Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[fenriswolf]

New SW GM here with some questions I was hoping someone could help out with. I have been gaming for years and only played in a SW game once at GenCon. It was by far the most enjoyable convention game I have ever played. I'm not sure if it was the GM or the system but I just ordered the SW Explorer's Edition. The session was a sci-fi one-shot about a group of salvagers coming across a derelict alien ship. The combat went smoothly and the GM didn't have to reference a rulebook once.

I have a weekly gaming group and we rotate games on a bi-weekly basis. I'm currently running a Pathfinder game and the prep time is killing me but I'm getting through it. My wife used to game with us but between two small children and a completely different work schedule, she is unable to game anymore. I want to change that.

That brings me to my original point. Everything I have read about SW indicates that the system is exponentially easier than Pathfinder to prepare for. I could still run my bi-weekly Pathfinder game and have some solo gaming for my wife once we get the kids down to bed in the evenings.

Is this system conducive to solo gaming? I understand that the rules for ganging up can be problematic for a solo protagonist. How do you all recommend handling that? Thanks in advance for helping out.

[JackMann]

It's pretty easy to give the solo character some help in the form of extras. SW makes it easy to put a fairly large number of enemy minions and hero allies on the board. I haven't tried it myself, but it seems to me that SW is one of the better systems for solo play.

[kreider204]

Yep - SW prep is easy as all heck, especially if you pick up the relevant companions and/or toolkits.

Solo play: great. I'm GMing for a single friend of mine, and we're having a blast. I also created a GM-controlled Wild Card NPC with complementary skills to work with him, provide background info, suggestions, etc.

The Wild Card status of PCs makes them more durable than characters in some games, so they can take a decent number of extras all by themselves. Also, many SW genres lend themselves to smaller PC groups, esp. pulp or noir games (Thrilling Tales, Wellstone City, etc.).
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[jerepp]

Another good aspect of the game is that it is less reliant on roles than some other games, no need to have a blaster, a tank and healer in a fantasy game for instance. That added to the fact that its easier than many games to make a character that fills multiple roles.

When working with a solo character I would suggest that you encourage your player to make fairly spread out character rather than a super focused pro from dover type. In this system d8 skill is plenty high enough for their main focus, d6 is a strong skill once you consider the wild die. A PC with d4 shooting will likely out shoot and extra with d8 over the long haul so its very alright to get a lot of skills at d4 and be able to do lots of stuff rather than try to get d12 in 3 skills and be really really good at those but not have a lot of options adventure wise. Also note that there is a definite diminishing returns aspect to very high die types. So while d12 is better than d10 it is not effectively as much better than if you raised a d4 skill to a d6. The wild die also tends to flatten the effect of die types out a lot, in that it rolls better than a d4 often while is rarely better than the d12.

As a GM take your player into account when you make the adventure, if your player has d4 driving you can expect them to beat d6 extra drivers in a chase fairly handily while a d8 extra will be a challenge... just make sure most of the chases are against d6 drivers. It means that you can have car chases in the adventure and that your player will have fun and not feel like they are not effective. Again a d4 notice skill is still useful if the ninja sneaking up on somebody has d6 stealth.

As has been mentioned the system encourages the player to have access to allies and they can fill in holes in the player's skill set and also give them more options in combat while still being distinctly second bananas.

[Sadric]

As others sayd, Savage Worlds expect to accompany the heroes with extras in some scenes. So its really easy to say your wives character (say a mage) is accompanied by a bodyguad and her dog familiar.
In combat she could cast the bodyguard-spell (Fantasy Companion).
Suddenly the ganging up rules isnt longer a problem, and you dont have more work, because all of them are played by our wife.

Its even possible to give the bodyguard wildcard status, so he is a lot more durable. Since he is played mostly by your wife this doesnt have the same problems that some mighty GM-played NPC as companion brings with him.

But I would recommend to start a lone player character as seasoned character (20 experience points) since savage worlds expect some specialising in the skills that make it hard to be a allrounder.

The setting depends on your wifes taste, maybe you have a selfcreated setting/adventure ready.

Hellfrost could be a good choice, but it need a high starting investment (three books at least). I could envision a site based camapign, centered around a lone village. The official adventure would need some reworks, because they have combats that are designed to challenge a group.

Necropolis or ToD would work for a single player well, too. But I didnt dare to recomend military gaming to your wife. Most players I played the last years wouldnt really ready for such a game:-)

50 Fathoms, Sundered Skies and Slipstream has all a ship as central point, with a crew. This could work fine, too. The player character+the crew as NPC. The plotpoint campaign are maybe to hard for a single player, but there is enough material for a lot of adventures in the books.

Freeport and Runepunk could both work for one player, I guess. City-adventures are nice for such things.

I could imagine the pulpy Ragnarok is nice for one player, too.
But Im allways a little bit overwhelmed by the sheer possibilitys of this book.

Hope my musings are helpfull.
Have fun

[fenriswolf]

Thanks for all of the advice guys. My SW book should be here next week and I plan on diving right into it. I haven't even begun to research the established source books but I plan on getting one to reduce the prep on my end. I guess I'll have to start researching them to figure out which one will interest her. Is there a good place to go to get a summary of the settings and are the third party ones of the same quality as the Pinnacle ones?

[NoFairFights]

Extras are great. Even a set up where the players have a primary character and a secondary character are easily done. With my small group I often hand out the task of "playing" extras in big fights. This cuts down on how much time the players have to sit around watching me move paper figures while I say stuff like "this marine attacks this pirate."

You'll have plenty of time to experiment but you might even consider a Mass Effect-style "away team" system for your one-to-one gaming...that could be fun. The player picks two Extras to accompany the main PC, and the GM and the Player take turns using them as appropriate.

If you control a couple of characters in a combat you also learn pretty fast about the differences in their fighting skills.

Have some fast, furious, fun!
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>WBM
bryan.mullins
NoFairFights

[fanchergw]

[Garuda]

In terms of being worried about gang up bonuses on a single player. The Super Powers setting introduces an Edge called Combat Sense that negates gang ups. Its a Seasoned Edge and requires a minimun d8 Fighting skill.

If you're looking at different Savage Worlds settings I highly recommend Hellfrost as a sword and sorcery setting or Solomon Kane for something more dark and gritty.

[chugosh]

I'm still awful fond of Slipstream. As a great space pulp setting, it allows for all sorts of mayhem.

As for steampunk, go with the lovely adaptation of the origional, Space 1889 Red Sands.

I will allow as the plot point campaigns would not be suited for solo play, but there are a lot of ideas there nevertheless.

It is also possible to run something like a pulp detective thing with nothing but the ten dollar book, as it is possible to have a really wierd modern game with magic and psionics and all the rest thrown in. The basic book only lacks setting, but in my mind, it is a feature instead of a drawback.

[Zadmar]

I actually first heard of Savage Worlds when reading about people using it for solo play (and by solo I mean GMless), but I'd also recommend it for one-on-one. It's definitely a lot easier to keep track of everything than in many other games I've played, and that reduces the need for preparation - for example I can just make up most NPCs on the fly without needing to calculate all their stats and skills, I don't need to track hit points for each opponent, etc.

Allowing the player some extras to control is definitely a good idea, but personally I would avoid an NPC Wild Card companion unless they're notably weaker than the player. Otherwise it tends to feel as if the player has two characters instead of one.

As far as plot point campaigns are concerned, something like Necessary Evil could probably work even with just one player, as long as you gave them some extra power points - they could rely on minions, duplicates, summoned animals, etc, to back them up in combat.

[fenriswolf]

I spent some time last night going through the recommended sites to educate myself on the available established plot books. I recently finished up on a Mutants & Masterminds game so I'm going to steer clear any supers games even though the reviews for Necessary Evil look great. I'm not sure my wife could get behind a western so that strikes any Deadlands and Soloman Kane books.

At this point, you all are probably wondering what exactly does she like? I'm sure that if I could answer that easily, I'd be a rich man by selling that insight to other married men. I find that it is much easier to figure out what she doesn't like to reduce the available pool of plot books. With that said, I think the below ones have potential:

Rippers - a Victorian horror campaign with monster hunting sounds intriguing
Thrilling Tales - She loves the 30s and 40s so this might be right up her alley. It will take me a bit of work to get my head around running this game but the book looks good.
Hellfrost/Evernight - Fantasy is always an option

That's all that I have stumbled across so far.

[newForumNewName]

[JackMann]

Huh? Solomon Kane isn't a western setting. Takes place a couple hundred years before what we think of as the Old West, and primarily concerns itself with Europe and Africa (with a little New World and far east action). If your wife likes non-western historical settings, she might still be interested in it.

[Snate56]

As for westerns, her lack of interest may be because they seem boring......however Deadlands is anything but boring!

For Thrilling Tales you might go with the hardboiled detective route, and you could throw in some specialty like The Shadow or perhaps The Green Hornet. (Note, you might want to read about The Green Hornet, not watch the movie. )
...or look up Marvel's Moon Knight.


SteveN
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"We've got a blind date with destiny... and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." <The Shoveller>

[Jordan Peacock]

[Sitting Duck]

[sablemage]

I've run a lot of one-player games, face to face and by email, in half a dozen systems, and SW works fine for it. (In fact, that was one of the main reasons for me checking it out originally.)

I found the key, regardless of system, was to have the player character be the boss of a small team of NPCs. SW makes this easier than most games because of its speed and simplicity.

SW also works well for a same-side or true solo game, i.e. one or more player(s) with no GM, but you do need some means of generating surprises. Mythic or any of the rules from Two Hour Wargames work well for that; other options are available.

[Snate56]

Talk about resurecting the dead! But since you did...

Fenris, you still out there?
Did you ever get something going, and how did it turn out?



SteveN
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"We've got a blind date with destiny... and it looks like she's ordered the lobster." <The Shoveller>

[greyseerco]

The Beasts and Barbarians setting (Think Conan) has rules for Lone Wolf players and has setting mechanics for them. On top of that, they have super fast adventure generator using a deck of cards.