Savage Worlds - Good Call!

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Post originally by Sean Patrick Fannon at 2004-01-13 18:05:11
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Just wanted to say congrats on the column, old buddy, and to chime in with my agreement about Savage Worlds. It is a fantastic system of rules that I have adopted for my own product development.

One quibble, though. You describe it as a pulp-era game, when in fact it is perfectly suited to a number of genres beyond that. I grant you that the marketing angle of the core product is very much in the pulp vein, but the first two major releases, Evernight and 50 Fathoms, are not what I would call "pulp era" at all. One is fantasy with some horror elements, while the other is swashbuckling pirate fantasy.

My ultimate point is this - Savage Worlds is an extremely strong entry into the "universal system" category of game systems. It has a different flavor than those that have preceded it, certainly, and this may be one of its strongest selling points. The other, of course, being that it is a slick, easy, sweet-ass system to play, GM, and particularly to design in.

All for now,

Sean Patrick Fannon
Author, The Fantasy Roleplaying Gamer's Bible
Creator, Shaintar: Immortal Legends and Alpha/Omega: Modern Gods
Partner, www.ActionStudios.com

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Post originally by Ross Winn at 2004-01-14 07:11:38
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True that Savage Worlds canbe made to work for other things. However I think that Evernight (as I have not seen 50 Fathoms) is a pulpy fantasy setting. Your mileage may vary, as always. Thank you for reading and your support.

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Post originally by Grop at 2004-01-16 01:00:15
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Excuse a poor non-native English speaker, but could any of you explain this 'pulp' notion to me ?

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Post originally by SteelCaress at 2004-01-16 03:41:47
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Ah. Yes. Where to begin?

Pulp as a genre came out of the 1920's and 30's, when there were almost literally two genres. There was literature -- Edith Wharton, Ernest Hemingway, etc, and there were the things that were relegated to the newsstands in magazine format, pulp. The intellectuals considered literature to "good," and pulp to be "bad." But pulp was what the vast majority of people were reading and enjoying. The term "pulp" comes from the often cheap paper these magazines were printed on, and "pulp" eventually became representative of a genre.

Fantasy, science fiction, detective stories, horror, high-flying airplane pilots, all of these and more were to be found between the covers of the pulps. If you have ever read any H.P. Lovecraft, Manly Wade Wellman, Clark Ashton Smith, or Robert E. Howard, then you have read something that was originally published in pulp form. If you have thrilled to the adventures of John Carter -- Warlord of Mars, Conan, Doc Savage, The Shadow, or the Phantom, you've enjoyed "Pulp."

"Pulp" is now used to describe anything with larger-than-life heroes performing amazing feats of derring-do and escaping by the skin of their teeth, only to fall into another trap that they have to claw their way out of.

Imagine being an explorer of a strange new land, being chased by a large dinosaur that shouldn't be alive nowadays, and your only avenue of escape is over a large cliff, where a waterfall right beside you rushes past. One mistake will send you plummeting a thousand feet to your death. That's a very typical pulp situation.

Pulp in gaming is represented by a system that rewards the players for outrageous acts. Atlas Games' Feng Shui, and Dan Bayn's Wu Shu, are two fine examples.

For more info, check out these links:
<http://www.rpg.net/news+reviews/columns/ingenre28aug03.html>
<http://thepulp.net/>
<http://www.pulpzone.com/>

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Post originally by Grop at 2004-01-16 04:36:13
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I understand it is generally extravagant, action-based adventures, like Jack Vance's Tschai cycle, and may keep some cheap and easy connotation, I guess.

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Post originally by Bard at 2004-01-16 18:02:06
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Why hasn't anyone mentioned White Wolf's "Adventure!" yet? It's debabtly the best pulp game on the market. It won the Origins Award, IIRC, the year it came out. The game is freaking AWESOME. System mechanics wise it allows for a great deal of control over the game world by the players, and allows for the modeling of just about any conceivable pulp character, from Doc Savage to giant talking gorillas. Story wise, it has a fantastic metaplot and a great setup that allows just about any sort of story to be run in the game world without requiring major tinkering with the setting.

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Post originally by Ross Winn at 2004-02-13 09:38:04
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well, primarily because not everyone feels that the Aeon/Trinity Mechanics are appropriate. I for one, do not generally care for them.