. Many of the Edges have requirements in terms of skills and attributes, experience or Power Level, or other Edges. Hindrances are either Major or Minor. To create a character, a player selects some Hindrances, which will give him points which he can spend to purchase Edges or improve attributes or skills. Choice of Race will give the character some beginning Edges, Hindrances, attributes and skills. Race is not an Edge in itself, but a package of Edges, Hindrances, and skill and attribute bonuses which can be selected during character creation. For example, a Saurian begins play with Armour +2 (scaly skin), a Bite natural weapon, Environmental Weakness to the cold, Keen Senses which gives him the Alertness Edge, and the Outsider (Minor) Hindrance which penalises his Persuasion skill. The average heroic Human of Savage Worlds, begins play with an extra Edge. A player has five points to raise his character’s attributes from their base of a four-sided die each and twelve points to raise his character’s skills.

Henry Brinded, Antiquarian
Attributes: Agility d4, Smarts d8, Spirit d8, Strength d4, Vigour d6
Skills: Academics d6, Athletics d4, Common Knowledge d4, Language (Latin) d6, Notice d6, Occult d8, Persuasion d4, Research d8, Spellcasting d6, Stealth d4
Charisma: 0
Pace: 6” Parry: 4 Toughness: 5 Bennies: 3
Power Points: 10
Hindrances: All-Thumbs (Minor), Bad Eyes (Major), Mild Mannered (Minor)
Edges: Arcane Background (Magic), Investigator, Strong-Willed
Powers: Arcane Protection, Detect Arcana, Speak Language

To do anything, a player rolls the die associated with his character’s Attribute or the Skill as well as an extra six-sided Wild Die because the heroes—and some villains—are Wild Cards and thus unique in the Savage Worlds setting. The highest result of either die is chosen by the player as his result, with the maximum result or Ace on either die allowing a player to reroll and add to the total. The base target for most rolls is four, but can be higher depending on the situation. Rolling Aces usually enables a player to roll higher than the target, with results of four higher than the target providing Raises that give extra benefits. Every Wild Card has one or more Bennies. These can be expended to reroll a trait, recover from shaken, soak rolls to prevent damage, draw a new action card and so gain a better place in the initiative order, to reroll damage, regain Power Points, and to influence the story. They are awarded for clever actions, good roleplaying, and acts of heroism, and so on, plus whenever a player character draws a Joker during combat. In which case, all Player Characters receive a Benny! The Game Master is encouraged to be generous with Bennies and the players to expend them to facilitate the action.

For example, there have been attacks in the city over the past few weeks and Henry Brinded suspects it might be some supernatural entity. He conducts some research based on the clues he has already discovered. The Game Master sets the target at four as it is a standard task. Henry’s player rolls two dice for the task—an eight-sided die for Henry’s Research skill and a six-sided die because Henry is a Wild Card. He will add two to the resulting roll because he has the Investigator Edge. Henry’s player rolls a one on the six-sided die and an eight on the eight-sided die. He selects the latter because it is higher and because it is an Ace, meaning that Henry’s player can roll again and add. The result of the second roll is a five, which Henry’s player adds to the first roll, as well as the bonus, for a total of fifteen. This is four, then eight higher than the target of four, so it grants a Raise or two. This means that Game Master will reveal a lot more information about the threat that Henry is hunting.

Combat uses the same mechanics with initiative being determined by an ordinary deck of cards. In general, Wild Card characters have the edge over their opponents, able to shrug off damage or soak it with the expenditure of Bennies before they start suffering Wounds. The combat rules in Savage Worlds cover not just man-to-man, man-to-Orc, or man-to-Xenomorph combat, but mass combat and vehicular combat too. The rules for mass combat lend themselves towards the use of miniatures, either actual miniatures or counters, and the book comes with effect templates that can be copied and used with them.

The treatment of Powers, whether they be Magic, Miracles, Psionics, or Weird Science, is kept very uniform in Savage Worlds. Each is fuelled by Power Points, each has an associated Arcane Background Edge and Skill, and each of the Powers can have an associated set of Trappings. So, for example, the common Bolt Power could have different Trappings depending upon its source, which means that a wizard’s fire Bolt spell could have the flammable Trapping, potentially causing materials to catch alight, whilst a Gadgeteer’s Bolt Power could be an Electro-Zapper that with the Electricity Trapping causes target’s to spasm. The one type of Power which Savage Worlds Adventure Edition does not do effectively, is superpowers. They do fall under the Arcane Background (Gifted) Edge, but would be very low powered in comparison to a proper superhero roleplaying game and do not stretch as far as a ‘Four Colour’ style of game.

There are changes and tweaks throughout Savage Worlds Adventure Edition. To begin with, every character has some beginning or basic skills—Athletics, Common Knowledge, Notice, Persuasion, and Stealth, but have fewer points to spend on skills during character creation. Climbing, Swimming, and Throwing have been folded in Athletics, Lockpicking into Thievery, Common Knowledge is a skill of its own, Knowledge been replaced by a range of skills—Academics, Battle, Electronics, Hacking, Language, Occult, and Science, Streetwise is an Edge rather than a skill, and so on. Elsewhere, for vehicles, Acceleration is now factored into Handling and Top Speed, and Top Speed has replaced the earlier Pace to better reflect real world vehicles rather than vehicles on the table. Other changes have been to the way in which stories are told using Savage Worlds.

The rules for Dramatic Tasks, Interludes, and Social Conflicts are retained from earlier editions. Dramatic Tasks handle nail-biting scenes such as diffusing a bomb, hacking a computer, casting a ritual, or even escaping a deathtrap, and involve the players making skill checks for their characters in order to collect enough ‘Task Tokens’ to overcome the Dramatic Task—the more involved the Dramatic Task, the more ‘Task Tokens’ required. Interludes involve either Downtime, Backstory, or a Trek, and give scope to a player to roleplay and explore more of his character during more quiet times in the narrative. Social Conflicts work a little like Dramatic Tasks and are again, designed to add tension to a social situation, such as a negotiation or arguing a case in court, and involve a player rolling his character’s Persuasion or Intimidation skill to accumulate Influence Tokens which are compared to table to determine the outcome. Added to these tools are mechanics for Networking and Quick Encounters. Networking covers social characters interacting with clients to get information and clues, whilst scholarly type characters are in the library, and require no more than a single Persuasion or Intimidation skill check to determine the outcome. Similarly, Quick Encounters also use a single skill check, but what skill is used depends on the nature of the encounter. A chase might require Common Knowledge, Driving, Repair, and Shooting, whilst a heist might make use of Hacking, Notice, Stealth, and Thievery. Quick Encounters are designed to cover situations where the Game Master is pressed for time or has not prepared a big encounter, or there is simply no need to play out a situation roll by roll. There is scope here for the Game Master and her players to develop and combine these scenes, so that they could be run as montages. Another narrative change is to Experience Points, which have been replaced with a simple advancement scheme based on campaign length.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition also comes with mechanics rules for creating races for both Player Characters and NPCs, a list of spells along with the means for a player to colour and modify their magic, and a bestiary of thirty or so animals, beasts, and monsters. It is rounded out with solid advice for the Game Master, which is worth reading whether she is new to Savage Worlds or has run it before.

Savage Worlds Adventure Edition follows the format of the earlier Explorer Edition of Savage Worlds in coming as a smaller sized—though not digest-sized—book. It is a full colour hardback, illustrated throughout with plenty of artwork which showcases the potential ranges of genres the rules can cover, emphasises the action, and focuses on the Player Characters. The book is well written, it is easy to read, there are decent examples of play, and where there are changes from the previous editions of the rules, the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition makes it clear what they are. If perhaps there is a niggle to the book it is that the elements of the Player Characters, the advantages, disadvantages, and skills, known as Edges, Hindrances, and skills, are organised in an odd order in the book. Any other roleplaying game would do attributes, advantages, disadvantages, and skills, but not Savage Worlds Adventure Edition, in which the order is Hindrances, Traits—attributes and skills, and then Edges. This is a holdover from previous editions of the rules and it made no sense in those editions, just as it makes absolutely no sense in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition.

Of course, like any new edition of a set of rules, it is primarily there to support new content, but one of the fantastic aspects of Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is that it is still compatible with earlier versions of the rules and thus with much of the support which was published for those rules, such as the 50 Fathoms or Sundered Skies campaigns. Plus, notes highlight the changes, making them easy for the Game Master to spot. There is also a shift in Savage Worlds Adventure Edition over previous editions, which is that as much as it supports mass battles, there is less of a military emphasis in the feel of the rules. Instead, the new rules emphasise the narrative flow of the game more in keeping with a contemporary style of play. Overall, Savage Worlds Adventure Edition is a slickly presented, well written new version of the action orientated, cinematic rules.

1999: Brave New World

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

It is 1999. As the end of the millennium approaches, President John F. Kennedy has been in office for almost four decades. On November 22nd, 1963, he survived the assassination attempt on his life by a team of powersuit-wearing Dreadnauts sent by the supervillain Devastator, but his wife did not. In response, Congress enacted The Delta Registration Act, which made it a federal offence for any Delta—as those with superpowers are known—not to register themselves with the government within seven days of manifesting them. Delta civil rights were curtailed and they could be conscripted into government service of any kind. In order to control Delta activity, Delta Prime was set up as a super-powered law enforcement agency to control unregistered Deltas. A confrontation in New York in 1966 between Devastator and Delta Prime would result in the destruction of his headquarters and the surrounding four city blocks in New York, and following his escape, the declaration of martial law. It is still in force today.

The situation was compounded by a second confrontation, ‘The Bicentennial Battle’, between Devastator and Delta Prime which took place atop the Sears Tower in Chicago on July 4th, 1976. It too, would end in tragedy. The detonation of Devastator’s doomsday disintegrated everything in a twenty-five mile radius, killing millions and creating a perfectly spherical extension to Lake Michigan known as Chicago Bay. It also killed Superior, the Alpha-class Delta who had lead the attack, whilst at the same time every free Alpha-class Delta on the planet suddenly vanished. They have not been seen since.

The first Alpha, Superior had been the defender of America since World War II, transforming from a Delta to an Alpha following a traumatic near death experience, following which he flew to Berlin, killed Adolf Hitler and ended the war in 1943. He would end both the Korean and Vietnam wars early as well. Without the Alphas to keep the balance of power, battles between Deltas are not uncommon, tensions escalated between the USA and the Soviet Union. This would culminate in a limited nuclear exchange, following the nuclear meltdown at Chernobyl, sabotaged by American Deltas, which would leave the cities of Atlanta and San Francisco and Kiev and Minsk destroyed. 

In 1999, and at eighty two years of age, President Kennedy is effectively President For Life. The ‘Witch Hunts’ that followed the implementation of both The Delta Registration Act and Martial Law against anyone who might be a Delta continue to this day. Yet some were not prepared to simply give in and lose their freedom and civil rights. They set up a loosely organised resistance network called ‘Defiance’, its members ‘Defiants’. Although deemed a domestic terrorist organisation by the government—and there are Defiants who would advocate such actions—its primary aim is to help those Deltas who do not want to register and to spread the truth. By the end of the century, with the birth of the Internet, this is done via a website known as DeltaTimes.com.

This is the set up—known as the ‘Ravaged Planet’—for Brave New World: A Roleplaying Game. Published by Pinnacle Entertainment Group in 1999 and then by Alderac Entertainment Group from 2000, it is a superhero roleplaying game of protest and resistance in an American fascist nightmare, inspired by comics such as Kingdom Come and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, storylines from the X-Men series, George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and more. It is a grim, dark setting—definitely more Modern Age than Bronze or Silver Age—in which the players take the role of Deltas, those with limited superpowers who have defied the government in deciding not to sign The Delta Registration Act. Operating behind the secrecy of a mask—as much because they need to protect their civil rights as they do their identities and their families—they undertake a number of different tasks. They might be vigilantes dealing with traditional small time crime, helping find and protect other Deltas and get them out of the USA, and if they gain its trust, undertaking missions for Defiance.

As a superhero roleplaying game with a setting, Brave New World is different to most of the superhero roleplaying games which had come before it. With a very few exceptions, most had been rules sets first, with settings detailed in subsequent supplements. This though, is not the only significant difference between Brave New World and other traditional superhero roleplaying games, such as Champions, GURPS Supers, Golden Heroes, or Villains & Vigilantes. As already mentioned, such superhero roleplaying games possess rules sets—rules sets which enabled a player to create superheroes of their own design. Not so in Brave New World. Instead, heroes are built around a template or Power Package, which provides a standard set of powers. There are ten Power Packages in Brave New World—Bargainer, Blaster, Bouncer, Flyer, Gadgeteer, Goliath, Gunner, Healer, Scrapper, and Speedstar. 

Of the ten Power Packages, it is not immediately obvious what some of them are. So the Blaster, Flyer, Gadgeteer, Healer, and Speedster are obvious, but the Bouncer is the acrobatic superhero, the Goliath is the equivalent of the Brick, the Gunner is a marksman, and the Scrapper is the Brawler or Martial Artist. The Bargainer summons and binds demons into totems, which can be used to either temporarily replicate the powers of other Deltas or permanently replicate them. The Bargainer is also different in another way, as is the Gadgeteer. Heroes with the Power Packages Blaster, Bouncer, Flyer, Goliath, Gunner, Healer, Scrapper, and Speedster can all do one thing. So a Flyer is a Hero who flies and does nothing else in terms of his powers, rather than a Flyer who can zap an enemy with his energy blasts, a Scrapper is a brawler or martial artist, not a brawler or martial artist who bounces off the walls and roofs. In comparison, the Bargainer’s ability to bind and replicate powers gives him potential access to a wide array of powers, but it should be made clear that the Bargainer needs to be attuned to the totems and he can only use one at a time. Of all of the ten in Brave New World, the Bargainer is arguably the roleplaying game’s signature character archetype. Similarly, the Gadgeteer can design and build pieces of technology, for example, an armoured battle suit, but they require daily maintenance and make it time consuming to really have more than one or two running at any one time.

Besides his Power Package, each Hero is defined by their Traits, Skills, Quirks, Powers, and Tricks. There are four Traits—Smarts, Speed, Spirit, and Strength, which are rated by a number of six-sided dice plus a modifier, like 2d6+1 or 4d6. A typical Human has two dice in each Trait. Skills are divided between the four Traits and add a bonus to dice rolls of the Trait when appropriate. Initially, both Traits and Skills are rated between one and five. Quirks are the equivalent of advantages and disadvantages, whilst Tricks provide a Hero with the capability to do special things, some related to his Power Package, some not. To create a Hero, a player can simply select one of the archetypes given in the rulebook, there being one for each Power Package. Alternatively, he can divide twelve points between his Hero’s four Traits, and then for every point assigned to a Trait, he receives three points to assign to Skills associated with that Trait. This means that the higher a Trait is, the more likely a Hero is going to be better with its skills and that it is probably better to build a specialised Hero rather than a generalist. Points from skills can also be spent on Quirks, but a player can instead choose negative Quirks to gain more Skill points, possibly for positive Quirks. Then the player selects a Power Package followed by three Tricks. There are two each of these for each Power Package, for example ‘Rock Your World’ and ‘Superjump’ for the Goliath Power Package, plus a selection of General Tricks, like ‘Grapple’, ‘Make an Impression’, and ‘Ricochet’. A Hero does receive some free Skills and several skills are suggested that every Hero possesses, such as Bravery, Fighting: Barehanded, Perception, and so on.

Our sample Hero is Orlando Esposito, an art historian at the New Museum of Contemporary Art, Crescent City and the arts critic for the Crescent City Tribune. He is never not seen immaculately dressed and as well as writing about various arts events, consults with the police matters to do with paintings and forgeries. He recently survived a car crash in which he suffered a heart attack. Since his recovery, he has discovered that he can run, really run, and fast. So far he has kept his identity secret and has no intention of revealing his new found abilities.

Orlando Esposito

Smarts 4d – Academia (History) 3, Area Knowledge (Crescent City) 2, Criminology 1, Etiquette 3, Forgery 3, Language (English) 2, Language (Italian) 2 

Speed 2d – Dodging 4, Driving (Personal Vehicle) 2

Spirit 4d – Arts (Painting) 3, Bravery 1, Perception 2, Persuasion (Bluff) 1 (Charm) 3, Scrutinise 3, Search 2

Strength 2d – Climbing 2, Fighting: Barehanded 2, Running 3

Speed: 7
Size: 5

Quirks
Delta Reg ±0, Secret Identity ±0, Unregistered ±0; Addicted (Coffee) -1, Cautious -3, Pacifist -3, Snobby -1; Photographic Memory +5, Self-Confident +2, Voice +1

Power Package
Speedster
Fast Runner: +100 Pace
Lighting Reflexes: +5 to Speed rolls for Initiative and Dodging

Tricks: New Friend, Afterimages, Burst of Speed
Delta Points: 3

Mechanically, Brave New World uses pools of six-sided dice. To undertake an action, a Hero’s player rolls dice equal to the value of the Trait. From these the highest result is selected and if appropriate, a Skill value is added to get a total. If sixes are rolled, these explode and can be rolled again and added to the total as long as the player keeps rolling sixes. Target Numbers from five (Easy) and ten (Challenging) all the way up to twenty-five (Incredible) and thirty (Phenomenal). Matching or beating the Target Number counts as a success, but for every five points over the Target Number, an extra success is attained. These extra successes can then be used to do tricks, such as knocking an opponent down or having an attack ricochet off a wall,  do a ‘Blast Punch’ if the Hero is a Blaster, and so on. A Hero also has a number of Delta Points per session, which can be used to roll another die and add it to the current total, or to save a Hero’s life.

For example, Orlando Esposito is being interviewed by Lieutenant Gregory of Delta Prime because he was seen near some Delta activity. Orlando wants to persuade the Delta Prime officer that he saw nothing. This will be an opposed roll of Orlando’s Persuasion (Charm) versus Lieutenant Gregory’s Scrutinise which is 2d6+2. This means that the Guide—as the Game Master is known in Brave New World—will roll two dice and add two to one of the results. This will set the Target Number which Orlando’s player will roll against. He will be rolling Orlando’s Spirit and adding his Persuasion to one result.

The Guide rolls 2 and 2. She adds Lieutenant Gregory’s Scrutinise of two to get a total of 4. This sets the Target Number for Orlando’s player. He rolls He rolls 3, 5, 6, and 6. The two results of 6 mean that he can roll and add to their totals, This gives him 2 and 6, which means that he can roll again. The final result is 5. So the total result is 6, 6, and 5, which adds up to 17, to which Orlando’s Persuasion of 3 is added for a final of 20. This not only succeeds, but grants three extra successes. Now normally, this is enough to persuade the target to whatever the persuader wants within reason, but Orlando has the ‘New Friend’ Trick, which enables him to make friends really easily. For every Extra Success, he gains a +2 bonus to future Persuasion checks against Lieutenant Gregory, so +6 then!

Combat uses the same mechanics. Initiative rolls are made against an Easy Target Number with Extra Successes generating extra actions, which gives Speedsters an advantage, although this is offset by the fact that the extra actions beyond those of everyone else in the combat come after everyone has acted. It does give them an advantage in that their extra actions from the next rounded can be expended to dodge attacks though. All attack rolls are made against an Easy Target Number, although this can be modified by any number of factors, most notably for hand-to-hand combat, the defender’s Fighting bonus. Damage again uses the dice pool mechanics with the highest die result used to determine the actual damage inflicted. In the main, apart from Blasters and the power armour suits built by Gadgeteers, Heroes are going to be attacking with more mundane means—guns, melee weapons, and fists.

Brave New World handles its superpowers as an extension of various aspects of each Hero. Typically, a superpower adds a bonus to Trait or Skill roll. For example, the Gunner Power Package has Crack Shot and Quick. The first adds +5 to the Gunner’s Shooting attacks, whilst the latter adds +5 to Speed rolls for initiative. These are static bonuses, but variable bonuses are offered through Tricks. Thus for the Gunner Power Package, the ‘Mercy’ Trick enables a Gunner to reduce the amount of damage he inflicts with his shots, even stunning a target, whilst the ‘Pierce Armour’ Trick enables the Gunner to fire bullets through the weak spots in a target’s armour if the Gunner’s player rolls two extra successes.

In terms of support, Brave New World there is some advice on playing the roleplaying game for players, focusing on life as a Delta and the role of a Delta, and on running the roleplaying game for the Guide. Decent enough, with an emphasis on getting the players to the table. In terms of support for the game, the Guide is given a set of seven foes to pitch against the Heroes. They include the Aquarians, a community of amphibian Deltas who live in Chicago Bay; Evil Unlimited, a support network for villainous Deltas; Deaders, corpses brought back to life by the insertion of a chipset invented by a gadgeteers, which simulates their dead brain; Armageddon Pilots of the Delta Prime who wear battlesuits maintained by Gadgeteers; the Police and the Mafia; and lastly, Vampires! Now unlike the Deaders, this adds an element of the occult which is really not present earlier in the rulebook.

Now one of the things that Brave New World: A Roleplaying Game does—and this a feature of the game line—is provide a number of secrets to the ‘Ravaged Planet’ setting. The most obvious of these is the fact that John F. Kennedy died in 1963 and has been impersonated by another Delta since, a Delta who engineered the death of Superior and other Alphas. It also identifies the editor of DeltaTimes.com, but only speculates on where exactly Deltas come from. Similarly, it speculates as the nature of Alphas before suggesting that should any Hero die, then their character sheets should not be destroyed...

Physically, Brave New World opens with a full colour comic—‘Patriot’s Last Stand!’—which depicts the last moments of Patriot, a reformed ex-member of Delta Prima turned Defiant, attempting to save the life of a newly discovered Delta. It is okay, perhaps a little stilted, but it works as a serviceable introduction. It is followed by a lengthy excerpt from DeltaTimes.com which explains the background of the Ravaged Planet. Again in full colour, as are the ten ready-to-play Power Packages archetypes. The book itself is well written and decently illustrated, a lot of the artwork having a certain angst to it.

As a roleplaying game, Brave New World is a low-powered superpower roleplaying game, which by the very nature of its Ravaged Planet setting, is fairly grim. It mechanics are quick and easy, being far more serviceable than those of Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game and Hell on Earth: The Wasted West Roleplaying Game from which they are derived. There should be no doubt that a session of Brave New World could be run today as much as it was twenty years ago and it would be fine, but just as it would be for the Guide today as it was twenty years ago, running a game of Brave New World would be a frustrating experience. Not because the mechanics are poor or the setting bad, but because Brave New World: A Roleplaying Game is extremely limited in its scope.

Now one of the criticisms made of Brave New World is that the number of Power Packages are limited, providing a limited choice for the players, but as much as that is a valid complaint, there is another fundamental problem with Brave New World as a superhero roleplaying game. It does not really explain how a Delta gets his superpowers, it being hinted that he survived a near death experience, which if so, should really be put to the player as a fundamental part of character creation. As in, “What was the near death experience your Delta experienced prior to gaining superpowers?” Now as to the limited number of Power Packages and the limited options within them, it cannot be denied that it limits player choice and once a Hero dies, a player’s choice in terms of a replacement Hero is further limited because so many of the other choices will have been taken and it will be difficult not to replicate another Hero.

In the designer’s defence , he has made it clear that this was done for both ease and speed of set-up and play, rather than opting for a complex build system. In the ‘Choices’ column of March 31st, 2000 on RPG.net, he states, “In other superhero games, balancing out hero powers has often led to character creation systems in which you need several hours and a calculator to build yourself a hero. With the power packages, even a novice player can come up with a hero in under a half hour. An experienced player can do so in about five minutes.” Which is a laudable aim, but it not only limits player choice, it also limits choice for the Guide in terms of the range of NPCs she can confront the Heroes with. Now there are a few standard foes given too, but again, they are limited in number. Further, if the roleplaying games is designed with both ease and speed of set-up and play in mind, why is this only done for the players and not the Guide? Why is there advice on getting the players together and ready to play, but nothing for them to play in the form of a scenario that the Guide can run?

As to the Power Packages, two pose problems. Bargainers and Gadgeteers essentially replicate the superpowers of other Power Packages. Now there are limitations on both—Bargainers can only use one totem at a time and Gadgeteers can only maintain a limited number of devices, but both possess a flexibility that other Power Packages lack. And with that flexibility comes complexity. Even, Bargainers are easier to use since their superpowers replicate the powers of others, but Gadgeteers can build power suits, scanners, space vehicles, teleporters, and so on. They cannot maintain all of them at the same time, but they can build them. Of course, since Brave New World is not a complex point-buy superhero system, the only advice for the Guide is that gadgets bend the laws of physics, not break them, and if a device is too powerful, dial it back down. This still gives the Gadgeteer a lot of freedom and flexibility. Something that the other Power Packages lack, and consequently, just like the Bargainer Power Package, it feels too powerful in comparison. That said, it is particularly frustrating that only gadget given as a sample device is a suit of power armour. This is indicative of the economical approach to information in Brave New World: A Roleplaying Game.

Then there is the big secret revealed in the ‘Brave New Secrets’ chapter, that President Kennedy is actually dead. It is an amazing secret. Its revelation will have a profound effect upon the USA of the Ravaged Planet’, but it has no relevance upon Brave New World: A Roleplaying Game whatsoever. Oh it is relevant to the Brave New World line, but the ‘Brave New Secrets’ chapter ends with the following:

“Of course, the heroes (and the players) don’t know any of this stuff. It’s up to you to make sure it stays that way—at least until we say otherwise.
The Information in Brave New World is released on a need-to-know basis.
We’ll tell you when you need to know.”

This is one of the features of Brave New World, each book in a line revealing the deeper aspects of the setting bit by bit. Yet this is information on a macro scale, rather than a micro scale. Essentially, the problem with Brave New World is the lack of specificity. The world and its background is really only drawn in broad details and there is a lack of detail to the world that would highlight the differences of the ‘Ravaged Planet’ in comparison to ours. What is the media like? Have the efforts of Gadgeteers changed science and technology? What businesses have benefited or suffered from the appearance of Deltas? Of course, in comparison to the overall story, these are small details, but they help paint a world and in the case of Brave New World they would contrast with our world. An example of this lack of specificity is the absence of a timeline. Various dates are mentioned in the background, but at the point when Brave New World is set, the last given date is 1989–ten years before! Similarly, no individuals—normal people or Deltas—are named beyond those in background. Nor is any place described or mapped, not even Crescent City, the city that grew up along the new shoreline of Chicago Bay in the wake of the Bicentennial Battle. Information like this would make it easier for the Guide to create scenarios given the lack of one in the rulebook.

Now some of these issues are addressed in Ravaged Planet: The Brave New World Player’s Guide, the first supplement released for Brave New World. There is a great deal of background in the supplement, in particular on Crescent City and the USA, as well as ten new Power Packages—and of course, more secrets. There can be no doubt that some of this information could be of use to the Guide in running her Brave New World campaign from the outset and arguably, some of it could have been included in Brave New World: A Roleplaying Game. If not that, then at least a scenario that the Guide could run to get her game started and help her players and their Heroes engage with the setting of Ravaged Planet. And support the easy-to-play, quick-to-play intent of using Power Packages rather than character design.

Ultimately, what undermines Brave New World: A Roleplaying Game as a roleplaying game is that it is not complete. It simply does not have enough information or the right information for the Guide to run a game or campaign in a setting that it only gives the broadest of overviews of. The Guide is left needing to purchase another supplement—Ravaged Planet: The Brave New World Player’s Guide—rather than wanting to purchase it to find out more information. In other words, it should be a choice, not a necessity. Which leaves Brave New World: A Roleplaying Game as a roleplaying game with very little for the Guide to work with, but some potential to work with, but only with further supplements. Thankfully, there are relatively few of them.

1998: Hell on Earth: The Wasted West Roleplaying Game

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles—and so on, as the anniversaries come up. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

—oOo—

Published in 1998, Hell on Earth: The Wasted West Roleplaying Game is a roleplaying game with an identity crisis. On the one hand it is a standalone roleplaying game. On the other it is a sequel to Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game, which had proved to be a big hit for their publisher, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, two years earlier. It uses the same mechanics and it is set in the same background, only two hundred years later. It uses many of the same character archetypes as well as adding a few new ones and removing others. It is another genre mashup, but where Deadlands does horror and the Wild West to get the Weird West, Hell on Earth adds post-apocalyptic and fantasy to get the Wasted West. Hell on Earth also reveals all of the major secrets to the Deadlands storyline which had been hinted at in supplements released in the two years leading up to the release of Hell on Earth.

All of which raises two fundamental problems with Hell on Earth. The first is background versus mechanics. The rules for Hell on Earth are those for Deadlands, barring the new and changed character types and genre rules, so if Marshals and players already had that roleplaying game—which seems likely given that the audience for Hell on Earth and Deadlands were essentially the same. Arguably this space could have been better devoted to more of the new background of the Wasted West—there is some background in Hell on Earth, but it does not feel enough, especially considering that it took another supplement, Wasted West, to give that background. This compounds the second issue, that of too many genres, which made the roleplaying game difficult to access. The horror-Wild West combination of Deadlands was an easy sell and an easy buy-in, but the horror-Wild West-post-apocalypse, fantasy mashup of Hell on Earth or ‘It’s the sequel to Deadlands’ was not as much. Setting up, running, and playing a scenario  for Deadlands was easy because both Marshals and players knew both genres from years of exposure to both genres in film and television. Again, with Hell on Earth and its extra genres, not so much.

So in explaining the set-up for the 2094 of the Wasted West, Hell on Earth goes both into some details as how this future came about and how the set-up of Deadlands is the foundation of that. It explains how Native American shaman, known as the Last Sons, in 1863 performed a ritual known as the Reckoning which unleashed malicious spirits that increased the fear levels nationwide, let magic into the world, fuelled mad science with a newly discovered glowing mineral known as Ghost Rock, and created monsters, cultists, and madmen. Their influence prolonged the American Civil War and permanently divided the United States of America into the United States of America and the Confederate States of America with great swathes of disputed territory between them. The need for Ghost Rock would ultimately send mankind to war on Banshee, another world where more of the weird mineral was discovered—as detailed in Lost Colony, the third roleplaying game in the Deadlands series—whilst at the same time bring about the Last War. This was not just a war fought with nuclear weapons, but nuclear-Ghost Rock weapons, and the contained within Ghost Rock the spirits of the damned. When they burned in the irradiated flash of the nuclear explosion, they raised the levels of fear even further, in the process turning the planet into a series of ‘Deadlands’, areas warped enough to draw out monsters from mankind’s nightmares. This ‘wasted’ land enabled those responsible, known as the Reckoners, to reveal themselves and stalk the land in waves of War, Famine, Pestilence, and Death—literally the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Hell on Earth introduces numerous new character types. Doomsayers are ‘radiation priests’ who believe the irradiated and the changed will inherit the Earth and that ‘norms’ are normal humans are doomed. Most cult members see it as their duty to hurry norms to their deaths, but others have rebelled against this and want to protect both people and their future without the slaughter. Doomsayers can blast their enemies with radiation or technology with EMP, cause mutations, and can tolerate radiation. Junkers are ‘techno-wizards’ of the Wasted West who scavenge for pre-war technology, then use a G-Ray Collector to store the power of Ghost Rock into spirit batteries which power the devices they build. Typical devices include chainswords, motion detectors, junkguns, and so on—all powered by the arcane energy of Ghost Rock. Sykers are powerful psychics who were trained by various governments to fight against the insurgency on the Banshee. They can use powers like Arson, Brain Blast, and Tattletale, but suffer strain in doing so. Templars are holy warriors dedicated to helping those in need, but only if they are deserving of such help. Armed with a sword they forge themselves, they gain minor blessings like Lay on Hands and Armour of the Saints which help them in their mission.

Other archetypes in the Wasted Waste include Gunslingers, guns for hire; Indian Braves, Native Americans who eschew technology and stick to the Old Ways; Law Dogs, who wander the land keeping the peace; Ravenites are Native Americans who embraced technology and wealth rather than the Old Ways and are always well equipped; Road Warriors are nomads, ever travelling in search of parts and fuel for their vehicles; Savages grew up after the Last War and distrust technology, whereas  Scavengers search the ruins of the past for it; Soldiers are survivors of the Last War; Tale-Tellers are storytellers who spread hope and news with their tales; and Traders find and sell goods as they can. It is also possible to play certain other character types from Deadlands in Hell on Earth, primarily those with arcane powers. They include the Blessed, Hucksters, Voodooists, and Martial Artists, though to bring Voodooists and Martial Artists into the Wasted West, the Marshal—as the Game Master in both Deadlands and Hell on Earth is known—will need access to the relevant sourcebooks. Lastly, just as in Deadlands, a character in Hell on Earth can die and come as one the Harrowed, one of the ‘undead’ who constantly fights with the evil spirit that reanimated him for possession of his corpse and who is capable of developing his own unnatural powers.

As in Deadlands, the character creation process in Hell on Earth is slightly complex. A character has ten Traits or attributes. His Corporeal Traits are Deftness, Nimbleness, Quickness, Strength, and Vigor, whilst his Mental Traits are Cognition, Knowledge, Mien, Smarts, and Spirit. Each Trait has an associated die type—four-sided, six-side, eight-sided, ten-sided, and twelve-sided, and a Co-ordination, an associated number, typically ranging between one and four. Combine the two and the player has a number of dice that he rolls when his character is undertaking an action, for example, three eight-sided dice if the character has a Deftness of 3d8 and wants to shoot at some varmint. In addition, a character has Aptitudes that represent skills, talents, and trades, such as Fannin’, Shootin’, Teamster, Trackin’, and so on. These are rated between one and five and use the same die type as Trait that the Aptitude is associated with. So the character with a Deftness of 3d8 uses eight-sided dice for all associated Aptitudes, for example, Shootin’ and Speed-Load.

To create a character, a player draws twelve cards from a standard deck of playing cards, discarding two. Any two cards can be discarded bar draws of two and Jokers. The former grants or penalises the character with the four-sided die type, whilst the Joker grants the character the twelve-sided die type and one of two twists. If Black, then an obligatory dark backstory devised by the player and the Marshal together, although a Mysterious Past table is included in the book for the Marshal. If Red, the character is further affected by the supernatural and radioactive energies left over from the Last War. The suit and number of each card determines the type and number of dice for each Trait. So for example, ‘4 of Diamonds’ gives a Trait of 2d6, whilst the ‘Jack of Spades’ gives a Trait of 4d8.  Once generated, a player assigns them as he likes. In addition, a number of secondary stats are derived from the various Traits, notably the number of points to assign to Aptitudes, from the character’s Knowledge, Smarts, and Cognition die types. A character can also have up ten points’ worth of Hindrances, the amount spent on Hindrances generating a corresponding amount with which to purchase Edges.

Our sample character is Walter-5, a Psyker was once Doctor Walter Gallardo, a med student in pre-war Chicago. He was planning to become a surgeon but was discovered to be a Psyker, conscripted by the army, and after his training, was sent to fight the insurgency on Banshee. There he served as the squad medic, but the truth is that he did not want to fight and only did so when he was forced to. Otherwise Walter does not like to talk about what happened off world, although he still suffers nightmares about it. Since returning to Earth, he has walked the land offering to help where he can.

Walter-5

Corporeal Traits
Deftness 4d6
Shootin’ (Pistol) 1, Shootin’ (Rifle) 1, Speedload (Pistol) 1, Speedload (Rifles) 1
Nimbleness 4d6
Climbin’ 1, Fightin’ 1
Quickness 2d10
Strength 2d6
Vigor 4d12

Mental Traits
Cognition 4d8
Scrutinise 2, Search 2, Sneak 2
Knowledge 4d12
Academia (History) 1, Area Knowledge (Home County) 2, Blastin’ 5, Language (English) 2, Language (Spanish) 2, Medicine (General) 3, Medicine (Surgery) 3, Science (Biology) 2
Mien 4d10
Overawe 2, Persuasion 3
Smarts 3d12
Spirit 2d12
Guts 3

Grit 0
Pace 6 Size 6 Strain 12 Wind 24

Hindrances
Intolerance (Military Authority) (2), Self-Righteous (3), Vow (Do no harm to Gamma Squad) (1)

Edges
Arcane Background (Syker) (3), Fortitude (1), Gift o’ Gab (1), The Voice (1)

Powers
Brain Blast, Fleshknit, Mindrider, Slow Burn, Tattletale

Mysterious Past: Destiny
Mutation: Fused Synapses (Never Surprised)

Equipment
NA Pistol with nine rounds, thick winter coat, backpack, combat boots, compass, mess kit, mechanical watch, water purification kit

To undertake an action in Hell on Earth, a player rolls the dice for the appropriate skill. For example, if Walter-5 has to shoot a Radrat, his player rolls Walter-5’s Deftness/Shootin’ Aptitude (1d6), whereas if he wants to determine if the weapon that the Radrat has in its nest is the legendary possessed six shooter that he and his posse has been looking for, then the Marshal might have the player roll Walter-5’s Cognition/Shootin’ Aptitude (1d8).  In either case, the player rolls the dice and counts the best result, attempting to beat a Target Number set by the Marshal, ranging from Foolproof (3) and Fair (5) up to Hard (9) and Incredible (11). Beat the target and the character succeeds, but by beating the Target Number by five, he can get a ‘Raise’, and by beating it by ten, he can get two ‘Raises’. Each Raise improves the success of the skill attempt. ‘Raises’ are made possible because dice in Hell on Earth explode and become Aces, enabling rerolls to increase the total.

Combat in Hell on Earth builds on these basic rules, but uses the deck of Playing Cards, known as the Action Deck, to determine initiative order and a Quickness roll by each participant to find out how many cards they draw and thus how many actions they have. Cards and thus Actions can be held until a player wants to act in a round, whilst Red Jokers enable a character to interrupt another character or NPC and Black Jokers force a character to discard his highest other card and a reshuffle of the Action Deck. Rules allow for Drawing a Bead, Fannin’, Shootin’ from the Hip, two-gun action, the Rifle-Spin, and so on, all straight out of the Weird West of Deadlands, but updates the firearms rules to allow for pumping shotguns one-handed, automatic weapons, and so on. The rules introduce more armour, but also add armour-piercing rounds. When a character takes a hit, he loses Wind, but can also suffer Wounds to various parts of his body.

Other new rules in Hell on Earth cover new environmental dangers like Ghost Storms, which caused by the Ghost Rock Bombs, can inflict spiritual damage as well as radiation damage and mutations. Radiation on the Wasted West has a spiritual component to it also. Vehicle rules also allow travel via cars and vans, as well as supporting the Road Warrior archetype and Mad Max-style games. 

Every character also starts each session with three Fate Chips. These come in three colours. White chips allow a character to roll an extra die on Trait or Aptitude checks, whilst Red chips let him add an extra die to the highest die rolled on a check at the cost of allowing the Marshal to draw a Fate Chip of his own. Blue Fate Chips act like Red chips, but without the benefit to the Marshal. Both White and Red Fate Chips are earned when a player does anything clever or when his Hindrances make his life difficult, but Red chips can also be handed out when a character finds important clues, defeats a minor opponent, and so on. Blue chips are handed out for exceptional roleplaying, discovering a critical clue, or for defeating a major villain. Fate Chips can also be converted into Bounty Points which can spent to improve a character’s Traits and Aptitudes.

Beyond these basic rules are the rules for the ‘Weird’ things that the characters can do in Hell on Earth as Doomsayers, Junkers, Sykers, and Templars. In each case, the character makes the appropriate Aptitude roll—so Faith for both Doomsayers and Templars, Science (Occult Engineering) for Junkers, and Blastin’ for Sykers, and in general, the mechanics for each Arcane Background are roughly the same, although there are small differences for each. So each Doomsayer also has a mutation and knows the Tolerance Power in order to soak up all of that lovely radiation, but there is a limit to the number of times a Doomsayer can use his Powers, represented by his Strain. Sykers simply suffer Strain when using their Powers. 

The Arcane Background that is different is that of the Junker, who collects or scavenges parts, and then builds and modifies devices which are then powered by Spirit Batteries. Like the Mad Scientist of Deadlands, the Junker also gets to concoct theories, determine and buy powers to work the device, and assemble the components, all before building it. For players, this perhaps the most complex of the Arcane Backgrounds in Hell on Earth, involving a lot more than just selecting a power and then getting to roll it in play. There is though, the possibility of Backlash from the Spirit World when attempting to build a Power into a new device. One problem with the Junker rules is the lack of Powers to choose from. The three given—Damage, Sensor, and Trait (as in to assign a Trait like Deftness or Cognition, which then allows Aptitudes to be purchased for it)—provide a limited range of devices which a Junker can build. 

Each of the different Arcane Backgrounds gets its own chapter in the rulebook, each explaining how they work and how playing a character of that type works as well as one devoted to the Harrowed and another to Fear in Hell on Earth. They are in the middle section of the book labeled ‘No Man’s Land’, between ‘Posse Territory’ and ‘Marshal’s Territory’, for the players and the Marshal respectively, just as in the Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game. These two sections are specifically written for the players and the Marshal, and whilst the Marshal has to read all of the book, the players only need to read ‘Posse Territory’. It is only if he wants to play a character with an Arcane Background that a player needs to read the appropriate chapter in the ‘No Man’s Land’ section.

In ‘The Marshal’s Handbook’, the lid is lifted on the secrets of Hell on Earth—what caused the American Civil War to last longer than 1865, the true nature of Ghost Rock, who the Reckoners are, and so on. This though, as the book suggests, is a future, a possible future awaiting the nineteenth century of Deadlands. It is possible for the posse of player characters in a Deadlands campaign to prevent the events that lead to the Wasted West, which means that Hell on Earth can be played as an alternate timeline rather than as a sequel. The bulk of ‘The Marshal’s Handbook’ is dedicated to discussing various aspects of the roleplaying game’s rules as well as providing rules for both fear and terror—the former the environmental factor which can be escalated into creating Deadlands, the latter the rules for handling characters getting scared; what to do when a player character dies—the answer being to let them come back as undead or ‘Harrowed’ and have them fight their inner demons; possibilities for character mysterious pasts and mutations; and a short bestiary. In fact, at just thirteen entries, the bestiary is very short.

Physically, Hell on Earth: The Wasted West Roleplaying Game is as light as Deadlands: The Weird West Roleplaying Game felt in the hand. The book is decently written the editing is good, but the artwork does vary in quality. The black and white artwork often tends to be grey and murky, but unlike Deadlands, the colour illustrations in Hell on Earth are much, much better, not being as muddy.

Of course, being based on Deadlands, the mechanics in Hell on Earth not only suffer from exactly the same issues, but they are exacerbated by the switch to a new genre, from the Wild West to the Post Apocalypse. Now the mechanics were and are appropriate for Deadlands, but they are nevertheless often cumbersome and clunky, with dice and Playing Cards and three—sometimes four—different coloured Fate Chips. Indeed, having three types of Fate Chips just complicates the game, as does having a different ruleset for each of the four Arcane Backgrounds. Fundamentally though, there is a disconnect in the mechanics between a character’s Traits and Aptitudes since the two are never rolled together and Aptitudes have a more direct application in the game than Traits do. In fact beyond providing the die type for its associated Aptitudes, each Trait has relatively little effect on a character and thus even lesser effect on his Aptitudes. Instead Traits only really come into play when a character lacks an Aptitude, in which case the associated Trait is rolled and a heavy penalty levied. At the same time, a character has too many Traits all doing variations upon the same thing. Thus Deftness, Nimbleness, and Quickness are all variations upon a character’s dexterity, whilst Cognition, Knowledge, and Mien are variations upon his intelligence.

What is not really present in Hell on Earth though, is any real advice on scenarios or campaigns. There is a page on adventure set-up, but nothing on the types of games that can be played or the types of adventures or how to get a posse of disparate player characters together. In Deadlands this was not an issue because its combination of genres was simple and familiar, so it was easy for the Marshal to write for, but with its disparate array of genres and character types, this is definitely not the case for Hell on Earth. The consequences are that it feels underwhelming and that is a problem with Hell on Earth from start to finish. Certainly, the rules are all there and will cover most situations and there are plenty of interesting character options and there are roleplaying hooks for them in their particular sections. Yet the lack of overall background, the lack of adventure hooks, and the lack of monsters in combination with the underwritten background, combine to give the feeling that there is not enough to support a campaign and not enough to support the array of character options included. The fact that Hell on Earth reprints much of the content from Deadlands and that another book—the supplement, Wasted West—is needed if the Marshal and her posse want more background to the setting, not only compounds that feeling, but drives it home. Despite the fact that Hell on Earth makes a big thing of its secrets being revealed in this core book, the authors are at best economical with its contents, at worst, stingy. 

Where Deadlands proved popular, winning awards, and being supported by multiple supplements, Hell on Earth was less so. Like Deadlands, there was a d20 System adaptation published in 2002 and a version for use with Savage Worlds called Hell on Earth Reloaded, published 2012. Notably, this moved the timeline on to 2097.

Hell on Earth is proof that lightning does not strike twice, for Deadlands was a success, both critically and commercially, whereas Hell on Earth not as much. Deadlands is revered and remembered today, whereas Hell on Earth not as much. The problem was twofold. In Deadlands, the setting and its genres were familiar and easily accessible and gameable, and the mechanics were appropriate. In Hell on Earth, the setting and its genres were not as familiar, not as easily accessible and gameable, all because there were too many genres and not enough support in terms of the background and advice for the Marshal.

There are some great character options and a potentially interesting setting presented in Hell on Earth: The Wasted West Roleplaying Game. It is just a pity that not enough of that potential is realised in the core book and that it would take other supplements to properly realise it.