…or something like that.

Nope, despite the reference, this is not a post about Highlander. Instead, I’m just sharing how our group has been deciding on what future games we’re going to be playing over the summer and, hopefully, into the fall.

I suppose I could have been quite autocratic and dictated what we would be playing but I elected to soften my iron fist with at least a veneer of velvety democracy. I laid out some basic boundaries and then allowed the players to vote for what they want to play.

The boundaries were pretty simple:

1. we would be using Savage Worlds as the core system;
2. we’ll be playing a Deadlands campaign (which was an easy sell since our recent, and only, Deadlands session was one of the most enjoyable sessions we’ve had in a long time);
3. we’ll be switching between Deadlands and a fantasy setting;
4. and there are five options for the fantasy setting (all published settings for Savage Worlds) which include (in alphabetical order):
• 50 Fathoms from Pinnacle Entertainment Group
• Caladon Falls from Savage Mojo;
• Hellfrost from Triple Ace Games;
• Shaintar previously from Talisman Studios and sometime to be Reality Blurs (I think)
• Sundered Skies from Triple Ace Games

We took an elimination approach for voting. In each round, we’d “vote off” one of the settings. For the first round, I provided reviews of each setting from Kurt Weigel of Game Geeks…assuming I could find one…to give a consistent perspective across settings. Hellfrost, Shaintar, and Sundered Skies each had such a review. I couldn’t find one for 50 Fathoms or Caladon so I gave a written review of 50 Fathoms and the video “intro” to Caladon Falls.

Each player then got to vote (myself included) and the results were three votes for kicking out 50 Fathoms and one vote to kick out Caladon Falls. To be fair, my vote was for Caladon Falls and I just rolled a d4 to see which setting was voted out since it was already a unanimous vote from the other players. My vote didn’t really matter and I was happy to see that none of my top choices got the initial axe.

For the next round, I shared the “initial blurbs” for each of the remaining settings…you know, the first few paragraphs from the beginning of each setting book which gives an overview of what the setting is all about. For full disclosure, we’ve all played quite a bit of Hellfrost and so I didn’t need to give a blurb for that.

The voting wasn’t quite as unanimous this time. One player voted to kick out Hellfrost! This player loves Hellfrost but decided it would be nice to try something new. Plus, since this was turning into something of a Survivor spoof, Hellfrost would probaby have already melted away on the tropical island.

Two votes were for Sundered Skies. Was there some sort of conspiracy against Triple Ace Games? All three votes were for their settings!!! Sheesh people…where is the love?!? Wiggy even named a town after our group in one of the Hellfrost Region Guides and this is how you thank him?!?

I’m just playing with the voters so don’t let this influence any future votes…at least not too much.

Grabbing my trusty d4 again, I rolled and voted to kick out Shaintar. So with two votes against it, Sundered Skies, as one of the players put it, failed to take off with the group and got the boot.

Again, my top choice(s) survived the cut which, of course, continues to make me happy.

For our third round of voting, I have provided sample characters for Shaintar (Heroic Archetypes which used to be a free download at RPGNow but I can’t see to find there now) and Caladon Falls (The Milltown Irregulars freebie from the Savage Mojo website). Again, we’ve all seen characters from Hellfrost (a few players have played more than one character due to deaths) and so we’ve got a good idea of what they’re like already. The players have also had the opportunity to take a look at the first chapter of Shaintar and the first part of the Caladon Falls Player’s Guide. Oh, I also shared the Travelogue of Tavish Thorne…a piece of free fiction from Savage Mojo for Caladon Falls available from DriveThruRPG and RPGNow. They’ve all read the Hellfrost Player’s Guide previously as well.

Voting for the third round hasn’t finished yet. Hopefully, we’ll wrap it up by the end of the weekend. I’ve got my fingers crossed that my favorite(s) is/are still around…no one likes a pouting GM after all.

I’ve enjoyed the process so far and I’ll post the third round results next week.

We’re looking for one or two players to join our group. A couple of our current players will be moving out-of-town over the next few months. Although we flirted with playing Pathfinder, we’ve decided that we want to stick with/go back to Savage Worlds. Our current plan is to start playing some Deadlands soon and then pick up with our Hellfrost campaign (of which you can read about on this site). The Hellfrost campaign will be our “main” campaign but we’ll periodically switch to other settings for one-shots and mini-campaigns.

We typically play on Saturday evenings (from 7pm to around midnight) at my home in the Myers Park area. Adults only please (21+) and we prefer non-smokers.

If you’re interested or want more info, just respond here and I’ll get in touch with you.

I’ve recently decided to give the Pathfinder RPG a try. Over the last few years, our group has had a number of changes in players at the table and we’ve gone through a number of different game systems. We played 3.5 for quite a few year and, when 4e came out, we gave the new kid on the block a pretty good run. I ran 4e for about a year before I decided that it just wasn’t going to be for me. We then moved to Savage Worlds for about a year and, while I think it is a great game and one that I’d be happy to run, we’re still going to give Pathfinder a shot…if for no other reason, to remind us of why Savage Worlds is such a great game.

My current plan is to run a mini-campaign for the next couple of months and see how things go.

So we’ve had some changes to our player lineup, a short break due to my travels, ended our last Hellfrost session on a bit of a sour note, and had a visiting player from out-of-town joining us. I didn’t, given this situation, want to run the normal Hellfrost campaign but we certainly wanted to do some gaming since Pat, our visitor, doesn’t really get to game much (if at all) in those lovely North Carolina mountains that he now calls home. So…what to do?

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A couple of quick notes…a bit on a minor deity in our campaign and homemade Rune Bennies.

One of the characters in the game, Cuðbert (played by Jamie), is a priest of a minor god (spirit?). In the Hellfrost Player’s Guide, rules and guidelines for creating minor gods are provided and the various Region Guides provide lots of wonderful examples of minor gods in the setting. These minor gods are great for GMs They add more variety and allow the GM to “personalize” stuff in the game without worrying about the canon of the established (i.e., written about) major deities. They are also great for players that want to come up with a character concept that doesn’t quite fit with any of the major deities.

Cuðbert is exactly one such character. Jamie had a basic character concept and he and I bounced ideas back and forth to “actualize” his concept in the game. At first, we worked on coming up with a new Arcane Background but, eventually, we settled on using the rules for minor deities…something, in retrospect, we should have just done in the first place. Below is the stat block for Gaupa…we haven’t written up any fluff yet.

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So last with last week’s session we wrapped up the Side Trek: Hrafn Point. This week we got back to the regular campaign with the Heroes of Dalsetter right where we left off previously (months ago). The session writeup will be coming soon. In the meantime, we’ve had some changes in characters. Not only do we have three more players in the group but Todd’s character, Sebbi, met a rather untimely death.

So I figured now is a good time to throw up a post with all of the PCs…as a reminder and introduction.

The current PCs include:

• Andwik, a Saxa Hearthkeeper (priest) of Kenaz (played by Cliff)
• Cuðbert, a Saxa ex-logger and “host” of Gaupa, Spirit of the Forest Lynx (played by Jamie)
• Karaphos, a well-traveled and elderly Anari Heahwisard who has cut most ties with his homeland (played by Thomas)
• Lia, a Hearth Elf Road Warden (played by Robert)
• Nissa, a woodswoman, herbalist, and lockpick (played by Kathryn)
• Skuli Odwinsunu, a Saxa Iron Guild Mercenary (played by RJ)
• Taranis, a Tuomi Air Elementalist and Lorekeeper (played by Todd)
• Wulfwynn Wiglafsdohtor, a Saxa Reaper of Eostre (played by Rachel)

Quick reminder: We’re using a house-ruled Guts. It starts equal to starting Spirit and is then improved like any other skill.

I’ve been a bit remiss with updating the site with recent sessions but if anyone in Tallahassee is interested in a regular, face to face, tabletop Savage Worlds campaign, I’ve got one or two spots at my table. If you’d like to find out more info, you can contact me at melchioronetwo at comcast dot net (replacing the italicized at and dot with the appropriate symbols of course and replacing the italicized one with 1 and the italicized two with 2…damn spammers!). You can also register with the site and post a reply here (though if your email and/or name don’t look legit, it won’t get approved…same if you have a gmail account…again, damn spammers!).

The current plan is to alternate between a Freeport campaign (Green Ronin’s pirate setting) and a Hellfrost campaign (Triple Ace Games’ epic heroic fantasy setting).

One of our out-of-state friends and players, Pat, was in town visiting and bearing gifts of beer in the hopes of getting in on a game. Given where we were with the Freeport game, I didn’t want to try and work in another character. Especially since there would be a good chance that the character would then need to be played by someone else in later sessions until the character would leave, die, whatever in a not overly contrived fashion. So, instead, we did a pulp adventure (Daring Tales of Adventure #2: Web of the Spider Cult)…which is carrying over into this week and that’s a good thing since another out of town friend/player is visiting this week.

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Assuming that you’re playing in a game/campaign that uses miniatures and you’re at least a little bit like me, then a miniature that is a good visual representation of your character adds a nice touch to the game. Custom paint jobs are great (assuming the player doesn’t say something like, “My character stands out in a crowd but doesn’t draw attention to himself. Can you paint him all brown?”) but take time. Plus, as the optometrist noted at my last exam, I’m at that age now where the eyes start to go. Pre-painted minis are a great convenience but already have the appearance established (unless you paint them). Paper figures like from One Monk are great for the baddies but something a bit more three-dimensional is preferable (at least to me) for the main stars of the game, the PCs.

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[Warning: Potential spoilers for the Savage Worlds Horror adventure, The Mutator]

The next session was going to be the day before Halloween and I wasn’t going to have enough time (or motivation) to finish up a prop I wanted for our next Freeport session. So what’s a GM to do? The answer seems pretty obvious…run a one-shot for Halloween. I grabbed a horror one-shot from Pinnacle, made some modifications to it, and set up the room to be a bit more conducive to a horror/slasher flick type game.

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