Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[wyldspirit]

I just wanted to post about a campaign I'm running as an experiment and the results of it. The game is loosely based on Shadowrun but all characters are generated using the rules of Necessary Evil. None of the players have ever used Savage Worlds and two of them never gamed. I loosely explained the story of the world in Shadowrun and they thought up characters.
The experiment was not having any pre set racial templates or job templates. They would buy powers from NE and use trappings apropiate to character concept. The group consisted of a troll for muscle, a mage with diverse spells, a very attractive rogue mechanic, a corporate created living weapon, a telekenetic that can turn his body into a yellow fog, and a cyborg that can control electricity.
We have played for several months now and the players have all reached seasoned. This game system is so simple yet deep everyone understands all the rules. This is not only good because it empowers the players but also because of the fact that less thinking about rules also allows for more thought on storytelling and character development.
I would also be interested in how you have used the NE rules for your games.

[Drue]

I have been toying with the idea of running Masks of Nyarlathotep as a plot point campaign and using Triple Ace's DToA collection as Savage Tales to break it up a bit.

The twist is I'd like to use SPC characters to bring more of a masked avengers vs cultists feel, but I think they would just walk over everything and I don't have any idea how to go about restructuring the opposition to provide any challenge.

Did you use standard NE character builds or scale them back at all? What have you been using for opposition?

[Zadmar]

[wyldspirit]

Drue- I found it easy to balance the system once you know the math behind whatever powers your player chooses. The powers in NE is more street level like Daredevil and not cosmic like Silver Surfer, so even a punk with a well placed shotgun blast can put a wildcard in a world of hurt.
The hardest part of using powers for me was the more uncoventional abilities. I have a character who can become intangable and another that can use mind control. Both of these powers could cause issues but once you become familiar with the rules, creating specific challenges for unique powers becomes pretty easy.
As for your game, cultist thugs could be a dime a dozen for those lethal gang up bonuses. They can be equiped with with eldric devices of anything you can imagine. Throw in some servitor races and higher up cultists who are wild cards. As long as the trappings of the powers seem logical to your world setting the sky is the limit.

[Drue]

Thanks Zadmar -- I've grabbed a copy of your setting and will take a look. First glance, it seems more suited for running a White Wolf's World of Darkness setting using SW. Which is a great idea as WW has always been better at writing settings than mechanics, imo.

Wyld -- if you have the time, I'd love to see some details on your characters and a combat encounter to give me some sense of how the math has worked for you.

As for using the SPC, I'm thinking either using the options "Street Heroes", "Inherent Power", and "Total Power" with power points in the 10-20 range.

Alternatively, I could drop the SPC entirely and use the SWDE AB:Super Powers and an "Inherent Power" like setting rule so everyone starts with the AB for free. I believe the DToA collection was written for no ABs and starting at Seasoned, so adding the free AB and starting at Novice, or 10xp Novices for a couple of advances, might be in line.

[Zadmar]

[wyldspirit]

Drue-As an example of combat this is what happened last night at my game. The setup; our heroes need to keep the militant branch of a corporation from killing a powerful mage that is currently engaged in a ritual to hold back a powerful extradimensinal creature from entering our world. I designed it so that there would be three waves of enemies coming out of helicopters to be dealt with before the mage could finish the sealing ritual.
The first wave consisted of basic gunmen. The very fist round of combat caused 6 wounds to one of my players. I gave the player control of the enemy forces to give her something to do. One of my players who plays a corporate engineered human weapon ended up taking out all the gunmen in about 6 rounds.
The second wave consisted of heavily armored soldiers with jump jets and electro gauntlets. They took out a character who could become intangible but wasn't at the time so he could use his telekenetic attack. Another player, a mage , took 2 wounds after vigor rolls. While all this was going on I was using a d4 to countdown the arrival of the final wave, a cyborg commando wildcard. At this point it was 12:30 in the morning and my players were getting tired. The wildcard cyborg was taking a lot of punishment and still standing due to bennies. I decideded to have the mage finish his ritual and help wrap up the enemy and call it a night.
Since only one charater, the engineered human, is truly combat oriented running big battles like this can go sideways fast as proven by the rogue mechanic that took an assault rifle double tap for 6 wounds in the very first round. Overall the combat seemed fun and it was a pretty equal match of forces. The real slow down came with the cyborg commando who had 5 bennies. I think part of the problem was the group being tired but also the fact 2 players were down and out and a third was badly injured. So even though all the characters have 20 points of "powers" from NE, all it took were some good old fashioned thugs to put the hurt on them.