[RPG]: Rippers, reviewed by C.W.Richeson (4/3)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12271.phtml

Christopher W. Richeson's Summary:

Rippers provides an action packed monster hunting setting for Savage Worlds including new rules and an adaptable Plot Point campaign spanning the Victorian world.

Go to the full review for more information.

[mrouleau]

"The downside here is that these adventures take up a significant portion of the book, which may cause some potential buyers to question the books value to them."

I've always thought one of the appeals of HW books is that it provides a complete campaign and adventures "out of the box."

Heck, even in college all those years ago, the rpgs we used to play was heavily dependent on whether or not there were pre-packaged adventures we could use, and my free time has only gone down since then.

I think one of the great shames of the industry is the padding of rulebooks with "story hooks" or "adventure ideas" instead of an actual adventure. Does anyone find these useful? I don't. I'm quite capable of thinking up plots for an adventure, thank you very much. What I lack is the time to handle all the fiddly bits: stats, encounter descriptions, etc.

[C.W.Richeson]

I prefer adventure hooks because I find creating my own content based off of what the players hand me to be more fun than running prewritten adventures.

I like both, personally, as I'm completely incapable of coming up with plots.

That having been said, Rippers is great, even if you don't use Savage Worlds. The material within can easily be adapted to anything from Hero to GURPS to d20 Modern.

[bloodshadows]

I'm running Rippers right now and my group is loving it. A couple of my players were thinking they wouldn't like SW, but Rippers has made them converts! While it's not your [I]stock[I] Victorian setting, it has all it needs to capture the flavor of the era. It's provided me with the perfect setting to do both high-action, monster hunting and Cthulhu horror... and do it all around the world. I've long wanted to do some victorian Cthulhu but I feared my players wouldn't go for it... now I can run all those adventures with Rippers.
Out of the box, it's a great horror/action game. With some little bit of effort, it can be great for just about anything in the era.


Mike

http://www.geocities.com/bloodshadow...l_Country.html

[Dan Davenport]

Great review, Christopher! Savage Worlds doesn't really do that much for me, but the setting sounds like a lot of fun. I could see using the concept for a group of misguided and ultimately doomed monster-hunters in Buffy, too...

Does the setting involve any magic use, or is it all gadgets and Rippertech?

[C.W.Richeson]

Thanks Dan!

IIRC the setting allows for all the standard Savage Worlds fx, which includes Psionics, Magic, Weird Science, and Miracles (but I suspect not superpowers). They would all be very appropriate for the setting. Within the setting I think there's a lot of room for GM modification and it would work just fine with or without supernatural powers. Indeed, no supernatural powers would play up the importance of using Rippertech.

Dan, Rippers would make a great Buffy/Angel game.