Tips for Getting your Game Online

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/02/09 – 00:00 -

Last Sunday was my first attempt into trying to bring my Savage Worlds game into the 21st Century by moving it online.  Some of my players will be moving out of the state (and one the country) so we were looking to change our play to adapt to the new distance.  While I am big fan of internet technology and generally try to live more and more in the cloud I found the experience frustrating and bit off putting.

Set it all up your stuff a week in advance

It may seem like a bit of a duh but get all of the programs you’ll need to run your game setup well before you play.  I chose to use MapTools for our game as it was free, open source, and generally didn’t annoy me.  That being said it does have some quirks that are not apparently at first, unfortunately, these “quirks “held up the game for an hour while we tried to work them out.

1) Everyone needs to use the same version. Which was something I wasn’t aware of at first; fortunately some of my players also play in another online game and quickly pointed this out to me.  So save some time and use the same version.

2) Just because the program says it can be accessed from the internet doesn’t mean it’s not lying to you. I was never able to host the game.  While the internal tools told me I should be able to host the game no one was ever able to connect.  In the end I had another one of my player’s host the game.  I never figured out why it didn’t work, but I discovered some great port forwarding tutorials at PortForward.com.

3) Careful with maps done in Photoshop. While a minor quibble at this point it was frustrating to put in a map that had been lovingly crafted only to have it not fit the internal grid.  After getting everything is setup, make sure your maps work properly; it’ll really dampen your mood if it doesn’t.

Register all the accounts before hand

Most of my players either didn’t have Skype.  So we spent a good while getting everyone registered, futzing with mics, and generally getting us all on at the same time.  Save yourself some pain and assign some homework to everyone to get the accounts setup and registered well in advance.  Skype has a great built in tool to make sure the mic is on and that you can hear everything.  Use it.  It’ll save you time pretending to be the Verizon wireless guy.  “Can you hear me now?!”

Have you tried to make the transition to online play? What successes or failures have you had?


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Savage Mondays – February 8th, 2010

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/02/08 – 00:00 -

It’s a Savage World out there, and Apathy Games provides the tools to survive it. First, check out our Savage Worlds Primer. If you’re looking for more up to date news, here’s what’s happening now:

Apathy News

Translation Partnership with Retropunk.net | Apathy Games

We are pleased to announce a new partnership with Retropunk.net! They will be translating our Savage Mondays posts  into Portuguese for all of the Portuguese speaking Savagers! Retropunk.net translated the Test Drive rules and we look forward to spreading more news about them.  If you are interested in translating the news into another language please let us know!

Breaking Out of Your Shell | Tabletop Armory

A guest post written by Tyson J. Hayes has been published at Tabletop Armory talking about breaking out of your shell as a player or game master.

Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Deadlands: Reloaded Screen Inserts Available | Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Pinnacle announced that Deadlands: Reloaded Customizable GM Screen Inserts are now available.  The screens have customizable backgrounds for all of your Marshal needs.

Dealands: Reloaded new One-Sheet Adventure | Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Pinnacle is showing the Deadlands lovin’ this week with a new one sheet for the setting called Scarecrow [PDF Link].  Take the posse down to Alder Creek and see what sort of reception you get.  Those who survive let us know how it went in the comments.

Savage Worlds Licensees

Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade | Third Eye Games

Third eye games this week announced their new game Wu Xing: The Ninja Crusade with a release date of mid-2010.  While details are few we’ll keep you updated, or you can fan them on facebook.

Hellfrost Canvas Map – Road Wardens Edition | Triple Ace Games

Triple Ace Games announced the release of a canvas map for Hellfrost showing  you the frozen lands of Rassilon.  This map is “printed with eco-solvent permanent inks on archival quality canvas, then coated with a professional grade acrylic varnish for added protection.” It can be found at the Triple Ace Games store.

Daring Tales of the Space Lanes: The Black Guardian | Triple Ace Games

A new Daring Tale of the Space Lanes was released this week for sale now.

The heroes must wrest an ancient alien relic from the grasp of a dangerous crime lord, but this is only the beginning of their problems as the artifact is either the means to save a world or condemn it forever! Plus there are several others who wish to get their claws on it, as well!

Freedom fighters, an old enemy and new allies await the adventurers in the dry deserts of Gator.

Do you like Savage News, but want it more than once a week? Subscribe to our Twitter. We won’t promise to drown you in a flood of news, but we won’t promise not to, either. As always, if we missed something, let our readers know in the comments.


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Establishing the End Game: Hitting the Abort Button

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/02/05 – 00:00 -

We’ve all been there; your epic adventure has stalled.  Your players are in love with the game and you could care less.  It’s more than just writer’s block you’re just not feeling it, so what’s a GM to do?

Talk to the Players

Players have an excellent way of revitalizing interest in a campaign.  Ask them what they want out of the adventure and what they are hoping to do.  If your players are anything like mine they’ll have had goals from the get go and would love time to expand upon them and be able to achieve those goals.  This could prove for some good material to move the campaign forward.  With this try to focus more on the characters instead of the overall storyline, it’ll keep the game moving.  Play to your strengths, and keep working on the overall plot you’ll be back on track in no time.

Switch Adventures

During a Planescape game, Paul had three to five adventures running simultaneously.   We would be doing research on one and be tracking a villain from another. While I’m sure it required some juggling on his end as players we could pick the type of adventure we were most interested in.  As he was using prebuilt adventures, he was never at a loss for material. If your current campaign is going nowhere try changing the focus of the campaign for a couple of sessions.  The brief stint away from the main goals may prove to be enough of a refresher that work may begin anew on the main plot.

Give up the Ghost

Sometimes everything you do just proves to be in vain and you need to press the abort button.  Keep in mind a couple of things when ending.

Your players are emotionally invested.  They’ve spent countless hours playing in the game and developing their characters so try to give them some closure.  Try to wrap up as many character plots as you can.

Leave the story open to continue. Just because you’re done running right now doesn’t mean you won’t want to pick up this game in the future.  Try to leave a couple of threads around to pick up later.  Some suggestions may be that the villain they’ve been tracking the entire campaign sets a trap and lays in wait, only for the players to find out that there is another more powerful villain lurking in the shadows.

Give a sense of closure. As you are leaving some threads open you won’t be able to wrap up everything.  However, it is paramount that you give some sense of closure to the current storyline.  Choose a downer or a happily ever after ending but don’t just end it out of hand.

Have you ever had a campaign that you had to abort? How’d you go about it?


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Your first Spin of the Character Wheel

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/02/04 – 00:00 -

While you don’t want to build your whole character at once, you should give the wheel a quick, cursory revolution before you start play. The reason to do this is in a cursory fashion is that none of the details should be set in stone. While the order of the wheel is designed so that early categories readily influence later ones, during the first pass the whole character in malleable. New ideas you come up with later in the wheel can contradict earlier choices, which you can change to match.

Significant Details

Every good author knows not to bombard a reader with large amounts of superfluous description. It puts the reader to sleep and detracts from the story. Instead, it is best to present only the significant details, and leave everything else out.

The same holds true for your character. Comming up with pages of information that will never have an effect on the game is a fruitless effort. It is better, particularly on your first pass, to concentrate on creating one or two details for each category that you want to effect the story. These will be your go-to details. You’ll use them to describe your character to other players, to directly influence the character’s actions, and to provide the game master with plot hooks for adventure building.

Example of Significant Details:

Concept: Korinthus Talwin is an adventuring noble who has sought a life in the wilds and dungeons of the world to escape his oppressive family who has members in every major city.

Description: Fair appearance and soft skin. Looks like he’s spent his whole life coddled.

Motivation: Afraid to go into any trade city for fear that he’ll run into family.

Motivation: Gambling Addiction

Background: Member of the noble Talwin family.

Background: Lost his ancestral home in a gambling binge.

Attitude: Sneers at the poor and destitute.

Attitude: Loves opulence. Only buys the highest quality gear.

Relationship: Geron Talwin, Father. Korinthus is hiding from his father, who would make an example of him to the rest of the family.

Relationship: Mak, Friend. The gnome who snuck him out of town in the first place. He said he was going to join Korinthus, but never appeared.

As you can see, these details are just small pieces of information, but they tell a lot about the character, and provide a number of hooks for the game master to use. And better yet, the whole process only took me a few minutes.

A Note on Secrets

It’s often tempting to make a character more interesting to yourself by giving him a secret, but many players then spend the entire game trying to keep the secret from the other players and feel violated if the game master exposes them.

This behavior is anathema to the entire nature of tabletop roleplaying and characterization. If a character is going to have a secret,is must affect the game in a positive way. In essence, your character’s secret is a significant detail that provides the game master an adventure hook, and is useless if it isn’t exposed at some point. You should work with your game master as to how you would like the secret to effect the story.

Write Down Your Details

In addition to filling out any relevant sections of your character sheet, make a list of significant details collected from all categories and give it to your game master so he can use them. If your sheet doesn’t provide space for these details, make sure you write them down for yourself as well.

Continue Indefinitely

Your character, like the campaign, is not complete until you stop playing. Keep moving around the wheel a little at a time. Character advancement is a great time to do a little more work. You’re already having to make mechanical choices, so you may as well take a spin around the wheel, adding to the character and considering how the character may have chanced.

Make sure you go over your significant details occasionally. If any of them have been used as hooks, and probably won’t be again, then it’s time to come up with new ones. You never want your character to run out of interesting ways of landing in trouble.


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Introducing the Character Wheel

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/02/03 – 00:00 -

Character creation is an ongoing process that, like any art, resists too much structure. Nevertheless, it benefits from a guidelines and process. What follows is a development tool that will help you grow a character alongside your campaign. It’s called the Character Wheel.

The Basics

The Character Wheel is a simple metaphor. The wheel’s hub are both your character’s core concept and the image you hold of them in your head. All other aspects of the character are spokes that revolve around, and are informed by, the hub.

The wheel itself never stops turning, because character development never ends, but also to provide a convenient order of operations when considering aspects of your character. As you play the game, you just keep moving around the wheel, adding to your character.

Finally, the wheel is a reference. Every has aspects of their character that they develop more easily than the others, but this can make the character’s wheel unbalanced. This isn’t terrible, by any means, but it points out weaker aspects that deserve attention.

As the Wheel Turns

Alright, Mr. Carlsen. You’ve beaten me over the head with a metaphor, but how does it actually work?

Fair enough. As this is an introduction, I won’t dive deep into the details yet; the individual parts of the wheel will each get more dedicated development, but what follows is an overview.

First, you must establish goals. You need to consider what you wish to accomplish with the character prior to anything else. Establishing goals and guidelines prevents you from creating a character that doesn’t fit the campaign, or that doesn’t work with the party.

Second, come up with a character concept. Your concept is a short description of the character. Your elevator pitch, no longer than a few sentences.

Third, develop an image of the character in your mind. This includes tone, atmosphere, emotions, actions, sounds, smells, and anything that adds to that intangible feeling you have of a character. Everything that follows is an attempt to capture and define that image.

Finally, once you have a concept and image, you can start working your way around the wheel. You start with one category, develop some ideas within it, then move on to the next. The spokes, or categories, are arranged in an order so that what you develop in one will most readily influence what follows. But this order is what works best for me, so rearrange it at will.

  • Description: This category includes physical description, interesting marks, accents, behaviors, and mannerisms. Essentially, all the things that someone might notice about the character.
  • Motivations: Goals, fears, dreams. That which drives a character to act.
  • Background: The events and places that have influenced the character, including history, education, and hometown.
  • Attitudes: Characters have opinions on everything. Record them for posterity.
  • Relationships: These are the people who have influence on the character.
  • Mechanics: The game rules. These come last because they feel more natural if they are influenced by the other categories.

That’s it for the basic outline, and is probably enough that you’re already considering how to use it. Tomorrow I’ll start digging into the meat of the process, so stay tuned. In the meantime, I’m interested in what character creation systems you have most enjoyed. Let me know in the comments.


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Organizing your Hooks

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/02/02 – 00:00 -

Adventure hooks are a must have for every GM’s arsenal.  A list of quick plots to get you going is amazing when used at the right time, but how do you organize such a beast?  In this digital age everything needs to be categorized, tagable, and searchable.  Take this blog for example, you can search by tag, category or words contained in the post to find what you need.  Google has spoiled us in quickly finding the information we need.  So what is a GM to do? Use Evernote.

Evernote is a powerful note system that is easily accessible from not only your computer but from any mobile device.  This means any time you think of a hook or idea for your game you can quickly note it to access it later.  It makes everything searchable, allowing you to easily find everything.   Organization is a snap, just make a new note and place it under the notebook you want it to be under.

Personally I organize my plot hooks under a simple notebook called “plot hooks” I tag them with monsters that appear in the hook, the system, and some words that might describe it.  As Evernote also allows you to add images, I include pictures of the monsters.  I also link to websites I may need to reference for the hook to work.  This allows me to dump in everything I need to run quick encounter.  Add in another notebook for prebuilt characters and I’m ready to go anytime.

While this is an ideal solution for most organizational needs there is one small snag that you can only upload 40mb a month.  While this is rather paltry in size it does allow for quite a bit of text, just go easy on the pictures.

Overall this product has been great at helping me organize my games and may consider getting a premium account for more upload space.

What tools do you use to organize your games? Pen & Notecards or do you have something a little more digital?


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Savage Mondays – February 1st, 2010

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/02/01 – 00:00 -

It’s a Savage World out there, and Apathy Games provides the tools to survive it. First, check out our Savage Worlds Primer. If you’re looking for more up to date news, here’s what’s happening now:

Pinnacle Entertainment Group

Deadlands: Reloaded Limited Edition | Pinnacle Entertainment Group

The core book for Deadlands: Reloaded is out of stock, but you’re in luck. Pinnacle has lowered the price to their fancy Limited Edition to $39.99. If you like leather bound, foil stamped books, this one is for you.

Pinnacle Teases Us with New Solomon Kane Book | Pinnacle Entertainment Group

It’s called The Savage Foes of Solomon Kane, It’s full of adversaries and savage tales, and that’s about all they’ll tell us. Why must they be such cruel masters?

Savage Worlds Licensees

New Hellfrost Adventure | Triple Ace Games

If giant mind controlling spiders taking over small villages sounds like the start of an adventure to you, then Web of Deceit was made for you.

Space Pulp for Fantasy Grounds II | Triple Ace Games, SmiteWorks

Daring Tales of the Space Lanes and Slipstream are now available for the Fantasy Grounds II virtual tabletop.

New Adamant Website is Now Live | Adamant Entertainment

Not only do they have a new, functional, and rather attractive website, but they’re also discussing their plans for 2010.

Upcoming Releases for The Day After Ragnarok | Atomic Overmind Press

Atomic Overmind has a lot coming down the pipe for The Day After Ragnarok, including to City Packs, and books covering the dark Soviet Union and the Royal Society.

Shaintar is Now Part of Reality Blurs | Reality Blurs

Sean Patrick Fannon, creator of Shaintar, has joined the team at Reality Blurs, and has brought the setting with him. The first book announced under the new owners is Shaintar: Legends Unleashed.

Savage Worlds Community

Shadowflux Free Setting | The Black Orifice

This setting of Urban Horror is well put together, free, and comes in two parts. The Black Orifice has been doing terrific work lately, and they deserve all the praise and attention we can spare.

Plunder Cards for Pirates of the Spanish Maine | Captain Greywolf

While not new by any means, these just came to our attention. These item cards help make your looting and plundering easier, and add another layer of immersion to your pirate game.

Updating your Explorer’s Edition PDF to the Third Printing | PEGinc Forums

If you purchased the PDF version of the Savage Worlds: Explorer’s Edition from RPGNow or DriveThruRPG, getting the updated version can be tricky, and seems to be requiring that you email the store. More information on this, and what is happening, is available in this thread.

Do you like Savage News, but want it more than once a week? Subscribe to our Twitter. We won’t promise to drown you in a flood of news, but we won’t promise not to, either. As always, if we missed something, let our readers know in the comments.


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You Want Me to Run When!?

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/01/29 – 00:00 -

We’ve all been there.  It’s an hour till game time and you realize you’ve completely forgotten to prep anything.  You can’t cancel now that everyone is already on their way, so what do you do?

Break out a Savage Worlds One Sheet

One of the best things about Savage Worlds is the community and fan support.  While there are plenty of free settings to choose from, there are many more one sheet adventures for almost all of the official settings.  Go to Pinnacle, Triple Ace Games, or Tabletop Armory, find one that suits your fancy, and quickly throw together a game in the amount of time it takes to print it off your computer.

Create a Monster Hunt

It’s no secret that we’re fans of Privateer Press. Beyond their detailed settings and gorgeous art, they give more flavor in a single page than any other setting we’ve ever played in.  They also give some of the best examples of a monster hunt.  In their Monsternomicon, each monster is detailed with an adventure hook.  They tend to be as simple as, “A Collector wants you to go out and find the creature and collect rare gland/sac” to the slightly more complex, “Creature is harassing town–go kill it.”  However, when you’re out stomping the creature beneath your boot, your players won’t mind.

Pre-Prepped Adventure Hooks

While it does require a bit of forethought on your part, keeping a file filled with adventure hooks for your campaign is useful for situations like this.  While an entire post can be devoted to how to manage such ideas in a nice and searchable way (I’m working on it!), for now it can suffice to say that drawing upon your idea bin may prove to be more satisfying then looking for anyone else to help you.  After all, you know your players better than anyone else.  If you need some help building your adventure hooks, consider Rocks Fall Everyone Dies and their Sunday Hooks, or post some of your own in the comments!

What tricks do you use to prep at the last minute? What kind of success have you had?


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Crystal and China on the Battlemap

Written by Tyson J. Hayes on 2010/01/28 – 00:00 -

Wife of our own Paul, Katharyn von Meerscheidt writes about crafts, books, health, marriage (and occasionally tea) at While the Tea is Steeping.

When I was a small child my parents had several friends who themselves had small children, and everyone would gather together at someone’s house. While the children ran amuck, the adults would laugh while playing backgammon or cribbage, watching their gin and tonics, and laughing more than scolding when a child would regrettably steal a sip.

As a teenager, the regular social gatherings had far fewer people, and the drink of choice was more likely tea than hard liquor. Occasionally, we might play a round of cribbage, but usually the time was spent simply chatting through dinner or talking over a movie.

Role playing is a social gathering with that same level of casual interaction among–what will ultimately be–an intimate group of friends. If your house is dirty when these people come over, you’ll feel guilty, though not enough to reschedule. You’ll debate and argue and laugh all in the same evening, talking about significantly more than just gaming. When your life hits a rough patch, these are people who will hear about it–and steady your step through it; when your life marks a triumph, these are the people who will celebrate that triumph with you.

So why are these people drinking the beverages they brought, eating the food they brought, using your low-end dishes? They deserve better. Gaming is nothing short of a social gathering, so be hospitable and take the opportunity to be a socialite.

Do you or someone in the group enjoy cooking? Make the main dish and ask your guests to bring sides, or make the full meal and ask them to chip in what they can to help pay for the food. Share your pipe tobacco and rent out your book and movie collections. Open the liquor cabinet and use the fine china; who else is special enough to share these things with if not your gaming group?

Gaming at my house brings out a china tea set and crystal scotch glasses, and it wouldn’t be gaming at my house without them.

Ya-ya!


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A little Love for Gaming Magazines

Written by Jeff Carlsen on 2010/01/27 – 00:00 -

I never subscribed to the print version of Dragon Magazine, and didn’t start paying attention to it until it when digital for 4e (and subsequently stopped reading it when I stopped playing 4e). I suppose I was too much of a single setting type guy. I’m big on setting canon and that sort of thing, and themags were too random. Or maybe I just didn’t have an effective source for them. Or maybe I was too poor.

Whatever the reason, I regret it now.

Until the end of the month, Kobold Quarterly is giving away issue #10. I decided to pick it up on a whim, and pawing through it, I’ve come to realize the kind of things I’ve been missing. In these magazines, there’s room for some real creativity to flourish, because a new setting, local, monster, or adventure seed only has to support itself.

And then there are the articles. The depth of focus that a magazine provides is refreshing. It’s something we can’t really get away with on this blog. We can’t easily post an article that would take up six or seven pages in a three column format. Nobody wants to read that much text off a screen. Let’s face it. The internet is A.D.D. incarnate.

So now I’m hooked. Also, I have a number of ideas that I’ve struggled to put into post format. Perhaps I should be looking into these magazines. Though this gives me some thoughts for .pdf articles meant for printing. If you’d be interested in such a thing, let me know.


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