Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Cryonic]

So, this past weekend I was able to get a group of friends together to do another adventure using Savage Worlds. The first part of the adventure was of my own devising (combat troops in Afghanistan) and then a bit of railroading from there to get them somewhere where they could be put on the ship and begin the War of the Dead: Chapter 1 - Week 1.
Combat for them was fast, they came up with fun things to do rather than just the standard I attack, they attack, I attack, they attack of most D&D combat sessions.
Everyone seemed to be having a ton of fun. They got into their characters and even kept the metagaming to a minimum. So, when they encountered the first zombie and got into it they didn't just straight out shoot it in the head until it became clear it wasn't going down from hits elsewhere.
We got through the entire first week... And they wanted to keep going. They were more mad at me for calling the game (we'd been at it for almost 11 hours).

Even more convincing to me that they'd had fun that day was the fact that afterwards we were all talking and one of the big things they pointed out is that they weren't prevented by me from doing what they wanted simply because they lacked a "feat". Want to shoot one guy and kick at another? Sure, just both actions are at -2. Want to trip someone and then pin him? Ok, make an agility trick and then a fighting roll at -2 each. Look, down went the guy and now you have him pinned...
I rarely had to setup complex scenes. Instead I could just describe to them what they saw and let them react without minis and a combat map. A great success

Thanks Pinnacle for the System and thanks Daring Entertainment for such a fun module.

[Cryonic]

I'll most likely be running the next chapter this week. The story definitely seems to have a path it wants to take, but thankfully the players don't feel like they're being railroaded by the NPCs/GM.
I'll try to work up a better synopsis of the sessions soon.

[Jordan Peacock]

Somehow I missed the first post on this. I envy the enthusiasm of your player group! I look forward to hearing more about how it turns out.
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[Cryonic]

[Timon]

If I follow correctly these guys were new to SW but had played some flavour of D&D previously?

I'm impressed at the way they tried stuff out and explored possibilities. You obviously made them feel very at ease with the system: it sounds like a great game.

Is there anything you did that you think helped create that mood for your players?
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Biting! It's like kissing but there's a winner!
The Doctor's Wife

[Cryonic]

So, last night I ran Chapter 1: Week 2. Game got started a bit late and one of the players opted not to play as a protest about something else... One of the other players brought someone in to watch/participate.

The only major thing I had a hard time figuring out was how to build up the tension in the group as, per normal players, they kept making wisecracks in-character that kept breaking the mood. So, since they were having fun and I'm not there to spoil it I let it go.

We completed the second week and again ended on a cliffhanger for them. I think they're getting annoyed by that, heheh.

[Cryonic]

Completed chapter 1 - week 3 last night. The players were just about ready to just kill Ms. Haarten for all her sermonizing. I even went so far as to pull up the Book of Revelations from the King James Bible and spout out some lines from it as they were walking through the corridors and in the main auditorium.
Tons of role-playing. The medic, Terra, met Jonathon Treymore and his wife Ellen and she and the others even stepped in to try and cool things off between John and Stephen McDermont. One of the players, playing the former street thug turned royal marine, actual got into a good fistfight with Stephen.
Lots of good ideas on what they could do to try and deal with the situation (like repairing the engines to get power back). They've all settled on launching the lifeboats just one or two at a time so that they aren't moving through the halls in a single large crowd (meat on the move for the undead). The end came for Mr. Forthington in a potentially gruesome fashion... We'll find out later, maybe...

[Jordan Peacock]

[Cryonic]

[Cryonic]

Well, my group has grown again as another member of the original game has returned from classes. There really is no tension in the group during play as they all keep making wisecracks, heheh.
Even better, one of the players has picked up Savage Worlds to run his own Fantasy game. Thank god as I was getting so sick of D&D/Pathfinder/D20 variants that all come down to the same thing... how big of a combat beast can I make,

So, completed week 4 of Chapter 1 of War of the Dead.

They have escaped from the room full of crazy people (and not so crazy people) and, after the betrayal, have made their way down the decks to the escape boat that the mercs intended to use... end of the week. Not really as big of a cliffhanger as the last ones, but a nice place to stop.

The real hilarity of the evening came when the returning player rolled a FIFTY FOUR!!! on his Notice check to see the Coast Guard cutter covered in the Living Dead...
Then made a THIRTY FOUR!!! to see the merc ship in the darkness...

My jaw hit the floor and everyone busted up laughing at my total shock... heheh. I jokingly threatened to take away those dice.

[ValhallaGH]

[Cryonic]

[Cryonic]

The adventure has continued. Bad Company managed to capture the mercenaries small boat and get most of the people that they'd rescued aboard. They were trapped at sea for nearly a month with stores that should have lasted not even half that given the number of people onboard due to a freak storm. They eventually made landfall in a small harbor in North Carolina (big surprise to them as they were out in the Pacific between Guam and Australia).
They explored the mostly abandoned marina (the few boats left there weren't going to go anywhere due to damage) and explored the main store/offices of the marina. They encountered more of the strange Living Dead. This showed that whatever had happened was not isolated to just the cruise ship and the Coast Guard vessel.
They explored the area around the marina and found a house that had someone still inside it. This person or persons was shooting at people or Living Dead that were trying to cross a field between a road and the house. After the people were all dropped, the house opened fire towards the PCs hiding at the edge of the woods then yelled for them to go away.
There was a tense few moments, but the party was able to talk the man out of shooting at them and approached the house.
They talked with Henry and Elanor and were eventually able to get through the gruff exterior of the man and he agreed to let them and the other people from the cruise ship stay for the night.
That evening they heard the roar of motorcycles going by on the road. When they investigated they found a large group of motorcycle riders at the marina going through the ships on the docks and the shop. They tried to kill the leader of the group when they overheard him making the decision to head back to the house they passed, but luck kept him alive (wild card with his own bennies).
The gang beat the PCs back to the house and were busy searching through it while one PC and the NPCs all hid in the basement and the others came in the woods.
Down in the basement the PC and Henry prepared to defend the people should someone come down through the door. They could hear all the footsteps up above. Sure enough someone opened the door to the basement and got shot as he came into view. Another person came to check what was going on and got shot as well.
This is where things went awry. The leader of the gang ordered his men to open fire through the floorboards into the basement. Several of the civilians were hit including Henry. The leader of the gang demanded the surrender of those in the basement, but the player chose to just stay where he was.
The other PCs heard this massive volley of gunfire from inside the house and tried to help out by shooting at people in the house. Between the lack of surrender from those below and the shooting, the leader had his men shoot again and again outside and into the basement.
Eventually the PCs surrendered to try and save the civilians.

Continues again in a week...

[tydirium]

Great stuff. Keep it coming!

jh

[Cryonic]

Cast of Characters:
Cpl. Derric Evans - Royal Marine from Wales. Party Sniper
Cpl. Roy McCullen - Royal Marine from Northern Ireland. Scout and close-in fighter specializing in knives.
Cpl. Korey Ceron - Royal Marine from London. Party Driver (boat, car, plane, etc...).
Terra Hunter - Civilian Medic from Detroit, MI

With the cessation of hostilities between the biker gang and the party, "negotiations" began between the gang leader and the party. What he wanted, the provide a distraction in the nearby town for the Living Dead to chase while the gang members come in behind the distraction to loot the town for useful gear. Thankfully most of the civilians that got shot weren't actually killed by the sheer volume of random bullets.
The group was escorted upstairs and then was split up into several different rooms on the upper floor. Terra, the medic, was put into a room with other civilians while the marines were all put together in the last room. Guards were placed outside of each of the doors and the characters were left to their own devices until morning. Well, except that Spiderbait, the girlfriend/second-in-charge of the biker gang took a liking to Terra and came to visit her in the room. With a big brute with an M16 watching from the doorway Spiderbait drew out a knife and crossed the room towards Terra.
She played around with her a bit, but when Spiderbait kissed Terra, Terra decked her and yelled for help. The boys in the next room heard her call out and stormed out into the hallway to rescue their friend. Korey grabbed a chair from the bedroom and went to throw it down the hall at the gangers there, but unluckily hit one of his own teammates in the back of the head, stunning him.
Inside the room Terra retreated towards a corner and grabbed a floor lamp to fend off Spiderbait. The thug at the door was distracted by the noise coming from the hall as the now 3 gang members (down from 6) tried to recapture the marines. Roy finally made it to the door and threw it open to find Terra holding off Spiderbait.
“What the hell happened?”
“She kissed me.”
“Seriously? That’s what all the fuss is about?”
With that, the reinforcements from downstairs arrived and the boys were back in their own room, minus the door.
The next morning they were escorted downstairs along with Henry, the old guy who owned the house, and told that they were going to the nearby town. The marines and their friends were going to distract the creatures by running through the town while the gang looted the town. Should they survive… well, then they survived. Else, oh well. But if they didn’t do it, then all the other people would be killed.
The marines, Terra and Henry headed into the town. Last off they were left on the roof of a building a bit into town and the creatures were starting to surround it (shooting a high-powered rifle in a quiet town draws a lot of attention).

[Jordan Peacock]

[Cryonic]

[Jordan Peacock]

[Virgobrown72]

Sounds reasonable.
I myself, was burned out on the whole zombie/horror thing, but this sounds pretty cool...
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"Anything smaller is just fiddly, and fiddly is not one of SvgW's three Fs..."

[Cryonic]