Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[malifer]

There is such a great selection of savage worlds books and my book shelves only have so much room.

So I wonder is there a lot overlap is there in any of the books?

I would imagine Solomon Kane, Pirates of the Spanish Main, and perhaps 50 Fathoms all have similar Edges/Hindrances and probably Gear.

I'm sure the rest could be said about the other genre books. Or it might just be that most of the crunch is covered in the Core.

So if you have the time to share your thoughts on what you like I would be much grateful.

If you think a book is the best for the genre and love to bring it to the table you can just say buy the book.

If you like the book, but would only use it as an occasional reference or for certain rules only have to say get the PDF.

If you want to go in depth that is cool too.

Genre books I noticed

Alt History fantasy (more or less Earth)
Deadlands
Totems of the Dead
Solomon Kane
Pirates of the Spanish Main

Fantasy
50 Fathoms
Evernight
Sundered Skies
Fantasy Companion
Shaintar
Hellfrost
Runepunk

Horror
Rippers
Realms of Cthulhu
Horror Companion
War of the Dead

Pulp
Slipstream
Mars
Space 1889

Apocalyptic
Low Life
Nercopolis
The Day after Ragnarok

Supers
Necessary Evil
Super Powers Companion
Dawn of Legends

[Rÿche]

Just noticed that under fantasy you missed Beast and Barbarians. Which is a good source for a Swords and Sorcery game.

As for coverage, both Super Powers Companion and Necessary Evil are very similar. The rouge's gallery in SPC is great to have, where as NE has a nice plot point campaign. Choosing only one depends on what you are looking for. If you don't need the campaign, I would go with the SPC since it has most of the information from NE.

[ValhallaGH]

Huh, you seem to have entirely missed Savage Suzerain - one of the best capstone settings I've ever seen. It's entirely possible to set all these other settings in Suzerain, and to have the PCs visit all of them over the course of the campaign. This is in addition to its own awesome settings (Caladon Falls / Relic, Noir Knights, Dogs of Hades, and the Shanghai Vampocalypse).

[kronovan]

For historical fantasy you can add Iron Dynasty, as its' Konoya setting is really a fantasy reskinning of Japan's Sengoku period - and a very good one at that I might add. As well for the Pulp genre there's Thrilling tales, which in addition to be being an excellent pulp toolkit it also featues a terrific, full blown 5 chapter campaign entitled Crimson Emperor. For Post-Apocolyptic there's also Interface Zero wich really bridges that genre with SciFi Noir.

I've found overlap in a number of the setting books that I own, but they all have at least some hindrances, edges and play mechnics/systems that the others don't. I own a number of setting books that I've never run a campaign for and probably never will. With what the PDF's cost and the minimal digital space they occupy though, I bought them for reference when they were on sale. To put it into perspective in terms of $, most of what I bought in sales cost $7.50 - $12.
Here's some books I feel stand out for their respective genres.

Historical Fantasy:
For setting with a more military bent - Weird Wars II. Its a bit week on adventure gen and campaign, but it has so many other great systems including some for larger scale battles and chases, not to mention heaps of gear and organization details. And man is the artwork ever nice to look at! I'll add that if you're interested in medieval gear for settings, the gear section in Iron Dynasty is beyond belief - honestly a lot of setting writers could learn from it. It's medieval Japan, but most of it could be reskinned for other settings.

Fantasy:
Beasts and Barbarians or Hellfrost. Both are excellent for different reasons, but if you like Sword & Sorcery, B&B is a must have IMO.

Post Apolcapyptic:
Interface Zero. As I said above it bridges 2 genres, but it does it so well and it has some truly great systems. Including a system for building animal-human hybrid races, a full blown xenomorph generator and very good tools for handling cybernetic implants and computer hacking.

Pulp:
Thrilling Tales. I'd go as far as to say if you only buy 1 additional book it should be it. Not only does it have some really good pulp tools, gear and good campaign, but it has hands down the best adventure generator I've ever owned. Which is easily adapted to any other setting with minimal modification - I've already adapted it to 3 other.

Supers:
I built my own supers campaign using the Supers Companion and TT's adventure generator. So I really can't give a favorite.

Horror:
The same thing as Supers; the only book I own is Pinnacle's companion. That said, I think its their best companion yet I'm already using its content for other settings.

[Lee_Szczepanik]

Dawn of Legends was taken into a back alley, shot repeatedly, and taken off the market by me something like 2 years ago or so. So, it's pretty much out of the loop on any type of overlap.
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[ValhallaGH]

[ogbendog]

There is, as I understand it, overlap with the fantasy toolkits, and the fantasy companion

and as I understand it, a lot of the powers on FC are now in SWD

[MrBunraku]

So, tagging onto this question. I'm interested in getting Slipstream, but I already have the Science Fiction World Builder, Gear, and Bestiary Toolkits. Is there a compelling reason to get Slipstream if I already have these? Can I recreate everything from Slipstream with the Sci Fi Toolkits? Or is Slipstream & the accompanying Plot Point so cool that I should get it anyway?

[ogbendog]

There is also Kaiser's Gate, which is more or less WWI + magic

Weird wars is WWII + magic/horror, Kaiser's Gate is WWI + magic/fantasy. not so much horror, with a pretty cool magic system

[JackMann]

Just as a note, Shaintar is the most "standard" fantasy setting for SW. That is, it's the most like traditional fantasy gaming. If you want to run a D&D style game, I'd pick up Shaintar.

[ValhallaGH]

[kronovan]

I'll ditto what Valhalla's saying. The decent plot point campaign and the adventure generator would be reason enough to get Slipstream. IMO the SciFi toolkits have more content that's conducive to settings with a hard SciFi flavor as opposed to pulp. As well, the toolkits are a bit out of date with the core rules. Not a big deal as so little has been made obsolete with newer editions, but at a minimum you'd have to make adjustments to some of the ranged weapon damage values.

[MrBunraku]

Yeah, it's my love of "pulpy" 30's/40's Sci Fi serial type stuff that made me interested in Slipstream in the first place. The Toolkits do talk about "pulp" as one of the styles of Sci Fi, but I was wondering if the specific info in Slipstream (plot point, setting, setting rules, etc) would make it worth getting.

[Snate56]

To answer your question, though, yes you have all you need with what you have. The only thing you're missing is the background setting (and the plotpoint/adventures) which, as others have said, is wonderful.



SteveN
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[JackMann]

If you want 30's/40's style sci-fi pulp, you want Slipstream. It's honestly much more useful for that style of game than the Sci-Fi toolkits. Even if you don't use the setting, the mechanics (and a lot of the fluff) will be great for cannibalizing and creating your own game. You don't have to reinvent the space-wheel.