If I wasn't using the "classic" rules for my game, I'd do more on the conversion to Savage Worlds for it.

Happy halloween!

So far I'm enjoying the two Savage RIFTS games I'm in, one here and one on Roll20, but trying to learn the various facets of the system in order to run my own game is pretty slow going. Anyone got spots open?

Rifts is a fun setting in theory. thing is, the character creation system in the original Rifts was a nightmare. more so than d20 could ever achieve. Savage Rifts takes a lot of that class based feel of the original rifts which i feel serves little more purpose than to inflate the math to pander to the Rifts lovers. Savage Rifts character creation is needlessly complicated and does nothing to enhance the Rifts feel. it is merely a word for word attempt at copying the mechanics. i would have rather taken the feel of the setting and ignored the applied mechanics. what good does honestly adding 7 or 8 rolls per character to a series of charts that give randomly generated freebies honestly do for a setting's lore?
This message was last edited by the player at 05:39, Sat 12 Nov 2016.

Sooo... that's a no, then?

In reply to illina (msg # 144):

I respectfully submit a dissenting opinion.  Or in other words:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWdd6_ZxX8c

(Sorry I just have to sneak a Big Lebowski reference in when I can.)

Standard SW has a very flat power curve.  That's not a criticism, it's actually a feature of the system I like.  Characters eventually get very, very good at their core competencies, have a few other bells and whistles that are viable (not great but viable) when their core competencies are useless, but they never ascend to the kind of personal power most d20 system characters will.  The d6 fighting and shooting bandit never stops being a credible threat.  For a lot of games like a grittier feeling fantasy game or Deadlands, that's perfect.

That is however wholly inadequate for Rifts.  Rifts is all about power and discrepancies in power and differences in different kinds of power, it is both the mechanical feel of the original rules and a strong theme in the setting.  This is a world where it sucks to be a squishy meatbag of a pitiful human, which is why the powers that be have arisen and it creates the politics of the setting.

Any setting, be it Shaintar or Necessary Evil or just generic supers or Rifts, that wants to capture that feeling of the player characters are somehow just physically superior to most of the other characters in the world is going to have to bolt on a lot of rules to make that happen.  And imho that's what's cool about SW is you can hack it and bolt stuff onto it and the core system still works.  Indeed I would suggest you could almost have taken the Super Powers Companion, come up with a variety of 30 or 40 point "packages" and said "This one's the cyborg, this one's the crazy..." and turned them into the templates and it'd be no less complex.

Savage Rifts takes on not only that challenge of expanding the system to create a power differential in the mechanics that also exists in the lore, but also tries to integrate the more modern design notion that there ought to be some kind of parity between the different character options.  That is extremely challenging; how to make the Vagabond feel like he or she narratively and mechanically matters just as much as the Hatchling is not easy.

It's not perfect by any means but imho Sean Patrick Fannon did an amazing job parsing out just enough of the essence of the original while still keeping it Savage.  Rifts is just a beast of a game (imho to the point it's mechanically incoherent) and it can only be distilled so much until you completely lose the feel of it, so the end product was always going to be a bit dense.

YMMV, not every game has to please everybody and there's plenty of choices if you don't like a particular game and I still <3 you if you don't like the same games I do etc., hardcore fans of the classic system will still hate this version, batteries not included etc.

Also the charts themselves are a bit odd, I understand why they included them because classic Rifts has a lot of charts too, but there's already people house ruling or fudging the chart rolls and I think I remember SPF himself commented somewhere GMs should run the game and the setting as they see it (paraphrasing what he said based on imperfect memories, can't even remember where I saw it).

Anyone here play Destiny? I have been thinking about running or trying to play in a game with that setting using the SW rules. Anyone do any conversion work?

Continuing on that idea (I'd start a thread for it but I can't), I have been looking at ways of recreating the Destiny experience with Savage Worlds.

In Destiny, you play as Guardians, warriors of human or robotic descent who were chosen by the Traveler, a mysterious, godlike entity from space. You wield Light in many forms, basically space magic, imbued unto you by the Traveler. There are several different classes that each wield it differently, but the basic concept is the same. Futuristic space wizards and warriors.

So, I was looking at creating a new Arcane Background specifically for Guardians, with each class/sub-class taking a slightly different variation or having different groups of powers to choose from. But, after looking at the Savage Rifts stuff, I am considering doing up a full Iconic Framework to cover the unique traits of Guardians. That way, they can purchase various abilities like variations on movement powers and attack powers as special abilities with Advances, like Edges.

That, or Arcane Backgrounds come with a little more oomph than usual, enough to complement the various races (which aren't wildly different from humans). Then powers could be relegated to Edges, although it's not that different. I might actually use some stuff from the Super Powers Companion. I do like the idea of powers requiring energy, because Supers in Destiny require charging up and then you use them and have to build up energy again. So that fits the general mechanic fairly well.

I'm also considering swiping the Hero's Journey rules. Each class of Guardian (Titan, Warlock, Hunter) could easily have different choices on the Hero's Journey table.

So, yeah, those are the choices I'm facing, mostly. Everything else is typically statting up or flavoring various weapons from the Science Fiction Companion, not too much to worry about. The big thing is decide whether to go full Iconic Framework, or make a somewhat altered Arcane Background for Guardians. Then I can do up powers and sub-classes as Edges and special abilities.

What do you more experienced SW folks think? Any Destiny fans?

I played destiny when it came out, but no more internet (save my phone, which isn't usable by an xbox, afaik).

I have no idea what an iconic framework is. Personally, I'd avoid anything that limits players into classes. Being a classless system is a major advantage of sw.

I don't have much in the way of sw supplements (swmlp and deadlands testplay only), so I don't have a lot of reference, but I'd modify the superpowers arcane background. PCs can learn a variety of powers each usable independantly. Then, you can stack the mad science and wizardry types. Use the mad science rules for the various equipment and weapons found (changing it so such items exist, pcs use them rather than make them). Then use the wizardry type (I forget the specific name), and use that for the big powers, but change it so that pp need to be gained rather than automatically recharging over time.

That is what I'd start with anyway.

If you want to keep some remark about the classes, simply make starting packs for the powers based on class (representing their intial training/knowledge), then improve in the normal classless way.

Anybody doing anything with The Last Parsec?  Skimming the SW list of games, I didn't see anything.

The greatest game everyone owns but nobody plays, haha

I think then that I have a new project!  Just about finished reading Savage Rifts Tomorrow Legion Player's Guide, so may jump to The Last Parsec Core to read next.  A friend of mine tossed out an idea which I liked the sound of, might try putting something together off-line.  Who knows?  It might make an online appearance later on, once I get time budgeted better!

My understanding is TLP is more of a 'sandbox' style setting - a few published scenarios, but otherwise it's a skeletal framework for a Sci-Fi game?

Hmmm - still reading TLP, but given the data on background, JumpCorp, and types of races (only through first 3 chapters as jumping back & forth with Sci-Fi Companion), I get the impression that TLP is more akin to Star Frontiers than Traveller conceptually?


I have to giggle a bit at the Florans though... I just keep thinking of Triffids or Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors....

Has anyone played/run in the Kerberos Club setting?  It looked like it might be interesting.

(Helps if I spell it right.....)
This message was last edited by the player at 20:57, Thu 16 Feb 2017.

Been doing a lot of reading in Reality Blurs settings recently...

"Karthador:Swashbuckling Science-Fiction" looks really interesting and "Ravaged Earth - Revised 2nd Ed" is intriguing thus far.

Anyone run or played in either of these settings?

Figured I'd repost this here:

Here are a couple game concepts I wouldn't mind trying out through Savage Worlds, since I still don't have much experience with the game.

Aliens
I really like this setting and would like to explore both the survival aspects of it and the mythology. Let us explore Pilot ruins and deal with perhaps a global or intergalactic break out of the xenomorphs. Lots of variants born of different species, mysteries locked behind the enigmatic Pilot technology, and tense crawls through ships, space stations, infested colonies. What starts as perhaps an isolated incident soon blossoms into a fight for galactic survival.

Destiny
We are Guardians, the last line of defense for the last city on Earth. Adventuring through the solar system, facing down hostile aliens, uncovering relics of the past, establishing outposts, all of that sounds pretty cool to me. A nice mix of action, intrigue, and exploration. Seems like SW would work pretty well for it, though I'm not married to it.

World of the Dead
I'd like to play a great zombie apocalypse game focused on survival, including building up communities, scavenging, the nightly struggles. It's not so much killing zombies as it is the aspects of surviving, exploring a post-apocalyptic cityscape, and so on that interest me.

An INFESTED space station could be a nice combination of some of those ideas.
=

How do you mean? Is it something you'd be interested in doing?

Time, that most precious of resources.
If only I had more of it.
=

Imagine something like Red Crabs were accidentally brought aboard a space station.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLoXDFDeD9E

At first they are small but yes, they are omnivores, why do you ask? ;)
=

I would be interested. I have some ideas for a cool Aliens game (and one for a crossover Aliens vs Mass Effect), but not sure I could do another game at the moment. And it'd be fun to play, too! Not sure Mythic would be enough.

Would also be interested in something like a Dead Space-inspired game (or something directly in that setting).
This message was last edited by the player at 18:08, Wed 12 July 2017.

I think what would make it interesting is the NPC trapped throughout the station.
Things like exposing areas to vacuum to purge the Krabs would be deadly to the survivors too.

Dealing with the horde of evacuated colonists that had fled to the station to escape the things on the surface and blaming each other for bringing the Krabs with them.

People starving or thirsty in their hiding spots trying to reach food and water, opening places best left closed.

Reduced resources and access as Krabs ate insulation and circuitry.

Great use of the swarm template and 3D thinking. ;)

Where's the swarm template stuff located, anyway?

https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws...s/SWEX_Templates.pdf

While not labeled as "Swarm" they represent the size.
=