Friday, July 8, 2022

Savage Worlds Fantasy: Alpha 1.1 Released

I like keeping on top of these news releases since I want to keep up with the core games I play. Savage Worlds, SW Pathfinder, SW Superheroes, and SW Fantasy are the ones I play.

In SW Fantasy Companion news, they released a new beta of the book, to version 1.1, and it looks like a lot of the changes are tweaking powers and monsters. Check it out here:

https://www.pegforum.com/forum/savage-worlds/savage-worlds-general-chat/feedback-on-the-fantasy-companion-for-swade/61349-important-notes-changelogs

It is funny since Savage Worlds Pathfinder got a lot of attention from fantasy gamers coming over the system; the Fantasy Companion, the more generic fantasy system for the game, has gotten much of the same attention. The book is a tremendous setting-neutral fantasy resource, with many fantasy gamers helping test the system. This is looking to be a must-have for the less Pathfinder-style games set in other settings like Greyhawk, The Forgotten Realms, or even Mystara.

I ran a Savage Thule solo game with the SWADE core rules plus the older Fantasy Companion, and it was a great game. It felt "Savage Worlds" enough; some conversions just don't do it for me, and I think the original classes and monsters are built into the setting. Strangely enough, Greyhawk, the Realms, and Mystara feel this way for me. I just want to play those settings with Castles & Crusades and be comfortable in the B/X base plus unified "save + skill + feat + class feature" mechanics of the SIEGE Engine.

Honestly, many people complain about the SEIGE Engine as something they added to a B/X style of rules, which is unnecessary. When you realize that one mechanic replaces every skill, feat, save, and class mechanic in the game, you will begin to see the genius of the design. This is very close to the genius Swords & Wizardry "unified save" mechanic. Still, it covers every bolted-on system added to the game after AD&D in a single ability score and level-based roll.

Also, in Savage Worlds news, the Superpowers Companion is shipping in September! Back in the 1990s, we were big superhero games with the great Marvel Superheroes system from TSR, but these days Marvel/SC just have that Disney/AT&T/Wall Street stink all over them, and a lot of the classic comics and teams I loved feel disposable and spent. The Avengers? It's over. The X-Men? Significant in the 1990s, but the legend and legacy were wasted and squandered.

We are in this post-superhero era where we are tearing down the icons and deconstructing them, like the Amazon series The Boys. Even if you were to reboot a classic team, such as The Avengers, I would get this feeling they are some alternate universe recreation of the original team in something like Mojoworld or out of The Truman Show. Maybe that is how I will play that campaign, with all of them slowly realizing they were fakes, to begin with, like everyone who came before, like everyone in the MCU, and the real heroes all died when Stan Lee passed away.

And they slowly descend into madness, addiction, shifting alliances, becoming heroes or villains in spite, and an eternal search for who they really are.

Everyone is in this cheap reboot cinematic universe.

And nobody outlives their creators.

Or I will go with new teams and heroes entirely and forget the reboots, and keep with this genre's heroic intent and story.

And also, in Savage Worlds news, the Curse of the Crimson Throne and Advanced Player Guide Kickstarter is in its last 5 days, so if you like the books and want more, now is the time to jump on board! Let's push this one over the 150K mark and make a statement we want more Savage Worlds Pathfinder!

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