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Greywulf's Games of the Year 2009

Where would the end of the year be without the end of the year review posts? Nothing says New Year more than a look at what has been. Without further ado I give you Greywulf’s Games of the Year 2009!

Looking back, 2009 has been a wanton harlot of a year, promising much role-playing variety but delivering little. Yet at the same time it’s been a terrific year for gaming with sessions covering everything from Scooby Doo to The End of the World itself. My little group has visited planets (and blown the carp out of them), travelled the multiverse and camped atop a Barrow Mound in Northern Cardolan.

What we’ve not done though is seen much variety in our gaming systems. I had hoped to have some Alpha Omega sessions under my belt by now, and harboured a secret desire to mashup Traveller and Call of Cthulhu one more time. I wanted more Dogs in the Vineyard, more Primetime Adventures and more…. well, just more. but it sadly wasn’t meant to be. But hey, that’s what new years are for, right?

With that in mind, here’s the winners:

Honourable Mention: 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars
Last year’s Game of the Year has earned a pride of place at our game table time and again. It’s quick to prep and blindingly hilarious to play. Take a bunch of friends, lots of alcohol and blow shit up. What’s not to love? As the game develops it evolves with the horror of your character’s actions and increasing questioning of humanity’s place in the cosmos taking over.

Last year I said it was the perfect game system and it still is… almost. 3:16’s only weakness is that it doesn’t stand up well to solitaire (one GM/one player) play. This is one game which demands a bunch o’folks around the table!

Bronze: Savage Worlds
AKA The Little Game System Which Could. The intertubes are already chock full of praise for Savage Worlds so you don’t need me to say how good it is – you should already know by now. This is a great system for Doodle Campaigns where you want to turn your campaign idea into playability with the least effort possible. Character Generation is flexible though demands a lighter touch than hardcore D&D gamers might expect. By default a starting Novice character is far weaker than with 4e 1st level counterpart meaning it’s perfect for that gritty low-level urban sprawl fantasy you’ve been aching to play. Or a modern-era campaign. Or swashbuckling in 17th century France. Or anything else, for that matter. Savage Worlds is generic, in the best meaning of the word.

Silver: Mutants & Masterminds
Anything Savage Worlds can do, Mutants & Masterminds can do better. This is my go-to system for anything outside the D&D norm. Underneath the wonderful superhero battle armour there’s a superb generic system pulsing like a beating heart. This is the game from which 4e D&D has stolen all it’s best innovations only to copy them badly. I’m looking at you, Minions and Action Point rules. With the watertight Power Level rules M&M can scale and handle anything from the lowliest TV cop drama up to cosmic-level threats of Unimagined Awe. The default Power Level (10) is prime for superheroin’ goodness with the heroes roughly equal in power to Spider-Man or the Fantastic Four. Drop it to PL6 and our heroes could match your typical 4e D&D characters or be street-level beginning superheroes.

I’ve yet to find anything which M&M cannot do right out of the single Core Book but it’s also one brilliantly supported system with genre books covering all the Ages of comicdom and beyond. This year saw the release of Warriors & Warlocks, a full-on fantasy supplement for M&M which is inspirational reading for anyone who wants to game with armour and sword. Better than D&D? Oh yes.

Gold: Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition
Yet it’s the daddy of them all which gets Gold. Yes, M&M is a technically superior system. Yes, Savage Worlds is more flexible. Yes, 3:16 is more explosive. But nothing captures your hearts and imagination like Dungeons & Dragons. The Fourth Edition rules are rock solid and deliver the goods, in spades. Combat has gained a whole new dimension with the Powers system – it’s tactically challenging, tense and exciting. Outside combat this is the same D&D we know and love with the added awesome of Skill Challenges adding another layer onto the game. Anything you could do in previous editions of D&D you can still do, and the designers have done a fine job of adding more without taking a darned thing away.

Where 4e really shine though is it’s hackability. This is a system which cries out to be toyed with. Monster building and customization is trivially easy once more. That’s a huge relief after the painful voodoo of Third Edition. Monsters are monsters again and adding Classes to monsters no longer involves putting aside a couple of hours in a darkened room with a stiff drink. Want a bigger than normal orc or a weakened Dragon? You can do the math right at the table, during play.

Building a whole new class isn’t for the faint hearted but creating a new Race is simple enough and adding new skills is as simple as… well, just adding them. Where 4e stands out is in Encounter building. Given a pool of XP (enough to create an easy, medium or hard challenge) you can fill it in so many ways with combinations of monsters jumping off the page. With monsters being given roles it’s easy enough to match the critters to your tactical needs. Want the heroes to battle big monsters up close while being harried by arrow-fire from above? Drop a couple of Brutes on the table, and add Artillery. Pick your monsters according to XP and taste, and you’re done. Want a load of monsters under the command of a leader? Use one Controller and a load of Minions. Encounter building was one of the most difficult aspects of Third Edition, and in 4e it’s one of the best and most enjoyable parts of the game – for this Lazy GM, at least.

I could go on about just how great the Monster Manuals are, about the individual Classes, Treasure allocation and more, but I’ll save those for future posts. There is a whole new year of blogging to fill up too, after all.

Till next time, and good gaming!

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Posted 28 December 2009 † greywulf § RPG § Review ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: , , ,

Savage Thoughts

So, what did we think of Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition? Well, after one session, it received more thumbs up than 4e D&D did after it’s first game, which is a good sign. 4e has been more of a slow burner for my group – now, at last, they like it, but Savage Worlds has won their hearts (mostly) right from the start.

SWEX_CoverThe best line I can think of which explains Savage Worlds is this: If Toon, Classic Marvel RPG, Rolemaster and Mutants & Masterminds had an orgy, Savage Worlds would be the result. 1

Let me explain……..

Like my much loved Rolemaster, it uses an open-ended dice mechanism meaning if you roll the maximum on your dice (4 on a d4, 6 on a d6, etc) you add and roll again. This works like Rolemaster’s add and roll if you get 96-00 on a d100 where it’s possible (but rare) to get a ridiculously high result, and be rewarded for it in kind. There’s no opposite-but-equal roll low and deduct mechanic, but Bad Things Do Happen if you roll a 1 on both your Trait and Wild Dice, which is kinda similar. Add in that you’re using multiple different dice and Savage Worlds must have a success probability curve to make a math geek faint with joy. I like.

Talking of multiple dice, Savage Worlds uses dice rather than attributes to rate a given Trait or Attribute. A character might have Strength d8, for example, or Gambling d10. One of my players nailed it when he said this is like Classic Marvel RPG where having an Attribute of d4 is Poor, d6 is Typical, d8 = Good, d10 = Excellent, etc. That’s an excellent comparison, and immediately hooked the rest of the players into how the game hangs together.

So, Savage Worlds is like Rolemaster mixed with Classic Marvel. But wait, there’s there’s more.

Nerd definition of an rpg alert! : The job of any role-playing system is to encourage and help adjudicate the behaviour of imaginary characters. At one end of the scale there’s Toon, the ultimate cartoon RPG where characters can do literally anything – well, anything imaginable in a cartoon, anyway. It’s a system which downright encourages players to think off the wall, coming up with crazy-ass (and fun!) things to pull out of their quantum backpockets and routinely break physics in weird and wacky ways.

At the other end of the scale there’s Fourth Edition D&D where the majority of a character’s actions are quantified, tabulated and listed right on the character sheet. That’s not to say you can’t freeform and play imaginitively with 4e D&D (you can!), but that the wealth of pre-calculated Powers means it’s less likely that players (and GMs) will do it. After all, why swing from a chandelier when you can just teleport there instead?

Savage Worlds is much, much closer to Toon that it is to 4e D&D. The character sheet is minimal with very few secondary calculations and derived stats – just Pace, Parry, Charisma and Toughness. It’s a system where you’re encouraged to think creatively and use your skills and abilities in clever ways. For example, in the Library scene one of the players threw books at the vampire while another one tried to topple over the large bookcases. That’s the kind of great use of the environment you just don’t see in 4e D&D with it’s pre-printed battlemat crappery.

And still, Savage Worlds is like Mutants & Masterminds. It’s a generic one-book system which genuinely does provide all you need to game in a single tome. Whilst M&M is a generic system cunningly disguised as a Superhero RPG, SWEX proudly proclaims it’s status as a Pulp Action Hero game – but it’s much, much more than that. This is a system I could happily use as…. well, as anything I wouldn’t use Mutants & Masterminds for. I’ve described it as M&M Lite before – it’s less crunchy, but just as adaptable to any genre, and just as fun to play.

But it’s not without faults.

The encumbrance rules are the harshest I’ve seen in any rpg, to the point where they’re downright unusable. Equip an average (Strength d6) character with Leather Armour, a Longsword, Backpack, Crowbar, Bedroll and nothing else and he’s encumbered (at -1 to all Strength and Agility-based checks) already! And he’s not even using that Longsword to full effectiveness either – to do that he needs Strength d8. Switch the Longsword out for a Shortsword & Crossbow and he’s way over the first threshold. So much for a light thief in leather armour. I’m either going to ignore the encumbrance rules altogether, or ignore the weight of weapons and armour in the calculation. Either would be an improvement.

I’m sure there’s more faults, but that’s the most glaring one we’ve found so far. We’ve another session (and a whole new one-shot sandbox campaign setting!) planned for a few weeks’ time. I’ll tell you more about that one though, another time.

  1. Not, of course, that this is How Orgies Work. Just so you know. ↩
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Posted 16 July 2009 † greywulf § RPG ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Savage Doo and Tiddles too!

Man, I hate writing game reports. There’s something about them which takes me straight back to school writing essays entitled “What I did during my summer holidays” at the age of seven, as if there’s some way you can capture those long hot hazy days spent cycling and paddling in streams and put into words all the emotions and feelings that whirl about in a seven year olds’ mind.

Game reports make me feel like that, as if I’m trying to bottle fun or encapsulate 3 hours spent doing something you love in a paragraph or two. It’s selling the soul of the thing, and writing down what’s left.

But anyway. Here goes.

One session. Four players. Savage Worlds. Scooby Doo.

The session went well, especially bearing in mind I’m the only one who has read the rules :D Character generation was a big hit – one of my players said it’s like Mutants & Masterminds Lite – and it felt perfect for sketching out a character concept quickly. While one of the players took Tibbler the Talking Cat (renamed to Tiddles), all generated a character or two using Hero Lab in around 30 minutes flat. Nice.

I guess Savage Worlds chargen is best described as “Disadvantage-based generation” where it’s the characters’ flaws which define them, over and above their stats and skills. Hindrances (that’s the official SWEX term) encompass more than what we’d normally call disadvantages with options such as Loyalty, Code of Honour and Curiosity all featuring in the list. It’s the role-playing potential of the hooks within the Hindrances system that gives Savage Worlds it’s edge, I reckon. Describe your character as an arrogant yet honourable loud mouth and that’s pure role-playing gold, right there.

There were a few minor niggles, but no show-stoppers. The main one was with the Hindrances system itself. Per the rules, a starting character could take 1 Major and up to 2 Minor Hindrances, but what if you wanted to take 2 Majors (a Blind man with a Code of Honour, for example), or 3 Minors? Also, most of the Hindrances listed in SWEX are either Major or Minor and that’s that. I’d prefer it if the player could choose the scale of the Hindrance themselves rather than them be fixed; a Major Big Mouth would be far worse than someone who just didn’t know when to stop talking, and someone who is Minor Bloodthirsty might feel the urges, but be able to contain the worst of them. Similarly, a Doubting Thomas who doesn’t believe in the supernatural may well only be worth a Minor rating in the Modern World, but in a Fantasy setting, that’s a pretty darned Major hindrance to have!

As said, it’ not a major thing and something which I’d happily handwave away anyhow – you wanna play a Blind man with a Code of Honour, go right ahead.

“Mutants & Masterminds Lite” describes our whole SW experience overall, I guess. Combat plays much like M&M complete with damage track (though no Toughness Saves) and Bennies working like Hero Points but a little less flexible/usable. You can use them to re-roll any Trait check or soak up damage, and gain them (over and above your starting 3) for great role-playing, making the GM laugh, etc. I’m used to tossing poker chips at my players to use as Hero Points in M&M, so this mechanic fits right into our style of play.

“Gurh!”

We managed to finish the session in just under three hours including chargen, and that included a few clues I tossed in which had them scratching their heads for a while, two combats and a chase. Tiddles (the Talking Cat) led the group with his three human “pets” as the front for their Mystery Inc franchise. They’d been invited to stay a night in a crumbling US Civil War-era mansion. It’s been said that no one has slept in the house since 1834 when the last surviving occupant – Colonel Alda Cur – disappeared. The current owner is the pale-skined raven haired Mary Cur, and she’s hoping to break the curse so she can finally sell the relic.

Except, of course, all was not as it seemed. Alda Cur is, of course, an anagram of Dracula (something my players didn’t notice!). The Colonel is a descendant of the original uber-vampire, as is Mary, his daughter. I used the Vampire stats for both, with the Zombie stats for Gurh the Butler (who only said “Gurh!”), and Swarm stats for the obligatory Bats in the library.

“You hear high-pitched squeaking coming your way, fast.”
“Ssshhhhh!! This is a library.”
“The bats fall silent…..”

The players were made comfortable by Mary (who, it turns out, wants to lift her curse and lead a normal life) before she left them all alone. Well, except for the Zombie Butler and the Colonel who made a suitably Scoobyesque (which isn’t a word, but should be) appearance at the top of a grand flight of stair surrounded by bats and mist. Meatloaf was probably playing in the background too.

One short scuffle, and the chase is on! I was eager to try out the Chase rules and they’re very good indeed. They managed to keep the momentum going while controlling the action and our heroes ran through the mansion for a while dodging obstacles including flying grandfather clocks, twitching curtains and lots of crockery before the Colonel finally gave them the slip in the cellar.

“We need a stake!”
“Tiddles, now is not the time to think about food.”

That’s where they find their first clue – a photograph of the Colonel ripped in two. There was clearly Someone Else stood beside him when it was taken in 1834. Later (and one attempted neck biting) later, they find fragments of the other half in the fireplace – it’s Mary!

Joachim, the team’s nerdy tech expert had set up video surveillance cameras in the room where they were to sleep, and when they check the recordings, they Notice that while Mary is on the recording, she has no reflection in the mirrored wardrobe behind her. As they settle down, the Colonel makes his final visit.

“All those lives…. I’m sure you can spare one, little kitty.”

How do you catch a vampire if you’re Mystery Inc? Easy. With a wardrobe, an electric fan and a large glass bottle! Tiddles lured the Colonel in the wardrobe then scooted out through a hole in the base. The Colonel turned into mist which Anne and Maxine blew (using the electric fan) into the large glass bottle. Joachim quickly plugged the hole with a cork: one captive Colonel.

I have seriously clever players!

“Give me four lives, my daughter, and you shall have yours returned. This, I swear.”

The next morning, Mary arrives expecting to find dead bodies and a satiated father willing to release her from her curse. Instead, she finds Tiddles & Co happily eating breakfast and her father perched on the mantelpiece! As it was close to our end-time, I wrapped up with her explaining the deal she’d made with her father and Mystery Inc persuading the Colonel to release his Vampiric hold on Mary.

He agrees in return for being let out the bottle so he can reform. Colour and life appears in Mary’s cheeks and appears to spread throughout the house. She picks up the bottle with a warm smile.

“Oh, I will release you father…… eventually.”

The end. Fade to credits.

Phew! Comments and observations about the rules, next time.

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Posted 11 July 2009 † greywulf § RPG ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

Savage Doo: Scooby Doo for Savage Worlds!

Scooby Doo is, I reckon, the greatest untapped role-playing game setting of all. It’s got the lot; fun characters, horror, a ready-made team setup, chases, comedy, great locations, awesome traps, episode-based design, investigation and geek sex appeal. Heck, it’s even got a talking dog. What more do you want?

When it came to picking a setting for my first Savage Worlds trial session, Scooby Doo was a no-brainer. After all, I didn’t want fantasy (that’s what 4e D&D is for), and didn’t want superheroes (Mutants & Masterminds!) – at least, not yet. I wanted a setting and genre that doesn’t invite comparison with either, but is still familiar enough that the players can dive right and and understand the tropes of the setting.

So, Scooby Doo.

I remember playing the Hi-Jinx mini-game from Polyhedron/Dungeon #158 back in the day. This followed a similar premise to Scooby Doo, but with the heroes as crime-fighting pop band. No, really. Damn, I loved those mini-games, but unfortunately my group was firmly in the minority and they eventually died a death. Shame, that.

I’m considering expanding this further to create an unholy mashup of Scooby Doo, Harry Potter and Torchwood where the heroes are Gifted schoolkids (and a talking dog) who defend Earth from Alien invasion, but that’s a little ambitious for a first scenario. More on that (and thanks and kudos to my twitter followers for ideas!) another time.

For this trial session, the characters are all starting Novices and are either human or highly intelligent pets. We’re just using Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition so winging it is the order of the day. I have a few pre-generated characters prepared, but they’ll be there more as a guideline of what I expect; I’d rather the players get a feel for chargen right from the start. It is, after all, extremely quick to do in Savage Worlds.

Here’s a couple of examples.

Kevin Schempp the Geeky clumsy bookworm
Agility d4, Smarts d8, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5, Charisma 0
Driving d4, Fighting d4, Investigation d8, KS:Occult Lore d8, KS:History d10, Notice d8, Stealth d4, Taunt d8
Luck, Bad Eyes:Minor, Quirk:Whistles, Delusional: Major (Believes in everything)

Tibbler the Talking Cat
Agility d12, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d4
Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 3, Charisma 0
Climbing d8, Fighting d4, Guts d6, Notice d6, Stealth d8, Survival d6
Danger Sense, Quick, Small, Cautious, Quirk:Must Chase Mice

Matilda Vayne the gorgeous martial artist
Agility d8, Smarts d6, Spirit d6, Strength d6, Vigor d6
Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 5, Charisma 2
Driving d8, Fighting d8, Guts d6, Investigation d6, KS:Occult Lore d4, Persuasion d8, Swimming d6
Attractive, Doubting Thomas, Loyal, Overconfident

From a GM’s perspective, Scooby Doo has a ready-made adventure framework that looks something like this:

  1. Arrival at weird location
  2. Initial combat, discover clue
  3. Chase (or be chased), new location
  4. Second combat, villain’s escape, new clue
  5. Preparation, final combat
  6. Unmasking and resolution!

Tweak a little according to taste, but this is a tried-and-true plot framework. Don’t mess with the Doo unless you really have to!

Scooby Doo is full of weird locations: old fairgrounds, abandoned mines, creepy castles and shopping malls. Ok, I lied about the shopping malls. This session is going to be set in a crumbling US Civil War-era mansion and our heroes (proud franchisees of Mystery Inc.) have been invited to stay the night. It’s been said that no one has slept in the house since 1834 when the last surviving occupant – Colonel Alda Cur – disappeared. The current owner is Mary Cur, and she’s hoping to break the curse so she can finally sell the relic.

So, that’s the setup. I’ll let you know how we get on.

Linda_Cardellini_01
Did I mention the geek sex appeal?

UPDATE: Just to prove that all great ideas have already been thought at least once before: here’s the Savage Worlds stats for Scooby, Shaggy and the gang!

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Posted 07 July 2009 † greywulf § RPG ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

A Bevy of Savages

I’ve been putting Savage Worlds’ character generation through it’s paces, and I gotta say I’m impressed. My initial feeling that starting characters are seriously underpowered has gone now that I’ve got more of a feel for how the generation process hangs together. Using the ever excellent Hero Lab character generator certainly helps, but even without that I’m knocked out by just how quick it is to throw together a character once you’ve got the basic concept in mind.

Here’s a handful of characters from a variety of settings and genres, just to show the flexibility of the SWEX rules. As what I want out of Savage Worlds is a rules light, one book system for those times when Mutants & Masterminds is too crunchy, I’ve used only the rules from that one book for all of these. Doubtless I could go much further with them thanks to the countless genre supplements and conversions (both fan-made and commercial) there are for Savage Worlds.

All are Novices at 0XP.

Manda Carli
Let’s start with a recreation of one of my own characters. Here’s Manda Carli from our old Traveller campaign set in the Elite universe. She’s smart-mouthed, beautiful and one of the best pilots within Jump-6 of Lave. Oh, and her spaceship is called Mary Lou.

manda
While SWEX lacks spaceship rules, they’re more than adequately covered by this Traveller conversion (pdf)  if they’re needed.

Manda Carli
Agility d8, Smarts d8, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Pace 6, Parry 4, Toughness 5, Charisma 2

Driving d6+2, KS:Computer d4, Guts d6, Piloting d10+2, Repair d6, Shooting d6, Streetwise d4
Ace, Attractive
Quirk (Won’t hear anything bad said about her spaceship), Stubborn, Wanted (Major:By Zaonce Crime Syndicate)
Laser Pistol, “Mary Lou” (Modified Scout/Courier)

Khonun
Know, oh Prince, that this ain’t Conan. It’s Conan’s dumb brother. Here’s your archetypal D&D-style Barbarian complete with Berserk rage and low IQ. Compared to Manda above we’ve stepped back tens of thousands of years, and SWEX still holds up. It feels like GURPS done right. Nice.

Khonun
Agility d6, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d10, Vigor d6
Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 5, Charisma 0

Climbing d6, Fighting d10, Guts d6, Intimidation d4, Notice d6, Stealth d4, Throwing d4, Tracking d4
Berserk
Enemy (Major:Stygian Sorcerer), Outsider, Quirk (Says “By Crom!” a lot)
Greataxe d10

Barry Wandwright
….and into the modern day with a classmember from Hogwarts. Here’s a talented bookish chap who is braver than he believes. No skill at Quidditch though, and he’s probably got a crush on Hermione. But then, who doesn’t?

Barry Wandwright
Agility d4, Smarts d8, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d6
Pace 6, Parry 2, Toughness 5, Charisma 0

Guts d4, KS:Arcana d8, KS:History d6, KS:Muggle History d4, Notice d4, Spellcasting d6
Arcane Background:Magic, New Power
Delusional (Minor:Photos take your soul), Enemy (Slytherin bully), Young
Spells: Armor (Protego), Deflection (Expelliarmus), Light (Lumos), Stun (Stupefy)

Birgle
Back in D&D territory again, and this time it’s riffin’ it Old School with your typical frail-but-powerful Magic User. Birgle is my attempt to “break” Savage Worlds with a character who is very powerful in one area but equally weak in others. In Birgle’s case he’s extremely talended with his (limited) spells, but a sudden gust of wind could kill him. Just like any other Wizard this side of Fourth Edition D&D, then.

Birgle
Agility d6, Smarts d12, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d4
Pace 5, Parry 4, Toughness 3, Charisma -2

Fighting d4, Investigation d8, KS:Arcana d12, KS:History d8, Notice d8, Spellcasting d12
Arcane Background:Magic, Wizard
Elderly, Hard of Hearing, Mean
Spells: Armour (Force Shield), Bolt (Magic Missile), Entangle (Web)

Theron
Joining him is a Rogue from a low (or zero) fantasy setting. Theron is a rapier-wielding no-good urbanite who doesn’t believe in silly tales about magic, monsters and the like. Goblins are nothing more than ugly children and zombies just have a bad skin condition. It’s great fun to play a character like this in the Forgotten Realms, btw………..

I like the combination of Cautious and Curious. He’s tempted, but knows he shouldn’t. Hehehe.

Theron
Agility d8, Smarts d8, Spirit d6, Strength d4, Vigor d4
Pace 6, Parry 6, Toughness 5 (Leather Armour), Charisma 0

Climbing d6+2, Fighting d6, Lockpicking d6+2, Notice d6, Shooting d6, Stealth d8(+2 urban), Streetwise d8, Tracking d4
Thief
Cautious, Curious, Doubting Thomas

Rapier d6, Sling d6
Backpack, Waterskin, Lantern, Oil

How am I doing so far, oh Savage Worlds experts?

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Posted 04 July 2009 † greywulf § RPG ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged:

My world just got a bit more savage

My very own copy of Savage Worlds Explorer’s Edition plopped through the mailbox today. This is a game that I’ve played once or twice, read Vulcan Stev’s and Uncle Bear’s posts about the game with interested curiosity (or should that be curious interest?), read the Test Drive and soaked up as much information as one body can possibly take without actually owning the game.

And now its mine! Bwahahahaha, etc.

These are my first impressions of the game, looking at it with a completely clean “new book” mind.

It’s so small!
It’s half the size of the 4e D&D Player’s Handbook in every way. If you could fold the PHB in half top-to-bottom, you’ve got the dimensions of the SWEE, and it weighs in at just 160 pages. That’s about a squillionth the size of the D&D Core Books put together. True.

It’s so big!
Despite the lack of stature, it’s also feature complete. This one teeny tiny bookette includes character generation, combat, special abilities (magic, super-powers, psionics), mass combat, GM information and even an adventure. Phew!

What’s more, none of it feels rushed or crowded. The layout is superb, especially if you’re an…. ahhhh…. older gamer whose eyesight is starting to fail. Big font, clean layout, and a wide variety of images from various genres. I like.

It might be complete, but I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it’s comprehensive. As a superhero RPG fan, the super-powers section was one of the first I turned to, and there’s more than enough abilities to tickle the imagination, but Mutants & Masterminds this ain’t.

I’d say it compares very well to both GURPS 4e and d20 Modern, and could easily replace both as either a solid generic engine and/or as a modern-day game for episodic action. That’s my first impression anyhow. I’ll let you know how that translates right at the game table.

Novice means just that
When I’ve played before, we used pre-generated Seasoned characters, so creating my first Novice baseline guy was a bit of an eye-opener. Your starting character in SWEE is very, very low-powered, to the point where I actually feel constrained by the character generation rules. That’s not a Good Thing, imho. In M&M terms, this feels roughly on a par with Power Level 3, but with just 30 points to play with. Or, to put it another way, take a 4e D&D character, remove all the powers and deduct 5 from all the stats.

I know the Wild Dice mechanic makes a big difference between your heroes and the rest of the world in play, but that doesn’t help at chargen where what you want to be able to do is create a character with options right there on the sheet.

Do people actually play at Novice level? Even the Pregenerated Characters from Pinnacle’s Downloads section are all Seasoned or higher.

Hopefully, that feeling is something which will go as I learn my way around the system some more. Any help or advice appreciated!

With that in mind, here’s my first SWEE character, just for y’all to pick apart.
brett

Damn this image turned out dark. Ah well. Let’s call it ‘moody’.

Brett is a Chicago homicide detective with a chequered past (don’t they all?). His refusal to help the local Mafia led to his wife’s murder, and he’s more than a little obsessed with finding her killer once and for all. He’s convinced that his bosses know more than they let on, and his curious nature has got him into trouble more than once. He’s not the brightest ‘dick on the force, but he’s the one you want by your side when bullets and fists start flying.

Detective Brett Gudrun
Agility d4, Smarts d6, Spirit d8, Strength d6, Vigor d8
Pace 6, Parry 5, Tough 9 (Kevlar Vest), Cha 0

Driving d4, Fighting d6, Guts d6, Investigation d6, KS:Law d4, Notice d6, Shooting d8, Stealth d4, Streetwise d6
Brawny, Curious, Deathwish (Find wife’s killer), Delusional (Minor:Convinced superiors know more than they let on)
Glock, Kevlar Vest

Now….. what would you do differently?

Thanks!

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Posted 03 July 2009 † greywulf § RPG ‡ Comments (0) ° Also tagged: