Giving Savage Worlds Another Chance

Yes, it has been quite a long time since my last post. I don’t want to go into much detail here, but my mental health issues have been rearing their ugly head again. But I am still thinking about roleplaying games from time to time. Heck, I even managed to get together a small group of friends who are willing to meet once a week.

At the moment we’re still playing Call of Cthulhu, but I am already thinking about what to run after that. One of the games I looked at was – even to my own surprise – GURPS. Back in the 90s I bought a lot of GURPS material, but actually never really played the game aside from a single one-shot. What I really liked about GURPS was its versatility and pretty simple core mechanic. But aside from that its “crunchyness” is beyond what I normally like. Actually I don’t know why I gave it a cold shoulder in the last few years.

Then – inspired by Chaotic GM’s recent post I gave Savage Worlds another look and realized that it actually can do everything GURPS does, but mechanically it’s much more closer to my comfort level. Yes, it has its flaws, but it’s still a pretty robust and well-supported game system. It also is pretty fast to run and to prepare, which is not something you can say about too many generic roleplaying games.

Savage Worlds also has a couple of very interesting settings. My absolute favorite at the moment is East Texas University. It’s basically Buffy with the serial numbers filed off and set into an East Texas town – and it’s full of awesome! The players are students of  East Texas University, a place where the teachers might try to kill you (literally), where freshmen get sacrificed to old gods, and where the lecture halls are haunted by more than just the spirit of academia. The players’ job is to fight evil, investigate hauntings, banish demons, while going on parties and learning for the finals. Yes, my college years are long past me, I am much closer in age to the teachers than the students, but ETU sounds like it could be a lot of fun playing it.

Another reason why I think now is the perfect time to give Savage Worlds another chance is RIFTS Savage Worlds. The kickstarter is still running for a few more days, and its already way past its initial goal. RIFTS is an awesome setting, actually it’s one of my all-time favorites. But the rules are … just let me say, I am not a fan. I am really hoping a “savaged” RIFTS will be more approachable than the original game and allow me to introduce my friends to this totally gonzo setting.

Tomorrow I am going to talk to my weekly group about my plans to run ETU. Let’s hope they like the idea as much as I do.