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Post by rikersbeard on Jun 18, 2014 15:40:59 GMT -8
The Back Story This is my first post although I have been listening for over a year now. Alright, so I am a rather new GM, I have a PF one shot under my belt, and I am going to be running a game for my friends online using the Savage Worlds rules system. At this point the general will see the PCs as part of a multinational organization opposing the SS's Ahnenerbe organization, reminiscent of JiB's "Sturmgeist" game, hey steal from the best right? I have many players with disparate schedules and I feel this style of game will lend itself to episodic play allowing me to swap players in and out with relative ease. I would like to use Savage Worlds hoping it gives the game a cinematic "over the top" feel as well as its low barrier to entry. I intend to use pre-gens for the first session so I have as much knowledge of the PCs abilities as possible.
The Difficulties -I, nor my players, have ever played Savage Worlds -I have never run a game online -Half of my PCs are completely new to tabletop and I am somewhat concerned about an online game being their first experience. Conclusion I do have the option of meeting with all but one of the players ahead of time for maybe a short session. I feel mostly confident in my GM and improv abilities, although I am worried about my comprehension of the system with no experience as well as my ability to run a game online. Any feedback or suggestions would be greatly appreciated, sorry about the length of the post.
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Post by gandalftheplaid on Jun 18, 2014 18:41:10 GMT -8
Well here's what's falling out of my brain on the subject... Before trying to have a game session, have a chit-chat session online so everyone has a chance to sort out connectivity & hardware. It'll cut down on frustrations in the first real session thus less taint <snicker> on the first actual game session. Figure out how important minis and a map is going to be to your group. Most of my gaming these days is just video chat + Google docs to share stuff + basic drawing tools + basic dice roller apps in the hangouts. I haven't been using minis for a little while now but I was happy with the tech when we did. Experimenting with whatever tools you want to use before the first real session would also be good. If I were to be serious about a campaign I'd probably get savvy with roll20 and get macros, bennies, and card stuff set up. But while you can get pretty fancy with things like roll20, life might be easier to get going if you can just trust your players to roll their own and not cheat. I think the less you have to learn/fight hangout tech the same time you are learning a system the better. Run yourself through a couple combats to learn the system. As to rules/topics in the system to pay particular attention to I'd recommend taking a close look at the following: Healing - (in and out of combat)Initiative - The book recommends dealing cards out face down and doing a count down. A lot of people are fine spoiling some surprises and deal face up. What you do may depend on what tools you choose to have available in your game.) THE Shaken Rules - The wording in the books regarding combat & shaken vs wounding trip people up sometimes. (Deluxe page 68.) There have been multiple threads/conversations on the topic where different interpretations keep showing up and getting corrected. Here's a re-wording that got posted in a recent thread on this board that got some positive feedback. I've attached a document I created as a helper/reminder to my players when I ran in person games. It includes some notes of things that I thought players might forget about and need a little help on. The same might also be true of a new GM. Hopefully I don't have any boo-boos in there.
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Post by SavageCheerleader on Jun 19, 2014 4:31:55 GMT -8
Read the book. I mean read it completely; this is also the advice given by Clint Black over at PEGINC. Speaking of PEGINC, definitely join their forums and ask as many questions as you need, the community is very friendly and the designers answer your inquiries. Gandalf above is correct, and the shaken/wounds rule may seem odd at first. Wounds can only be caused by physical things, weapons, Powers, falling, etc., never by Taunt, Intimidate, or other. DO NOT let combat disintegrate into something akin to what happens in d20; SW is not about hit, miss, hit, damage. The tactical options are there and the players (and you) need to embrace them and use them. If someone is Shaken, they will think they are useless or can do nothing, which is not true. Movement, cover, advising, yelling a distraction, etc. SW is about what the PARTY accomplishes, not what the INDIVIDUAL does. SW also needs players to be engaging, more so than other systems, less so than still others. Trappings are a big example of this. Your wizard should not cast "bolt", she should cast Mephisto's Hellswarm (bolt). Bennies are not hit points, that comes up a lot. They are there to allow the PCs to do amazingly outrageous acts and can be helpful in surviving combat. They should spend bennies like wild fire and you should throw out bennies like wild fire. You might also find one or more of these videos to be helpful: www.youtube.com/user/sincitysavagesrpg/videos - Jerrod Gunning has videos on there of Savage Worlds played via roll20 and we do a weekly vidcast that discusses one or more aspects of the rules.
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