Fat Rat Games

…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.